Pre 1920s List Discussion/Suggestions (List Project Vol. 3)

[domino harvey]

I would think you'd need to vote for individual works unless a group of the shorts were ever released in such a fashion as its own cohesive theatrical program?

[HerrSchreck]

However this zeroes down to a very serious problem: how do you exactly rate a 30 second film? .

The same way you would rate a sprawling epic like Intolerance against a short like The Passerby-- by the way it registers in your soul and impacts you, impresses you, causes you to leap and fizz or whatever it is you do when you find you like a film. If someone's favorite is a butterfly dance or a couple of men hammering an anvil for a few seconds, Lubitsch, or the kiss, or the train pulling into the station, you've got to accept that. You can't tell somebody that their favorite isn't their favorite. If someone likes a 60 second Diego Rivera sketch better than the Sistine Ceiling, well, that's that. Same here, if fairness and a state approaching equanimity vs the results are to prevail.

[domino harvey]

At first I read Lubitsch's post the same way as Schreck, as though he were asking if he as tabulator should count the votes for shorts. But after a second read I think (and really, hope) Lubitsch was instead asking for guidance on a personal level as to how he as an individual voter should consider them. Because I think I speak for everyone when I say anyone who proposed not counting the Edison shorts et al wouldn't be the list's tabulator for long...

[zedz]

I don't have any problem ranking short actualities along features. It's the same problem as ranking abstract films or music videos alongside features in the 80s or 90s, and, as Shreck says, you just have to go by your gut, even if you can't rationalise your feelings.

For example, I have an irrational adoration for Paul's trick film A Quarter Day, and it will rank high above any of Melies similar films in my list, even though the best explanation I can offer is that its pacing and relentless invention give it an almighty energy. And Bitzer's phantom subway ride might just end up topping my list. I can make (and have made) elaborate justifications of that film's specific sublimity, but I don't expect them to convince anybody else.

Anyway, these exercises are all about comparing apples and oranges, and making a big bucket of fruit salad with the occasional dead rat or bicycle wheel in it.

[Tommaso]

Echoing that sentiment of going for gut feeling (despite of, or with addition of some informedness about this period), I think that there is absolutely no problem if we 'slaughter some holy cows', as we say in German. I mean, there is absolutely no need to vote for "Intolerance" or "The Great Train Robbery" if you cannot connect with them personally (and I'm not talking about myself here), even though these are films that are endlessly mentioned in any survey of the period, of course. I'd much rather love to see people listing what they really love and personally deem important instead. I can't see myself putting any Chaplin films on the list, for instance; I have a rational understanding of why they are considered important, but as I think I can easily find 50 other films from the period which intrigue me much more and with which I can connect much more immediately, I will try not to be hampered by 'received wisdom'. Even if I'm wrong with that.

[knives]

OK, Im a little clearer now (it's called getting old, ya know) but how do you deal with a "character" invented by Durand, like Onesime who features in a dozen or more shorts on the Gaumont box? I suppose I just highlight individual shorts, or whatever..

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, but to take another Gaumont example if you want to vote for a Bout-de-zen and your favorite is Steals an Elephant, than put down Steals an Elephant, not Bout-de-zan series.

[Dr Amicus]

I noted earlier that I fund many of these very early, very short films oddly moving - so I have no problem in including them alongside Birth of a Nation or Fantomas. Also, loads of these very early films are easily accessible on various websites - and not a few on the BFI's Youtube channel.

I'll echo the earlier suggestion of determining 'typical' examples for, eg, the Mitchell & Kenyon films - anyone who wants to vote for one can argue which they think is most typical / moving / has their Great Grandad in. I highlighted some obvious Lumiere choices - both Workers Leaving the Factory and Arrival of a Train have a good chance of ending up on my list, probably because their almost mythical status (first film, scaring audiences), no matter how historically inaccurate, feeds back on them and adds that extra frisson that separate them from others.

[Sloper]

Lubitsch, thanks for doing such a good job on this so far – I agree that the best approach is just to play this one by ear. Treat it the same way as the other decade lists, and if it all goes wrong the rules can be changed. And let’s go for lists of 50; you might take another look at those early Dreyers and re-assess them...

