Before the Nickelodeon - The Early Cinema of Edwin S. Porter

 



Title: Before the Nickelodeon - The Early Cinema of Edwin Porter
Directed by: Charles Musser
Narrated by: Blanche Sweet
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083633/
My Rating: (5/10) ★★★★★✩✩✩✩✩

What I knew about Edwin Porter before watching this documentary: He was an incredibly prolific director--one of the first--who worked for Edison's company. He had a knack for film editing and helped to establish the narrative structure we are familiar with today through innovations in parallel editing. I also knew that, like Melies, he grew terribly out of fashion way before he was ready to put down the camera, and thereby lost not only his fortune but also his street cred.

As I'm kind of hovering at about 1906 in this film adventure of mine, I decided to pick up this documentary to sort of get a feel for Edwin Porter the gentleman. The innovator. 1906 was around about the time that people were starting to develop incredible technique, and Edwin Porter started to get left behind simply by over-utilizing the very tricks he created. People were tired of them and wanted more. This documentary includes an incredibly sad review of one of his later films Rescued From An Eagle's Nest where the New York Post (I believe) literally tears him to shreds.

Aside from this one moment, this doc does not really delve too deeply into Porter's life. But what this documentary lacks in detail, it tries to makes up for in the quality of print restoration for some of his more obscure films...particularly Rescued From An Eagle's Nest & Jack and the Beanstalk (which before it begins includes a set of sketches that, if they're indeed Porter's, are as INCREDIBLE a look into his process as Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth sketches).

1903 - Alice in Wonderland

Title: Alice in Wonderland
Release Date: 17 October 1903
Director: Cecil Hepworth
Cast: May Clark, Mrs. Hepworth, Norman Whitten
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000420/fullcredits#cast
My Rating: (7/10) ★★★★★★★✩✩✩

This was such a treat to watch. With only 8 minutes of surviving footage left, this marks the first time Lewis Carroll's classic tale was put on film. You see magnificent costuming, special advancements in film cutting, and the occasional feat of trick photography to fully encapsulate the viewer in the strange tale of Alice, the girl who falls down the rabbit hole. Only here, the deck of cards are a group of school children and it's the cutest thing to see Alice chased by them.

 Other 1903 Films I've Watched:


Directed by Paul Elfert 
Henrettelsen (Capital Execution)

Directed by Thomas Edison
Electrocuting an Elephant
Immigrants Landing at Ellis Island 
Move On

Directed by Edwin S. Porter 
The Great Train Robbery
A Romance of the Rail
Life of an American Fireman
Street Car Chivalry
The Gay Shoe Clerk
The Messenger Boy's Mistake
The Unappreciated Joke
What Happened in the Tunnel

Directed by Georges Melies 
Fairyland: A Kingdom of Fairies
The Infernal Cauldron
The Magic Lantern
The Melomaniac

1932 - Hot Saturday

Jumping ahead to 1932 because I needed a little Cary Grant in my life!!

Title: Hot Saturday
Release Date: 28 October 1932
Director: William A. Seiter
Cast: Cary Grant, Nancy Carroll, Randolph Scott, Edward Woods, Lillian Bond, William Collier Sr., Jane Darwell, Grady Sutton, Rose Coghlan
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023028/
My Rating:  (6/10) ★★★★★★✩✩✩✩

Loving Cary Grant the way I do, it's always a pleasure to discover a forgotten, pre-code movie where Grant does what made him famous. Here, a young and pre-tan Cary Grant plays Romer Sheffield--a name that by no coincidence evokes a certain, young star crossed lover. But Grant made a career out of never being star crossed--certainly not! No, Cary Grant always gets the girl. Even if the girl happens to be the kind of girl everyone gossips about behind her back--a loose, immoral girl they say. But Ruth, played by the porcelain faced Nancy Carroll (whose career it seems was on the downward spiral forcing her to take second billing to newcomer Grant), is not really that kind of girl. She's just misunderstood. So what if she wakes up nude in the arms of her childhood friend turned fiance! In this small town, the gossip mill works overtime and when people spot her being driven home late at night by Romer's driver they begin talking. Naturally, within a couple of days Ruth's engagement to the simple and affable Bill Fadden (Randolph Scott) lies in ruins at her feet. Oh the lives Cary Grant has so dapperly and flirtatiously destroyed! How I wish he'd destroy mine. But I guess that's gross considering.

This film is light and mostly forgettable if not for Cary Grant. As far as I can gather, this is the film where Cary Grant met his long term partner and "roommate" Randolph Scott. That is a great reason to add it to your collection if nothing else! Also there's a hysterical and godawful tagline: ...when her cheating found her out she sought to make marriage cover her sins!

