Surrealism begins? - 1906 - Dream of a Rarebit Fiend - Edwin S. Porter

There is a lot more to Edwin S. Porter’s oeuvre than just The Great Train Robbery. Dream of a Rarebit Fiend may well have been another forerunner for the surrealist movement. As mentioned in an earlier post, The 1903 version of Alice in Wonderland presented the audience with moments from Carroll’s work as she went down the rabbit hole which hinted at later works of surrealist film-making. In Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, the transition between the waking state and dreaming is more hallucinatory and therefore more interesting and more explicit from a surrealist perspective.

Whether or not this was his intention is debatable. Dream of a Rarebit Fiend was based on a comic strip of the same name by Windsor McKay (see above) that ran in the Evening Telegraph from 1904-1914. The strip was the modern equivalent of a medieval morality play; it warned its readers against the perils of overindulgence. McKay set the majority of the strip in the main character’s dreams, thus allowing him to probe an imaginary world free from physical laws.

Unfortunately, we cannot discover what particular element of McKay’s comic attracted Porter to this project. I would suggest, however, that authorial intention can often be misleading and limiting when attempting to read any form of art.

But before beginning a discussion in relation to the surrealist sections of the film, we must not overlook the opening scene. In this scene, we encounter the film’s protagonist devouring his rarebit and guzzling one of many beers on the table (see above). Here we have film’s earliest example of gluttonous grotesquery – it is really quite hard to watch, particularly when he spits out some of his beer. The director is deliberately establishing a protagonist who the audience has little or no sympathy for, his subsequent suffering is welcomed.
As he exits the restaurant and the world around him starts to spin as he approaches a lamppost, we are given film’s first example of what the Russian Formalists termed defamiliarisation:

The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar,’ to make forms difficult to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. (Shklovsky) 

The crucial distinction here is the discrepancy between perception and reality. Film will allow us to portray dreams in a manner which does make it “increase the difficulty and length of perception”, in a manner unique to this particular art form. Whereas a painting may evoke a particular image from a dream (see Dali’s Dream brought on by a bee flying through a pomegranate, one second before waking up below) and writing may evoke images that we can nurture and embellish in our imaginations, film can provide its audience with the entirety of a dream in a particular physical space where we expect to see a representation of reality.

In the latter moments of the film, such as where the protagonist’ bed is flying through the city, it is clear that the protagonist is dreaming. But at the moment where he approaches the lamppost, the two worlds amalgamate with one another, and it is at this moment that the initial defamiliarisation occurs. This is also the film’s most exhilarating moment. The energy of the protagonist combines with the dizzying whirling of his surroundings to draw the audience into his drunken revelry and subsequent dreaming.

The film has clearly taken some of its ideas directly from Méliès’ work from this period. For example, when the protagonist is being attacked by what appear to be devils as he sleeps (see above), they appear to be reminiscent of the devil in Méliès’ 1905 film Le Diable Noir. Dream of a Rarebit Fiend makes the breadth of Méliès work clearer; his discovery and implementation of ‘trick’ film-making not only heavily influenced all science fiction film but also the representation of dreams (and blurred drunkenness) in films.

To conclude however, Porter’s own diverse cinematic achievements must be highlighted. Porter is film’s first directorial chameleon and seems to be comfortable in any genre he dabbles in. As discussed in the post on The Great Train Robbery, he may not have had the creative freedom that Melies enjoyed, yet he still managed to make technically and cinematically important films that helped shape American cinema.

1906 - San Francisco Earthquake: Before and After Journey Down Market Street

The terrifying rumble of an earthquake shattered the early morning silence of April 18 at 5:15 AM. The quake lasted only a minute but caused the worst natural disaster in the nation's history. Modern analysis estimates it registered 8.25 on the Richter scale (By comparison, the quake that hit San Francisco on October 17, 1989 registered 6.7).

The greatest destruction came from the fires the quake ignited. These ravaged the city for three days before burning themselves out. The maelstrom destroyed 490 city blocks, a total of 25,000 buildings, made over 250,000 homeless and killed between 450 and 700. Damage estimates topped $350,000,000.

