Originally posted to Facebook on 2/27/2016
Ben, Alli, and I are ten weeks into our chronological movie viewing, watching four films a year for every year since 1898, and a few films prior. Because of the short running time of films in the earliest era we have already covered up through 1911. By the time we hit 1913 we will be watching true features, and so our progress will slow, and we won't hit 1920 until the fall.
I thought this was a good time to list some of the films that we enjoyed the most from the first decade of the twentieth century. The dominant figure during this period for us was Méliès, with D.W. Griffith starting to appear near the end. A few other groups or directors made multiple appearances as well, including the Edison corporation. Among Méliès' films, A Trip to the Moon (1902) lived up to its reputation. It wasn't the only Méliès film that had an extended narrative and multiple sets, but it was one of the earliest and most cohesive. Many of Méliès' films, however, were not in this vein. They took place mainly in a single set, and were basically showpieces for a variety of camera tricks. A late but polished example of this kind of film was The Devilish Tenant (1909). An early example was The Astronomer's Dream (1898).
Moving on from Méliès, but somewhat in the same vein, we liked Dream of A Rarebit Fiend (1906), directed by Edwin Porter for Edison. It was a little more broad and earthy, but had the same kind of parade-of-camera-tricks approach to its story. Another short but entertaining film was The Thieving Hand (1908) for Vitagraph.
A film closer in spirit to the longer narrative style of Melies was Aladdin and His Wonder Lamp (1906) directed by Albert Capellani for Pathe. It featured its own collection of visual effects, as well as the first camera pan that we've noticed.
Lastly, we liked The Sealed Room (1909) by D.W. Griffith. It is not the most representative of his films, in that it is more theatrical than normal, and is set indoors, but we enjoyed it.
All of these films are in the public domain, and are furthermore rather short, so they can all be watched on YouTube relatively easily. I've included the links below for anyone that is interested.
The Astronomer's Dream (1898)
A Trip to the Moon (1902)
Dream of A Rarebit Fiend (1906)
Aladdin and His Wonder Lamp (1906)
The Thieving Hand (1908)
The Devilish Tenant (1909)
The Sealed Room (1909)
Thursday, May 31, 2018
Movies from 1912: The Girl and Her Trust and The Life and Death of King Richard III
Originally posted to Facebook on 2/24/2016
This week we watched our first two movies from 1912. They were:
The Girl and Her Trust
The Life and Death of King Richard III
The Girl and Her Trust was another film by D.W. Griffith, and was, I think, the best film of his we've seen to date. It was something of a western, and had some similarities to The Great Train Robbery from a decade earlier, but was superior in almost every way. As with almost all of Griffith's films that we've seen, the plot points are clearly communicated. Probably the most interesting shots in this film were of a moving hand car, and later a train, shot from the side, with the camera moving alongside. These were presumably shot from another train or vehicle running in parallel. This may have precedent in some other film, but it was the first time we'd seen it. There was also some crosscutting between simultaneous events, and a pan or two -- which I believe we've seen before, but rarely.
The Life and Death of King Richard III was, at 55 minutes long, by far the longest film we've seen -- a five-reeler -- more than doubling the previous longest film, which happened to be the British version of Richard III we saw last week. This film was an American version, and was more ambitious and better made. While the former was almost entirely on stage sets, this film was shot on real locations -- sometimes indoors, but with few or no painted sets, but also outdoors, including shots of an actual ship carrying troops. The only scene that seemed more memorable in the former film was during Richard's dream, where his various victims appeared to accuse him. The former film accomplished this with substitution splices for each victim in turn. The current film had them all appear en masse in a double exposure or overlay.
I expect that someone who hadn't seen or read the play would still have had some trouble understanding all of the plot points in this one, but it's a lot clearer than the 1911 version. The lead, Frederick Warde, was a professional actor who was born in 1851, and had been apparently playing Shakespearian roles throughout the late nineteenth century. Interestingly he is credited with discovering Douglas Fairbanks Sr., whom we may be seeing a few months down the road.
Next week we'll watch the second two films from 1912, including possibly our last George Méliès film. The link, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
This week we watched our first two movies from 1912. They were:
The Girl and Her Trust
The Life and Death of King Richard III
The Girl and Her Trust was another film by D.W. Griffith, and was, I think, the best film of his we've seen to date. It was something of a western, and had some similarities to The Great Train Robbery from a decade earlier, but was superior in almost every way. As with almost all of Griffith's films that we've seen, the plot points are clearly communicated. Probably the most interesting shots in this film were of a moving hand car, and later a train, shot from the side, with the camera moving alongside. These were presumably shot from another train or vehicle running in parallel. This may have precedent in some other film, but it was the first time we'd seen it. There was also some crosscutting between simultaneous events, and a pan or two -- which I believe we've seen before, but rarely.
The Life and Death of King Richard III was, at 55 minutes long, by far the longest film we've seen -- a five-reeler -- more than doubling the previous longest film, which happened to be the British version of Richard III we saw last week. This film was an American version, and was more ambitious and better made. While the former was almost entirely on stage sets, this film was shot on real locations -- sometimes indoors, but with few or no painted sets, but also outdoors, including shots of an actual ship carrying troops. The only scene that seemed more memorable in the former film was during Richard's dream, where his various victims appeared to accuse him. The former film accomplished this with substitution splices for each victim in turn. The current film had them all appear en masse in a double exposure or overlay.
I expect that someone who hadn't seen or read the play would still have had some trouble understanding all of the plot points in this one, but it's a lot clearer than the 1911 version. The lead, Frederick Warde, was a professional actor who was born in 1851, and had been apparently playing Shakespearian roles throughout the late nineteenth century. Interestingly he is credited with discovering Douglas Fairbanks Sr., whom we may be seeing a few months down the road.
