Homage to Eadweard Maybridge -- 1880's (1994 documentary)

This was a collection of sequential picture films, each lasting only 30 seconds or so each. As a predecessor to the actual film camera's product, they provide an interesting glance into what led to what we are now familiar, but of course, since it was all experimental, provide no story or anything.

One point of interest, though, is what he chose to film for a subject. As the oldest of films, this kinda points to the dirty mind of man...every one of these short subjects were naked women. Yup. Completely disrobed.

As I watched the "Woman throws a baseball" one, I couldn't help but think that if that were how the sport were played, it would have a much bigger fan base...

I'd say we've come a long way quality wise in the way of 35mm prints and HD video, but when you realize your first genre is porn, you gotta wonder where they were planned on taking the art form.

This is on "The Movies Begin Vol. 1".

Edison Shorts -- 1894-1897

This was included in a collection of other old films from this era. The Edison Shorts include the following:

The Kiss - 1896
Serpentine Dances - 1895
Sandow (Strong Man) - 1894
Glenroy Brothers (Comic Boxing) - 1894
Cock Fight - 1896
The Barber Shop - 1894
Feeding the Doves - 1896
Seminary Girls - 1897

These basically show exactly as the title suggests, and they all were very short (most a minute or less). All of them were a single shot with the camera probably mounted on a tripod. There was no zoom, pan or anything else beyond what the camera saw from its perch.

These kind of look like someone's home videos or what a photographer might shoot with his still camera, except that the pictures are moving. It kind of indicates that the original idea was to use it as a traditional camera, but to give the end user a feeling of life in his pictures instead of trying to capture life in a still. The advent of storytelling in this medium was a few years off still. 

The final one in the list (Seminary Girls), like Eadweard's sequential pictures, point to the seedier side of the art form with a bunch of girls in their nightgowns engaging in a pillow fight. It appears Edison had a bit fo a dirty old man streak as well, and one might wonder what he has in his "private" collection.

This is on "The Movies Begin Vol. 1".

Lumiere Films - 1895-1896

Swimming in the Sea 
Children Digging for Clams
Loading a Boiler
Dragoons Crossing the Saone 
Promenade of Ostriches 
Childish Quarrel 
Lion, London Zoological Gardens
Photograph
Transformation by Hats
Carmaux:Drawing out The Coke
Poultry Yard
Arab Cortege, Geneva
New York: Brooklyn Bridge
New York: Broadway and Union Sq
Policemen's Parade, Chicago

Another collection of older, very short films yielded pretty much as the title clearly states in all cases. The camera appears to have been positioned on a tripod to watch what is going on and it all plays out very much like a still photographer's photo gallery, but with the pictures moving. Two of them, however, deserve some special distinction.

Photograph - this one appears to be more staged than filming actual events. A photographer poses another man for a picture, and the man has trouble posing, then they knock the camera over, breaking it apparently. It's very comic and slapstick-ish.

Transformation by Hats - this one has a man who changes his appearance (including his face) by changing hats with some built on masks. He does an effective job and it took a moment to realize exactly what was going on. It was an effective demonstration of how some minor work that would later be attributed to makeup would appear on screen.

It was a fascinating collection to view. This is on "The Movies Begin Vol. 1"

Actualities - 1897-1910

On "The Movies Begin Vol. 1".

President McKinley at Home - 1897
Packtrain on Chilkoot Pass - 1898
Skyscrapers of New York City - 1903
TheGeorgetown Loop - 1903
San Francisco: Aftermath of Earthquake - 1906
The Dog and his Various Merits - 1908
Moscow Clad in Snow - 1908
Airplane Flight and Crash - 1910

While I'm not sure why they are titled Actualities beyond the simple fact that they actually exist, this was the title given to these on the DVD containing them. They were put together as a single series of short films, though these are longer than the typical ones.

 

The first two with McKinley and the Packtrain are more like the older shorts just showing a slice of life from a stable camera, though I'll admit it interesting to see McKinley on film.

The rest get a little more interesting as the filmmakers apparently experiment more and more with their art to get some real motion and storytelling going on.

Skyscrapers has the camera on a boat traveling down a river, so the whole thing consists of what looks like a long tracking shot of the city as seen from the river. Easy concept: put the camera on something; it moves.

Georgetown is basically the same concept except now we have the camera on a train. However, this one introduces something else. As the train is cruising through the landscape, the view pans slightly around the curves. I thought it was just viewing out the side of the train, but the camera was actually panning around as sometimes we got views of the train's passengers waiving and other times was a view of the landscape.

