Speed Reading

Skim or scan the following passages, and then decide on the best answer. 

     Where did the movies begin? It is often said that they are an American invention, but this is not entirely true. The motion picture has been the most international of arts before the dawn of the 20th century. 
     Soon after 1889, when the famous American inventor Thomas Edison first showed motion pictures through a device called the kinetoscope, other devices for the same purpose appeared all over the world. One other important contribution by Edison was the introduction of 35mm as the international standard film width. When it became possible to use any 35mm machine for showing movies from any part of the world, the international trading of films could begin. 
     During the first years, there were no special movie theaters. Films were often shown in buildings which had formerly been stores. In America, these became known as nickelodeons because each member of the audience paid a nickel (five cents) to watch the movie. 
     At first, movies pleased people just because the experience of watching them was new. In the black and white shadows, one could see larger-than-life images of reality and they moved! But images alone cannot keep people interested forever. Then cameras were taken to South Africa and Cuba to photograph wars in action. Prizefights were filmed, and so were religious processions. But none of these attractions could please the crowds for long. 
     What gave the movies the possibility of becoming an art form was the introduction of narrative. Someone realized that a film could tell a story. 
     Edwin S. Porter was a director and cameraman for Thomas Edison’s company. He advanced the art of the film by a giant step when, in 1903, he produced The Great Train Robbery. Although this account of a mail robbery and the pursuit of the robbers was very simple, it required the filming of several different locations. The result was a film that not only shifted freely from place to place but even enabled viewers to see two actions that occurred at the same time. They watched the robbers escape and then saw the pursuers gathering for the pursuit. Within this brief, eight-minute movie lay the seeds of a true art form. 
     In 1908, Biograph, a small film company in New York, employed a man who was to become the first true genius of motion pictures. He was D. W. Griffith, an unsuccessful actor and writer of plays, who had worked briefly for Porter. Griffith preferred writing to acting, but at Biograph he worked as a writer, an actor and a director. In less than five years, he directed almost 300 pictures, raised Biograph to a leading position among film companies, and laid the foundations for modern film art.