Century Film Project

Celebrating the movies our ancestors loved

Tag: 1898

July 25, 2016

Divers at Work on the Wreck of the “Maine” (1898)

This short from Georges Méliès exploits the Spanish-American War by pretending to recreate its cause. While not a convincing actuality for modern viewers (and possibly not even for contemporaries), it again shows the technical creativity Méliès brought to his early work.

Divers at Work on the Wreck of the MaineThe camera shows a backdrop painted to look like a ship with a hole in its hull, fishes swim in the foreground and three men in old fashioned diving suits are visible at center stage. The divers occasionally attach some flotsam to a rope and it is hauled up, out of view. One of the divers now produces a mannequin, representing the corpse of a drowned sailor, from the wreckage, and this is also tied to a rope and hauled up. As the scene ends, one of the divers climbs onto a rope ladder and begins to climb upward awkwardly.

The impressive part of this illusion is the fish swimming in the foreground, which at first I thought were on strings, but closer examination (and Wikipedia) has convinced me that Méliès placed a fish tank between the camera and the actors. This actually gives the scene a depth-effect not often seen in early movies which tend to be very two dimensional. The big question is whether this movie was actually accepted by contemporary audiences as a “real” document of the ocean floor or if they knew it was a re-creation, which is hard to say. It’s more convincing than some of Méliès reenactments, for example “The Surrender of Tournavos” which seems very obviously a staged action scene, but I suspect that few people believed Méliès had really gone all the way to the Caribbean to shoot underwater. The “corpse” should have given it away at least, it is quite clearly a dummy. Still, this is a nice example of creativity and showmanship from the nineteenth century.

Alternate Titles: Visit sous-marine du Maine, Divers at Work on a Wreck Under Sea

Director: Georges Méliès

Camera: Unknown, possibly Georges Méliès

Starring: Unknown, possibly Georges Méliès

Run Time: 1 Min

You can watch it for free: here.

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March 19, 2016

Surprise Attack on a House at Dawn (1898)

Alternate Title: Surprise d’une maison au petît jour

This short scene from Alice Guy may reflect the popularity of American war films at the time. While the Americans had their own real war to shoot (the Spanish-American War), the danger of conditions and limitations of the technology resulted in most of their combat scenes being re-enactments. Well, France had plenty of historical and patriotic wars to re-enact, and that is what Guy has her actors do here.

Surprise Attack on a HouseWe see the front of a house on a snow-covered morning. A lone guard stands next to a small cannon, or possibly a Gatling gun or similar weapon. A group of soldiers in different uniforms sneak up behind him and one of them shoots him from behind. Now they all run around to stand before the camera and exchange fire with the soldiers who come out of the house to investigate the shot. They soon retreat and the defense force uses the gun to frighten them and also engages in pursuit. An officer, with a sword and side arm instead of a rifle, waves his arms and tries to direct the soldiers. Suddenly, the enemy reappears, pushing a large wagon in front of them for cover. They fight with the officer and his few remaining men, the officer cutting several down with his sword. When the film ends, the fighting is still going on.

Surprise Attack on a House1This movie made no immediate sense to me, and I had to do a certain amount of digging before the French Wikipedia informed me that it is a re-enactment of a battle from the “War of 1870” (known to Americans, if at all, as the “Franco-Prussian War”). I’m not good at identifying uniforms, but I believe the French are the defenders in this sequence, which may explain why the heroic officer isn’t cut down for his rather foolhardy sword attack on men with guns. The apparent snow on the ground threw me as well – the only war I could think of where cold weather was a factor was Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia, which didn’t seem like an uplifting subject for a French filmmaker. Of course, the French lost the Franco-Prussian war as well, ultimately, but this version of events allows the viewer to focus on the individual heroism of the soldiers and on the aspect of defending against a ruthless enemy (willing to shoot a man in the back, for instance). As compared to other war movies I’ve seen from the time, this one is pretty exciting: keeping up the action consistently throughout and using the stationary framing to add a degree of suspense – when the soldiers run on and off camera, we imagine the battle expanding, and wonder when the next attack will come on screen.

Director: Alice Guy

Camera: Unknown (possibly Alice Guy)

Starring: Unknown

Run Time: 1 Min

You can watch it for free: here (no music) or here (with music).

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March 18, 2016

Disappearing Act (1898)

This short by Alice Guy has much in common with “At the Hypnotist’s,” which appears to have been shot on the same set, possibly using the same actors. But, it can also be seen as a remake of “The Vanishing Lady” by Georges Méliès, released two years before.