Next week we'll watch the second two films from 1912, including possibly our last George Méliès film. The link, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Movies 1911
Originally posted to Facebook on 2/15/2016
This week in our chronological movie watching, we saw the following films from 1911:
Baron Munchausen's Dream
The Miser's Heart
Merchant of Venice
Richard III
This is the first week that, due to increasing film lengths, we've limited ourselves to a single year. The four films we saw from 1911 total 71 minutes, compared to 96 minutes for the eight films we saw last week from 1909 and 1910. In a few weeks, we will have arrived at more-or-less modern feature films. One of the films this week is a late work by George Méliès, another is by D. W. Griffith, and two are adaptations of Shakespeare: one from Italy, and the other from England.
The Méliès film (Baron Munchausen's Dream) continues in the vein that we're used to. In it, Baron Munchausen falls asleep and is tormented in his dreams -- dramatized by lots of special effects and indoor painted sets. There is one weird effect in which there is clearly a false mirror in which different actors are mimicking the Baron and his servants' actions. I was waiting for this to have a payoff -- where the reflection starts to diverge from reality -- but that never happened. Eventually the devil shows up, at which point Allison said, "Yep! There's the devil!" I think that's a good commentary on the film in general; when eight-year-old girls are calling out your clichés, perhaps you have settled into a bit of a rut. It does have the normal fantastical imaginative Méliès elements, but I think it is fair to say that, by 1911, it is of a piece with similar films that we have seen many times before. Also, I always thought the point of Baron Munchausen was than he was a notorious liar and embellisher, not that he had strange dreams. The first place I remember being aware of Baron Munchausen was Terry Gilliam's 1988 film, which I dragged my parents to, hoping that it would be as good as Brazil. Bizarrely, there was also a well-liked Baron Munchausen film made in 1943 in Nazi Germany. According to Wikipedia it was meant as escapism, so it isn't propagandistic in an overt sense. It's streaming for free on Amazon Prime where I took a quick look, and it certainly looks interesting.
Richard III was longest film we've seen to date, at 23 minutes -- the previous longest having been Méliès' Voyage Across the Impossible from 1904. But given this film's approach of including so much from the play, it probably needed to be longer still. I've seen Richard III on stage a couple of times, so I'm pretty familiar with the story, and I tried to fill the kids in on what was happening, but plot developments were coming so fast and furious that at a certain point I just had to say, "Ok, I'm not really sure why he's murdering this guy." The film is also very stage-bound, and the only point during which I remember them doing anything that couldn't be done on stage was when Richard III was dreaming of all of the people he's killed; the film had them appear one after another using substitution splices. Overall I can't imagine this film being intelligible in anything but broad outline to anyone who hadn't seen the play or another version of the movie. By happy coincidence, one of the films we're seeing next week is a 1912 American version of Richard III, which is 55 minutes long and will not only be by far the longest film we've seen, but will hopefully give the plot enough space to play out.
The Merchant of Venice was created by the same Italian group that was responsible for King Lear from last week. The actor that played Lear now plays Shylock, and the actress that played Cordelia now plays Jessica. It has other actors in common as well, and also the same director. None of them are distinctive enough that I would have known this without checking IMDB, but the look of the two films are similar. It wasn't quite as stage-bound as Richard III, and there were some attempts to evoke Venice. As with Lear I gave the kids a quick rundown, including trying to outline the anti-semitism and why this is a controversial play. Given the kids' ages, I'm generally avoiding obvious controversy -- for instance we aren't planning to watch Birth of a Nation -- but I think they were able to contextualize this one. Unlike Richard III, this film stripped out most of the subplots, or reduced them to allusions. The story of Shylock's loan and the subsequent trial were the main focus.
The Miser's Heart was directed by Griffith, and was the fifth film of his we've seen, and probably the best to date. It's about two thieves who try to rob an old man, and threaten the life of a little girl who lives in his apartment building in order to convince him to open a safe. The little girl couldn't have been more than three or possibly four (i.e. 109 if she were alive today), and Ben said, "How is she remembering to do all of these things?" I told him that one of the advantages of silent films was that the director could be giving her explicit verbal instructions as the film was rolling. As with the other Griffith films we've seen, this one is no masterpiece, but it is the most movie-like of the four films this week. This is partially because there is an understandable plot, shot in such a way to make it clear what is going on. Also, there are several differentiated characters, and, although there are no close-ups as yet, the film is shot a little closer to the actors than the other movies. We are moving closer to the era of features, so we won't be seeing many more shorts like this, but apparently Griffith shot hundreds of them in these pre-teen years, and must have developed a good idea as to what worked and what didn't.
Next week, we move on to 1912. Because of increased running length, we'll be seeing only two films, including the American version of Richard III mentioned above. We'll be watching the other two films from 1912 the subsequent week. The link, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
This week in our chronological movie watching, we saw the following films from 1911:
Baron Munchausen's Dream
The Miser's Heart
Merchant of Venice
Richard III
This is the first week that, due to increasing film lengths, we've limited ourselves to a single year. The four films we saw from 1911 total 71 minutes, compared to 96 minutes for the eight films we saw last week from 1909 and 1910. In a few weeks, we will have arrived at more-or-less modern feature films. One of the films this week is a late work by George Méliès, another is by D. W. Griffith, and two are adaptations of Shakespeare: one from Italy, and the other from England.