I have only one addition to make to your exhaustive list, and that is the BFI’s 2-disc Dickens Before Sound set, the first disc of which is dedicated to pre-1920 material. Fans of Bill Douglas’ Comrades may be intrigued to see the 19th-century magic lantern show, Gabriel Grub - or The Goblins who Stole a Sexton (from The Pickwick Papers), narrated by the great Ken Campbell. Then there’s an R.W. Paul-produced Scrooge from 1901 (sadly only four minutes survive out of eleven), which features casual and expert use of dissolves and even a wipe. The Griffith short, The Cricket on the Hearth (not one of his best but still plenty of nice touches) is accompanied by a very helpful explanatory commentary. There’s also a rather well-acted 20-minute Nicholas Nickleby from 1912, and a few minutes of tantalising extracts from a 2-hour (!) David Copperfield from 1913, produced by the great Cecil Hepworth. The accompanying booklet seems to suggest that the film survives in its entirety...

Round this out with a couple of efficient but dull run-throughs of Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, and an incomprehensible episode from Pickwick (again narrated by Campbell), plus Neil Brand on unusually good form, and it’s a very worthwhile package. (The main attraction, I guess, is the superb 1922 Oliver Twist, starring Jackie Coogan and Lon Chaney, but that's for another list.)

With reference to the Scrooge mentioned above: just the other day I watched Matthew Sweet’s Silent Britain, and I think he said the first ever (and last, for a while) ‘wipe’ was the one in Mary Jane’s Mishap (incidentally my favourite pre-1905 film). I thought this must be wrong, and can’t help feeling there must be examples even earlier than 1901. Generally speaking, it drives me nuts the way commentators fall over themselves trying to claim something as the ‘first’ to do this or that. Obviously you give a film more credit for the techniques it pioneers, but I think the emphasis should always be on whether or not it uses those techniques well. Maybe there’s a discussion to be had there.

Having mentioned Silent Britain (strongly recommended), I also wanted to direct everyone who hasn’t seen them already to the old Brownlow/Gill docs, which are among the best I’ve seen and offer an ultra-accessible, entertaining way into this period. Probably easier than diving straight into those formidable box-sets, anyway. Like several others around here, I’m not really a Chaplin fan, but Unknown Chaplin should be required viewing – the insight it gives into the silent comic’s creative processes (using outtakes to show how he painstakingly developed and improved jokes) is breathtaking. If only such footage survived of Keaton and Lloyd...

[Awesome Welles]

Does anyone with webspace want to donate a place to up and host some of the rarer films that are obviously now in the public domain? Or create a YouTube channel or something?

This may help. Though haven't checked if all the films are in their entirety or only extracts.

[denti alligator]

I'd like to start by highly recommending John Ford's Bucking Broadway. I have a couple other pre-20s Fords that I haven't watched yet, but this one is a blast from start to finish.

[essrog]

I found that you can watch Bucking Broadway here, but where else can you find these old Fords?

[knives]

That's a great site,better than the archive, thank you. Already feel in love with Hesanut Builds a Skyscraper.

[life_boy]

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one excited about this era of filmmaking. I have only partially delved into it--I've seen 90+ films from the era, mostly shorts and actualities pre-1910--but I cannot help but feel such a strong affection for so many films that I have already encountered. Just clicking through shorts on BFI's YouTube page or searching Edwin Porter or William Dickson, or clicking through the Europa Archives provides a wealth of films. For every 5-8 I watch, at least one will jump out at me in a big way. I try to watch them slowly, sometimes multiple times, taking each in as a unique cinematic experience. I find it far more rewarding than just watching 40 shorts all stacked together.

On Actualities
There is something intoxicating about people excited about the possibilities, people excited just to shoot something and see what it looks like....actually excited about the act of SEEING. I'm not sure we can know in spiritual terms how these new inventions providing photographic representation of the real world hit average people (both audiences and cameramen), how it changed the way people SAW the world around them. Of course, on the surface these films are valuable for the simple document of past landscapes, past clothing and transportation---but there is a metaphysical weight that seeps into some of these images, if you let it, if you see it in people's expressions as they look into the lens of something they have never seen, maybe even had not heard of yet.

