Some Reflections on Visiting the Edison Factory

This past Saturday (August 13),  I took a trip to the Edison National Historic Site in West Orange, New Jersey. I've visited here a number of times over the years, and each time I visit I am struck by the sense of wonder I feel at being the very spot where (depending on which version of the history you read) motion pictures were born.

This time, I visited the museum with my friend Jim Gisriel, a fellow film enthusiast who shares my interest in the early years of cinema. We arrived on a scorching hot Saturday morning, right before noon. After checking in at the visitors center, we made our way in to the small theater where a selection of early Edison films were playing on a monitor. After watching a couple minutes of THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (we walked in just as the bandits were forcing the passengers to disembark from the train), Jim and I made our way out the back of the theater and over to the Black Maria.

Or rather, a replica of it. Originally built in 1893, the Black Maria is recognized as the world's first dedicated film studio, and although it was torn down only a decade later, this replica was constructed in 1954 by the U.S. National Park Service and stands as a tribute to the place where America's earliest films were made. The Black Maria is quite a striking building -- covered in tarpaper, it got its name from the knickname given to police paddy wagons, which it resembled.



With the scorching hot noonday sun beating down on us, Jim and I observed the Black Maria for about 20 minutes before heading inside for a presentation on Edison's contributions to the motion picture. While we were outside, we took in all the little details of the structure, from its wooden tracks that allowed the studio to turn and face the sun, to its hatch roof that could open to allow the sunlight to shine in. Several bees swarmed around, apparently having nested inside a pipe fixture on the side of the building.

Unfortunately, we were not able to actually go inside the Black Maria, but the side door was open, allowing us a look at a replica of the Chinese Laundry set from Edison's 1895 film of that same name, as well as what appeared to be a replica of an Edison camera, though it was difficult to tell from the angle that it was positioned at. What is most striking about this replica -- which is the same size as the original studio -- is how small it can look from the outside. And yet, the interior was large enough to house not only the performers, technical crew, and equipment, but also a small dressing room on the end for visiting talent. The studio was described by some of those who worked there as hot and cramped, the most uncomfortable building in which to work. On a hot day like this, it was easy to see why they might feel that way...

But imagine the larger-than-life personalities who set foot in this little studio more than a century ago! It gives me chills to stand out there at the site of the original studio, and think of the icons of late 19th/early 20th century American show business -- Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill, and Sandow, among them -- who stepped before Edison's camera one afternoon and achieved immortality on film. It's thrilling to stand in that spot where they once stood, and realize we are only separated by time.

With the lecture about to start, we headed inside and up to the second floor of the factory, where a tour guide gave a short talk on the invention of the movies. A small but appreciative audience was gathered, and it was fun watching the kids in the group as they looked at photos of the Kinetoscope and small strips of film that were passed around. I couldn't help thinking how excited I would have been, as a budding film enthusiast, to attend a presentation like this at their age!

The second floor of the Edison factory is where W.K.L. Dickson built his first motion picture camera, and also where the very earliest camera tests were shot. In the far corner of the second floor is a wall with a placard that designates it as the spot where Dickson's invention took place. To stand and look at this little corner of an industrial factory in suburban New Jersey, in the exact spot where the art form of motion pictures was born, is a humbling experience. Imagine being able to see the first cave wall where the first painting was created, or to stand in the exact spot where the first musical note was played. And think of all the dreams that sprang forth from Dickson's invention that day...



On display was an original Edison Kinetoscope, though it was not up and running. In a glass case was an early film repair kit consisting of a splicer and glue, used for patching up broken prints. As Jim observed, this little kit represents the birth of film editing. Next to it was a prototype cylinder viewer, one of the methods for playback of moving images that was abandoned early on. This method involved tiny individual frames that would be viewed on a turning cylinder to create the illusion of movement. I peered at the little frames and recognized the image to be from "Monkeyshines", one of the earliest surviving camera tests said to date from 1890, which features an Edison employee waving his arms about before the camera.

Jim and I proceeded to tour the rest of the museum, which includes rooms dedicated to music, sound recording, and photography, as well as Edison's impressive personal library (which takes up three floors). But the highlight of the visit was certainly the chance to spend some time in the place where the motion picture first came to light some 125 or more years ago. I think of those people who were there at the very moment of the birth of the art form, and wonder whether they had any idea of the power and the potential of the tool they had created. It is awe-inspiring to think of the artistic heights the cinema has reached in just its first century of existence, and what still lies ahead.

Wreck of the Battleship "Maine" (1898)

Another subject I came across in my research on Spanish-American War films. This film was photographed by cameramen from the Edison company, showing the wreckage of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor following its explosion on February 15, 1898 which resulted in the deaths of 266 crewmen. The cause of the explosion remains unknown, but the incident became central to the efforts of "Yellow journalists" to drum up American support in favor of war with Spain.

Following the incident, French filmmaker Georges Méliès made a subject depicting the recovery of bodies from the wreckage, which presents an interesting contrast with Edison's authentic footage. Méliès' film employs a re-creation of the scene with actors in front of painted sets and special effects to simulate underwater photography, in order to give audiences an interpretation of the events that they could not see in the actualité subjects of the time.

Morro Castle, Havana Harbor (1898)

In the process of doing some research tonight on early films dealing with historical re-enactments of war events, I came across this interesting subject from the Edison Company that presents a view of the historic fortress, Morro Castle, as seen from Havana Harbor. This magnificent structure was photographed by Edison's cameramen during one of their trips to cover the events of the Spanish-American War, and is a fine example of the historic landmarks that were presented to early moving picture audiences who may never have had a chance to see them in person during their lifetimes.

Porter's Chase Comedy

A prototypical “chase” comedy, How the French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the New York Herald Personal Columns (1904) demonstrates just how quickly things were developing in these early years of cinema. Directed by Edwin S. Porter for the Thomas Edison Company just one year after The Great Train Robbery, it is heavily influenced by the French farces of the early period, and is most interesting today for its use of the chase to structure its narrative.

