The first successful Shakespeare adaptation - 1908 - The Tempest - Percy Stow

Is the concept of a silent Shakespeare film an oxymoron? Absolutely not, I would argue. Shakespeare’s language is a crucial ingredient of his dramatic works, but far too often in recent cinematic adaptations it has been over-emphasised. There is a visceral visual element to many of the key works of Shakespeare that film can capture in a way that the theatre cannot. For example, my favourite cinematic Shakespeare moment involves no language at all: it is when Macbeth has been slain by a sheaf of arrows that pin him against a door in Kurosawa’s 1957 film Throne of Blood (I will have a lot more to say about this scene when we eventually get round to looking at the film).

Percy Stowe’s The Tempest is an extremely brave adaptation of its source material. With the film running at around twelve minutes, Stowe had very little scope to convey the plot of the play. However, limitation often breeds innovation, and the limited running time of the film allowed Stowe to concentrate on the key visual moments of the play.

Yet unlike with his earlier 1903 collaborative effort Alice in Wonderland, which Film: Ab Initio described as ‘enjoyable, charming but lightweight’, The Tempest is a more significant and substantial film. Whereas Alice in Wonderland picked a selection of moments from Carol’s work that felt episodic, with The Tempest, Stowe skilfully constructs a narrative thread that allows the film to have a more cohesive feel to it.

This is partially to do with Stowe’s development as a film maker, but Stowe also owes a significant debt to the rapid speed with which film was developing as a medium. Since 1903, film had witnessed its first superstar (Max Linder), ventured into the world of animation and tackled key historical events in films such as La Presa Di Roma and Stenka Razin.

Although the film leaves out some of the play’s major plotlines, the film is complete enough in itself to convey the narrative threads it does follow to someone who had not read the play (although there is no denying that a viewing of the film, as with any Shakespeare film, is enriched if one has read the play beforehand).

The film’s major success is its portrayal of Ariel. When Ferdinand chases Ariel in the film and she disappears using a simple Mélièsian trick, film has another one of its pivotal moments. This moment crystallises the difference between theatre and film; to put it simply, film can do things that theatre cannot. Although this is not the first time such a moment occurs in film history, given that it happens during the adaptation of a Shakespeare play, it explicitly confirms that film is developing in a separate direction to theatre. And this point extends beyond technical differences; it allows film to accentuate different emotional currents through such visual trickery. Ariel’s ‘disappearances’ in this scene (see image below) highlights the playful nature of Ariel, and more importantly, Ferdinand.

I have seen an awful production of The Tempest where Ferdinand was played in a dry, one-dimensional manner; this film gives the character more colour and depth in twelve minutes than that production managed to do so in two and a half hours!

From the perspective of film history, Ariel is also interesting because she is a Méliès visual trick that is removed from the confines of his studio and transposed onto a naturalistic setting. The most impressive Mélièsian trickery, however, is saved for when Prospero shipwrecks the King of Naples’ ship. I am surprised that the image is not more iconic (see image below).

The bfi’s screenonline is in agreement as to the quality of the film, though it also notes that the film’s attempts to uncover the cinematic qualities of Shakespeare’s text were not followed:

Comfortably the most visually imaginative and cinematically adventurous silent British Shakespeare film, Percy Stow's The Tempest (1908) takes a different approach from that of Dickson's 1899 film of King John, in that it attempts a complete précis of the entire play staged specifically for the cameras...

Curiously, though, no-one seems to have built on its lead, as all surviving silent Shakespeare films have tended to be as stagebound as those made by Stow's predecessors - Frank Benson's Richard III (1911) being typical.

Film: Ab Initio will carefully monitor the progress of adaptations of Shakespeare’s works; with Stow’s The Tempest, film has made a promising start.

Note: Unfortunately, the film for The Tempest cannot be found online, it can only be found on the bfi’s DVD Silent Shakespeare. It is well worth the purchase, and contains several other Shakespeare films that this blog will cover.  