The above quote is a synopsis of the events of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, which was the first major natural disaster to be chronicled by film and photography (please note that to emphasise the importance of photography as well as film in capturing such an event, none of the pictures in this post are stills from the film, but are instead photographs of the earthquake and its after-effects). There are a number of short films documenting different clips of the earthquake, but I think the above film is the most effective. This is because it provides the viewer with a before and after view of a particular street (Market Street) in San Francisco, which manages to successfully convey just how much damage was done to that particular part of the city.

The one problem with the film is that it has been put together quite recently, so the contemporary audience would not have viewed the particular film in the way that we are. However, the reason I chose this particular film is because it depicts something incredibly simple yet indispensably important: it demonstrates to the audience the actual physical damage caused by the earthquake.

Living in an age of twenty four hour news media, we have become somewhat anaesthetised to the impact of the moving image (Of course I do not mean that we are not moved by terrible events such as the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill. I simply mean that we do not fully appreciate the fact that we have access to such images) in regards to natural disasters. But before this earthquake, all we had to rely on were eyewitness accounts of such terrifying events. Film would allow such events to be captured as they were, rather than how they were experienced by a limited group of people.

It is almost overwhelming just how much visual information there is to digest when watching this film. The tall building at the top of Market Street, which is visible from the offset in the pre-earthquake film, does not appear as anything more than a silhouette in the post-earthquake film, even when the camera is metres away from it – and it is this contrast which is the most haunting.

In the first two minutes of the film, the juxtaposition of the two films could not present a more stark contrast. On the one hand we have a film (the pre-earthquake film) which could easily have been mistaken for one of the Lumiere Brothers’ actuality films. The San Francisco of this film is brimming with life; the street is cluttered with people, trams and horse carriages, the unique architecture of each building is visually captivating. In the post-earthquake film however, it appears as though we are looking at a completely different city; whole buildings are missing while others are severely damaged, the street is almost completely empty. Towards the two minute mark, there is the poignant image of a solitary horse drawn carriage perambulating around Market Street.

The latter half of the post-earthquake film feels as though we are watching the first zombie film. A mass hoard of people walk by the camera and appear listless and lifeless. The thickness of the fog perpetuates the otherworldly sense of this film, particularly as it is in constant contrast with the clear skies of the pre-earthquake film.

This film makes an even greater case than Panorama from the Times Building did for re-evaluating the importance of early non-fiction film. If we trace some of the tragic events of the last century, from Hiroshima through to 9/11, often the most resonant image in our collective conscience is the visual impact these events had. The moving image not only created a new art, but also managed to alter the eye of history.

The first American animated film - 1906 - Humorous Phases of Funny Faces - James Stuart Blackton

One of the brilliant repercussions of Melies’ trick film-making is the discovery of animation. Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is widely considered to be the earliest surviving American animated film – and it is as primitive as it is delightful.

The film was directed by John Stuart Blackton, who alongside Albert E. Smith formed one of the first movie studios, Vitagraph Motion Pictures. Before entering the world of film, Blackton had been a vaudeville cartoonist.

An important question to ask as we evaluate the first animated film on this list is: how much of a difference is there between animated films and ‘moving pictures’ (I think moving pictures is a more appropriate phrase than motion pictures when referring to early silent films)? I would suggest that there is a substantial gulf between the two categories.

For example, if we were to draw a family tree of the genealogy of the arts, animated film would stem from a different branch to the ‘moving picture’. The moving picture can be traced back to the earliest photograph, which was produced by the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Animation, on the other hand, can trace its roots back far earlier to the earliest drawings that were made thousands of years ago.

Yet again, the answer of how the contemporary audience would have responded to this film would be extremely helpful. Although seeing the earliest Lumiere Brothers’ films would have startled the audience for obvious reasons, what they were witnessing were things which they could experience witness in their day to day activities. A film like Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, however, surely would have completely 

bamboozled them, as they were seeing a drawing come to life.

Also, unlike with the Lumiere Brothers’ first film, La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon, where the workers could not help staring at the camera, the animated film would offer its creator complete control of his/her entire environment. 