This was, in fact, not even the first version of this same idea produced that year. Biograph had produced the first version earlier in 1904, and then after Edison’s version appeared, the Lubin company would make their own version. Such copying was not at all uncommon during this period, and it provides for an interesting comparison between the different versions to see minor variations on the same idea.

The premise finds a French Count placing an ad in the personals, “object: matrimony”, instructing the bride-to-be to meet him in front of Grant’s Tomb. The next day, the Count is shocked when dozens of women show up, expecting to marry him. In a sequence that may have very well inspired the second half of Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances twenty years later, the outraged women give chase, over hill and dale, across streams, over a fence, finally pursuing the Count into a stream, where he gives up. One of the women wades into the stream, consoling him, and then walks off camera with him. The film ends once the characters (and the story) have effectively run out of steam and exhausted themselves.

Much of the film’s running time is devoted to the chase, which seems drawn out and protracted by the standards introduced several years later by Griffith and especially – in the comedy film – by Mack Sennett. The chase had emerged in the British cinema through films like Daring Daylight Burglary and Desperate Poaching Affray (both 1903), in which it served as a way to link shots taken in a variety of locations, as well as to propel the narrative events forward. Porter borrowed the chase structure from the British, and the inclusion of the comic elements into this structure suggest the influence of the French farces produced by the Pathé company, particularly those of Ferdinand Zecca. Of course, given that the film itself is a remake of the version directed by Wallace McCutcheon for Biograph (Personal), Porter was really working from an established model to begin with.

Instead of building the tempo through editing the way that Sennett did at Keystone, Porter instead holds on a static shot of each set up as all of the characters make their way through the frame, not cutting away until the final participant has exited the frame. The pursuers move in a long line straight through the frame. There was still an expectation at this time that all of the action must be presented in its entirety in order to maintain a sort of cognitive logic for the viewer. Similar concerns were expressed over the use of cutaways such as the closeup, which early producers feared would confuse audiences accustomed to seeing actors presented in full proscenium framing. Like so many other conventions, the chase would eventually fall out of favor due to over-use, and it was really through the work of D.W. Griffith at Biograph, and especially his protege Mack Sennett, at Keystone, who would revitalize the chase and help transform it not only in to a staple of American comedy film, but a crucial part in the development of editing action sequences.

A final note: the film is interesting for its use of locations. By 1904, the Edison company had re-located to the Bronx, where a new studio space was constructed (their Manhattan location, which they moved to in 1901 – a small, glass-roofed studio on top of a building - was a short-term solution to finding more space and better open-air lighting conditions). Biograph’s version had been shot in Asbury Park, New Jersey, but Porter filmed in front of a New York landmark, Grant’s Tomb. It’s interesting, purely for the sake of comparison, to see how barren the surrounding area was in 1904, compared to today, when the Tomb is surrounded by trees.

The Mysterious Cafe (1900)

THE MYSTERIOUS CAFE is one of the Edison company’s rare forays into the “trick film”, at least before Porter joined the company. The set-up is quite simple: a comic, elderly couple (referred to as Mr. and Mrs. Spoopendyke in Edison promotional materials) enter a café, taking their seat at a table. The woman goes to take her seat when the chair disappears out from under her, causing her to land on the ground. The re-appears on top of the table, and when the man goes ot help his wife up, she disappears and immediately re-appears seated on the chair atop the table. Leaning against the table, it disappears out from underneath them, causing them to come crashing to the ground. More frantic scrambling ensues as the man, wife, and chairs continue to disappear and re-appear in various positions, with comic chaos ensuing. When they’ve finally had enough, they beat the poor waiter with an umbrella before wrapping him in the tablecloth and beating him further.

Dating from 1900, the film presents a very rudimentary narrative, of the kind that could have been found in a vaudeville sketch. The film adheres to the “proscenium framing” so common of the period, but differs in that it employs a significant amount of editing to achieve its trick effects. However, unlike the effects being employed by people like Melies and de Chomon in France at the same time, the effects in THE MYSTERIOUS CAFÉ are quite crude, and shatter the illusion of magic that the French trick films were able to create through careful planning and precise cutting. Also, the film devolves into roughhouse slapstick toward the end, and ends without a neat-wrap up.

While the Edison catalogue description promises that the film is “sure to provoke much merriment”, it lacks the light, whimsical charm of the French trick films that make those films such a wonder and a delight more than a century after they were made. Blackton and Smith reveled in film’s fantastic properties; in addition to making a number of trick films, they also re-created news events of the period using a series of simple yet ingenious tricks that managed to fool audiences of the time into believing what they were seeing was real. This film uses stock characters – American vaudeville archetypes – and combines them with the aesthetic of the French trick film with mixed results. Watching it, one cannot help thinking of Kevin Brownlow’s point that American films tended to appear drab and rather uninspired in comparison with their European counterparts. When Edwin S. Porter began making films for Edison, he was able to integrate the trick effects more successfully, particularly with the delightful DREAMS OF A RAREBIT FIEND (1906), which ranks with the best of Melies and de Chomon’s work in terms of technical effects if not pure whimsy and a sense of the pre-war innocence and fun that those French trick films convey so well. Perhaps the criticism of THE MYSTERIOUS CAFÉ boils down to the fact that it feels more like a clear imitation rather than a first-rate work of cinematic inventiveness.

The film itself was shot sometime between June 1899 and September 1900. Although it was released through Edison, the filming took place at the roof-top Vitagraph studio in Manhattan that was being employed by filmmakers J. Stuart Blackton and Alfred E. Smith during this period (before the Edison company opened its studio in the Bronx in 1904).

Why Mrs. Jones Got a Divorce (1900)

One of the many pre-“Great Train Robbery” narrative films in American cinema, “Why Mrs. Jones Got a Divorce” (Edison, 1900) is interesting because of how it handles its entire narrative within a single shot; in this case, it’s a proscenium-style wide shot that encompasses all of the characters and action within the frame.