San Francisco gives us an early distaster movie/news shots. This one was far more complex than the earlier ones as we have multiple shots of the aftermath including people milling around and lots of destruction. The camera pans around in several shots as well giving us a better panorama of what San Francisco looked like at the time of the quake.

Although the subject matter of the Dog and its Merits is kind of silly, it plays out more like a documentary with multiple shots of the various dogs and their jobs, and this one throws in intertitles (cards between shots that describe what is happening or coming up) that describe the upcoming dog we're about to see. It's an amusing watch.

Moscow Clad in Snow takes us one step further than the Dogs with more intertitles and even more shots of Moscow's various views. This one is a much grander style though and paints Moscow in a very touristy light to include a grand panoramic shot of the city from a high rooftop. It gives a very simple view of what happens in the snow in Moscow, and that is: life goes on. We have horse drawn sleds in two laned city streets. A marketplace where people notice the camera and stare and smile at it. Even got a group of people "walking" on skis. Kind of neat.

The final one doesn't match the quality of the last two. Someone gets his primitive plane out of his garage. The camera misses the takeoff as it basially disappears in the distance of the field, and we miss the crash as well. We get some aftermath shots, but on the whole, it's a disappointing ending to a progressively more interesting collection.

A Trip to the Moon -- 1902

If you've seen a space documentary, you've probably seen a clip from this film. This is the one where a group of astronomers get in an oversized bullet and is shot to the moon (which has a face) and lands in the moon's eye. Once there, they run across the natives (who explode when hit), manage to piss them off, and run home by way of pushing the bullet to a ledge and one guy pulling the bullet off the ledge and back to earth.

The whole thing was very whimsically done, and it is considered the first sci-fi movie. The special effects were very clever and creative, and definitely a step up from what was seen to that point since those things did not exist in the real world. It also played out the action in sets made for the presentation.

The story was rather corny and hard to accept, but we also have a better understanding today of what's out there. However, the effects here are cutting edge for the time, and really showed what a clever guy with a camera could get away with.

To add to this, at the time, movies were silent since they hadn't figured out how to incorpate sound yet. This film had a narrative intended to be read at the film's showing, so we had a voiceover going through the whole thing. Rather clever way of getting around that sound problem in my opinion.

Blue Movies - 1908

On "The Movies Begin Vol 1".

Fire in a Burlesque Theatre - 1908
Airy Fairie Lillian Tries on her New Corsets - 1908
From Show Girl to Burlesque Queen - 1908
Troubles of a Manager of a Burlesque Show - 1908

Okay, these were apparently risque for the time period, but they would not even find their way into todays' "blue rooms." What I can gather for their placement is that they involve Burlesque theatres or actresses or show (gasp!) undergarments.

These expand very little on the previous concepts and don't really push the envelope of what was created. It's interesting to see a different genre from the early days, but they're all a static camera watching the goings-on in a single shot. The final one about a manager's troubles is the most interesting having some sort of plot. The rest is underwear.

Maybe Alfred Hitchcock was into these movies. He was fond of shooting women in their underwear...

The Great Train Robbery -- 1903

Now here we go. We're finally getting into some good stuff. This one is often called the first Western, but it has a lot of great action elements in it as well. It also has (drum roll...) color! Yup, for little parts, we get some color tinting where someone goes onto the print or something and actually colors in parts of the picture to add a little bit of flair to it.

This one involves a group of robbers who hop a train, rob its passengers, steal the engine, run into the woods, and are finally caught up to by a posse who takes them down. Got a fistfight, several people are shot, one is punched out and thrown from a moving train, and finally, a big shootout. Lots of excitement and a big leap from the simplicity seen so far. And they do it all completely without dialogue or intertitles.

The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog -- 1905

This was kind of silly. Obviously it's a play on words as the father is named U.B. Dam and one of the kids is I.B. Dam. We go through the whole Dam family and I hope for a story to follow, but once we get through the family, it's over. I'm thinking: "What's the point of that?"

After some research, I may have to find this one again, though. Apparently, there was supposed to be a short bit with this Dam family after the intro, and I didn't see that.

The Golden Beetle -- 1907

I'm really not sure what was going on here, but I suspect the point of this short was not a clever narrative. I caught a guy doing some sort of ritual and this winged character appeared. From there, it went into this trippy sort of thing until the guy was thrown into a fire.

The high point of this one was exceptional color tinting and special effects. Got a character who fades in, some spinning, flashy color wheels, and the beetle character who floats here and there.

It was mostly a spectacle to watch, but considering it's 1907 and they're pulling effects like that, it was impressive.