Disappearing ActA lady and a man enter a well appointed room and walk around a couch to bow to the audience. The lady is dressed in typical demure 19th Century French middle-class clothing and the man has long hair and a long black coat on. The man gestures and the lady lies on the couch. He approaches her with a sheet and waves it. Suddenly, she is turned into a ridiculously phony-looking monkey. The monkey hops about a little, but is soon coaxed back onto the couch and the magician again gestures. Now monkey and couch are gone, replaced by a large crate. He gestures to make the crate disappear, then makes the woman, standing, appear at his side. He waves again to banish her and bows once more, seeming to depart the stage. Suddenly, he and the lady stand side by side, bowing repeatedly.

This is another “trick film,” done reasonably well but without either the artful backdrops or the technical wizardry of Méliès. The one truly original aspect is the monkey (substituting for the more horrific element of a skeleton), and I must comment that it is represented by possibly the worst monkey costume I have ever seen. The movie is light and enjoyable, but undeniably unoriginal. I would assume that it was shot back-to-back with “At the Hypnotist’s,” although the camera remains too far from the actors to allow for facial recognition.

Alternate Title: Scéne d’escamotage

Director: Alice Guy

Camera: Unknown, possiblly Alice Guy

Starring: Unknown

Run Time: 1 Min

You can watch it for free: here (no music)

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March 16, 2016

The Burglars (1898)

I’d rate this as one of the more interesting movies I’ve seen from Alice Guy so far. It’s another light comedy with a vaguely anti-authoritarian bent, like “The Turn of the Century Blind Man,” but with no obvious parallels, except perhaps to the chaos of the vaudeville stage.

BurglarsWe see a set that is designed to look like the Paris rooftops, with various men scampering over it and another figure occasionally poking out of a window. The scene is so active and frenzied that it takes a moment (or even a couple of views), to divide the four into two distinct groups – two men in uniform, two not. The uniformed men are chasing the others, all of them leaping from one part of the set to another, climbing over obstacles, etc. The chased men manage to go inside of a window, and for a moment the uniforms disappear as well. The burglars (as we now know them to be) emerge with two paintings in hand. As they hold up their prizes, the gendarmes reappear, and the burglars smash the paintings over their heads, trapping them in the frames. They now roll their pursuers along the roof, presumably preparing to drop them over the side, when the film ends.

This movie is typical enough, in that it attempts to translate comedy and movement to the screen without worrying overmuch about the plot, but it took me by surprise with its chaos and violence (and apparent siding with the criminals!). Maybe we can see some prediction of it in “Robetta and Doretto,” itself an attempt to bring a famous stage comedy act to the screen. I think it possible that this is also based on an understood comedy situation – people chased by the police are by definition the “good guys,” etc. I’ve identified the pursuers as “gendarmes” in part because French Wikipedia does so, but their uniforms are decidedly different from the obvious cop in “Blind Man,” and look more like the man I assumed to be a soldier in “At the Hypnotist’s.”

Director: Alice Guy

Camera: Unknown (possibly Alice Guy)

Starring: Unknown

Run Time: 1 Min

You can watch it for free: here (no music)

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March 15, 2016

At the Hypnotist’s (1898)

Alternate Title: Chez le magnétisuer

Again working on a sound stage, Alice Guy gives us her interpretation of a “trick” film a la Georges Méliès. It seems she was aware of what others were doing and happy to copy their style, even as a little of her own personality seems to slip in here and there.

At the HypnotistsThis movie takes place on a single stage, the backdrop suggesting a comfortable middle-class apartment in Paris. A woman is shown in to the room and a man with a beard and long black coat motions her to sit. He then waves his hands and she becomes suddenly stiff. He makes her stand erect, then waves his hands and suddenly she is standing in her underwear – the hypnotist now has her clothing! He hangs up her dress and shawl and again begins to gesture magically, when suddenly another man, dressed as a soldier bursts in. He appears to remonstrate with the hypnotist, who demonstrates that he can re-clothe the woman simply by throwing the clothes at her, but then he undresses her magically again. The soldier becomes more aggravated, and the hypnotist throws the dress at him – suddenly the woman is wearing his uniform, and he is wearing her shawl! She is suddenly awake and a chase scene begins with the woman, the soldier, the hypnotist and his servant. They run out of the room and back in again.

This seems like a somewhat lame imitation of Méliès, with a very basic plot and minimal production value. The stage is obviously false, and the camera is set to see the entire bodies and with a great deal of fairly uninteresting space above the actors’ heads. It doesn’t move and there are no edits, except those allowing for the tricks to be enacted. There does seem to be mild titillation going on – although the woman in her underwear is far more chaste than the boys we saw bathing in their trunks. The soldier is evidently an angry husband or suitor, and we must leave to our imaginations what the hypnotist might have done if not interrupted. the characters gesture a great deal, but somehow their performances lack the madcap silliness of Méliès.