The film takes place in a kitchen, where a maid and a young boy are preparing dinner. The maid is kneading flour into dough, when the husband of the house enters. The boy, hiding behind the wall in the adjoining room, observes the husband and the maid flirting, as the maid embraces him. The husband’s back is turned to the camera just enough so that the viewer sees the maid’s flour-covered hand prints on his back. She goes back to kneading the dough as the boy exits through the front door, calling his mother in, presumably to inform her of what he has observed. The wife scolds the maid, then confronts her husband, who protests her accusations until she points out the hand prints on his back. The husband gets down on his knee to beg forgiveness, but the wife picks up the bowl of flour from the table and proceeds to dump it on her husband’s head! The husband flees, and the wife grabs the maid, ejecting her through the front door and knocking over the kitchen table in the process. The wife exits the scene through the front door as the film comes to an end.

This final action is interesting, because it conforms to the convention of many of these early narrative films that the characters must exit the frame at the end. Having characters forcibly ejected by being thrown, kicked or pushed out of the scene was a common technique. In this case, even though there is no narrative logic for the wife to exit the scene, she does so anyway in order to provide closure to this short sketch. The film itself is a kind of farce comedy, as evidenced by the description in the Edison rental catalog, which describes it as “a very funny picture” (http://memory.loc.gov). It is a domestic comedy, the type of which would later be made especially popular by the Vitagraph company, and the type of which would also serve as a basis for the plots of a number of American slapstick comedies, especially those produced by the Keystone company. In this sense, the film can be seen as influential in its own way, establishing a kind of screen comedy that would go on to have a very long life in the cinema.

Although far from the complex narratives that would appear even just a few years later, especially in the films of Edwin S. Porter, “Why Mrs. Jones Got a Divorce” is still a good example of early storytelling in the cinema. This film was part of a larger series of films revolving around the “Jones” character. James White served as producer, which at that time was really an all-round description of the film’s maker. This series, which dates back to 1899, is evidence of the popularity for telling stories even in this earliest period.

Dream of a Rarebit Fiend

Edwin S. Porter made a number of films that bridged both the “actualitie” and “narrative” approaches. Working for the Edison company, he is often recognized as the pioneer of narrative storytelling in American cinema, with films like “The Great Train Robbery” and “Life of an American Fireman” (both 1903) serving as the models from which longer, more complex narrative films emerged in the coming decade. The narrative approaches in these films, however, can be traced back to the work being done by the British filmmakers, particularly of the “Brighton school”, in films such as “Daring Daylight Burglary” and “Fire!”

One of Porter’s most interesting works, from a purely formal standpoint, is a film that borrows from another tradition-the trick films of Melies, de Chomon and Zecca. “Dream of a Rarebit Fiend”, from 1906, is a film that, in many ways, typifies the kind of borrowing that was taking place during this time in the development of new cinematic techniques and styles. Porter may have been borrowing, but he was certainly borrowing from the best. This film provides an interesting glimpse at a “road not taken” in the cinema, for within just a couple years, D.W. Griffith and other filmmakers would be shaping the medium to an even more narrative-centered approach that left films like “Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend” appearing to embrace a nearly surrealistic sensibility. It borrowed from the comic strip panels of Winsor McCay, and blended this with the narrative influence of the British, and the formal innovations of the trick film pioneered in France and Britain.

The film opens with an elegant, top-hatted gentleman (dressed all in white), sitting at a table in a restaurant and stuffing his mouth with large portions of Welsh rarebit. He drinks glass after glass of wine from the bottle sitting at the right of the table, and eventually takes a drink of water, which he promptly spits out. Taking another drink of wine, he helps himself to more rarebit, slopping it onto his plate then eventually lapping it up right off the serving ladle. He shovels the last of it into his mouth and takes one last drink of wine. The framing of the medium shot gives the viewer all the information they need, and avoids cutting in for close-ups or anything that would disrupt the flow of the action. Porter holds this medium shot for the duration of the scene, and it works effectively by focusing on the grotesque, exaggerated comic performance aspects.

The next shot finds the man leaving the restaurant at dark, and stumbling down the staircase, obviously a little the worse for wear. This shot gives way to a second shot, in which a lamppost is seen swinging back and forth like a pendulum. On top of this is superimposed a shot of the city streets spinning around. The gentleman stumbles into the frame, making his way to this swinging lamppost and trying to clutch on for dear life as he falls and stumbles about. He waves his handkerchief around frantically, calling for help. A passing policeman hauls him offscreen. This scene is remarkable for the amount of motion that Porter manages to suggest by having the superimposed elements working together. Although presented as a long shot of the lamppost (which allows the viewer to enjoy the physical humor and trick effects without interruption), the scene itself is made up of two separate composite elements which add greatly to the illusion of the hallucinations being experienced by the gentleman.

The next scene is again framed as a long shot of the room, although this time, the camera placement is at a diagonal that allows the corner of the room to serve as a focal point in the middle of the screen. The gentleman, arriving home, stumbles tipsily around his bedroom. The character leaves the shot twice during the course of this scene, with suggested action taking place off-screen. The first instance is when he exits, dressed in his top hat and tails, and returns, dressed in his pajamas. The second instance occurs right after he has gotten into bed and, unable to settle down, exits, and returns with a handkerchief tied around his face.

Porter continues holding this long shot as the next part of the scene begins. First, the man’s shoes are seen to move off-screen. He sits up, looking at this occurrence, perplexed. This is followed by even more unusual happenings-the furniture in the room moves about the frame and finally disappears, courtesy of trick photography. Puzzled, the man looks about the room, then lies back down to go to sleep.