The Méliès film (Baron Munchausen's Dream) continues in the vein that we're used to. In it, Baron Munchausen falls asleep and is tormented in his dreams -- dramatized by lots of special effects and indoor painted sets. There is one weird effect in which there is clearly a false mirror in which different actors are mimicking the Baron and his servants' actions. I was waiting for this to have a payoff -- where the reflection starts to diverge from reality -- but that never happened. Eventually the devil shows up, at which point Allison said, "Yep! There's the devil!" I think that's a good commentary on the film in general; when eight-year-old girls are calling out your clichés, perhaps you have settled into a bit of a rut. It does have the normal fantastical imaginative Méliès elements, but I think it is fair to say that, by 1911, it is of a piece with similar films that we have seen many times before. Also, I always thought the point of Baron Munchausen was than he was a notorious liar and embellisher, not that he had strange dreams. The first place I remember being aware of Baron Munchausen was Terry Gilliam's 1988 film, which I dragged my parents to, hoping that it would be as good as Brazil. Bizarrely, there was also a well-liked Baron Munchausen film made in 1943 in Nazi Germany. According to Wikipedia it was meant as escapism, so it isn't propagandistic in an overt sense. It's streaming for free on Amazon Prime where I took a quick look, and it certainly looks interesting.
Richard III was longest film we've seen to date, at 23 minutes -- the previous longest having been Méliès' Voyage Across the Impossible from 1904. But given this film's approach of including so much from the play, it probably needed to be longer still. I've seen Richard III on stage a couple of times, so I'm pretty familiar with the story, and I tried to fill the kids in on what was happening, but plot developments were coming so fast and furious that at a certain point I just had to say, "Ok, I'm not really sure why he's murdering this guy." The film is also very stage-bound, and the only point during which I remember them doing anything that couldn't be done on stage was when Richard III was dreaming of all of the people he's killed; the film had them appear one after another using substitution splices. Overall I can't imagine this film being intelligible in anything but broad outline to anyone who hadn't seen the play or another version of the movie. By happy coincidence, one of the films we're seeing next week is a 1912 American version of Richard III, which is 55 minutes long and will not only be by far the longest film we've seen, but will hopefully give the plot enough space to play out.
The Merchant of Venice was created by the same Italian group that was responsible for King Lear from last week. The actor that played Lear now plays Shylock, and the actress that played Cordelia now plays Jessica. It has other actors in common as well, and also the same director. None of them are distinctive enough that I would have known this without checking IMDB, but the look of the two films are similar. It wasn't quite as stage-bound as Richard III, and there were some attempts to evoke Venice. As with Lear I gave the kids a quick rundown, including trying to outline the anti-semitism and why this is a controversial play. Given the kids' ages, I'm generally avoiding obvious controversy -- for instance we aren't planning to watch Birth of a Nation -- but I think they were able to contextualize this one. Unlike Richard III, this film stripped out most of the subplots, or reduced them to allusions. The story of Shylock's loan and the subsequent trial were the main focus.
The Miser's Heart was directed by Griffith, and was the fifth film of his we've seen, and probably the best to date. It's about two thieves who try to rob an old man, and threaten the life of a little girl who lives in his apartment building in order to convince him to open a safe. The little girl couldn't have been more than three or possibly four (i.e. 109 if she were alive today), and Ben said, "How is she remembering to do all of these things?" I told him that one of the advantages of silent films was that the director could be giving her explicit verbal instructions as the film was rolling. As with the other Griffith films we've seen, this one is no masterpiece, but it is the most movie-like of the four films this week. This is partially because there is an understandable plot, shot in such a way to make it clear what is going on. Also, there are several differentiated characters, and, although there are no close-ups as yet, the film is shot a little closer to the actors than the other movies. We are moving closer to the era of features, so we won't be seeing many more shorts like this, but apparently Griffith shot hundreds of them in these pre-teen years, and must have developed a good idea as to what worked and what didn't.
Next week, we move on to 1912. Because of increased running length, we'll be seeing only two films, including the American version of Richard III mentioned above. We'll be watching the other two films from 1912 the subsequent week. The link, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Movies 1909 - 1910
Originally posted to Facebook on 2/9/2016
This week we watched films from 1909 and 1910, specifically the following:
Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy
The Devilish Tenant
The Sealed Room
A Corner in Wheat
A Christmas Carol
The Unchanging Sea
King Lear
Frankenstein
Running lengths continue to increase. The eight films' total running length this week was 96 minutes, longer than any previous weekend, and 1910 was the first year where none of the films we watched were less than ten minutes. There was only one George Méliès film this week (The Devilish Tenant), but three by D.W. Griffith, and two by J. Searle Dawley, at Edison.
The Devilish Tenant is very much in line with many other George Méliès films we've seen -- lots of camera tricks, interior or painted sets, and with a supernatural tormentor, another Méliès trope. However, although it had familiar elements, it was a fairly polished example of its kind. Princess Nicotine, although not by Méliès, shows his influence, and is driven by camera tricks also.
The two Edison films (A Christmas Carol and Frankenstein) both draw on familiar plots to assist in the storytelling, which is a common theme of this early period. The actor, Charles Ogle, who plays Bob Cratchit also plays the monster in Frankenstein, though he is so heavily made up in the latter that it is impossible to tell. A Christmas Carol is the more traditional telling of the two. The three ghosts have been downsized to one, who has to shoulder triple the workload of presenting past, present, and future. Also there is a subplot I don't recall from any previous telling, in that his nephew can't marry because of his financial situation. Other than that, all of the normal plot points are hit fairly economically in the eleven minute running time -- though this is perhaps overstated because the version we saw did not appear to have the speed corrected properly, and the movement was faster than it should have been. Frankenstein, on the other hand, took many more liberties with its well-known source, and the ending was a bit arbitrary and under-explained.
