The Story of Film 1896 - 1929 : Silent
From Mark Cousins' book "The Story of Film" with some additional movies that changed the way I look at movies or really moved me.
Thank you Mr. Cousins for opening my eyes to see a whole new world of movies and the path it took to get where it is today. Your book is an inspiration!
A quotation for the intro from Mark Cousins' book that explains these lists and the Story of Film:
"This book tells the story of the art of cinema. It narrates the history of a medium which began as a photographic, largely silent, shadowy novelty and became a digital, multi-billion dollar global business.
Although the business elements of film are important, you will find few details in my book of what films cost and how the industry organises itself and markets its wares. I wanted to write a purer book than that, one more focused on the medium than the industry. As you read, therefore, you will come across works that you may not have seen and may never see. I make no apology for this because I do not want to tell a history of cinema that is distorted by the vagaries of the market place. There are mainstream films described in what follows, but mostly I have focused on what I consider to be the most innovative films from any country at any period."
All quotations in quotation marks are from The Story of Film, unless otherwise indicated.
Thank you Mr. Cousins for opening my eyes to see a whole new world of movies and the path it took to get where it is today. Your book is an inspiration!
A quotation for the intro from Mark Cousins' book that explains these lists and the Story of Film:
"This book tells the story of the art of cinema. It narrates the history of a medium which began as a photographic, largely silent, shadowy novelty and became a digital, multi-billion dollar global business.
Although the business elements of film are important, you will find few details in my book of what films cost and how the industry organises itself and markets its wares. I wanted to write a purer book than that, one more focused on the medium than the industry. As you read, therefore, you will come across works that you may not have seen and may never see. I make no apology for this because I do not want to tell a history of cinema that is distorted by the vagaries of the market place. There are mainstream films described in what follows, but mostly I have focused on what I consider to be the most innovative films from any country at any period."
All quotations in quotation marks are from The Story of Film, unless otherwise indicated.
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- DirectorAuguste LumièreLouis LumièreStarsMadeleine KoehlerMarcel KoehlerMrs. Auguste LumiereA train arrives at La Ciotat station."On 28 December 1895, a date many film historians consider the birth of cinema, the Lumière brothers showed a short programme of their documentary films to a paying audience in a room on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris. Included a now famous single shot film called L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de la Ciotat"
- DirectorAlice GuyStarsAlice GuyGermaine SerandYvonne SerandThe first film directed by a female director, "The Cabbage Fairy" presents a brief fantasy tale involving a strange fairy who can produce and deliver babies coming out of cabbages. Gently moving through the cabbages and using of lovely gestures, she takes one baby out of there, then makes more magic and delivers two more.The Cabbage Fairy. "Alice Guy-Blaché started as a secretary to Léon Gaumont and directed perhaps the first ever scripted film and established one of the first movie studios, Solax."
- DirectorEnoch J. RectorStarsJames J. CorbettBob FitzsimmonsBilly MaddenDocumentary film depicting the 1897 boxing match between James J. Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons in Carson City, Nevada on St. Patrick's Day. Originally running for more than 100 minutes, it is the world's first feature film."Filmed by Rector using a film format that would not become popular for nearly fifty years – widescreen. He invented a new camera for the process and named it a Veriscope. The film was 63mm wide. Most other film of the time was 35mm.
What makes this film so interesting is that is helps reveal the changing social standing of cinema in America at that time. A local newspaper, The Brooklyn Eye, commented on its sheer spectacle, “The man who would have predicted … that an event of the prior month would be reproduced before the eyes of a multitude in pictures that moved like life, and that lightning would move them and light them, would have been avoided as a lunatic or hanged as a wizard.” - DirectorGeorge Albert SmithThe ghost of a man's twin shows him a vision of how he was killed in a duel."Mr. Smith draped part of his set in black velvet, filmed a shot, rewound the film and then re-exposed the film to include the image of a ghost, which appeared to float through the original set."
- DirectorGeorges MélièsStarsJehanne d'AlcyGeorges MélièsAn astronomer falls asleep and has a strange dream involving a fairy queen and the Moon.La Lune à un Mètre (Original title).
"Georges Méliès combined painted theatrical imagery and trick effects to explore the magical and stylized possibilities of cinema.