Now, Porter cuts in for a closeup. The man is seen lying in bed, asleep, his head resting on the pillow. Above his head are superimposed different visions that are haunting him: a pot of Welsh rarebit, out of which pop three little demons carrying a pick-ax, a hammer, and a pitchfork, which they use to pound away at the head of the sleeping man, who reacts in pain. Awaking in panic, the vision disappears, but the man pulls the sheet over his head to try to escape the hallucinations. Porter very economically uses the framing of the close-up as a way to capture both the man’s pained physical reactions, and to allow for the use of double-exposure to create the illusion of the demons who are haunting his sleep.

The next shot reverts to the exact same set-up as before: the diagonal, long shot of the bed in the corner of the room. Now, the man lies under the bed covers, but almost immediately, it begins rocking and shaking about, as if he were possessed by some kind of demon (indeed, the shot is reminiscent of the scenes of the bed shaking and lurching about in William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” from nearly 70 years later!) Finally, the bed lifts itself about a foot in the air and begins spinning around and around, before finally taking flight out the window.

In a brilliant double-exposure shot, Porter shows the bed flying above the city. The use of the moving scenery creates the illusion of a traveling shot. The bed, set against the dark night sky, is shown to be moving over a cityscape, with the man holding on to the bed after the sheets blow off. Sitting up in the bed, the man grabs at an invisible steering wheel, positioning himself as if he were driving a car, and proceeds to navigate this phantom bed through the air before lying back down. Eventually, he is lifted up off the bed by the wind, and holds onto the headboard as he is held adrift in a horizontal position. Losing his grip, he floats backward to the footboard, which he grabs on to at the last moment. He kicks his legs about in the air in panic, just as the bed is seen passing over the Brooklyn Bridge.

Next, Porter returns to a static, long shot of a building top, over which the bed is seen flying. The bed rises up out of the frame, but the man is seen falling toward the top of the building. Porter next cuts in for a closer medium shot of the building top, with the man, in his pajamas, caught on the weather vane, which turns around and around until he finally drops off. Returning to the long shot, Porter shows the man falling into the city streets. He returns to the diagonal, establishing shot of the bedroom as the man comes crashing through the ceiling and landing in his bed. The signs of destruction disappear as the man awakes, shooting out of bed. The man sits on the edge of his bed, panicked and trembling, as the film ends.

Formally, Porter uses a very economic shot sequence, only going in for close-ups, or changing angles, when necessary to introduce a better vantage point for the viewer, or to allow for the depiction of necessary visual information. As a trick film, the “dream structure” of its narrative places it in contrast to the films of Melies, Zecca and others who embraced the ability of film to depict the impossible. In this sense, Porter seems to be contextualizing (and justifying) his trick effects within the context of a dream world in which anything is possible. Even the scenes in which the man stumbles about the street are explained away as a hallucination. From a narrative standpoint, it’s much more simple than some of Porter’s earlier efforts, but at the same time, reflects the story’s origins in the cartoon panel strips of Winsor McCay. Indeed, the film can be seen as a kind of photographic comic strip in the way that it is structured both formally and in terms of narrative. As Lloyd Fonvielle has noted, "Because movies were a new form, novelties, they fell into story frames that audiences were already familiar with -- newspaper cartoons and comic strips, which could be read in less than a minute, and vaudeville skits, which lasted about ten minutes" (Fonvielle, "Visual MicroFiction"). It makes for an interesting comparison with the current vogue for films based on comic books, which also involve a narrative, but with an emphasis on the moments of spectacle that are integral to the visual nature of the comic strip. This borrowing from a the highly visual medium of the comic strip, which viewers of the day would have been familiar with, places this film (and others like it) as a kind of ancestor of the comic book films that currently draw on an existing audience, familiar with the techniques and narrative structure of that format. When viewed in this context, it makes clear that Porter was working with an eye toward capturing the formal qualities of that medium and integrating it into the narrative structures he had helped to develop earlier in the decade, while borrowing uniquely cinematic techniques from the European pioneers working at the same time. In this sense, “Dream of a Rarebit Fiend” stands as an example of the wide range of influences at work in early cinema.

Alfred Clark: Narrative and Special Effects Pioneer

In late 1895, Thomas Edison replaced W.K.L. Dickson with Alfred Clark as supervising director of his film division. Dickson, of course, is the man generally credited with the actual invention of the Kinetoscope, the device patented and distributed by Thomas Edison as a peep-show viewer for the earliest films produced in the United States.

Comparatively little has been written on the contributions of Alfred Clark to the early American cinema, but this film, “The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots”, which he produced in 1895, is a testament to the innovations in storytelling that Clark brought to the medium.

This is one of the earliest films to feature a historical re-creation of a scene. Earlier Edison films, of course, featured re-creations of contemporary scenes (“The Barbershop”, dating from 1893, for instance). Perhaps the only other film to pre-date this in terms of staging a historical re-creation was “Blacksmithing Scene”, which -- as Charles Musser has noted* -- depicts an earlier era of the blacksmith shop, with the three men passing around a bottle of beer.

In any case, “The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots” can safely be called the first historical film in the sense we have come to think of it. Clark stages in the action against a white backdrop, suggesting that this is also one of the earliest Edison films to be photographed outside of the Black Maria. Clark conveys a sense of distance by dividing the frame into four rows of actors: Mary, in the front; the executioner directly behind Mary; two officers behind the executioner; and finally, a row of four guards in the very background. This creates a much greater sense of spatial dimensions than was commonly scene in the Edison films shot against the flat, black backdrop of the Black Maria, which utilized very little sense of depth at all.

There is, of course, the fact that by staging a historical re-enactment, Clark is also working with a heightened level of narrative. The story, as it is, is quite simple-depicting a single event. But rather than the documentary-like subjects that Edison had showcased in the months priors (“Sandow”, “Annie Oakley”), this film features actors portraying characters, and acting out a very rudimentary scenario.

