And They Said It Wouldn’t Last

“The Great Train Robbery” introduces a revolutionary concept: the story line. (1903)

* The animated cartoon “Gertie the Dinosaur,” by Winsor McCay, lays the groundwork for “Snow White” and “South Park.” (1914)

* D.W. Griffith’s epic saga of the Civil War, “The Birth of a Nation,” tells a cohesive story even as it glorifies the Ku Klux Klan. (It’s so racist that even today’s revival theaters won’t touch it.) (1915)

* Unusual camera angles and complex sets in Robert Wiene’s film noir classic “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu” raise the bar for directors. (1919 and 1922, respectively)

* Who knew a walrus hunt could be so riveting? Robert Flaherty’s “Nanook of the North” sets the standard for documentaries. (1922)

* The group that will become the Motion Picture Assn. of America forms to fight censorship and shape the industry’s public image. (1922)

* Sergei Eisenstein’s “The Battleship Potemkin” showcases the montage editing technique, the juxtaposition of individual shots. Now filmmakers can pick up the pace by collapsing time and space. (1925)

* The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences holds a ceremony to honor artists and technicians. Dreams of clutching an Oscar drive generations of talent and pave the way for acting schools and the modern Hollywood entourage. (1929)

* Sound mixing frees films from the limitations of recording on sets and locations. (1932)

* The whip-cracking moguls at 20th Century Fox, MGM, Paramount and Warner Bros. wield enormous power over actors and directors. Under the studio system, directors achieve a certain style that links them to a genre. Frank Capra’s work, for example, celebrates the goodness of everyday guys, as epitomized in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Moviegoers begin to form expectations based not just on the stars but on who’s calling the shots. (1933-’48)

* Foreign films gain footing in America and showcase widely divergent cinematic styles. Jean Renoir, Franois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. Alfred Hitchcock and David Lean. Roberto Rossellini, Federico Fellini and Vittorio De Sica. Ingmar Bergman. Akira Kurosawa. Moviegoers see more and more films shot on location. (1936-’60)

* “Triumph of the Will,” German director Leni Riefenstahl’s infamous documentary on Adolf Hitler’s 1934 Nuremberg Rally, becomes synonymous with propaganda and proves that an unsavory character can carry a film. (1935)

* Preston Sturges directs his own screenplay, “The Great McGinty,” foreshadowing a time when demands for creative control and the attendant hyphenate--writer-director, producer-director et al--become de rigueur. (1940)

* Film criticism reaches its apex with the writings of James Agee. (1940s)

* The Actors Studio in New York City nurtures the first generation of so-called “method” actors, who draw on private experiences to become their character. Marlon Brando, James Dean, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro ultimately belong to this school. (1947)

* That nasty word “monopoly” forces the studios to shed their vast theater holdings and spells The End for their empires. Divestitures trigger the rise of the director as auteur and of the actor as free agent. Gradually reduced to production, marketing and distribution entities, the studios become vulnerable to the whims of talent. (1948)

* Major tech advances allow greater subtlety in color, lighting and camera techniques. (1950s)

* The rise of communism produces a scary new genre: sci-fi. How’s that? Aliens equal Commies, or America’s worst fear. (1950s)

* Macho heroes go soft. They become reluctant heroes or down-and-out heroes looking for a new purpose. Are you watching, Sly? Meanwhile, Hollywood cranks out a spate of juicy roles that inspire today’s actors. Bette Davis in “All About Eve”; Marlon Brando in “A Streetcar Named Desire”; Humphrey Bogart in “The African Queen.” (1950s)

* A dead person’s point of view, as seen in Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard” and Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon,” will be oft-repeated, most recently in this fall’s “American Beauty.” (1950 and 1951, respectively)

* Creative fallout from studio blacklists resonates for decades after U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s hunt for Communist Party members and sympathizers targets Hollywood. (1954)

* With the troika “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest” and “Psycho,” Hitchcock proves a theory that his disciples will advance: What the audience imagines is always more frightening than what it sees. (1958-’60)

* David Lean ushers in the era of the personal journey films with “Lawrence of Arabia” and, three years later, “Dr. Zhivago.” The backdrop becomes a character, as it will in 1985’s “Out of Africa” and other films. (1962)

* Funny but unsettling, “The Graduate” redefines the relationship genre. (1967)

* Awestruck by the success of Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” and George Lucas’ “Star Wars,” Hollywood begins its orbit around the summer blockbuster. Films pass into culture as much through merchandising tie-ins as through the works themselves. (1970s)

* “The Godfather” spawns many rivals but no equal in the lurid Mafia genre. (1972)

* George Lucas organizes Industrial Light & Magic to advance the realm of special effects, which have been around since 1926. (1975)

* Michael Ovitz leaves William Morris to help found Creative Artists Agency, which distinguishes itself as the premier “packager” of talent for a single project. (1975)

* Blow it up and they will come. The streak of pure adrenaline action-adventures takes off with “The Terminator” (1984.)

* The script doesn’t dictate the ending of “Fatal Attraction,” focus groups do. (1987)

* Stars call the shots, earning as much as $20 million a picture. Soaring production costs mean fewer projects and more do-it-yourself independent filmmakers. (1990s)

* Disney president Frank G. Wells, whose business savvy saved an American icon, dies in a helicopter crash, paving the way for Michael Ovitz to flop as Wells’ successor. The death also indirectly causes the defection from Disney of studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg and, ultimately, the creation of DreamWorks SKG, the only major Southern California studio formed in the last half of the century. (1994)

* The boffo performance of the low-budget “The Blair Witch Project” suggests the Internet’s possibility as a marketing tool. (1999)