D.W. Griffith's Directorial Debut - 1908 The Adventures of Dollie - D.W. Griffith

It is a common mistake to over-emphasise the importance of a major artist’s first work, particularly when it is framed in the context of his oeuvre rather than the period he was working in. In a thoroughly comprehensive piece on The Adventures of Dollie, Peter Gutmann of Classical Notes overstates the importance of the film:

The Adventures of Dollie is assured of a permanent niche in the annals of art if only because it was the first movie directed by D. W. Griffith, arguably the most important director in the history of cinema. Yet, it is far more significant than a mere historical anecdote – as the starting point from which Griffith’s genius would flow it provides a baseline against which his remarkable achievements can be measured.

Among other first works, Griffith’s first movie leans more toward the technically competent but wholly imitative juvenilia of Mozart than the early works of Beethoven, in which glimmers of a mature, confident and innovative artist are already evident. (Or, to take two extreme examples from the world of film, contrast the soft-core porn that launched the careers of so many famous directors and stars with the astounding brilliance of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.) But even considering that film, by its nature, necessarily is a collaborative art that forecloses most private experimentation and development before embarking on a feature project, Griffith’s first film hardly sprung out of a void.  

(Before I deconstruct the above quote, it must be said that the majority of Gutmann’s piece is an essential read - particularly in regards to providing biographical information in regards to Griffith’s life when he made the film)

I am wholly unconvinced that Griffith is ‘the most important director in the history of cinema’. In fact, one of my major complaints with misconceptions of film in the second decade of the twentiethcentury is that it is viewed as being ‘Griffith’s decade’ and that he alone was moving film into the realm of the feature film and the more naturalistic style of film making that we are accustomed to today.

The framing of The Adventures of Dollie ‘as the starting point from which Griffith’s genius would flow it provides a baseline against which his remarkable achievements can be measured’ burdens this pleasant film 
with expectations it cannot live up to.


The Adventures of Dollie involves a gypsy kidnapping a young girl named Dollie in order to seek revenge against Dollie’s father, who had earlier attacked the gypsy for harassing his young family. The plot is almost identical to Hepworth’s 1905 film Rescued by Rover and quite similar Griffith’s acting debut Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest.

It is a film firmly rooted in its era’s conventions and genres. When we observe the film from this perspective rather trying to ponder whether it is more like the early works of Mozart or Beethoven, a more balanced reading of the film can be obtained. And the film does contain some impressive moments which suggest Griffith will go on to become a substantial director. The shot of the reflection of the surroundings before the horse drawn cart pounds into the water is elegant; the sequence of the film where the barrel rolls down the river adds a layer of suspense while also being an attractive framework for the sequence.

There is a logical flaw in an important part of the set up of the film. When the gypsy hides Dollie in the barrel, surely Dollie would have made some sort of noise to alert the search party she had coming looking for her?
Given the sheer inventiveness of several of the recent films we have looked at (e.g. the lightning-paced animation of Fantasmagorie, the birth of slapstick in Début d'un Patineur, etc.s), the Adventures of Dollie feels slightly underwhelming.

The Early & Silent film blog provides us with some useful information about the film as well as detailing its instant success:

The biography by Richard Schickel [D. W. Griffith An American Life, Touchstone Book 1984) we learn that Griffith directed his first one reel film for Biograph after receiving advice from the veteran cameraman Billy Bitzer. Bitzer was later to become a stalwart of the Griffith production team. The film was taken from a written synopsis at Biograph. Griffith was able to cast the film himself. The cameraman was a Biograph regular, Arthur Marvin. It was he who suggested the locations for the film. The filming took two days. And a month later it was released with apparent success. Biograph still sold its films outright at this period, before a rental system had fully developed. The best total for a film to that date was fifteen prints; The Adventures of Dollie sold twenty-five prints, a new house record.

