I'm back! Sorry about that whole vacation thing...parents were in town for my birthday and I didn't really have time to sit down and watch movies. That said, this week I will be going through the rest of the decade (ahead of schedule)! Today is when we start 1908. This is the year D.W. Griffith got hired as a director for Biograph pictures. He would go on to make 500 films through 1913 and in 1915 he would make the controversial Birth of a Nation (originally titled The Clansmen). Let's get started!
First up in today's line up is The Adventures of Dollie by D.W. Griffith.
Going into this film, and this director, I was extremely apprehensive. I heard from legions of film major friends the Mr. Griffith was...long winded (to say the least) and I really wasn't looking forward to it. Having seen his first film I can say that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. This doesn't mean I'm a huge fan but there are many things that I did enjoy. First of all the lack of a sound stage was amazing. The entire film was shot outside and while I have a problem with the story (rather how long the story took), I was grateful for the scenes to take place in their natural habitat instead of being fabricated and goofy looking (Melies -_-). Hopefully we can stay on this trend of well done films...
Next up is another animated piece called Fantasmagorie by Emile Cohle.
1 minute and 20 seconds (approximately). That's how long this animated film was. It was over a minute of...nothing. I don't deny that the animation was pretty impressive for 1908 but that doesn't mean all forms of story need to be thrown out of the window! The little cartoon could have gone on a quick adventure to the zoo or around the city or SOMETHING! I don't understand how just because it's animated means there can't be any story. Thank the world for Disney (although he doesn't come in to feature films until 1937). He actually told stories with his films...crazy I know.
Now we have an Edison studios production starring D.W. Griffith called Rescued From an Eagle's Nest.
It can't be an Edison studios production without me getting highly confused and/or upset at something. Low and behold I wanted to throw my computer again. This time it was the lack of storytelling that happened. Let me sum up what I could gather from this film: bird picks up child, mother tries to shoot bird but can't, mother and father (with some friends) go on a search, father climbs down to fight bird (WHAT?!), father grabs child from off screen, father and child are pulled up to safety. My question is how the HELL did they know where the bird/kid were...the audience doesn't know so how do they know? That's what I mean by lack of storytelling. For example when you summarize a novel there is a story that is being said but there is no storytelling. All it would have taken is two shots, one that showed where the bird landed with the child and the other showing that the search party saw where they landed. Simple as that! If those shots existed I would have enjoyed this film but OH NO...things can't be happy in my world.
Next on our list is the first known Russian film Stenka Razin by Vladimir Romashkov.
First off a hearty welcome to Russia in the world of cinema. The Russians join England, France, Australia, and of course USA in cinematic productions. That said...I'm not a fan of this film. Thankfully there were title cards so I could kind of follow along but jesus it took forever to go through the scenes. Especially when the scenes that seemed important went by extremely fast and the first scene, which was a bunch of guys trying to get on a boat, took 2 WHOLE MINUTES. That means a third of the freaking film focused on them getting on a boat. I don't understand that at all. I'm not going to completely hate on the Russians for churning out this crap because it was their first film BUT good god let's hope that they do better in the future.
Last but not least is The Thieving Hand by J. Stuart Blackton.
Yay!! Ending a year with a great film always makes me happy. First of all I could see all of the actor's faces. Then the story was absolutely hilarious! Oh my did I laugh. I can't even articulate how much this film made me smile. My only criticism was the hokey sets BUT I can ignore it for the awesomeness that I just witnessed. This will definitely go into my favorite films of the decade list.
That's actually it for this year. There were a lot of lost films unfortunately (13 listed films with 5 films that I actually watched) so next time we will get into 1909. I can't believe we're almost into the 1910s! It seems like yesterday that I first watched Roundhay Garden Scene. Until next time!
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