Mention should be made, too, of the special effects; in this case, stop-motion. Clark may very well have been the first filmmaker to utilize this technique. The effect is actually quite convincing here, as Mary (actually played by a male actor) kneels down, the cut is made as she is replaced with a dummy, whose head is (quite realistically) severed right in front of the viewer’s eye. It’s difficult to know how viewers in 1895 would have responded to this. It’s hard to imagine that they could have been technically savvy enough to understand the way in which the effect was achieved, even if they believed (or wanted to believe) that a real human head wasn’t actually being severed.

The film was produced on August 28, 1895, predating the Lumiere screenings at the Grand Café by exactly four months. It’s worth noting that, while the Lumiere films screened at their December 28th show are often heralded as the “birth” of the motion picture, Edison, Dickson and Alfred Clark had already achieved a remarkable degree of technical sophistication.

Largely overlooked in the history of both narrative and special effects, Alfred Clark’s “The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots” stands as an important, early landmark film in its use of both techniques. It’s rather unique among the other Edison films of the period. Alfred Clark is one filmmaker of the early American cinema whose reputation is ripe for re-appraisal.

*See Musser's program notes on "Blacksmithing Scene" included on the DVD Edison: The Invention of the Movies (Kino International, 2005).

The Films of Edwin S. Porter, Part III

How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the New York Herald Personal Columns (1904)

The film opens on a French nobleman, in slightly grotesque makeup, looking at the ad he has placed in the personals for a wife. The ad says to meet at Grant’s Tomb.

The next scene finds the nobleman waiting at Grant’s Tomb, framed in a magnificent long shot. A woman enters the frame, introducing herself to the nobleman. Then another enters. And another. Finally, an entire crowd of women has shown up, and outraged, give chase to the nobleman through the city and countryside. Finally, they chase him into a stream. The basic idea for this chase was perhaps the inspiration for Buster Keaton’s later “Seven Chances”.

What follows is a typical Porter chase, with each shot allowing all of the figures to run through the frame, all the way from the very far background and up past the camera. This is not the way audiences came to expect chase sequences to be shot or edited, of course. It provides an interesting glimpse at the developments that were taking place before settling on anything approaching a Classical style of filmmaking.

While humorous, the comedy wears thin after a while due to this approach to creating the chase sequence. The idea itself is a good example of the ways in which early producers borrowed (read: stole) from eachother: the film is a remake of a Biograph picture from earlier in the year, and later, Lubin would remake the same idea.

The European Rest Cure (1904)

This is without question the funniest and sharpest comedy Porter ever made. A brilliant parody on the kind of “sightseeing” approach to travel that lives on in the Rick Steves programs today, the film seems positively ahead of its time in its mocking of the stereotype of the “American abroad”.

The very beginning of the film is as much a travelogue as anything else, this film begins with a couple embarking on a boat headed for Europe. Porter takes advantage of the location shooting to hold on long shots of the crowd waving goodbye to the passengers on board, as the ship sails off. There is a nice traveling shot of the Manhattan skyline from the boat as well.

Porter cuts into a theatrical interior for the “storm” sequence, in which the man is shown becoming seasick due to the rocking of the boat (an effect which appears to have been achieved by rocking the camera, as the action lacks the kind of physical movement achieved by Chaplin with his stage built on rockers that was used for “The Immigrant”).

From this sequence, Porter cuts to an entirely different scene: “Kissing the Blarney Stone”. The set is a patently fake painted flat. The man is held over the edge of the castle to kiss the Blarney Stone when he is suddenly dropped, falling out of frame. The tour guide seems strangely unfazed.

The next scene is “Doing Paris”. A goateed, beret-wearing, cigarette-smoking Frenchman sits at an outdoor café while the traveling American husband and wife talk loudly, the husband excitedly pound his fist on the table and calling for the waiter. After a little too much wine, they stand and begin dancing a kind of manic, drunken Can-Can, while the Frenchman continues to look on silently. This scene is one of the few instances of truly sharp satire in the films of Porter, whose comedy usually took the lower approach of sex- and slapstick-based humor. Some women try to settle them down. One of the American tourists stands on the table and pours wine over the man’s head.

Next up is “Climbing the Alps”. The party arrives in the gloriously fake, painted alps wearing Swiss alpine get-ups. One of the men falls over the edge of the cliff, but is miraculously pulled back up.

“Hold Up in Italy” is the next scene. The tour guide takes the group into one of the roughest sections of the city, and after one of the party gets separated from the rest of the group, is targeted by some thieves and is mugged at gunpoint.

We next find the party “Climbing the Pyramids of Egypt”. There is a brilliant bit of comic timing, as one of the men begins to climb the pyramid, and after climbing out frame, the camera holds for what seems like an unusually long time, until the man comes crashing back down in to the frame.

Finally, they visit the “Mud baths of Germany”, where the older American man is forced into a tub and covered in mud, then has buckets of cold water hurled at him.

The couple returns “home sweet home”, thoroughly exhausted from their trip. This is a unique film in the sense that it runs 14 minutes, which is rather long for a 1904 production. Even though it lacks the imaginative editing of Porter’s best work, the painted flats representing the different locations have a certain charm about them, and as satire, Porter never did better.

The Strenuous Life; or, Anti-Race Suicide (1904)

It’s the little moments that make a film like this one so interesting. In the scene when the office manager is brought come in a horse-drawn carriage, the streets of New York are covered in snow. It’s amazing how, before films were routinely shot on the West Coast, weather elements were a natural part of so many films. In this same shot, the camera happens to catch an elevated subway train racing past in the background.

This film itself is nothing terribly interesting in Porter’s output. The overworked office manager comes home and finds his wife has apparently given birth to quintuplets. I can’t help wondering if there is footage missing from this film, as it seems to end rather abruptly and doesn’t make terribly much sense as it currently runs. It is perhaps only notable otherwise for a use of a medium shot when the husband and wife are weighing their first child.

