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 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