The other film with a familiar plot that we saw was King Lear, which was an Italian production. I told the kids the basic story ahead of time so that they could follow the film better. (Ben asked if it had a happy ending. I told him it doesn't. He also pointed out -- and I'm paraphrasing a bit -- that deciding who should run a kingdom based on who you think loves you the most is not a good system of governance.)
The three Griffith films each told a relatively lesser known story (though a few were still adaptations), and did so without using the audience's background knowledge as a crutch. The stories were mostly clear, either through the direction, acting, or title cards. A Corner in Wheat and The Unchanging Sea were on fairly realistic sets or set locations, and The Unchanging Sea managed to telescope twenty years into its running time, which, excepting maybe Joan of Arc and Ben Hur, is the first time we've seen that on screen, and certainly the most effectively. I can't really recommend any of them as great masterpieces, but they are all interesting and clearly told stories.
Next weekend, because of increasing film lengths, we will only be watching four films, all from 1911. The link, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
This week we watched films from 1909 and 1910, specifically the following:
Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy
The Devilish Tenant
The Sealed Room
A Corner in Wheat
A Christmas Carol
The Unchanging Sea
King Lear
Frankenstein
Running lengths continue to increase. The eight films' total running length this week was 96 minutes, longer than any previous weekend, and 1910 was the first year where none of the films we watched were less than ten minutes. There was only one George Méliès film this week (The Devilish Tenant), but three by D.W. Griffith, and two by J. Searle Dawley, at Edison.
The Devilish Tenant is very much in line with many other George Méliès films we've seen -- lots of camera tricks, interior or painted sets, and with a supernatural tormentor, another Méliès trope. However, although it had familiar elements, it was a fairly polished example of its kind. Princess Nicotine, although not by Méliès, shows his influence, and is driven by camera tricks also.
The two Edison films (A Christmas Carol and Frankenstein) both draw on familiar plots to assist in the storytelling, which is a common theme of this early period. The actor, Charles Ogle, who plays Bob Cratchit also plays the monster in Frankenstein, though he is so heavily made up in the latter that it is impossible to tell. A Christmas Carol is the more traditional telling of the two. The three ghosts have been downsized to one, who has to shoulder triple the workload of presenting past, present, and future. Also there is a subplot I don't recall from any previous telling, in that his nephew can't marry because of his financial situation. Other than that, all of the normal plot points are hit fairly economically in the eleven minute running time -- though this is perhaps overstated because the version we saw did not appear to have the speed corrected properly, and the movement was faster than it should have been. Frankenstein, on the other hand, took many more liberties with its well-known source, and the ending was a bit arbitrary and under-explained.
The other film with a familiar plot that we saw was King Lear, which was an Italian production. I told the kids the basic story ahead of time so that they could follow the film better. (Ben asked if it had a happy ending. I told him it doesn't. He also pointed out -- and I'm paraphrasing a bit -- that deciding who should run a kingdom based on who you think loves you the most is not a good system of governance.)
The three Griffith films each told a relatively lesser known story (though a few were still adaptations), and did so without using the audience's background knowledge as a crutch. The stories were mostly clear, either through the direction, acting, or title cards. A Corner in Wheat and The Unchanging Sea were on fairly realistic sets or set locations, and The Unchanging Sea managed to telescope twenty years into its running time, which, excepting maybe Joan of Arc and Ben Hur, is the first time we've seen that on screen, and certainly the most effectively. I can't really recommend any of them as great masterpieces, but they are all interesting and clearly told stories.
Next weekend, because of increasing film lengths, we will only be watching four films, all from 1911. The link, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Movies 1907 - 1908
Originally posted to Facebook on 2/2/2016
This week we watched films from 1907 and 1908. They were:
The Golden Beetle
The Red Spectre
The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon
Ben Hur
The Thieving Hand
The Electric Hotel
Troubles of a Grass Widower
The Adventures of Dollie
George Melies had only one film represented this week (The Eclipse), while Segundo de Chomón had three: The Golden Beetle, The Red Spectre, and The Electric Hotel. We also saw the first film by D.W. Griffith this week. We watched all of the films on Saturday, but took a break between the four from 1907 and the four from 1908. At initial glance the films chosen for 1907 seemed to be a bit of a regression from last week. The two Segundo de Chomon were very reminiscent of early Melies films: single sets, various camera tricks, and no particular narrative. The actual George Melies film (The Eclipse) was more typical of his later work, in that it had a narrative and multiple scenes, though still stagebound. The last and longest of the 1907 films was Ben Hur. This is not the famous silent version of Ben Hur from 1925, but an earlier version which lasts 15 minutes. It does seem like a certain fraction of early silent films relied upon the audience being familiar with the plot ahead of time, and this may have been one of those cases. I am only dimly aware of the plot of Ben Hur, so I found parts a little mystifying. The famous chariot race is present though, and had several four-horse teams galloping past the fixed-in-place camera.
When we came back and watched the 1908 films, we had somewhat better luck. Segundo de Chomón’s film from this year (The Electric Hotel) was more interesting than his 1907 films. It mixed stop motion and live action. I have no idea if this was unprecedented or not, but it was certainly the earliest film in which I’ve seen the effect. Both The Thieving Hand and Troubles of a Grass Widower were comedies, but with coherent narratives. The latter starred Max Linder, who apparently was an influence on Charlie Chaplin. The plot revolved around him having to live without his wife for a few days, and failing at common household chores. It didn’t strike me as particularly amusing, but Linder did have a certain charisma. The Thieving Hand was stranger and a little funnier. It involved a one-armed man buying a replacement arm with a mind of its own at a strange body-parts store.