It is always interesting to learn about a major film maker’s collaborators as it provides the viewer with a more complete understanding of the creative genesis of a movie. The film was written by Stanner E.V. Taylor; it was his first writing credit – he would go on to write and direct films until 1929.


The commercial success of the film does suggest that Griffith had an intuitive sense of what the audience wanted to observe in the new medium of film. As with many commercially successful films that would follow in its steps for the next 102 years, the film plays on the fears of the middle classes as well as having a simple good-evil dichotomy.


The Adventures of Dollie is a solid yet unspectacular venture into filmmaking for Griffith. It will be interesting to observe him hone and develop his craft over the next decade. 

A surreal comic delight - 1908 - The Thieving Hand - J. Stuart Blackton

One can draw a comparison between the birth and exponential growth of cinema and the formation of a star:

Stars are formed from huge clouds of dust and gases, mainly hydrogen and helium (which, combined, are called nebula). As the dust and gases swirl around, they break into clumps and contract due to gravitational forces. As the clumps bump each other and collect more dust and gases, they get bigger, and their gravity, which holds the star together, becomes stronger. Since gravity is so strong, the particles become more tightly packed. Once it is hot enough for nuclear fusion to occur, a star is formed. 

What makes this period (1904-13) so exciting is that it is before the art of film is ‘hot enough for nuclear fusion to occur’ and its star is born. Due to the rapidly evolving technology of the camera (within thirteen years, filmmakers were already making films that were twenty times the length of the Lumiere Brothers’ first actuality films from 1895) and the pioneering vision of filmmakers around the world (the Australians made the first feature film in 1906, the Italians made the first explicit political film a year earlier, etc.) film was very much still ‘dust and gases swirling around’.  

In 1908, film had yet to settle on an expected estimate length or branch off into particular genres; there was a wonderful overlap and fusion of unexpected ideas. There are few better examples of this then J. Stuart Blackton making The Thieving Hand two years after making the first American animated film, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. Whereas Humorous Phases was a primitive but entertaining attempt at making an animated film, The Thieving Hand was a pseudo-surrealist live action comedy centring around a false limb.

The Thieving Hand amalgamates some of the most interesting ideas that we have encountered in the films of the first decade of the twentieth century; one can find the visual trickery of Méliès, the comic timing of Max Linder, the narrative sequencing of Porter and the playfulness of Blackton’s own animation work. The film shares certain surrealist elements with Porter’s Dream of a Rarebit Fiend; however, the surrealist aspects of The Thieving Hand are less explicit but more comic. 

The film involves a one-armed street cobbler helping an upper class man (whose hat and cigar bear an uncanny resemblance to Max Linder in Le Premier Cigare d’un Collegien ), who repays the favour by purchasing him an arm from a limb shop (see above). The otherworldliness of the limb shop juxtaposes with the previous scene on the street in an unerring manner that Méliès’ shorter films do not quite manage. The use of a false limb functions in a more subtle and effective manner than one of Méliès’ demons; the limb also manages to function as the proverbial devil on the shoulder of the protagonist (or perhaps even, the protagonist’s subconscious) and land him in trouble.   

The film successfully synergises the aforementioned influences and styles and delivers a simple and thoroughly enjoyable film. In fact, I would suggest that it is an excellent ‘entry point’ for films from this decade. It is thoroughly engaging for a first time viewer, while also alluding to much of the best work of this decade.

The first fully animated film - 1908 - Fantasmagorie - Emile Cohl

As with fellow early animation pioneer J. Stuart Blackton, Emile Cohl had been a cartoonist before he entered into the world of animation. According to popular myth, Cohl was walking down a Parisian street, when he noticed an advertisement for a movie that had been stolen from one of his strips. After confronting the manager of the film studio responsible for the advert (Gaumont), he was hired on the spot. Blackton and Cohl share another connection: Blacton’s 1907 film The Haunted Hotel inspired Gaumont to produce animated films:

The idea for doing animation was born from the huge success of the film "The Haunted Hotel", released by Vitagraph and directed by J. Stuart Blackton. It premiered in Paris in April 1907 and immediately there was a demand for more films using its incredible object animation techniques. According to a story told by Arnaud in 1922, Gaumont had ordered his staff to figure out the "mystery of 'The Haunted Hotel'." Cohl studied the film frame by frame, and in this way discovered the techniques of animation. 