Watching Gordon Highlanders (William Walker, 1897) is the interesting predicament of immortalization through photographic means. Walker was obviously at this event intending to capture the decorated Highlanders parade through town, to respectfully document this moment and those men....but the onlookers keep getting in the way, fascinated by the camera. Their disruption becomes the focus, like kids cutting up during church and all the parent can remember of the service afterwards is that the kids wouldn't behave. I, as a viewer, feel like I'm trying to ignore the onlookers and focus on the FOCUS but the focus has shifted, the tone has changed, whether I want to acknowledge it or not. I cannot connect in any way to the parade, to the Highlanders. I can only connect to the people who keep pushing their way through the frame, avoiding someone just outside of frame who--whether trying to keep people from crossing frame or crossing the street--ends up becoming the villain on the edge of frame keeping these masses of people from their curiosity (and by a turn, immortality). There is a powerful failure on display here in the inability of the cameraman to control (to some degree) the immediate surroundings of the lens and through this one of the great conundrums of documentary filmmaking. It still is with us to this day.

This is part of why Workers Leaving the Factory (Louis Lumière, 1895) is such a monumental work to me. It is hard to speak about the film, really, for it lives in my mind as cinema and as AN IDEA of cinema. It is elusive and monolithic and beautiful. A haiku:
As subjects pass by
Are documentary film’s
Questions still looming?

There is plenty more to say about this era and still more films to discuss. I am very excited to dig in deeper, particularly into some key features by Bauer, Christensen and the Danish sci-fi's (I finally ordered some of the DFI discs I've been salivating over for a months now), and I hope to wade into some Italian epics as well.

[myrnaloyisdope]

I'd like to add the Winsor McCay collection put out by Milestone as being another one to check out. It has all of his surviving work and it is seminal for anyone interested in animation. The Sinking of the Lusitania is beyond words. A perfectly realized film that transcends it's propagandic origins and becomes a hauntingly beautiful depiction of the fragility of life and the suddenness of death. Just plain out of sight.

I watched Christensen's Sealed Orders and was very impressed. The plot is a bit of a jumble, but the film is littered with brilliant sequences and flourishes, and aside from the relatively static camera you would have a hard time believing the film was made in 1914. The sequence with the telephone line being destroyed by a mortar is one that had my jaw agape in disbelief at the brilliance of it. It's up there with Ingeborg Holm and Cabiria as one of the greatest pre-1915 features.

Anyone have some suggestions for other standout early features (pre-1915)?

[knives]

I'd like to add the Winsor McCay collection put out by Milestone as being another one to check out. It has all of his surviving work and it is seminal for anyone interested in animation. The Sinking of the Lusitania is beyond words. A perfectly realized film that transcends it's propagandic origins and becomes a hauntingly beautiful depiction of the fragility of life and the suddenness of death. Just plain out of sight.

I've only seen Gertie and Hesanut Builds a Skyscrapper so far, but all of this early animation makes me giddy. I'm not sure why, but the movement of things is just fascinating to me. The way they go beyond the silent boundaries is also bizarrely creative. I thought this affair would be a tired academic exercise, but I don't think I've had so much fun.
Also just for insurance I'll throw out Feuillade's Spring again, which works like a missing piece to Fantasia.

[Lemmy Caution]

On Actualities
There is something intoxicating about people excited about the possibilities, people excited just to shoot something and see what it looks like....actually excited about the act of SEEING. I'm not sure we can know in spiritual terms how these new inventions providing photographic representation of the real world hit average people (both audiences and cameramen), how it changed the way people SAW the world around them.

Jan Troell's Everlasting Moments (Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick) is a very recent film which looks exactly at that phenomena -- how a still camera changes one woman's vision of life in Sweden in the early 1900's. I found it a very moving film which reminded me of Heimat in the way it captured the changes in society through a family perspective.

