Stereoscopic Cinema and the Origins of 3-D Film, 1838-1952

Stereoscopic Cinema and the Origins of 3-D Film, 1838-1952. By Ray Zone. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007. Pp. xii+220. $42.

In Stereoscopic Cinema and the Origins of 3-D Film-an ambitious and meticulous study of the emergence and significance of stereoscopic technologies- Ray Zone traces the development of stereography (commonly known as 3-D) in an effort to "provide a critical framework for a stereoscopic grammar of moving pictures" (p. 4). Zone contends that these technologies, while often mentioned only briefly in studies of the rise of cinema, in fact played an important role in the development of motion pictures, and that they were informed by the same desires to capture and reproduce motion. His study focuses on what he calls the "novelty" period of stereoscopic cinema, from1838 (and the discovery of 3-D by CharlesWheatstone) to 1952 (and the release of Arch Oboler's 3-D film Bwana Devil). While other scholarship on early cinema-notably by Charles Musser and Tom Gunning-addresses the emergence...