Summary 1893-1909

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)

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