It's The Pictures That Got Smaller

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Telegraph film Critic Robbie Collin has committed a mortal sin against the gods of cinema themselves. Instead of brushing up on film history during the pandemic, he spent hours on the end on his phone, scrolling through TikTok. But the more he watched, the more patterns began to emerge, with the popular skits and dances of TikTok echoing the earliest days of silent film. Robbie believes it was the narrow vertical frame of the smartphone screen that made for such sharp creativity and compelling viewing, much like the boxy constraints of early film shaped the work of the first filmmakers. These screen shapes and sizes have been stretched and squeezed into a range of different standards since the inception of film in the late 1800s, shaping our understanding of the images we watch. From the Victorian viral hits to the trending TikToks of the present day,the evolution of the closeup, the jostling technologies of widescreen cinema and television and the rise of film streaming, as the pictures got smaller, cosying into our smartphone screens, Robbie argues they’ve found new and enthralling ways to make us look at them. With film critic Hanna Flint, BFI silent film curator Bryony Dixon, BFI Head of Technical Services Dominic Simmons, filmmaker and TikTokker Madelaine Turner, journalist and author Chris Stokel-Walker, film historian Dr Sheldon Hall, Professor Tim Smith, cognitive psychologist at Birkbeck University and filmmaker Charlie Shackleton. Presenter: Robbie Collin Producer: Pippa Smith Researcher: Emily Gargan Executive Producer: Katherine Godfrey Music, Sound Design and Mix: Nicholas Alexander A Novel production for BBC Radio 4. Including analysis of clips from the following films: The Grand Budapest Hotel / Fox Searchlight Pictures / TSG Entertainment / Wes Anderson Gilda / Columbia Pictures / Charles Vidor A Star is Born (1937) / United Artists / Selznick International Pictures / William A. Wellman Man Drinking a Glass of Beer / George Albert Smith The Miller and the Sweep / George Albert Smith The Passion of Joan of Arc / Société Générale des Films / Carl Dreyer The Bridge on the River Kwai / Columbia Pictures / Horizon Pictures / David Lean How to Marry A Millionaire / 20th Century Fox / Jean Negulesco Ben Hur / Loew’s Inc. / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / William Wyler The Sound of Music / 20th Century Fox / Argyle Enterprises / Robert Wise Star Wars: A New Hope / 20th Century Fox / Lucasfilm LTd. / George Lucas The Door in the Wall / British Film Institute / Glenn H. Alvey Jr. The Hateful Eight / The Weinstein Company / Shiny Penny and FilmColony / Quentin Tarantino Cache / Les films du losange / Wega Films / Michael Hanneke World War Z / Paramount Pictures / Skydance Productions / Marc Forster Out of Africa / Universal Pictures / Mirage Enterprises / Sydney Pollack Back to the Future / Universal Pictures / Amblin Entertainment / Robert Zemeckis Prometheus / 20th Century Fox / Scott Free Productions / Ridley Scott The Dark Knight / Warner Bros. Pictures / Legendary Pictures / Christopher Nolan Searching / Sony Pictures / Bazelevs Company / Aneesh Chagnaty Host / Vertigo Releasing / Shadowhouse Films / Rob Savage Ring / Toho / Ringu/Rasen Production Committee / Hideo Nakata The Lighthouse / Focus Features / A24 / Robert Eggers Sunset Boulevard / Paramount Pictures / Billy Wilder