PERMANENT EXHIBITION
SHORT GUIDE PERMANENT EXHIBITION
MOVEMENT
Filmic Vision
The permanent exhibition of the Deutsches Filmmuseum is divided into two parts and extends over the entire first and second floor. The first part, entitled “Filmic Vision,“ deals with the historical development of visual media, while the second part, “Filmic Narrative,“ focuses on the effect of film and filmic story telling.
CURIOSITY
PROJECTION
The apparatuses displayed here, such as peep-shows, kaleidoscopes, anamorphoses and panoramas, produce optical illusions and play with the desire to see and with illusions of perception. The functions of the original apparatuses can be tested with the models. A look into a peep-show reveals the secret by which transparent images transform and how skilled manipulation of lighting can turn a daylight scene into a nocturnal one.
The magic lantern produces pictures of light and is the most prominent projection medium of the 18th and 19th centuries. The projected images served primarily as entertainment, but also had an educational function. The projectionists would often accompany their pictures with music, commentary or song. In the exhibition, a digital projection produces historic lantern slides on a screen. With the use of a model, one can try out the magic lantern oneself.
MOVEMENT
MOVING PICTURES
Optical devices such as the wheel of life, the Zoetrope or the Mutoscope produced moving images long before the advent of film. These devices help one understand why humans perceive continuous movement in a series of static single images. The Zoetrope makes pictures move; the flip book illustrates the principle of moving images.
With different goals and methods, many inventors from various countries worked until the end of the 19th century towards the creation of movement in sequential photographs; personalities such as Étienne-Jules Marey or the Lumière and Skladanowsky brothers. Next to an original Lumière Cinématographe is a replica with which one may test the functions of this first practical film projector.
EXPOSURE
CINEMA
How does one capture an image and how does one make it permanent? The camera obscura was the first device that created an image of reality with the help of light. But the picture was fleeting; if the reality outside changed, it affected the image in the camera. The invention of photography finally made it possible to fix this image permanently.
The highlight of the tour is a small film theatre, in which two short programmes showing the ingenuity and visual variety of the early cinema between 1895 and 1906 can be seen. Not only the classics, such as the films of the Lumière brothers, may be seen here, but also seldomscreened rarities and curiosities from the archives. One of them is the first film ever shot in Frankfurt am Main.
CURIO
SITY
1ST FLOOR EXPO
1ST FLOOR
SUR
Filmic Vision The first part of the exhibition provides insight into the variety and development of visual media in the 18th and 19th centuries, up to the invention of cinema. It recounts the pre-history of film and the cinema; both the development of the techniques and equipment and the cultural-historical aspects. Important questions are answered here: How does filmic perception function? Which traditions have nourished it?
E
EMERGENCY EXIT
PRO
S
TURE
IC ING P MOV
EMERGENCY EXIT
JEC TION
CINEMA
Central themes on the first floor are Curiosity, Movement, Exposure, Projection, Moving Pictures and Cinema, which are revealed through exhibits, functional models and projection.
Functional models / Interactives
WHERE DO I FIND... ?
CLOAKROOM & TOILETS
SHOP & FILMCAFÉ
CINEMA
MUSEUM EDUCATION
For larger bags and coats there is a cloakroom next to the cinema on the basement floor. Here, there are also toilets with facilities for the disabled. Additional toilets may be found on the fourth floor.
Our museum shop is centrally located next to the box office on the ground floor. The filmcafé opposite offers delicious snacks and drinks.
The cinema is located in the basement. Here a daily changing programme of international films from all eras is shown – mainly in original versions.
The Education Department, with two workshop rooms and its own multifunctional film studio, is located on the fourth floor. Here, visitors may try their hand at filmmaking themselves, while learning more about the medium in practical workshops.