   

The Animation Archive provides us with a helpful background to the film as well as the process behind it:

Smith and Blackton created what were then called "Trick Films"... the camera was stopped for a moment while the scene was changed, making things magically appear and disappear; images dissolved from one to another; and shots were double exposed to create ghostly images. In 1900, Blackton experimented with putting his lightning sketch act on film in a movie called "The Enchanted Drawing", but it was in April of 1906 when he made his most important breakthrough. In a trick film titled "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" Blackton created what is regarded as the first American animated film.

Humorous Phases of Funny Faces sees several of Blackton’s drawings come to life. The most sophisticated animation is reserved for the final character, the clown, who instructs a lion to dance on his arm and then jump through a hoop.

It is an awfully simple film and its joy partly derives from the possibilities that the film hints at. When you think of the incredibly sophisticated and layered animation work that goes into the latest Pixar or Miyazaki release, it is important to understand the humble and simple beginnings of animated films.

But it also serves an important lesson for modern animated film makers – animated film is a completely different entity to moving pictures and this should be embraced – I hope that the success of Toy Story 3 does not mean that most major animated films will be shot in 3D. More often than not, simplicity trumps all, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces exemplifies this point.   

The first ever feature film - 1906 - The Story of the Kelly Gang - Charles Tait

Just as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) is testimony to German silent film art, The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) symbolises both the birth of the Australian film industry and the emergence of an Australian identity. Even more significantly it heralds the emergence of the feature film format. The Story of the Kelly Gang, directed by Charles Tait in 1906, is the first full-length narrative feature film produced anywhere in the world...

The above quotation is from the UNESCO website, and briefly outlines why The Story of the Kelly Gang (watch the first part above) has been added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. Given that this list contains, among other things, the Gutenburg Bible, the original Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the Magna Carta, its registration on this list should not be taken lightly.

Yet the world’s first feature film has faded into obscurity as with many other films from this forgotten and neglected era.

One of the main reasons for this is the fact that the majority of the film is missing, and a substantial part of what remains is significantly damaged. In fact, there remains a debate as to how long the film actually was, with estimates ranging from 40 to 70 minutes.

Which brings us to a crucial question which Christian Hayes asked when commenting on the La Presa Di Roma post – how do we judge a film that is incomplete? Clearly, the amount of film that has been lost will have a significant impact on answering this question – and in this case it would appear that more than two-thirds of the film have been lost. In fact, for a long period of time, it was thought that only nine minutes of the film survived. However, in 2006, an additional seven minutes was uncovered in the British National Film and Television Archive, which was subsequently restored to its best possible condition by the NFSA and the Haghefilm preservation laboratories in Amsterdam

I would argue that if it is UNESCO’s job to protect the film itself, it is our job to protect and spread its reputation by trying to establish the quality of the film from what footage of the film does remain. In a sense, we need to act as meta-detectives deducing what information we can from the fragments of information we do have available to us – and try not to overemphasise what is missing from the film at the expense of what footage that does remain.

The Story of the Kelly Gang (watch the second and final part above) was based on the true story of Ned Kelly and his gang of bushrangers. At one point they were the most wanted men in Australia, and as with the real-life story behind the events of La Presa di Roma, most members of the Australian audience would have been familiar with Ned Kelly’s story.  

The composition of certain shots is quite impressive for a film of this period. The shot of Kelly and his gang is exhilarating – particularly if you compare it to the shots of the robbers in Porter’s The Great Train Robbery. Whereas in the latter film we get a shot of the backs of the robbers as  they mount their horses and depart (which itself is still an impressive shot), in The Story of the Kelly Gang, the bushrangers face the camera in a beautifully framed shot – providing an equal impression of all the bushrangers. The shot develops a sense of camaraderie among the bushrangers – this shot helps to establish all of them as film’s first anti-heroes.

A simple but important point is that the bodies of the characters are fuller and clearer than in any previous film, particularly when there is a group of characters in the shot. This newfound clarity heightens the tension and drama of the film – the shootout at the gang’s camp for example, is greatly aided by this visual development.

The first shot we have available displays an act of police brutality – a policeman attempts to physically harass a woman – but she is saved by one of the Kelly gang. For the first time in film history, the audience is presented with moral ambiguity and complex characterisation. You feel little sympathy for the policeman when he is held at gun point by the woman he has just accosted.