The last film we saw was The Adventures of Dollie, which was the first film directed by D.W. Griffith. The plot involved the kidnapping of a girl, and her eventual return to her parents. It was not the most gripping of stories, but was clearly told, and didn’t rely upon any significant background knowledge.
Next week we finish up the first decade of the twentieth century, watching films from 1909 and 1910. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT. I’ve added films through the end of March, which takes us through 1913, and into the first real feature length films.
This week we watched films from 1907 and 1908. They were:
The Golden Beetle
The Red Spectre
The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon
Ben Hur
The Thieving Hand
The Electric Hotel
Troubles of a Grass Widower
The Adventures of Dollie
George Melies had only one film represented this week (The Eclipse), while Segundo de Chomón had three: The Golden Beetle, The Red Spectre, and The Electric Hotel. We also saw the first film by D.W. Griffith this week. We watched all of the films on Saturday, but took a break between the four from 1907 and the four from 1908. At initial glance the films chosen for 1907 seemed to be a bit of a regression from last week. The two Segundo de Chomon were very reminiscent of early Melies films: single sets, various camera tricks, and no particular narrative. The actual George Melies film (The Eclipse) was more typical of his later work, in that it had a narrative and multiple scenes, though still stagebound. The last and longest of the 1907 films was Ben Hur. This is not the famous silent version of Ben Hur from 1925, but an earlier version which lasts 15 minutes. It does seem like a certain fraction of early silent films relied upon the audience being familiar with the plot ahead of time, and this may have been one of those cases. I am only dimly aware of the plot of Ben Hur, so I found parts a little mystifying. The famous chariot race is present though, and had several four-horse teams galloping past the fixed-in-place camera.
When we came back and watched the 1908 films, we had somewhat better luck. Segundo de Chomón’s film from this year (The Electric Hotel) was more interesting than his 1907 films. It mixed stop motion and live action. I have no idea if this was unprecedented or not, but it was certainly the earliest film in which I’ve seen the effect. Both The Thieving Hand and Troubles of a Grass Widower were comedies, but with coherent narratives. The latter starred Max Linder, who apparently was an influence on Charlie Chaplin. The plot revolved around him having to live without his wife for a few days, and failing at common household chores. It didn’t strike me as particularly amusing, but Linder did have a certain charisma. The Thieving Hand was stranger and a little funnier. It involved a one-armed man buying a replacement arm with a mind of its own at a strange body-parts store.
The last film we saw was The Adventures of Dollie, which was the first film directed by D.W. Griffith. The plot involved the kidnapping of a girl, and her eventual return to her parents. It was not the most gripping of stories, but was clearly told, and didn’t rely upon any significant background knowledge.
Next week we finish up the first decade of the twentieth century, watching films from 1909 and 1910. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT. I’ve added films through the end of March, which takes us through 1913, and into the first real feature length films.
Sunday, May 27, 2018
Movies 1905 - 1906
Originally posted to Facebook on 1/25/2016
This week we we watched films from 1905 and 1906. The films were:
The Black Imp
The Kleptomaniac
The Nihilist
The Night Before Christmas
Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
Aladdin and His Wonder Lamp
The 400 Tricks of the Devil
The Story of the Kelly Gang
The length of the films continue to grow, and for that reason we split the viewing into two nights, watching the 1905 films on Friday, and the 1906 ones on Sunday. The films took a cumulative 84 minutes this week, compared to 75 minutes last week. We are well and truly on the Méliès downslope at this point. Only two films this week were his, while three were from Edwin Porter, at Edison. The main plot of both Méliès films (The Black Imp and The 400 Tricks of the Devil) involved supernatural forces tormenting people using the evil power of camera tricks. (This has been the plot of a lot of the Méliès films we've seen, and Alli even commented, "He uses the devil a lot.") The Black Imp was the only film this week less than five minutes, and the only film that had just a single set. The 400 Tricks of the Devil was, by contrast, quite long at 17 minutes, and involved many sets, and many things disappearing and re-appearing, and a weird flying skeletal horse, and a lot of other confusing craziness. As has happened a couple of times, there was a recently created audio narration on the DVD which might have explained more of what was going on had we not muted it.
Of the other films, Aladdin and His Wonder Lamp was quite Méliès-like, with lots of camera tricks and painted sets. It also appeared to have the first moving camera proper that we've seen, though it was just a shift from a set on the left to a set immediately adjacent to it, and then a shift back. It also had a coherent and recognizable plot, particularly to anyone who's seen the 1992 version of Aladdin several hundred times. Of the Edison films, the strangest was Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, which involved a fantastical drunken dream of the title character. Based on Wikipedia it was based on a bizarre contemporary comic strip which every week showed the disturbing dreams of someone who had eaten too much rarebit. (I believe I have only had rarebit once, and can report no memorable dreams as a result. But I suppose eating it only once does not qualify me as a fiend.)
The last film we watched was The Story of the Kelly Gang, an Australian film for which I could only find an Australian DVD, so we had to watch it downstairs on a region-free DVD player. It was 18 minutes long, but was apparently only a portion of one of the first truly feature length films, the majority of which has now been lost. The 18-minute version we saw seemed to tell a coherent enough story, though, so I'm not sure where the other forty minutes would have fit.