As mentioned in one of this site’s earliest posts, there is an inextricable link between film and modern capitalism. As with contemporary cinema, if a particular genre or style of film became popular with audiences; other studios would attempt to build on (or to put it a bit more crudely, exploit) the success of such films. Whereas in modern cinema this often results in pale imitations of the film that makes a particular genre ‘fashionable’ (see the big budget ‘Roman’ films inspired by Ridley Scott’s Gladiator), during cinema’s embryonic phase, attempting to replicate a particular genre’s success often resulted in boundary pushing and wildly inventive films.

Fantasmagorie is an excellent example of this point. Both technically and visually, it significantly develops animation’s scope from Blackton’s Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. Animation Xpress explains the developments Fantasmagorie makes:

...Gaumont's Emile Cohl created the first fully animated film, Fantasmagorie(1908), and in the process lifted cartoons out of the realm of trick films and started them on the path toward animated features. The two-minute film Fantasmagorie (alternatively, in English: A Fantasy, Black and White, or Metamorphosis) is made up on approximately 700 double-exposed drawings, using what is known as a "chalk-line effect", a technique probably borrowed from early animator James Stuart Blackton...

Technique of the film

To make his film, Cohl placed each drawing on an illuminated glass plate and then traced the next drawing-with variations-on top of it until he had some 700 drawings. This simple technique produced consistent movement and continuity between the drawings, and allowed just Cohl and a camera assistant to create the film. In those days, chalkboard caricaturists were common attractions and the characters in the film look as though they've been drawn on a chalkboard, but it's an illusion. By filming black lines on paper and then printing in negative Cohl makes his animations appear to be chalk drawings. 

Cohl’s film did manage to lift ‘cartoons out of the realm of trick films and started them on the path toward animated features’. In Blackton’s Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, we are presented with separate vignettes of various characters. In Fantasmagorie, there is a remarkable fluidity throughout the entire film; each scene effortlessly interweaves with the next.

The film requires repeat viewing, because some of its transitions are so rapid that the viewer misses some of the movement during a first viewing. The film’s highlight (see above) is when a woman with a pineapple-esque hat sits in front of our protagonist stick figure, and the protagonist attempts to remove various things from what turns out to be a multi layered hat. The slapstick humour one derives from the scene is similar to that found in Max Linder’s Debut d’un Patineur, which had been released a year earlier.

Fantasmagorie confirms the notion which Humorous Phases of Funny Phases suggested: animation is a distinctive branch of film that differs significantly to the moving picture. The films’ rapidity and ability to shape-shift demonstrates that animated film can perform different, and on a certain level, more impressive, visual tricks that those found in Méliès’ or Porter’s films.

Fantasmagorie’s constant inventiveness typifies the forgotten decade of cinema. During this era of film, ideas supersede concerns with both form and narrative. 

The first dramatic Russian film - 1908 - Stenka Razin - Vladimir Romashkov

One need only compare American, French and German films to see how greatly nuances of shading and colouration can vary in motion pictures. In the photographic image itself, to say nothing of the acting and script, there somehow emerge differences in national character

This astute observation from Japanese author Tanizaki Junichiro can apply equally to the film of other nations, and with this idea in mind, we can compare and contrast various countries initial attempts at film making. Stenka Razin, Russia’s 1908 entry into the world of film, re-tells a specific moment in Russia’s history, thus drawing immediate parallels with Italy’s first feature film, La Presa Di Roma. Where La Presa Di Roma was based on the key events which led to the unification of Italy in 1870, Stenka Razin focuses on the Cossack leader of the same name, who led an uprising against the Russian nobility two centuries earlier.