[Sloper]

Also just for insurance I'll throw out Feuillade's Spring again, which works like a missing piece to Fantasia.

Sorry, but I'm afraid this one left me a bit cold - from what I've seen of his work, it seems to me that Feuillade works best when he has a story to tell. The Fairy of the Surf, from the same set, worked a lot better I thought. The real standout among the Feuillades on the Gaumont set, though, was La Tare (The Defect), an absolute killer with a beautifully restrained central performance, and a real tragic momentum to the narrative. There's a brilliant use of the panning shot towards the end.

Also from the Gaumont set, I wanted to mention Alice Guy's Birth, Life and Death of Christ (1906). In the accompanying documentary, there's a brief mention of the rumour that this was actually directed by Guy's assistant; the film is so many miles ahead of her other films in the set that this wouldn't be hard to believe, but it seems she made a sequence of films on the same subject around 1898. In any case, it's a masterpiece: about as long as Dreyer's version of this story in Leaves From Satan's Book, and it's not that much less good. Amazingly sophisticated use of screen space, beautiful compositions, assured control over large numbers of extras - not to be missed.

myrnaloyisdope - I'm sure others can give better recommendations, but on the French Gaumont set you get no fewer than two features from Leonce Perret, and they're both superb (though L'Enfant de Paris, included on the Kino set, is surely the better of the two - especially a wonderful sequence where the hero sleeps rough in Nice). The other Perret films are brilliant as well, and genuinely quite funny. The one where Leonce steals an Englishman's truffles and replaces them with chunks of sponge is a masterpiece of escalating silliness. Perret himself is a very charming screen presence.

[lubitsch]

Anyone have some suggestions for other standout early features (pre-1915)?

The Wishing Ring by Tourneur, Der Student von Prag by Rye, the Avenging Conscience by Griffith, these are the top 3 besides Ingeborg Holm and the Christensen film.

Life of an American Fireman tops my provisional list for the moment. Be sure you watch the version that isn't reedited!

That's not a particularily good choice since Porter's film is as usual with him a copy of a superior version, here Williamson's Fire! from 1901. Even though there's considerable academic discussion and revision of the standings of Porter and Griffith (see James Card, but especially the insightful Barry Salt) pointing out that their respective achivements are far smaller than is generally assumed to be the case and that they are in fact partly inferior to some of their contemporaries, in the more popular perception the standing hasn't changed yet.
So I agree with Tommaso throw out any ideas you might have about the era and just watch films, aside from Melies, Griffith and Chaplin, no films are really widely popular in any meaningful way anyway, so this era which still is an unexplored continent to a large degree, offers room for a vote without any inhibition.

[Tommaso]

Thanks for the recommendation for "The Wishing Ring", Lubitsch. Will try to see it in time.

Talking about Tourneur, I'd give a thumbs-up for "The Poor Little Rich Girl", too. Mary Pickford is always amazing (though I might slightly prefer her in Kirkwood's "Cinderella", after all), but this one is quite interesting for its extended dream/hallucination sequence which looks strongly like a blueprint for the 1938 "Wizard of Oz" to me. Quite amazing stuff, really.

[denti alligator]

The Wishing Ring is wonderful. I will have to re-visit it.

Will I be the only one ranking those butterfly dance films very high?

Oh, and is there a watchable version of Der Student von Prag out there, and do I have to make do with blurry, indistinct, bordering on unwatchable?

[Tommaso]

.
Will I be the only one ranking those butterfly dance films very high?

You mean those very brief films once broadcast by arte together with Oxilia's "Rapsodia Satanica" (another must-see, btw)? If so, they're definitely very great.

As to "Student", there seems to be a version with Italian intertitles floating around which doesn't seem to be too bad from what I hear. Another one to get in time....

[lubitsch]

The Wishing Ring is wonderful. I will have to re-visit it.

Will I be the only one ranking those butterfly dance films very high?