Next week we move on to 1907 and 1908. The link, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
This week we we watched films from 1905 and 1906. The films were:
The Black Imp
The Kleptomaniac
The Nihilist
The Night Before Christmas
Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
Aladdin and His Wonder Lamp
The 400 Tricks of the Devil
The Story of the Kelly Gang
The length of the films continue to grow, and for that reason we split the viewing into two nights, watching the 1905 films on Friday, and the 1906 ones on Sunday. The films took a cumulative 84 minutes this week, compared to 75 minutes last week. We are well and truly on the Méliès downslope at this point. Only two films this week were his, while three were from Edwin Porter, at Edison. The main plot of both Méliès films (The Black Imp and The 400 Tricks of the Devil) involved supernatural forces tormenting people using the evil power of camera tricks. (This has been the plot of a lot of the Méliès films we've seen, and Alli even commented, "He uses the devil a lot.") The Black Imp was the only film this week less than five minutes, and the only film that had just a single set. The 400 Tricks of the Devil was, by contrast, quite long at 17 minutes, and involved many sets, and many things disappearing and re-appearing, and a weird flying skeletal horse, and a lot of other confusing craziness. As has happened a couple of times, there was a recently created audio narration on the DVD which might have explained more of what was going on had we not muted it.
Of the other films, Aladdin and His Wonder Lamp was quite Méliès-like, with lots of camera tricks and painted sets. It also appeared to have the first moving camera proper that we've seen, though it was just a shift from a set on the left to a set immediately adjacent to it, and then a shift back. It also had a coherent and recognizable plot, particularly to anyone who's seen the 1992 version of Aladdin several hundred times. Of the Edison films, the strangest was Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, which involved a fantastical drunken dream of the title character. Based on Wikipedia it was based on a bizarre contemporary comic strip which every week showed the disturbing dreams of someone who had eaten too much rarebit. (I believe I have only had rarebit once, and can report no memorable dreams as a result. But I suppose eating it only once does not qualify me as a fiend.)
The last film we watched was The Story of the Kelly Gang, an Australian film for which I could only find an Australian DVD, so we had to watch it downstairs on a region-free DVD player. It was 18 minutes long, but was apparently only a portion of one of the first truly feature length films, the majority of which has now been lost. The 18-minute version we saw seemed to tell a coherent enough story, though, so I'm not sure where the other forty minutes would have fit.
Next week we move on to 1907 and 1908. The link, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Movies 1903 - 1904
Originally posted to Facebook on 1/16/2016
Friday night we watched films from 1903 and 1904.
Life of an American Fireman
The Great Train Robbery
Alice in Wonderland
Fairyland: A Kingdom of Fairies
An Interesting Story
The Mermaid
The Living Playing Cards
The Voyage Across the Impossible
I believe we have now reached peak Méliès, with five films last week, and four this week, but decreasing numbers in the weeks ahead. In a way this is too bad, because so far his films have been the most consistently entertaining and professional. But it also became clear that he had a certain stage-bound style, though of course the sets changed much more rapidly than on a stage, and he also deploys a certain repertoire of camera tricks. But, by contrast, the other four films we saw this week all have scenes shot outside, and in many cases scenes that are shot at an angle to the action. The Great Train Robbery even had shots from the top of a moving train. We also saw our first title cards in Alice in Wonderland, but they still do not appear to be very common. Most of the films this week, excepting only The Mermaid and The Living Playing Cards, had a connected multi-scene narrative, and the number of scenes per film is continuing to grow from previous weeks. Life of an American Fireman had an interesting pair of sequences, the first of which was a fireman rescuing a woman and a small child from the interior of a burning house, followed by a sequence showing the exact same set of actions from the outside -- including the fireman climbing up and down a ladder. (The firetrucks were all pulled by horses, by the way, which the kids found striking.) The Voyage Across the Impossible was a full twenty minutes, the longest film we've seen to date, and, looking ahead, the longest we'll see for several more weeks. It irritatingly had narration on the audio track, which we finally muted. (Ben was more irritated than me. "This is vandalism!" he said.) A Kingdom of Fairies was almost as long, at sixteen minutes. Overall, the total length of all eight films was 75 minutes this week, compared to 53 last week, and even less on previous weeks.
Next week we move on to 1905 and 1906. The link to our viewing plan is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Friday night we watched films from 1903 and 1904.
Life of an American Fireman
The Great Train Robbery
Alice in Wonderland
Fairyland: A Kingdom of Fairies
An Interesting Story
The Mermaid
The Living Playing Cards
The Voyage Across the Impossible
I believe we have now reached peak Méliès, with five films last week, and four this week, but decreasing numbers in the weeks ahead. In a way this is too bad, because so far his films have been the most consistently entertaining and professional. But it also became clear that he had a certain stage-bound style, though of course the sets changed much more rapidly than on a stage, and he also deploys a certain repertoire of camera tricks. But, by contrast, the other four films we saw this week all have scenes shot outside, and in many cases scenes that are shot at an angle to the action. The Great Train Robbery even had shots from the top of a moving train. We also saw our first title cards in Alice in Wonderland, but they still do not appear to be very common. Most of the films this week, excepting only The Mermaid and The Living Playing Cards, had a connected multi-scene narrative, and the number of scenes per film is continuing to grow from previous weeks. Life of an American Fireman had an interesting pair of sequences, the first of which was a fireman rescuing a woman and a small child from the interior of a burning house, followed by a sequence showing the exact same set of actions from the outside -- including the fireman climbing up and down a ladder. (The firetrucks were all pulled by horses, by the way, which the kids found striking.) The Voyage Across the Impossible was a full twenty minutes, the longest film we've seen to date, and, looking ahead, the longest we'll see for several more weeks. It irritatingly had narration on the audio track, which we finally muted. (Ben was more irritated than me. "This is vandalism!" he said.) A Kingdom of Fairies was almost as long, at sixteen minutes. Overall, the total length of all eight films was 75 minutes this week, compared to 53 last week, and even less on previous weeks.