Finally, there's also a lounge performance of a great song "Burning for You" by a singer who i'd LOVE to know. I can't find her name anywhere, and apparently the song even went unpublished. I've captured it on video and will post a youtube clip at some point.

1902 - A Trip to the Moon

Title: A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la lune)

Release Date: 4 October 1902

Director: Georges Melies

Cast: Victor Andre, Bleuette Bernon, Brunnet, Jeanne d'Alcy, Henri Delannoy, Depierre, Farjaut, Kelm, Georges Melies

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000417/
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGZilAMKtgA

My Rating: (10/10) ★★★★★★★★★★

Georges Melies is often considered the first truly gifted director of film, and his body of work boasts over 500 films in twelve short years. One could publish a noteworthy blog just by dissecting his surviving work alone, so I'll be quick: I think I'm in love with Georges Melies. 

It isn't just that his films were revolutionary, which they were. It isn't that he was a visionary and is largely responsible for helping film find its legs and then ultimately learn how to walk. None of that is why I declare him my artistic soul mate of Fin de Siecle France. I say KIN because he was highly revered in his youth and then widely forgotten in his old age. A magician and performer in the theatre before film came about, he was clearly inspired by the vastness of what film could be and began to create films with a keen eye for both production and storytelling. He wrote, designed, directed, acted and shot the films himself, all the while having several other films ready or in the works. His output was steady and his aesthetic was fantastically ghoulish, though he managed to somehow fuse it with a sense of whimsy and delight.  Just watching his films, you see the artisan he was and the methodical magician's mind behind the trick photographer. Watch a Melies film and you'll see a person clearly enchanted by a new form of expression and soaring limitless because of it.

This went on for years before Melies slowly started to go out of fashion. As film changed, it left this mustachioed magician behind. His giant, fantastic sets. His detailed and, when taken out of context, profoundly silly props. As film moved toward realism in the mid teens, Melies's career suffered. No one wanted their films gigantic with out of this world sillyness. They wanted them gigantic with real world scenery. The fiction and theatrics were left to the stage, a greater sense of realism was adopted, and Melies was edged out.

Before any of that though, he directed a fantastic piece called La Voyage dans la Lune. Depending on which speed you watch this film at, it clocks in anywhere between eight and fourteen minutes. In that short time you'll see Melies's cast of characters build a rocket ship, leave earth, land on the moon (in not one but TWO vastly different sequences played consecutively), battle moon creatures, fall from the heavens, land at the bottom of the ocean, and possibly get rescued at the end of it all (I won't spoil it). The scope of the design, when watched beside other films of the day, is massively impressive and the commitment to the fantasy on the part of everyone is laudable. A standout from the Melies catalog.

Other films by George Melies I have seen up through 1902

1896 - La Manoir du Diable (dir Georges Melies)
1896 - Une Nuit Terrible (dir Georges Melies)
1898 - La Lune a un Metre (dir Georges Melies)
1898 - Tentation de Saint-Antoine (dir Georges Melies)
1898 - Un Home de Tetes (dir Georges Melies)
1899 - Cendrillon (dir Georges Melies)
1899 - Illusioniste fin de siecle (dir Georges Melies)
1899 - Jeanne Darc (dir Georges Melies)
1900 - L'homme Orchestre (dir Georges Melies)

1895 - L'Arroseur Arrose

If I could go back in time, one of the first places I'd stop by is Paris in December 1895 at the Salon Indien du Grand Cafe. I would go to the first public screening of August & Louis Lumiere's first ten films made with their wonderful new Cinematograph (this must be counted as the first film festival!). Of the ten films they screened, my favorite & I think the most noteworthy is L'Arroseur Arrose. It's the classic tale, which actually came from a comic strip, of a gardener tending to his crops. Behind him, a young boy sneaks up and steps on his water hose cutting off the flow of water. The gardener cannot figure out what is amiss and stares deep into the garden hose. That is when the boy delightfully chooses to let his foot off the hose and WHOOMP! Splash face!



Noteworthy not only because this is the first comedy film, but most agree this is also the first fiction film of all time! All of this of course is Fantastique! but let us not overlook the fact that with L'Arroseur Arrose, Louis Lumiere also undoubtedly created the world's first spanking fetish film! Bears and leather daddies everywhere, please take a pause for reflection.

The other films screened at the first public showing all directed by Louis Lumiere.

