For subscribers
Mobile phones have shaped cinema for half a century
A history of portable devices on screen, from American Psycho to The Matrix, transforming storytelling.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Canadian actor Jay Baruchel plays Mike Lazaridis in the movie BlackBerry.
PHOTO: BLACKBERRY MOVIE
The Economist
Follow topic:
In 1973, Mr Marty Cooper, an engineer at Motorola, took out a bulky object that measured 23cm tall and weighed a little more than a bag of sugar. From Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, he phoned Mr Joel Engel, his rival at AT&T’s Bell Labs, a telecoms giant. “I’m calling you from a cell phone, a real, hand-held, portable cell phone,” he crowed into his prototype, a Dynatac.
That call on April 3, 50 years ago, was the first placed in public on a hand-held phone (earlier mobile phones had to be plugged into cars).