And as with the 1903 version of Alice in Wonderland and the 1907 version of Ben Hur, it was based on a literary source. However, unlike Alice and Ben Hur, it was not based on a source that was so long that meant only specific moments could be shot from that text. Instead, it was based on a popular Russian folk song, which had been written in 1883:

From beyond the wooded island

To the river wide and free
Proudly sailed the arrow-breasted
Ships of Cossack yeomanry.

On the first is Stenka Razin

With his princess by his side
Drunken holds in marriage revels
With his beauteous young bride

From behind there comes a murmur

"He has left his sword to woo;
One short night and Stenka Razin
Has become a woman, too."

Stenka Razin hears the murmur

Of his discontented band
And his lovely Persian princess
He has circled with his hand.

His dark brows are drawn together

As the waves of anger rise;
And the blood comes rushing swiftly
To his piercing jet black eyes.

"I will give you all you ask for

Head and heart and life and hand."
And his voice rolls out like thunder
Out across the distant land.

Volga, Volga, Mother Volga

Wide and deep beneath the sun,
You have never seen such a present
From the Cossacks of the Don.

So that peace may reign forever

In this band so free and brave
Volga, Volga, Mother Volga
Make this lovely girl a grave.

Now, with one swift mighty motion

He has raised his bride on high
And has cast her where the waters
Of the Volga roll and sigh.

"Dance, you fools, and let's be merry

What is this that's in your eyes?
Let us thunder out a chanty
To the place where beauty lies."

From beyond the wooded island

To the river wide and free
Proudly sailed the arrow-breasted
Ships of Cossack yeomanry.

This was a sensible, smart move which allowed Stenka Razin to use a literary source that actually matched film’s relatively short length at that period.

The folk song is a helpful companion piece to the film; it is clear that the film follows its plot quite closely. It is worth pointing out that by using the folk song as the film’s source rather than any historical account of Razin’s life, it allows the film to focus on an emotionally charged moment in his life, rather than focusing on one of his military conquests. The mythology of Razin would only add to the film’s popularity, as was the case with earlier films passed on popular figures, The Great Train Robbery and The Story of the Kelly Gang. Yet unlike those two films, which centre on the violent actions of outlaws, Stenka Razin focuses on its protagonist’s (drunken) abandonment of his princess. 

Thus from its inception, Russian film proved itself to be capable of combining various themes in a populist yet subversive manner.

Stenka Razin, produced by Alexander Drankov (who had previously made a number of Lumiere-esque actuality films), was released on 15^th October 1908 (see the original poster for the film above), a date widely acknowledged as being the birth of Russian cinema. Drankov was very much aware of the importance of this film:

Having spent enormous amounts of money, human labour and time I did everything in my power to ensure that the technical and artistic level of the movie is appropriately high for an epoch-making film in our cinema. 

Unfortunately, the version of the film we have does not contain any score. This is a pity, because Brigit Beumers’ well written A History of Russian Cinema emphasises the importance of the film’s score:

The score for the film was specially composed by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov; this was an outstanding innovation at the time, if we bear in mind that most cinemas of the period employed only pianists to accompany the films. The use of specially composed music highlights the importance of the occasion: the folk songs written for this first Russian film were intended for the audience to hum along to.

Therefore from its inception, Russian cinema was attempting to form a more symbiotic relationship with its audience. Rather than the audience being passive and merely watching the film, Stenka Razin actively encouraged their participation. This adds further weight to the suggestion that choosing a popular folk song as the film’s source was a clever idea. The audience would not only be aware of the film’s story, but the score would also have been familiar to them (listen to the full Russian folk song at the bottom of this post).

The film opens with a shot of Razin’s boat in the distance, with the Volga river at the forefront of the shot. The movement of the river foreshadows some of Tarkovsky’s finest cinematic moments, and is perhaps this film’s most visually impressive scene. 