The Ex-Convict (1904)

Porter opens this film on the shot of a man leaving for work, saying good-bye to his wife and daughter. A title announces him as an ex-convict. When his boss finds out about his past, the man is fired. Looking for work, the man is discriminated against everywhere he goes. Walking home, he saves a little girl from being hit by an oncoming car, but is gone before the family can thank him. Returning home discouraged and humiliated, the man is out of options. In a fit of desparation, he heads out into the night to burglarize a home, which just happens to belong to the family of the young girl whose life he saved. The girl’s father catches him, and holds him at gunpoint while he calls the police, but the girl, recognizing the man, identifies him to her father as the man who saved her life. The police arrive, but the father sends them on their way.

An incredibly powerful film, this is perhaps Porter’s masterpiece as a filmmaker. It lacks the kind of narrative structural techniques that marked “The Great Train Robbery” as his most important contribution to the medium, but unlike that film, contains deeply believable characters and profound character dynamics. The discrimination faced by the reformed ex-convict is all too believable, and the sight of the man humiliated in front of his family is just painful to watch. The film avoids going over-the-top in its display of emotions or performance style, and as such, remains a model of restrained expression in the early cinema.

Cinematically, Porter seems to have been fairly well set in his ways by this point. As a cutter, it seems that “The Great Train Robbery” is something of an anomaly in his career. By 1904, working in a more complex narrative mode, Porter chooses to emphasize performance and mise-en-scene over editing. “The Ex-Convict” is a film that must be seen by anyone interested in tracing the development of early narrative forms.

Caceido with Pole (1894)

On the excellent Kino/MoMA Thomas Edison set, there is a fascinating little film that I've been tempted to write briefly about for some time now.

Titled "Caceido with Pole", and dating from 1894, the film is remarkable for being the first Edison film shot outdoors of the Black Maria. There is something strangely enticing about the film for this reason alone. Without further research, I can't be sure where the film was photographed, precisely, though it was almost certainly either right outside of the Edison lab, or in a very nearby location to Orange, New Jersey.

In many ways, the subject matter and presentation are no different from the countless other early Edison shorts, depicting popular vaudeville and show business figures performing a condensed version of their act before the static Kinetograph. Yet there is something undeniably vibrant, fresh and even cinematic about the performance of Juan Caceido as he performs elaborate leaps and somersaults on a wire.

For some reason, I find this short strip of celluloid both very exciting and also hilariously funny. The "outdoor" location plays a part in both. It's exciting to watch the elaborate tricks of the performance, of course, but it's also fun to see W.K.L. Dickson and William Heise, the film makers, discover the cinematic qualities of shooting outdoors in a natural location. The location in the case appears to be someone's backyard, with a tall wooden fence and a neighboring house visible in the background. This brings me to the part which I find so utterly hilarious-the idea of such a fantastic performance being recorded by the cinematic medium, then in the earliest stages of its infancy, against such a seemingly "normal" backdrop.

Edison films like this one are, of course, also a great reminder of the tremendously diverse kinds of entertainment audiences had available to them at the turn of the last century. Watching Juan Caceido seemingly effortlessly bouncing off the wire, while keeping his balance with a pole, and performing complex somersaults, is a spectacle to see. One can only imagine what other spectators must have thought.

Above all, it's a fun reminder of the joy, energy and even cinematic fervor that can be found in even a little film like this. Dickson undoubtedly shot the film outdoors for purely practical reasons (the act was too complex to shoot inside the Black Maria's confined space). Yet, whether or not he fully realized it, he was tapping in to the same kind of effects that "real" locations provide which Louis Lumiere would really take to new heights the following year (the moving leaves in the background of "August Lumiere and Baby" from 1895 captured audiences' attention as much as any of the staged foreground action).

While "Caceido with Pole" is hardly a groundbreaking film in any real sense, it nevertheless presents, for perhaps the first time in the American cinema, the qualities of outdoor shooting that countless directors have explored since.

Films of Edwin S. Porter, Part 2

OLD MAID HAVING HER PICTURE TAKEN (1901)

Another of Porter’s “one-joke” films, this short contains a few little special effects as well. An old maid wanders into a portrait studio to have her picture taken. Her appearance causes the hands of the clock to fly around before it falls to the ground. Next, she looks into a mirror which promptly cracks. And when the portrait photographer sits her down in front of the camera, the camera explodes!

The joke itself is nothing remarkable. What is rather interesting about this film is the framing of the shot to include the mirror’s reflected images. From the angle that the mirror is positioned at, it appears we can see the glass roof of Edison’s New York studio, where this was shot, letting in the necessary sunlight. It is little touches like this, totally unintentional on Porter’s part no doubt, that can make these films doubly interesting to watch today.

PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION BY NIGHT (1901)

I find that, in going through the Edison films in general, the travelogues and “actualities” (to borrow a term from Lumiere) are more interesting to watch on repeat viewings. This is perhaps because of the wealth of visual information they provide about the time and place in which they were shot.

This is by far one of the best of these types of films included on the Edison set. The sight of the exposition halls is simply breathtaking, especially when you realize how hard it is to find anything like it today. Porter begins with a camera pan across the exposition grounds, before fading to black. Fade in on the same exposition, only now at nighttime, lit entirely by electric bulbs that outline every building. The main building even includes a spotlight that casts its glow around the entire landscape. This is truly one of the most visually memorable films on the set.

THE BURNING OF DURLAND’S RIDING ACADEMY (1902)

This is the type of film that it seems Porter, and the Edison company in general, should have moved on from by 1902. It is a newsreel-style coverage of the burning and aftermath of a fire. It isn’t particularly imaginative in the way it’s shot, nor does it offer anything that hadn’t already been shown in a number of earlier Edison films. Films such as this were no doubt considered good fodder for vaudeville bills and fairground shows, but compared to the more sophisticated work coming out of Europe at the time, it can’t help but look just a trifle pale in comparison.