The sense of moral ambiguity is further enhanced when the gang force a group of people into a building, but respectfully remove their hats when a group of ladies are among those being held in the building. Their is something undeniably attractive about these bushrangers - the film allows to both sympathise and admire some of their actions. 

We also witness cinema’s first suicide pact – as two of Kelly’s gang, kill each other as they cannot escape the bar they are in as the police have set fire to it (see picture below).

The climax of the film is the most thrilling we have witnessed of any film thus far; unfortunately, it also one of the most damaged sections of the film. However, the distortion of the damaged reel seems to enhance the dramatic denouement of the film. In this climactic scene, Ned Kelly makes his last stand, wearing metal armour (see picture below) to protect his face as he is finally captured by the police. The scene can be seen to symbolise the shift from a semi-anarchic, chivalrous period to the more functional, bureaucratic (and sometimes totalitarian) modus operandi of the 20^th century. The armoured plating is an outdated, futile yet heroic method for Ned Kelly to make his last stand. His tale will endure, but the ways of the outlaw bushranger ended with him. This aspect of the film may have resonated greatly with the audience, as the film was shown around the country for close to a decade.

By focusing on the sections of the film that have endured, I would argue that even in its current state, The Story of The Kelly Gang is a seminal film which must be brought to the forefront of debate of the early silent era. In terms of both importance and enjoyment, it stands alongside any film we have witnessed so far.

1906 - Le premier cigare d'un collégien (His First Cigar) - Louis J. Gasnier

The only thing more remarkable than Max Linder’s stellar film career is the neglect with which he is now treated. Linder was film’s first superstar; once, on arrival at Moscow train station, the army had to be called in to help him leave the station and when it had been falsely reported that he had been that he had been killed on the frontlines in World War I in 1914, France was in mourning. 

Despite pioneering many of the comedic techniques that the likes of Chaplin and Keaton would build on, he is now seen as a footnote to Charlie Chaplin’s career. This is despite the fact that Chaplin revered Linder to such an extent that he once wrote on a picture of Linder:

"For the unique Max, the great master - his student Charles Chaplin". 

Le premier cigare d'un collegian, the first of several Max Linder films we shall look at, sees the first appearance of Linder’s Parisian boulevardier persona, a character who had a penchant for women and the finer delicacies of life.

Given the recent penchant for airbrushing cigars, it is intriguing to watch a film based around the premise of the protagonist smoking his first cigar. Linder’s screen presence is both undeniable and infectious. The audience is drawn to his character in the opening scene, where he receives his cigar, and is completely transfixed on him by the time he has finished smoking his first cigar.

Whereas in previous films there has been an almost hyperactive level of movement from the characters in their respective films (particularly in the Lumiere Brothers’ and Méliès’ work), every single movement of Linder’s is controlled and serves a purpose. For example, the delicate, restrained movement of his legs as he re-enters his building after he has been ‘intoxicated’ by his cigar is carefully constructed and well executed.

There is subtlety to his humour; the extended close up of Linder as he smokes the cigar demonstrates this point. After inhaling his first smoke of the cigar, Linder’s subsequent reactions build up a comic crescendo which allows the audience’s reaction to develop and expand in anticipation of Linder’s inevitable come down. 

As with much of Méliès’ work, Linder’s film is extremely enjoyable. Whether Linder is flirting outrageously with a woman in a cafe or stumbling into the wrong apartment, there is an unfiltered joy that you derive from watching this film.   

This film is the first example of a motion picture on this list where the actor’s importance usurps the director’s importance. Although the director of the film, Louis J. Gasnier , would continue to make films until 1940, the film will always be remembered for Linder rather than Gasnier. Linder himself would be granted increasing control of his films; by 1911 he had full creative control over his films.

Furthermore, whereas great theatrical performances by the likes of the great Shakespearean actor Richard Burbage would only be recounted by contemporary accounts of their performances, film allows for great acting performances to be captured for time immemorial – thus greatly enhancing the importance of such performances.

Finally, in terms of tracing the genealogy of Linder’s persona, there are elements of both Méliès’ magician and Porter’s French nobleman in his portrayal of a Parisian boulevardier. Yet there is an element of sophistication to Linder’s portrayal that increases the comedic scope for film, which will be further illustrated by the subsequent films of his that we shall look at.