Director: Alice Guy

Camera: Unknown (possibly Alice Guy)

Starring: Unknown

Run Time: 1 Min

You can watch it for free: here (with music).

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March 14, 2016

The Turn-of-the-Century Blind Man (1898)

Working inside a studio, Alice Guy presents us with a simple narrative comedy that indicates the style of humor that would be common in film for many years. Set in a park, with a wily beggar and a policeman as antagonist, it sets the stage for much later work of Charlie Chaplin and others.

Turn of the Century Blind ManOur “blind man” sits on a bench with his dog, playing a pipe. When some passing pedestrians drop coins in his cup, he looks at them closely before thanking his benefactors. Now a policeman comes along and chases him off. Moments later, a weary pedestrian sits on the bench and reads from a magazine, quickly dropping off to sleep. The beggar comes back and finds him, trading hats and stealing his watch, also leaving the sign and the dog with the sleeping man. Now, the policeman returns and thinks there is another fake blind beggar, so he shakes the man awake and chases him as well, at which point the entire cast comes on stage to laugh at his misfortune.

Alice Guy

Alice Guy

This film’s title in French is “L’Aveugle fin de siècle.” I point that out because there is a difference between how we read “turn-of-the-Century” today and what “fin de siècle” meant then We don’t use the term “turn-of-the-Century” to refer to the period around 1999-2001, when our most recent Century began, so the term has a kind of quaint, dated feel for a modern viewer. However, “fin de siècle” which was used at the end of the nineteenth century really implied something “modern” to the people at that time: a “turn-of-the-Century” blind man was one who was different to the blind men of simpler, more innocent times. As we see in this instance, he isn’t necessarily blind at all. The other interesting aspect of this movie is its shooting location. The “park” backdrop makes it entirely obvious that this was shot indoors, apparently on a theatrical stage. This is also how Méliès was working at the time, but where he devised beautiful and imaginative backdrops, these appear to be generic stage backdrops, possibly used for vaudeville acts. No effort is made at creating realism, although it would seem simple enough to have shot the whole thing in a real park. One final note is that comedies at this time often provided what I think of as “visual laugh tracks” by showing people laughing at the funny part.

Director: Alice Guy

Camera: Unknown, possibly Alice Guy

Starring: Unknown

Run Time: 1 Min

You can watch it for free: here (no music).

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October 15, 2015

The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1898)

Another somewhat dubious entry in my history of horror, this may be more rightly thought of as a religious film. Still, in the cases of “The Astronomer’s Dream” and “The Devil and the Statue,” I have included movies with nearly identical plotlines, simply less overtly Christian themes, so it only seems right to include it.

Temptation of St AnthonyIt begins with Saint Anthony in a cave, with only a bible, a skull, and a massive crucifix for company. A toga-clad woman appears on the altar and touches Anthony, who recoils. Other women appear before him, but he remains steadfastly disinterested. He does, however, kiss the skull, which of course turns into a woman. Soon, three women are dancing around him and his few possessions have disappeared. Finally, when a woman appears in the place of Christ on the cross, it seems that all is lost, but an Angel appears and Saint Anthony turns to pray to him. He banishes the women. Saint Anthony has resisted temptation.

TemptationofSaintAnthonyAlthough Saint Anthony is not threatened with horrific images, it is clear that his soul is in peril throughout this movie, and that his opponents (the women) have supernatural powers to mobilize against him. The movie also has a kind of esoteric meaning – anyone who has attempted meditation knows how readily distractions, like the toga-ed women in the movie, will appear to break one’s discipline. I suspect, however, that audiences at the time may have regarded this as a somewhat daring, even shocking film, since Georges Méliès’s movies up to this point had not dealt with “sacred” material, and it was being shown in a music hall surrounded by magic acts and dancing girls, making it a questionable context and medium for such a subject. Given the “low-brow” connotations of the art form, it was a while before passion plays started to be shown on film in churches, and even then it was somewhat controversial. Méliès recycling a plot from his trick films in a religious context was also probably pretty chancy stuff.

Director: Georges Méliès

Camera: unknown

Cast: Georges Méliès

Run Time: 1 Min 10 secs

You can watch it for free: here.

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October 13, 2015

The Astronomer’s Dream (1898)

Back to the nineteenth century and Georges Méliès in my ongoing history of the horror film. By 1898, his trick films are becoming more elaborate and sophisticated, although this has much in common with the movies we’ve been seeing from him so far.

