1908: The Birth of a D.W. Griffith

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!

1903 Part 2

It's Friday!...Friday...we're gonna get down this Friday =D. Oh Rebecca Black how you permeate my life regardless of how many times you take your song off of youtube. Anyways today we finish up 1903 which includes a lot of Melies and the first film about Jesus...and so it begins!

First up is The Internal Boiling Pot by Mr. Melies...and it's only a minute long!

So Melies has found a pretty successful formula...hand tinted color, smoke, and ghosts. While I love Melies...he's certainly my favorite director of this era...I would love to see something new. He's becoming extremely predictable and eventually I'll start to get annoyed. I don't want to be annoyed by his rather fantastic style so let's hope things improve...or change at the very least!

Next up is Life of an American Fireman by Edwin S. Porter...where there was such potential...sigh just watch.

This could have been fantastic. I mean it could have been really great...and then they repeated footage. When they used the same freaking roll of the fire (wagons?) going to the house I almost threw my computer. COME ON! At this point you should be able to not repeat footage. And...AND! They rescue the mom and child...then cut to the same rescue just from the outside view which also didn't line up with the first rescue...UGH. I can't even comprehend how anyone thought this was a good idea. Oh wait! Porter works for that douche-nozzle Edison.

Moving on to another Melies piece The Magic Lantern  before I key-smash.

YAY!!! My film soul is significantly less fragmented because of this fantastic piece of cinema. So these clowns make this magic lantern which projects pictures and creates dancers? I love it!...no smoke, no color, and no ghosts but the special effects were still fantastic. I especially loved the huge wacky inflatable man that was actually some dude in a big costume but still! Anyways A+ for Georges.

Next is of course another Melies piece titled Le Melomane 

HAHAHA this was amazingly weird. So Melies stars in this rather interesting piece...where he becomes the music notes. I thoroughly loved  the end where the note/heads flew out towards the camera. Not much else to say.

And now for one of the first stories to franchise on every medium possible Uncle Tom's Cabin by Edwin S. Porter...let's hope I don't key-smash.

Okay so thank goodness for titles because it would have been ridiculously difficult to follow along without them. Thankfully Porter did a pretty good job at telling this story. The end was a little confusing with Abe Lincoln and such...I'm going to assume it's a nod to the "future" showing that Lincoln would free the slaves? I don't know...it was just strange. It's not like Porter was truly progressive everyone was in blackface (i'm pretty sure). But I don't blame him it's the 1900s not 78 or something. Fun side note...take a look at the actor who plays uncle tom ( a good view is between 7:20 and 7:40) and then look at this picture of Mickey from Mellerdrammer (a Disney version of Uncle Tom's Cabin):

That would be Mickey the right as Uncle Tom...white gloves, nappy hair, big lips, and blackface. Did I just blow your mind a little bit? Trust me I absolutely love Disney but you can't deny this fantastic little piece of racism...this and Song of the South (which we will get to in about a year or so). 

Now for the longest piece to date...and it's about Jesus Vie et Passion du Christ by Lucien Nonguet and Ferdinand Zecca. 

So I just gave you the end because the actual film runs at about 44 minutes. A few things about this film ...when Jesus was "born" (or wished which is what it looked like) I totally started singing Circle of Life from The Lion King... I'm pretty sure curtains with rods didn't exist during biblical times...Why was Egypt just as destroyed as it would have been in the 1900s or today?!...So despite popular illustrations of him Jesus was a hefty guy...WHY is every other scene colored some random primary color??!?!?!?...And you couldn't do a better superimposed effect for Jesus walking on water...you did the same thing a few scenes later with having the ghost effect... LOLZ homo. 

And last but not least another Porter film titled What Happened in the Tunnel 

When I read the title of this film I figured it would be at the very least interesting. Basically I laughed way too hard at this. Kudos to Porter for the train effect with the background moving behind them. I totally adore this film.

And that's it for 1903! Sunday we start 1904 which will also be split into two parts. Have an awesome weekend!