The majority of the film involves a large number of characters accompanying Razin and his Persian princess around his ship and a forest. Their function is similar to that of the mob in one of Shakespeare’s Roman plays – they are a fickle bunch who will ultimately have a big say in the protagonist’s prospects. After joining in the merriments of the princess’ arrival, then soon turn on her and decide to get Razin drunk in order to make him abandon her and return to their cause.

A slight criticism of the film would be that the titles play too large a role in conveying the plot.  For example, they make us aware of the mob’s plot to get Razin drunk, but we then only get a glimpse of the mob throwing their hats in the air – it would have been more helpful to have actually seen the act of Razin getting drunk.  

Returning to Junichiro’s quote, Stenka Razin is a distinctly Russian film. From its shots of the Volga to its almost obstinate refusal to focus on its main protagonist for more than one minor scene, it is a real pleasure to see Russia enriching the melting pot of cinema with its unique ingredients.

 

  

The first 'Roman' film -1907 - Ben Hur - Sidney Olcott

The first cinematic adaptation of Lew Wallace’s novel Ben Hur (watch the first part above) is almost completely ruined by the abysmal quality of the film’s print. It is perhaps what those who have negative pre-conceptions of early silent film would expect from films from this era: the print is so poor that at times it is hard to decipher what action is taking place; it is the sort of copy that you might expect when you foolishly decide to buy a pirated DVD from a street vendor, only to find that the film has been recorded with a shoddy hand held camcorder.

However, given how much film has been lost from this era, we should be grateful for any surviving films, no matter how poor their quality is. Nevertheless, this is the first film that we have looked at from the forgotten decade (1904-1913) that does not appear to be of great significance (apart from one scene), from either a technical or aesthetic point of view.

The film’s greatest legacy is legal:

This movie is most notable as a precedent in copyright law. The movie was made without the permission of the author's estate, which was common practice at that time. The screenwriter, Gene Gauntier, remarked in her 1928 autobiography how the film industry at that time infringed upon everything. As a result of the production of Ben Hur, Harper & Brothers and the author's estate brought suit against Kalem Studios, the Motion Picture Patents Company, and Gauntier for copyright infringement. The United States Supreme Court ultimately ruled against the film company in 1911. This ruling established the precedent that all motion picture production companies must first secure the film rights of any previously published work still under copyright before commissioning a screenplay based on that work.

Given the recent spate of legal action being taken by the film industry taken against file-sharers, there is a certain degree of irony to the fact that the film industry was on the receiving end of legal action for copyright infringement in its infancy.

Returning to the film, even if the print were to be restored to its full glory, there is not much in the film to suggest that our perception of it would alter to a significant extent. This adaptation of Ben Hur appears to be a competent attempt at staging scenes from the film. I have seen several reviews of the film criticise its inability to follow the book’s plot, but given the fact that the film is eleven minutes long, such criticism misses the point.

We are about to look at several literary adaptations from this era (mostly from the works of Shakespeare and Dickens), and to dismiss all of these films simply because film technology has not allowed these works to be filmed unabridged would seem illogical. In fact, it is exciting to see which parts of the various works the director’s find to be the most cinematic and to what extent their decision making was correct. Limitations have never hindered great art; often, they enhance it.

On this occasion though, the film maker, a Canadian named Sidney Olcott, has emphasised the theatrical rather than the cinematic. The first half of the film feels as if it is a play is being filmed, and given the obvious fact that early films are silent and that there is a scarcity of explanatory titles, the only things on offer in this section of the film are the marvellous costumes.

The one exception to this criticism is the chariot race, which appears at the film’s denouement (watch the second part of the film above), and it is this section which warrants this film’s inclusion on this list. The speed with which the chariots fly past the camera highlights the audacious nature of the scene, nothing this daring had been attempted up until this point in cinematic history. The film successfully masks the fact that this section of the film was shot on a beach in New Jersey with fireman playing the roles of the charioteers and the horses that pulled their fire carts being used to pull the chariots.