The Wishing Ring is one of my top 6 films from the era (very difficult to establish a meaningful ranking among them). It's a simply effortlessly flowing film, seemingly slight but insightful, tender and visually graceful without being obtrusive and a superior achievement in restrained acting. Again already William Everson marked it in his book as the greatest film of the era, but this seems still to go unnoticed or why else would the film be hiding on the "Before Hollywood, there was Fort Lee" disc?
As for the butterfly dances that's the trickiest part of them all. They would be the single case where I could be moved to vote for a film at the 30s-1min range, but while some are individually available, there's a compilation cut in the Unseen cinema box which makes it impossible to know the single films and the same is the case for compilation following the Rapsodia broadcast on arte if I remember it correctly.
But again let's first vote, then look at the resulting problems though I find it a bit tricky to take such a compilation which strengthens the (admittedly very positive) impression of a single film merging them into a longer symphony of movement.

[domino harvey]

Life of an American Fireman tops my provisional list for the moment. Be sure you watch the version that isn't reedited!

That's not a particularily good choice since Porter's film is as usual with him a copy of a superior version, here Williamson's Fire! from 1901. Even though there's considerable academic discussion and revision of the standings of Porter and Griffith (see James Card, but especially the insightful Barry Salt) pointing out that their respective achivements are far smaller than is generally assumed to be the case and that they are in fact partly inferior to some of their contemporaries, in the more popular perception the standing hasn't changed yet.
So I agree with Tommaso throw out any ideas you might have about the era and just watch films, aside from Melies, Griffith and Chaplin, no films are really widely popular in any meaningful way anyway, so this era which still is an unexplored continent to a large degree, offers room for a vote without any inhibition.

Oh right, I forgot that I'm a philistine for liking something well-known. Apologies if this fires up your arrogance, but I spent several years studying under an expert on the film and his love and admiration of the film has definitely been passed on to me. Being concerned with "firsts" is a losing cause anyways, so even if Porter's film isn't as groundbreaking to you as it is to others, don't assume that's the only interest it holds for its fans

[Sloper]

the Avenging Conscience by Griffith

Seconded - even the most ardent Griffith sceptic couldn't fail to be impressed by this one. Henry B. Walthall is my favourite of all Griffith's actors,* and his psychological meltdown in this is genuinely frightening at times.

* My second favourite, Blanche Sweet, cracks up to similarly chilling effect in the Biograph short, The Painted Lady. Apparently Sweet only didn't get the Elsie Stoneman part in The Birth of a Nation because she failed to turn up to a rehearsal, and Griffith tried Lillian Gish in the part instead - and preferred her. Now don't get me wrong, I love Gish, but there's always something rather affected and self-regarding about her. Like Richard Barthelmess (who I really do adore) she's more of a great star than a great actress, if that makes sense. Sweet and Walthall are much better at portraying multi-faceted characters - somehow I can't imagine Barthelmess and Gish giving such honest performances as they do in The Avenging Conscience. Perhaps that's just me.

[lubitsch]

* My second favourite, Blanche Sweet, cracks up to similarly chilling effect in the Biograph short, The Painted Lady. Apparently Sweet only didn't get the Elsie Stoneman part in The Birth of a Nation because she failed to turn up to a rehearsal, and Griffith tried Lillian Gish in the part instead - and preferred her. Now don't get me wrong, I love Gish, but there's always something rather affected and self-regarding about her. Like Richard Barthelmess (who I really do adore) she's more of a great star than a great actress, if that makes sense. Sweet and Walthall are much better at portraying multi-faceted characters - somehow I can't imagine Barthelmess and Gish giving such honest performances as they do in The Avenging Conscience. Perhaps that's just me.

Well, partly this is Griffith' fault because he demanded fluttering around from his actresses. While he indeed was one of the decive directors in swining around performance style between 1908 and 1914 from theatrical gestures to intimate movie acting, he didn't develop beyond that and began to lo look outmoded in the late 10s (directing epics with their more grandiose style didn't help naturally).
Gish also is a very precise player acting every mood and the transitions between them out in detail. It's impressive and sheis a great actress in the most literal sense because she's really acting every second, but might seem problematic for some viewers. However I also have a corner in my heart for Blanche Sweet who occupies a somehow safer ground, she doesn't risk that much, but can achieve remarkable result and Painted lady is indeed an excellent example of this art.