INTERRUPTED BATHERS (1902)

Another one-joke film, albeit with a cute topper gag. Some girls, who are swimming in a lake, are interrupted by two men who flirt with them and then steal their clothes. As the girls swim off-screen and the men depart, one girl walks across the screen wearing just a barrel. This type of film, playfully dealing with sex and with a coy sense of humor, no doubt would have been a hit on burlesque bills or at sideshows.

ELECTROCUTING AN ELEPHANT (1903)

It is unclear whether or not this was, in fact, directed by Edwin S. Porter, or his frequent co-director of this period, James Blair Smith. The film is notorious today for its frank and brutal depiction of an elephant being executed via electricity. Visually, the film itself is unremarkable, taken in a single shot, but the image of the elephant being killed is one that sticks with modern viewers in the worst way possible. It does show how attitudes toward death have changed (it’s important to remember that, in its time, the humane society considered electrocution to be the most humane method of putting down the elephant, rather than the public hangings that had been attempted in the past). It’s impossible to imagine a film today that depicted real death, let alone even simulated animal abuse. I suspect audiences of the time took it as a necessary step to protect the public against a potentially dangerous animal. There is little doubt, however, that the spectacle of watching a might beast felled with an electrical shock was no doubt a big part of the film’s appeal.

THE GAY SHOE CLERK (1903)

One of the more enjoyable Edison comedies from this period, this film sees a young woman enter a shoe store with an older woman (presumably her mother). The young woman sits while the shoe clerk tries on different shoes for her. She lifts her skirt and the clerk stands up, kissing and flirting with the girl, while the mother beats him with her umbrella. There is a kind of playful fun about the film which still makes it amusing a century later.

This would be another largely unremarkable film if not for two things: 1) The pacing of the film is much tighter than other Edison comedies we’ve seen up to this point. The film runs just long enough to accommodate all the necessary visual information and serve the gag without becoming drawn-out. 2) The single close-up of the girl’s foot is a breakthrough in the editing of this type of film, which was most often played in a single long shot. Here, the closeup serves to emphasize certain action on the screen, conveying the visual information much more clearly. This single close-up represents quite a breakthrough in this type of filmmaking.

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE TUNNEL (1903)

Another well-paced comedy short, and well-framed, too. Instead of playing the action straight-on as if on a stage, the camera here is slightly angled, and positioned closer to the actors, emphasizing their facial features and characteristics to help us identify with them.

It is also interesting to watch the train window on the left side of the frame, which is a matte shot with the passing scenery superimposed. It’s rather amazing that this technique was developed so early on, and is used in a completely “natural” way. I find it interesting, too, that Porter and other directors saw the advantage of providing that moving scenery that could not be replicated on a stage.

The set-up here involves a man and a girl flirting on a train, while her black maid listens excitedly, laughing at their playfulness. The train enters a tunnel, whereupon the screen goes dark. As soon as it leaves the tunnel, and the light returns, we see the girl has switched places with her maid as a joke on the man, who reacts in surprise.

RECTOR’S TO CLAREMONT (1903)

This film begins with a shot of a large group of people boarding a carriage. The camera pans with them as they climb aboard. A man who has missed the carriage chases after it in a series of imaginatively set-up shots. The visual look of this film is quite nice, and Porter is once again framing his shots slightly at angles to accommodate a wider range of visual information, including, once again, the facial features of his actors. The film ends when the carriage arrives and the passengers disembark. While rather light on actual plot of any kind, the film represents a visual step-up, both in terms of its framing, but also in terms of its use of locations.

Films of Edwin S. Porter, Part 1

Edwin S. Porter is, perhaps more than any other filmmaker, known best for a single film, one that he directed in 1903, The Great Train Robbery. He is often credited as the American filmmaker who brought film out of the fairground and the vaudeville bill and into the nickelodeon, where the moviegoing experience became an event in itself.

For years, it was difficult to see much of Porter’s work. Often, it was assumed that after directing The Great Train Robbery, he slid into relative obscurity. However, his films are now available to view on a number of home video collections, including The Movies Begin, and most importantly, the Museum of Modern Art’s Edison: Invention of the Movies collection which, at least for those interested in the history of film, may be the most important DVD release of all time.

Using these sources, I decided to review the Porter films that are available, and compare them not only with his other films, but also with films being made by others at the same time. This is the first part in that series of reviews.

WHAT HAPPENED ON 23RD STREET, NEW YORK CITY (1901)

The earliest Porter film in the collection, this film gives an excellent idea of the appeal of motion pictures to early audiences. It’s short, filled with moving scenery of a bustling location, and includes people walking through the frame who may or may not be actors. Surely the many background figures seen are actual passers-by,

The camera is positioned on a sidewalk, and in front of the camera is a grate. Various figures walk around the grate, some stopping to look at it before moving on, causing the audience to anticipate some sort of gag to top off the short.

Finally, a couple come walking toward the camera. The woman, wearing a long dress, walks over the grate, causing her dress to be blown up, like Marilyn Monroe fifty years later. These two are obviously performers, but what makes it so interesting is that clearly, they come from far off in the distance, so their performance was very much “timed” to the length of the film. As soon as the woman steps off the grate, she is seen waving to someone across the street, and another passer-by as well as a policeman look into the camera.

There is clearly much blurring between “fiction” and “documentary” here, as it becomes unclear to us, especially a century later, just who is aware of what is going on, and who is being taken by surprise.

The short must have fulfilled all the demands that an early audience would have had for such a film. A documentary glimpse at a big American city, moving figures in the frame, a little humor with some sex thrown in, and above all, a short, sharp payoff to the whole thing.

TRAPEZE DISROBING ACT (1901)

This short plays like a burlesque comedy. A trapeze artist, hanging over a painted stage on a trapeze, performs a strip act, while two men cheer her on from their box seats at the side of the stage. It is shot in a single take, with the actors strategically placed in the frame for maximum effect. The whole film is clearly designed as a very basic mix of sex and comedy, and feels unsatisfying to a modern viewer looking for Porter’s narrative touch.