Twelve years earlier, in the Lumiere Brothers’ Arrivee d'un train en gare a La Ciotat, a train gradually crawled its way into the centre of the shot, mesmerising and frightening contemporary audiences. Now, horses were flying past the camera at a blistering pace, symbolising the rapidity of film’s growth.

This scene alone does not justify the remainder of the film. But you cannot help admire Olcott’s attempt to create a film that may have beyond film’s capabilities at that particular point.. 

Slapstick is born - 1907 - Début d'un patineur (The Unskillful Skater) - Louis J. Gasnier

The cinematic development of slapstick comedy can be traced back to films such as Début d'un patineur. As Linder’s character flounders in his skates and later gets chased by a group of children who are far superior skaters than he is, the endless possibilities for this genre, particularly during the silent era, becomes readily apparent.

Even though it had been only a year since he filmed Le premier cigare d'un collegian, it is clear that Linder’s style and comedic timing had evolved. Despite the impressiveness of the latter film, Début d'un patineur is a better orchestrated and funnier film. Most importantly it makes better use of the visual medium.

Whereas Le premier cigare d'un collegian was based around the experience of Linder’s character smoking a cigar, which did not lend itself particularly well to visual comedy (although Linder did an excellent job of portraying the effects the cigar has on him), the decision to base this film around Linder’s character attempting to skate opens itself to a greater array of visual comedic possibilities.  

The opening shot of Début d'un patineur demonstrates the magnetic effect of Linder’s  Parisian boulevardier persona. The camera focuses on a pathway in a busy park as various Parisians walk by. As Linder wanders into the shot, even from a distance his languorous movements draws the audience in. From Méliès Voyage Dans La Lune to Tait’s The Story of the Kelly Gang, many of the movies of this era relied on an ensemble cast to portray the film’s storytelling. Linder though, somehow manages to create a persona that captivates his audience almost single-handedly.

As mentioned in the previous post on Linder, movement is crucial to the effectiveness of Linder’s persona. Whereas previously we admired the subtleties of Linder’s movement, on this occasion it is his crass movements, for example, as he first attempts to use the ice skates, which must be commended. And it is this form of physical action that lends itself ever so well to silent film. Such action rarely requires exposition and can thus exist independently of language. It is no coincidence that the silent films that have endured among mainstream modern viewers are usually Chaplin or Keaton films. 

Despite Linder’s character clearly having little idea of how to balance himself on his skates, the audience is always left with the impression that Linder the actor is in complete control of every action. One might suggest that this is giving Linder too much credit; however, the comic timing of Linder’s acrobatics are almost perfect, which suggests that he knew exactly what he was doing.

The decision to show the entire process of Linder’s journey, from entering the park up to attempting to skate, only adds to the humour of his skating antics. His character clearly stands out among the usual skaters, and the look of bemusement of the men renting the skates is shared by the audience. It is in these scenes where Linder’s brilliance truly shines. There is embellishment that does not slip into exaggeration, everything is measured.

Perhaps the highlight of the film is when a more experienced skater attempts to help him up and the two of them engage in an accidental dance. As good as Linder is when he is performing a comic routine by himself, his comic chemistry with this other character suggests that his finest moments in his future films will come when he is placed in such scenarios.  


Finally, the film also played a key historical role in regards to recognising the author of a film:

"Les Debut d'un patineur" (1907) is remarkable because Linder's confused snob appeared for the first time. When in his credits for the movie "Max et la doctoresse" appeared the following text: "written by Max Linder and played by the author". It was the first time in film history that there was mentioned an author in connection with a cinematic work.

Their is a delicious irony to this milestone - Linder was not yet a director! Which in turn asks important question about who actually authors a film, particularly in the case of a slapstick comedy. The fact that this post has not mentioned this film's director even once suggests that I agree with the crediting of this film. But in a broader context, the question of authorship becomes far more ambiguous. 

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.