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 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