Cinema’s debt to literature

Abstract

It is generally accepted that cinema has been influenced, from its origin and throughout its history, by other artistic media. There are abundant studies dealing with particular instances of these influences in general, as well as many considerations on specific cinematographic works and their relationship with other artistic productions in the field of theater, opera or dance. This essay focuses not on a narrative analysis of a specific film, instead we venture to propose, on the basis of analogy and anthropological grounds, that, ultimately, the first genesis of cinema as a narrative medium is found in literature.