A French film released in 1947 envisaged several modern technologies with a remarkable level of accuracy, including something like cell phones.
An idea of the future of the 1940s. Image credit: YouTube / Les Documents Cinematographiques
Historical representations of the future, especially those of TV shows and films from the first half of the twentieth century, tended to focus on astonishingly capricious concepts from the space age, which were far from the target, but, as it turns out, some initial predictions of the 21st century were surprisingly accurate.
“Television: Eye of Tomorrow”, a documentary created in France in 1947 predicts the evolution of portable television in the form of modern smartphones, stationary and wall-mounted televisions, as well as automobile televisions.
The film was based on a short story by Rene Barjavel and produced by JK Raymond-Millet as a representation of the future, as envisaged only a few years after the end of World War II.
In a 4-minute clip of the film that recently circulates on Twitter, people can be seen in everyday life, glued to small television sets that resemble today’s cell phones.
Although the devices themselves are not very defined, the behavior of the people who use them certainly is – with people walking around, sitting in cafes and doing their business while glued to the screen.
Everything shown in this film is so similar to modernity that one can only be surprised at the sagacity of its creators.
People using miniature television devices in public places; professional meetings using video telephones; cars equipped with television screens; shops advertising their products on television: holograms.
Although the small handheld devices used in the film have long retractable antennas that resemble the first cell phones, in fact they really reflect today’s smartphones, which are in the pocket of almost every person.
At the end of the film, viewers are transported to the couple’s bedroom, where the man is having trouble sleeping. It seems to him that he “calls out” a hologram of a dancing woman who appears in the lower part of the bed and watches her while his wife sleeps next to him.
The film about the upcoming television use really seems to be a fairly accurate forecast of modern digital media regarding the flexibility and hybridity of media technologies and their various forms of consumption.
The film also shows someone driving while watching a screen mounted on the car’s dashboard.
It even predicts that people will be so absorbed by these devices that they will inadvertently get involved and even suffer car accidents because they are not paying attention to traffic.
You can check out the movie clip below.