Next week we move on to 1905 and 1906. The link to our viewing plan is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Movies 1901 - 1902
Originally posted to Facebook 1/9/2016
This week we moved into the twentieth century, covering four films each from 1901 and 1902. They were:
The Devil and the Statue
The Man with the Rubber Head
Bluebeard
History of a Crime
Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture Show
Gulliver's Travels
Jack and the Beanstalk
A Trip to the Moon
At this point we seem to be an an "all Méliès, all the time" mode, and will be for several more weeks. Five of the eight films were from Méliès this week. The new special effect since last week appears to be double exposures that show people at different sizes. This is used in The Devil and the Statue, The Man with the Rubber Head, and Gulliver's Travels. In the first two it actually shows people shrinking and growing. Five of the eight had multiple sets and what I would consider a connected storyline, as compared to only two of eight from last week. Ben said at one point during Bluebeard, "People must have been better at understanding movies in those days, because I have no idea what is going on right now." This was during a period when Bluebeard and someone at a royal court were angrily gesturing at one another. I have not seen a title card as yet -- I assume that will be coming soon -- but one thing I've noticed is that many of the films, particularly the longer ones, seem to rely upon stories that are already well known, which aids comprehension. Gulliver's Travels and Jack and the Beanstalk definitely draw upon common knowledge, and Ben and Alli were both familiar with the story of Bluebeard as well -- more so that I was -- and they were a little more braced for the macabre site of Bluebeard's new wife discovering the room where his old wives' surprisingly fresh looking corpses were hanging from the ceiling.
At fifteen minutes, A Trip to the Moon was a full five minutes longer than any other film we've seen to date. The particular print we saw had the 1902 hand-coloring restored throughout, but had a score that was distractingly modern. Also, it did not seem to be entirely committed to scientific accuracy, nor did there seem to be any embryonic concept of the Prime Directive brewing in 1902. But I can't really criticize a movie where old men fight moon creatures with umbrellas.
Next week we'll move on 1903 and 1904, including The Great Train Robbery, maybe the second most iconic film from this period. The link to the viewing plan is: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
This week we moved into the twentieth century, covering four films each from 1901 and 1902. They were:
The Devil and the Statue
The Man with the Rubber Head
Bluebeard
History of a Crime
Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture Show
Gulliver's Travels
Jack and the Beanstalk
A Trip to the Moon
At this point we seem to be an an "all Méliès, all the time" mode, and will be for several more weeks. Five of the eight films were from Méliès this week. The new special effect since last week appears to be double exposures that show people at different sizes. This is used in The Devil and the Statue, The Man with the Rubber Head, and Gulliver's Travels. In the first two it actually shows people shrinking and growing. Five of the eight had multiple sets and what I would consider a connected storyline, as compared to only two of eight from last week. Ben said at one point during Bluebeard, "People must have been better at understanding movies in those days, because I have no idea what is going on right now." This was during a period when Bluebeard and someone at a royal court were angrily gesturing at one another. I have not seen a title card as yet -- I assume that will be coming soon -- but one thing I've noticed is that many of the films, particularly the longer ones, seem to rely upon stories that are already well known, which aids comprehension. Gulliver's Travels and Jack and the Beanstalk definitely draw upon common knowledge, and Ben and Alli were both familiar with the story of Bluebeard as well -- more so that I was -- and they were a little more braced for the macabre site of Bluebeard's new wife discovering the room where his old wives' surprisingly fresh looking corpses were hanging from the ceiling.
At fifteen minutes, A Trip to the Moon was a full five minutes longer than any other film we've seen to date. The particular print we saw had the 1902 hand-coloring restored throughout, but had a score that was distractingly modern. Also, it did not seem to be entirely committed to scientific accuracy, nor did there seem to be any embryonic concept of the Prime Directive brewing in 1902. But I can't really criticize a movie where old men fight moon creatures with umbrellas.
Next week we'll move on 1903 and 1904, including The Great Train Robbery, maybe the second most iconic film from this period. The link to the viewing plan is: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Movies 1899 - 1900
Originally posted to Facebook on 1/2/2016
Yesterday Ben, Alli, and I watched our second week of chronological movies. This week we finished up the 19th century, watching eight movies from 1899 and 1900. They were:
A Kiss in the Tunnel
King John
The Devil in the Convent
Cinderella
Sherlock Holmes Baffled
Cyrano de Bergerac
The One-Man Band
Joan of Arc
The shortest was Sherlock Holmes Baffled, at less than a minute, and the longest was Joan of Arc, at more than ten minutes. It seemed like the kids' favorite was Cinderella. One of them said it was the closest thing to a real movie we'd seen, by which I think they meant it had a recognizable plot with a beginning, middle, and end. I think that was aided by the fact that they already knew the story, and so were able to follow what was happening fairly easily. Joan of Arc also had a recognizable plot, but I don't think they knew her story as well, and so it was a little harder for them to connect the dots. Another problem with Joan of Arc was that the DVD it was on had a recent audio track (that I couldn't figure out how to disable) which narrated the action, and commented on its production. Both of those two films (and A Kiss in the Tunnel as well) had multiple scenes, which I don't believe was true of any of the films from last week. Of course, each of the scenes in the Méliès films was still completely static, shot from the front as though it were a scene from a play. A Kiss in the Tunnel had a moving camera -- the only film we've seen so far for which that is true. However the camera was not moving with any directed intent -- it was just attached to the front of a train, and showed the train entering a tunnel in one scene and leaving the tunnel in another.