BURLESQUE SUICIDE, no. 2 (1902)

This is a strange little film. We see a man, sitting in a tight medium shot, at a small table, taking drinks of liquor and debating whether or not to blow his brains out, apparently. He finally lifts the gun, places it to his head just above the frame of the camera’s field of vision, then places it back on the table and laughs hysterically into the camera.

It’s difficult to know just how to take this film today. It seems like a morbid joke, especially considering that audiences at the time had no way of knowing whether or not the man really would commit suicide right then and there on camera. As it is, the film seems like another one-note film best designed for a very short “peepshow” screening.

JACK AND THE BEANSTALK (1902)

This is the type of film that Porter would become known for and really make his mark as a filmmaker at directing. We are shown the traditional fairy tale of “Jack and the Beanstalk”, played in an exaggerated, pantomime-style (two actors obviously playing the cow that Jack sells in exchange for the beans, for instance).

Porter’s set is obviously flat and painted, not unlike what Melies (no doubt his major influence) was doing in Paris at the time. However, watching Porter’s film, it seems too straddled between the physical immediacy of the motion picture as it existed in the US at that time, and the kind of outright fantasy and theatricality that Melies embraced rather than trying to conceal. It’s as if Porter wants to make us believe what we are seeing is real, rather than a kind of gloriously artificial illusion. That, I think, is the key to understanding where Porter’s trick films lack the kind of effectiveness seen in the best films of Melies, Zecca, and others. He seems, here, unwilling to fully let go of the “realistic” opportunities provided by the camera. In addition, his painted sets appear drab and uninspired compared to those in, say, “A Trip to the Moon”, which was released the same year. His special effects also feel somewhat clunky and uninspired. Porter was clearly still finding his style, although imitating the Melies fantasy narratives provided an important first step in that process.

LIFE OF AN AMERICAN FIREMAN (1903)

With this film, Porter found his style. He finds the perfect match for the documentary realism of the camera and the kind of stylized narrative that he was interested in exploring more. This is best evidenced by the opening sequence, in which a napping fire chief dreams of his family at home. The images of his family are superimposed, projected onto a black space almost like a magic lantern show.

The narrative of the film really gets underway when the fire alarm begins to sound, and the audience takes an active part, becoming emotionally involved, in the race to the rescue. There is one shot that I find particularly interesting. A seemingly endless parade of fire trucks drive by a small house, probably out in the suburbs of New Jersey, as people watch them drive by. It is an interesting reminder of how people of the time sought entertainment in every possible venue, even the thrill of rushing out of the house to watch the fire trucks on the way to some heroic rescue nearby. The fireman himself is portrayed as a kind of action hero, not unlike a Western cowboy star riding to the rescue to save a runaway coach from running off a cliff. Porter combined newsreel footage with footage of his actors to create a more convincing set-up.

It is during the rescue sequence that we catch a glimpse of why this is a key work in Porter’s filmography. The rescue is seen from two angles-once from the interior of the house, and once from the exterior. Unlike what Griffith would be doing in a couple of years, Porter shows us the entire action from both angles. It is important to remember that this is not a deficiency in Porter’s filmmaking skill, but rather the conventional screen grammar of his time.

The ending of the film is dramatically satisfying, and leaves the 21st-century viewer with a feeling of exhilaration, not only at the story, but also at the technical accomplishment they have just witnessed.

UNCLE TOM’S CABIN (1903)

With this film, Porter takes a decided step backward. The filming of this traditional play takes place entirely in front of painted backdrops suggesting the Old South.

Supposedly, an “Uncle Tom” company was hired to re-create key scenes from the play in front of Porter’s camera. Unless the viewer is familiar with the story, the film is virtually impossible to follow. A single title card announces which “scene” we are about to watch, and then it plays out.

The film shows, too, how Stowe’s novel was twisted into a kind of late-19th century variety show. The original novel is a quite serious and moving work, but this film, which is based on a popular abridgement that was a staple of touring companies in the US at the time, features many “musical” and dance interludes, as well as much comic relief.

It was certainly the most popular entertainment of its time; it’s doubtful there will ever again be another single show that is so deeply ingrained in a country’s popular culture, but this film is an interesting record of what such a show must have been like, even if, as cinema, it’s basically filmed theatre.

THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (1903)

I’ll end the first part of this review with the film that Porter best known for. Based on a recent train robbery, Porter shattered notions of just how big an audience could be had for motion pictures with this exciting prototype of the Western. It’s rather difficult to find anything new to say about what is surely one of the most seminal, landmark American films. G.M. Anderson, a stage actor who had been doing some work here and there in films, was chosen to play the lead role, or “roles”, as he turns up in at least a half-dozen parts. Anderson, of course, went on to become “Broncho Billy” Anderson, one of the first “name” movie stars and the first “cowboy” actor of real note.

Porter’s filmmaking here was so skillful, so masterfully in control of his subject, that it’s easy to see why the film was a success. I have a hard time thinking of any film made prior to this one that “feels” so much like a piece of contemporary moviemaking. The editing, the depth of the shots, and especially the use of locations (including the moving train) add to this.

The print of “The Great Train Robbery” that was used for the Edison set includes the original hand-tinting, which emphasizes the lengths that filmmakers went to at the time to enhance the “spectacle” elements of these films.

With “The Great Train Robbery”, moviegoing became an American pastime and an event unto itself. The nickelodeons that sprang up around the country were able to do so largely by advertising “The Great Train Robbery”, just as “The Birth of a Nation” would usher in the era of big-theatre screenings and the era of the Movie Palace for the major films. Although it would take a couple more years before the transition was fully complete, it was at this time that film stopped being just a short peepshow diversion to be seen in boardwalk arcades, or brief tent shows at US fairgrounds, and began to move toward becoming an art form.

Interestingly, it is said that Porter lacked the ego and temperament to be a successful director in the era of Griffith and others. That may have been true, but he certainly was instrumental in opening up the possibilities of film as a mass art form rather than sideshow curiosity.