History of Film, Part 1: 1888-1919

A variation on the yearly threads we did a few years ago, with these monthly threads we will talk about individual eras of film, from the obvious classics to the forgotten masterpieces to those giants that might need to be re-evaluated.

In June we start with the beginning. The Roundhay Garden Scene, from 1888, is believed to be the oldest film, but the technology would evolve rapidly from there. Everyone has heard about audiences thinking that a train was actually going to run them over during The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station, which goes to show just how unprepared these people were from an emerging artform. It had the potential to combine music, plays, and the new language of cinema to create an immersive experience that simply took over the world.

We combined all of these years together because this is really the embryo of the cinema that would start to emerge in the 1920's and beyond. With that said, though, there are still many things worth seeing. D.W. Griffith is a titan of the 1910's, with The Birth of a Nation being considered one of the first "real" films. Other films of his include Intolerance, which sought to undo some of the damage he did with the racism in his most-known work, and Broken Blossoms, which explored interracial romance in a way few films would dare for decades. Georges Melies was truly experimenting with what can be done inside of the camera beyond just filming actors, and his A Trip to the Moon is still iconic and referenced today.

What are your thoughts? Favorites? Recommendations? Challenges to the canon?

 

We should mention Gertie the Dinosaur which wasn’t the first animated movie but pioneered a lot of early techniques.

 

Haven't seen much from this period! I watched a bunch of Melies shorts a little while ago, and I like how they basically work as magic tricks, little bits of misdirection while you expect something to happen, and then Melies has fun with camera tricks, and using film to do something that'd be impossible without it. I think The Man With the Rubber Head was my favourite of those little films.

The "documentary" films from this period are always interesting by virtue of just being so old, and capturing such normal bits of life. The Lumiere Brothers stuff is always nice to see, but I really like the British equivalent, Mitchell and Kenyon who filmed street scenes in the North West of England at the turn of the century, including football matches. There's a scene of factory workers in Accrington, which (in theory) my great-grandad might be in, as he worked in the factory they were filming, but we haven't spotted him.

I've barely seen any narrative cinema from this period. I'm sure Birth of a Nation is as innovative and racist as its reputation, but I haven't been interested in that, nor Intolerance, in part because of how long they are. I have seen Broken Blossoms a long while ago, and while it might have it's heart in the right place with a depiction of interracial relationships, it still does it with a white guy dressed up in Asian makeup playing the role, not an Asian actor. Lilian Gish does have a great face for silent cinema though.

There's some early silent comedy from this period that I'd quite like to find time for, films of Chaplin, Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Fatty Arbuckle. I've never seen any Fatty Arbuckle films, so maybe that's a starting point.

 

1900's

1. The Kingdom of the Fairies (Georges Méliès, 1903)
2. A Trip to the Moon (Georges Méliès, 1902)
3. The Impossible Voyage (Georges Méliès, 1904
4. The Country Doctor (D.W. Griffith, 1909)
5. A Corner in Wheat (D.W. Griffith, 1909)
6. The Dancing Pig (Millard Mercury, 1907)
7. The Merry Frolics of Satan (Georges Méliès, 1906)
8. The Infernal Cauldron (Georges Méliès, 1903)
9. The House of Ghosts (Segundo de Chomón, 1907)
10. The Consequences of Feminism (Alice Guy-Blaché, 1906)

I think Georges Méliès was obviously the most interesting filmmaker from this period with some wonderfully creative set design and early use of colour. They still feel impressive and exciting today.




1910's

1. Intolerance (D.W. Griffith, 1916)
2. J’accuse (Abel Gance, 1919)
3. Behind the Door (Irvin Willat, 1919)
4. The Doll (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919)
5. The Outlaw and His Wife (Victor Sjöström, 1918)
6. Ingeborg Holm (Victor Sjöström, 1913)
7. The Oyster Princess (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919)
8. Broken Blossoms (D.W. Griffith, 1919)
9. Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914)
10. Twilight of a Woman’s Soul (Yevgeni Bauer, 1913)
11. The Cameraman's Revenge (Władysław Starewicz, 1912)
12. A Dog’s Life (Charlie Chaplin, 1918)
13. The Dying Swan (Yevgeni Bauer, 1917)
14. A Man There Was (Victor Sjöström, 1917)
15. The Immigrant (Charlie Chaplin, 1917)
16. True Heart Susie (D.W. Griffith, 1919)
17. The Avenging Conscience (D.W. Griffith, 1914)
18. Suspense. (Phillips Smalley, Lois Weber, 1913)
19. The Unchanging Sea (D.W. Griffith, 1910)
20. The Adventurer (Charlie Chaplin, 1917)

A lot of worthwhile stuff in this decade, I think film as we know it was really defined here.