Talking about Tourneur, I'd give a thumbs-up for "The Poor Little Rich Girl", too. Mary Pickford is always amazing (though I might slightly prefer her in Kirkwood's "Cinderella", after all), but this one is quite interesting for its extended dream/hallucination sequence which looks strongly like a blueprint for the 1938 "Wizard of Oz" to me. Quite amazing stuff, really.

Yes, though both made better films on their own. Apparently this was a mismatch of personalities with the lively Pickford clashing with the high-minded artist Tourneur who disdained her frolicking around.

I spent several years studying under an expert on the film and his love and admiration of the film has definitely been passed on to me. Being concerned with "firsts" is a losing cause anyways, so even if Porter's film isn't as groundbreaking to you as it is to others, don't assume that's the only interest it holds for its fans

If you would spend some time listing some solid arguments instead of pointing out to your studium and making veiled threats against me in your previous post regarding the shorts, you'd be taken more seriously.
The problem is not that American Fireman is not groundbreaking enough, the problem is that it plagiarizes another film and doesn't do that very well. Let's take a closer look
In Williamson's film we have
1) a shot of a burning house, a policeman arrives, exits to the right
2) a shot of a fire station, the police man arrives from the left, the firemen leave with their horses to the left,
3) a very elegant shot showing the horses coming at us, but finally turning to the left, so preserving the 180 degree rule
4) a man in the burning house waking up, traing to extinguish the fire, failing, but the firefighter appears in the window, extinguisheds the flame and grabs the man
5) and descends in a shot from the outside the ladder (not a perfect cut on action, but an attempt) with the man, later a girl is carried out and somebody jumps out of the window to be rescued

In Porter's film we have
1) a shot of a man in uniform dreaming about a woman and a child which we see in a vignette to his right, he wakes up and stands up pacing back and forth. Who is this man? The Edison catalogue tells us, it's a fireman who dreams about his wife and then thinks worriedly about all the people in danger form fire, but there's no way to determine that from the film
2) a shot of a fire alarm and somebody pulling it
3) the sleeping room of the fire station, men waking up and going into action, sliding down a rope
4) horses and carriages are shown for a few seconds before the men finally arrive sliding down. Must be a long rope. The carriages leave toward right forward of the frame
5) fire station from outside, the carriages pass the doors and exit again in a curve to the right forward.
6) 9 (!) carriages pass the frame from background right to foreground left excatly contradicting the movement before and disorienting the spectators. Besides showing nine carriages slows down the whole affair quite a bit.
7) the carriages continue their movement while the camera pans from right to left showing finally the concerned house from the front. The carriages seem to pass the house though you at least see one of the drivers slow it down.
8) The burning house, a room inside very similar to 4) of Williamson with a woman waking up and fussing around, then a fireman enters from the door to the right. This is an even heavier ellipsis than in Williamson's case. In both cases we saw at least the front of the house, but never any rooms inside until this shot so the appearance through the door is a bit surprising. Anyway he breaks in the window carries down first the woman than the child and returns with another colleague to extinguish the flames.
9) frontal view of the house again, a fireman arrives enters the door, a woman opens the window and apparently faints back. Ladders are approaching, the woman gets carried down, a child is next. Haven't we seen that before? It's apparently the same action shown from the outside with grave continuity errors because neither the woman never opened the window in 8) and got time to gesticulate wildly nor did the fireman need even a third of the time to carry down the woman in 8) as he does now in 9). With the fireman ascending the ladder the film ends.

So we have a lean, crisp film structured according to modern film grammar rules by Williamson. Porter offers us a completely superfluous and cryptic first shot, botches the continuity of movement and introduces a superflouos amount of carriages before using the method of showing action twice which Williamson was clever enough to avoid. Porter isn't even able to match these shots in their action.
The point aside that I can hardly anyone imagine who thinks this as the greatest film up to 1919, it's a very good early example of plagiarizing and botching an European original by remaking it in the USA.