Astronomers_DreamHere, a man in a typical wizard’s outfit is nodding while he studies in his observatory. The Devil appears and seems to be threatening his slumbering form, until a woman wearing a lunar symbol on her head banishes him. The astronomer gets up and draws on his chalkboard, but the figures come to life. Then, various objects, beginning with the chalkboard suddenly disappear. He tries to observe the moon through his telescope, but instead of the moon looking bigger, suddenly it appears in his room, and it has a mouth which eats the telescope! Some children dressed as clowns come out of the mouth, but the astronomer throws them back in. He tries to fight it off, but it leaps back out of range, and every object he tries to throw at it disappears. It turns into a crescent moon, with a woman reclining on it, he makes her come closer with the telescope and tries to embrace her, but then she flies up through the ceiling. Another woman appears on the crescent, and he tries to speak to her but suddenly a wall appears in the window. He tries to break it down but suddenly the giant moon is back and it swallows him whole. It chews him up and spits out the pieces, including his severed head. The Devil comes out of the mouth and gloats, picking up the head. Now, the lunar goddess reappears and again smites the Devil, putting the astronomer back together and restoring normalcy to his observatory.

Image from Silents, Please!

Image from Silents, Please!

Clearly, this one has a lot in common with “The Alchemist’s Hallucination,” but it is longer and more elaborate, and arguably more coherent. The lunar theme is maintained, and the general trajectory of the story is a kind of battle between good and evil, represented by the goddess and the Devil. We also get a kind of primitive gore effects, in seeing the astronomer dismembered by the moon, although it is done in a non-bloody manner that probably pleased most children. Most of the effects are achieved via the stop trick, there’s no magnification or double exposure that I recall. The other major effect is the woman flying directly upward, presumably on wires. The presence of the Devil also adds a traditional “horror” element, although again, he is more of a clown than a monster.

Alternate Titles: Le Reve D’un Astronome, A Trip to the Moon, La lune à un mètre

Director: Georges Méliès

Camera: Unknown

Cast: Georges Méliès

Run Time: 3 Min, 15 secs

You can watch it for free: here (no music) or here (with music)

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February 27, 2015

Sunset Limited, Southern Pacific Railroad (1898)

Sunset Limited

While this could be seen as a simple remake of “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station” or for Americans, “Black Diamond Express,” it is also a bit of a demonstration how far movies had come in the short time since those films. While it does depict a train pulling onto the screen and rolling across it, there is more going on here. For one thing, the prominent placement of a sign informs us that this is a deliberate advertisement for the “Sunset Limited,” a train whose name was intended to draw moneyed tourists from the cold North to spend their winters in sunny California. The Edison company catalog emphasized this point as well, proclaiming that the movie offered “special inducements to winter travelers.” The landscape is obviously as important as the moving train to the cameraman, so we get a pleasant Western vista in the background. The people standing by the side of the tracks are not mere spectators, either, but seem to be aware of their roles as actors before the camera, making a point to wave as the train rolls by. Finally, we are treated to a primitive editing technique, for once the train rolls offscreen to the left, a sudden jump occurs and a new train comes on, heading to the right along the same track.

Director: James H. White

Camera:  Frederick Blechynden

Run Time: 1 Min, 24 secs.

You can watch it for free: here.

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April 11, 2014

Shooting Captured Insurgents (1898)

Shooting_Captured_Insurgents_

In April of 1898, the United Stated went to war with Spain, and the face of American cinema changed forever. Suddenly, instead of showing amusing snippets of daily life or panoramas of interesting locations, the movies were showing “news,” depicting important events “as they happened,” and showing American troops in the most positive light. Even outside the US, Georges Méliès made a movie depicting the sunken USS Maine, a catalyst for the conflict. This movie claims to document the execution of prisoners in Cuba, which made me think it might be the first “Faces of Death” movie. I quickly realized, however, that it was staged (which is appropriate, actually for “Faces of Death”). The next movie on the LOC’s website, “Cuban Ambush,” is shown at exactly the same location and camera-angle, and the coincidence of the two events occurring in the same place, without so much as a repositioning of the camera, is too incredible to be believed. I suspect audiences at the time were not aware of this, even if they did see the movies at the same time; they were not used to “reading” film critically the way we do today. What I wonder about is their reaction: Shock? Digust? Cheering? Were they respectfully silent toward the fallen enemy? Or were they glad to see justice done?

Director: William Heise

Run time: 22 seconds

You can watch it for free: here.

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