 

Very influential, one of the longest films ever made and inspired Olivier Assayes' Irma Vep.

 

Grimace has accused me not watching enough movies this year so I'm going to try and do 1 a week from these threads

Going to start with J'accuse as I've already seen a few DWGs

 

You can do a ton of these bc they’re like 2 mins long

 

I have not seen many from this period, but I like:
The Haunted Castle (1897 and 1903)
Execution of a Spy
Explosion of a Motor Car
A Trip to the Moon
The Infernal Cauldron
The Bewitched House

 

Yes im going to smash those, im aiming for one full length a week

 

Going to get to work on some of those early silent short films while I put my son to bed.

 

Excited for The Consequences of Feminism

 

I'm finishing my popular films project this week so I will be trying to fill in some blanks here.

 

The Dancing Pig fuckin rocks

 

The top five most popular films from the 1910's, according to Letterboxd:

1. The Birth of a Nation
2. Intolerance
3. Dante's Inferno
4. The Vampires or, the Arch Criminals of Paris
5. Broken Blossoms

The runtimes are fascinating. Two of the films are less than 90 minutes, but the other three are all over 3 hours, with Vampires being seven hours. It really goes to show how appreciation for the artform has changed; people were willing to engage with three-plus hour narratives on a regular basis. Granted, there was not much else to do at the time, but getting people to do a 2 hour film now can be work.

 

The way people try to talk about The Birth of a Nation is fascinating. They spend so much time talking about the racism to the point where it feels like they want to make sure no one thinks they are agreeing with the film. No one is watching The Birth of a Nation because they agree with the Ku Klux Klan (people that might agree with them don't have the attention span to watch it). The ethics of consuming media that is problematic or made by problematic people is a bigger discussion than ever, but the grandchildren of everyone involved in this movie are probably dead so we should be able to silently understand that it exists as an academic piece, not something people are piling up in front of the TV to enjoy.

 

I am doing summer school 7 hours a day in a quiet room with kids on a computer and I forgot my phone today so silent cinema fits perfectly in my daily schedule. Maybe I will chip away at the Vampire one.

 

Les Vampires is episodic as opposed to a genuine 7 hour film, so it’s closer to a TV series than like Satantango or something.

 

Considering no television back then, how was it aired? Over multiple days?

 

reading the wikipedia page it sounds like they were released in theaters over the course of 7 months

 

It was a serial film, they were pretty popular around this period, Fantomas was another famous ish serial film from the same director.

They’re made episodic, not something that was envisioned to be watched in a 7 hour sitting.

 

One of the very early "films", which is literal photographs being sequenced together, is called The Kiss, which features two naked women walking up to each other and kissing. It says so much about the male gaze and who dominated and still dominates the medium that that is what people felt the need to document.

We talk all the time about how studios are desperate for sequels and remakes, pulling from board games and Internet memes and long-dead properties, but it would be funny if a big studio decided to do a 300 million dollar remake of The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat. It has brand recognition, it is in the public domain, and the sequel possibilities are endless.

 

J’accuse (1919, Abel Gance)
War is bad and pacifism doesn't work. Over 100 years later and we are still all guilty, and left with the sinking feeling that we are never going to change. On the positive side at least that means if our species survives another 100 years we will still be living interesting lives and creating great art about it. By the midpoint J’accuse has you fooled, its looking like trench war is a good old time, the heros get a chance to prove themselves and the freaks have to go off and make friends and not harass their wifes. No, the women get raped, the freak friends die and the heros go crazy. Sitting at home watching? Living in comfort while children get bombed, strange you haven't been having nightmares about it. No dialogue the surreal ending is some cinematic magic. A great start to the history thread. Next up Birth of a Nation