Of the other films, Cyrano de Bergerac was noteworthy because it was a film with full, synchronized sound, including actors talking to one another (albeit in French). This was the first film of this sort we've seen, and maybe the last until we reach the late 1920s. The sound had been recorded at the same time as the action, but since, as I understand it, they didn't have a reliable way to sync the sound to the projected film, they were unable to present the films commercially. Today, of course, we have the technology to re-align the sound and the film, which is why we can watch it the same way we watch sound films recorded decades later.
Next week we'll tackle 1901 and 1902, including maybe the most iconic film of this early period, A Trip to the Moon. I've updated the movie viewing plan to include films through 1911. The link is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Yesterday Ben, Alli, and I watched our second week of chronological movies. This week we finished up the 19th century, watching eight movies from 1899 and 1900. They were:
A Kiss in the Tunnel
King John
The Devil in the Convent
Cinderella
Sherlock Holmes Baffled
Cyrano de Bergerac
The One-Man Band
Joan of Arc
The shortest was Sherlock Holmes Baffled, at less than a minute, and the longest was Joan of Arc, at more than ten minutes. It seemed like the kids' favorite was Cinderella. One of them said it was the closest thing to a real movie we'd seen, by which I think they meant it had a recognizable plot with a beginning, middle, and end. I think that was aided by the fact that they already knew the story, and so were able to follow what was happening fairly easily. Joan of Arc also had a recognizable plot, but I don't think they knew her story as well, and so it was a little harder for them to connect the dots. Another problem with Joan of Arc was that the DVD it was on had a recent audio track (that I couldn't figure out how to disable) which narrated the action, and commented on its production. Both of those two films (and A Kiss in the Tunnel as well) had multiple scenes, which I don't believe was true of any of the films from last week. Of course, each of the scenes in the Méliès films was still completely static, shot from the front as though it were a scene from a play. A Kiss in the Tunnel had a moving camera -- the only film we've seen so far for which that is true. However the camera was not moving with any directed intent -- it was just attached to the front of a train, and showed the train entering a tunnel in one scene and leaving the tunnel in another.
Of the other films, Cyrano de Bergerac was noteworthy because it was a film with full, synchronized sound, including actors talking to one another (albeit in French). This was the first film of this sort we've seen, and maybe the last until we reach the late 1920s. The sound had been recorded at the same time as the action, but since, as I understand it, they didn't have a reliable way to sync the sound to the projected film, they were unable to present the films commercially. Today, of course, we have the technology to re-align the sound and the film, which is why we can watch it the same way we watch sound films recorded decades later.
Next week we'll tackle 1901 and 1902, including maybe the most iconic film of this early period, A Trip to the Moon. I've updated the movie viewing plan to include films through 1911. The link is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Movies 1893 - 1898
Originally posted to Facebook on 12/28/2015
I started the chronological movie watching a week early. We watched the following films:
1893 - Blacksmith Scene
1894 - Annabelle Butterfly Dance
1895 - The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots
1896 - The House of the Devil [La Manoir Du Diable]
1897 - The Haunted Castle [La Chateau Hante]
1898 - The Burglar on the Roof
1898 - Four Heads are Better Than One
1898 - The Temptation of St. Anthony
1898 - The Astronomer's Dream [La Lune a Un Metre]
All of them were approximately a minute or less excepting The House of the Devil and The Astronomer's Dream, which were about three minutes each. The kids seemed most entertained by The Astronomer's Dream, which was indeed kind of crazy, and featured a maniacal-looking moon which ate people and furniture. Of the Edison films, three had no special effects at all, while the The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots had a single substitution splice. The Méliès films of course are filled with substitution splices. Four Heads are Better Than One however also used some sort of double exposure trick to show a man repeatedly removing his head. Also interesting was The Haunted Castle, in which one of the character's cape was hand painted red throughout.
Next week we'll be watching four films from 1899 and four from 1900: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
I started the chronological movie watching a week early. We watched the following films:
1893 - Blacksmith Scene
1894 - Annabelle Butterfly Dance
1895 - The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots
1896 - The House of the Devil [La Manoir Du Diable]
1897 - The Haunted Castle [La Chateau Hante]
1898 - The Burglar on the Roof
1898 - Four Heads are Better Than One
1898 - The Temptation of St. Anthony
1898 - The Astronomer's Dream [La Lune a Un Metre]
All of them were approximately a minute or less excepting The House of the Devil and The Astronomer's Dream, which were about three minutes each. The kids seemed most entertained by The Astronomer's Dream, which was indeed kind of crazy, and featured a maniacal-looking moon which ate people and furniture. Of the Edison films, three had no special effects at all, while the The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots had a single substitution splice. The Méliès films of course are filled with substitution splices. Four Heads are Better Than One however also used some sort of double exposure trick to show a man repeatedly removing his head. Also interesting was The Haunted Castle, in which one of the character's cape was hand painted red throughout.
Next week we'll be watching four films from 1899 and four from 1900: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Chronological Viewing
Originally posted to Facebook on 12/9/2015
So, my quixotic and eminently mockable plan starting in the new year is to start methodically watching, with the kids, movies from their invention up through the current era. Since Ben and Alli are 11 and 8, I'm going to lean toward movies that are fun, and in English, and that don't induce nightmares or existential despair. I'm also going to try to pick a mix of films I've seen before (and am willing to watch again) and films I haven't seen. Here is the list so far, for January: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
So, my quixotic and eminently mockable plan starting in the new year is to start methodically watching, with the kids, movies from their invention up through the current era. Since Ben and Alli are 11 and 8, I'm going to lean toward movies that are fun, and in English, and that don't induce nightmares or existential despair. I'm also going to try to pick a mix of films I've seen before (and am willing to watch again) and films I haven't seen. Here is the list so far, for January: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
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