1895 - La Sortie de l'Usine Lumiere a Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory)
1895 - La Voltige (Horse Trick Riders)
1895 - La Peche aux Poissons Rouges (Fishing for Goldfish)
1895 - Le Debarquement du Congres de Photographie a Lyon (The Photographical Congress Arrives in London)
1895 - Les Forgerons (The Blacksmiths)
1895 - Repas de Bebe (Baby's Breakfast)
1895 - La Saut a la Couverture (Jumping onto a Blanket)
1895 - Place des Cordeliers a Lyon (Cordeliers Square in Lyon)
1895 - La Mer (The Sea)
1895 - L'Arrivee d'un Train en Gare de la Ciotat (The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station)

Edison

Lets talk Edison! This is a tricky post to craft considering cinema sprouted from France, America, & Germany simultaneously (and Russia and Italy and so on), but is commonly attributed by the casual consumer only to T-Ed. Edison though, highly paranoid no doubt (later in life he typically did not invent the machines he patented) and possibly affected by reading his own press, was fiercely protective of his copyrights and spent his time and considerable fame and fortune edging other production companies out of business. But History, that harsh and honking Uhaul Truck of time,  has shined its glaring headlights on the matter. Hopefully today, we the people of America can agree that possibly, just maybe, somehow we may not be the only ones responsible for moving pictures.

With that being said, I do recommend watchng as many of these Kinetoscope and early Vitascope pictures as possible. They are an incredible way of going back in time without leaving your laptop. A large quantity of them are "actualities" which is a fancy old guy word for documentary. But that's what is so fascinating! You can watch a Sioux Indian tribe do a Ghost Dance (which, recorded in 1894, marks the first time the Native American was captured in cinema) or you can watch the first screen kiss EVER--highly scandalous though be prepared--in May Irwin Kiss. Largely free of narrative constraint, most of these gems clock in around 30-60 seconds. All of these are free to watch and download. I have watched most of them but ya'll there's a lot.

A complete alphabetical list of surviving Edison films.

Introductions

 I thought I'd introduce myself in a bit more detail, so here I am! This photo was taken on my fourth birthday. In case you didn't notice the AMAZING train cake behind me, please take a moment to stare in awe. This was a cake in four parts, each train car connected with sugar icing. I said it on facebook and I'm going to say it here...This was a pivotal point in my life to get this cake. I mean as an artist. To understand that this one cake could come in four parts later helped me appreciate the poetic quality of a well crafted series of vignettes. I think eating that cake is my earliest memory. Which may be why I loved the movie Shorts.

Name: Efrain

Occupation: Director

Location: West Hollywood, CA

Favorite Movie: The Seventh Continent

Favorite Directors: Mike Figgis, Pedro Almodovar, Michael Haneke, Luis Bunuel, Volker Schlondorff

Favorite Actor: Cary Grant & Vincent D'Onofrio

Favorite Actress: Elisabeth Shue & Julianne Moore

Zero Point: A Definition of Terms

Hello!

My name is Efrain Schunior. Today is my birthday and I have decided to take a tour through cinematic history by watching every movie ever made! In Chronological Order! I officially started earlier this month so I have a bit of catching up to do here. But first lets start with a definition of terms shall we...

Every Movie Ever Made:
NOT every movie ever made. Obviously that would be impossible (thus, the all too clever blog title--also a reference to one of my favorite films by legendary director and soul mate Georges Melies). Not to mention that in the first few years of cinema there was an astounding amount of film produced, I'm talking thousands! So to be clear, how should I define the term Every Movie Ever Made? Well, If I can get my hands on it and it sheds new light on a genre, artist, or era I will watch it. Simple as that. That gives me a lot of leeway and freedom I realize, which will help us go through history in a smooth & efficient manner. But I will watch as much as I can; from the biggest influential blockbusters to the smallest forgotten art house film. I will try not to discriminate.

In Chronological Order:
NOT in chronological order necessarily, but in rough chronological order! as much as I can manage. I will do my best but sometimes it may be better to pair two films from different eras or I'm sure I'll discover a film that I want to watch from a decade I've moved on from. Or I may actually go to a movie that is currently showing in theaters, and it may find its way onto this blog. Though I prefer loose definitions, I'm a linear sort of person and my Virgo mind craves chronology. So yes this blog is based on a lie, but hey that's marketing!

Guidelines:
1. For the sake of my life and not wanting to drown in the impossibility of the task at hand, I will spend no more than 2 weeks immersed in any given year. Unless of course it's a really great year!
2. I will not blog about everything. I will most definitely keep a comprehensive list of everything that I see while I am on this journey, but I'll save the blogs for the films that make the greatest impressions on me.
3. I will not watch The Next Best Thing based on principal.

So there it is! This is my balloon trip to the sun.
Will I survive? Will I give up before I reach the talkies? Will I finally watch The Sound of Music? Will I sleep through some of cinema's greatest achievements? Only time will tell...