While filming his camera jammed and, a moment later, it started up again. He noticed that since no film was exposed during the jam, streetcars suddenly jumped forward and people disappeared. This discovery of another magical quality of film inspired him to make this film." - DirectorGeorge Albert SmithStarsLaura BayleyGeorge Albert SmithA humorous subject intended to be run as a part of a railroad scene during the period in which the train is passing through a tunnel."Mr. Smith was among the first to film action and then project it in reverse. In 1898, he shot what has since been called a “phantom ride”. This was a new visual experience achieved by putting the camera on the front of a moving train. Films with more than one shot started to emerge only in the late 1890s, and Smith’s combination of interior and travelling shot was one of cinema’s first attempts to say “Meanwhile”
- DirectorGeorge Albert SmithStarsLaura BayleyTom GreenA man dreams he is flirting with an attractive young lady, then he wakes up in bed next to his wife."what was perhaps the first example of a “focus pull” – a shot where a photographer twists the barrel of the lens to make the image go from sharp to soft focus"
- DirectorGeorge Albert SmithStarsHarold SmithA boy looks through glasses at various objects, seen magnified."One of the earliest close-ups in film"
- DirectorGeorge Albert SmithA girl gives a spoonful of medicine to a kitten."Only later did filmmakers use close-ups simply to show their audiences a dramatic incident in more detail, as in The Sick Kitten, a remake of G.A. Smith’s The Little Doctor, which was lost."
- DirectorGeorge S. FlemingEdwin S. PorterStarsEdwin S. PorterVivian VaughanArthur WhiteA fireman rushes into a carriage to rescue a woman from a house fire. He breaks the windowpanes and carries the woman to safety; after dangerous and uncertain moments he also saves the woman's son."Its most celebrated sequence is the arrival of a fireman outside a blazing house. The image cuts to a room inside the house where the fireman rescues a mother, then cuts to an exterior shot of the mother left on the street. The camera then returns inside the house to show the rescue of the mother’s child by the fireman and then reestablishes itself outside again.
Cinema had learned to follow the flow of the action from one space to another. This made chase sequences possible, liberated movies and emphasised movement." - DirectorEdwin S. PorterStarsGilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' AndersonA.C. AbadieGeorge BarnesA group of bandits stage a brazen train hold-up, only to find a determined posse hot on their heels.One of the first films in the world to be made that actually told a story.
- DirectorCharles TaitStarsElizabeth TaitJohn TaitNicholas BrierleyOriginally 70 minutes in running time, only 17 minutes of the world's first full-length narrative feature film survived in stills and other fragments and tell the story of Ned Kelly, an infamous 19th-century Australian outlaw.Perhaps the first feature-length film
- DirectorLouis J. GasnierA laundry man parks his horse-drawn cart to make a delivery. While he is inside, his horse sees a bag of oats and starts to eat them. By the time the man comes back outside, the horse has eaten a whole bag of oats, and has so much energy that he begins to race out of control."The action of the horse and its rider were separate, simultaneous events. Unlike continuity editing, this was parallel editing, the origin of “Meanwhile” in the cinema"
- DirectorAndré CalmettesCharles Le BargyStarsCharles Le BargyAlbert LambertGabrielle RobinneFrance, at the end of the sixteenth century. Henry III decided to eliminate his rival, the Duke of Guise, and, therefore, calls him in the castle of Blois. The mistress of the duke, warned of the King's intentions, informs him, but the noble, sure of his own authority, went there anyway. In Cabinet-Vieux castle Duke is stabbed by guards of the King, while he attends the murder hidden behind the curtains. Eventually, Henry III does burn the duke body to discard."Actors turning their backs to the camera marked the beginning of the end of frontal, theatrical cinema"
- DirectorSiegmund LubinDirector Lubin was first Jewish-American filmmaker. In the film, Moses uses his last pennies to help a friend in need. 25 years later the men meet again. The film is remarkable in its depiction of tradition in the face of oppressive circumstances."a man in a street fight remembers an event from twenty-five years earlier. The shot of that memory is the first flashback acknowledged by film historians."
- DirectorD.W. GriffithMack SennettStarsMack SennettHarry SolterFlorence LawrenceAn upper class drawing room. A gentleman breaks the curtain pole and goes in search of a replacement, but he stops into a pub first. He buys a very long pole, and causes havoc everywhere he passes, accumulating an ever-growing entourage chasing him, until he escapes them through a bit of movie magic, only to discover that the pole has already been replaced."From 1908 to 1913 D.W. Griffith made 400 short films, including The Curtain Pole, one of his rare comedies which nonetheless established a crazy style that would dominate comic movies for the remainder of the silent period"
- DirectorN.G. ChitreP.R. TipnisRamchandra Gopal TorneyThe film about the Hindu saint Pudalik is based on a Marathi play by Ramrao Kirtikar. The entire 'film' is 'played' out on Grant Road, Bombay."Some say the first film made in India, it was shot on location in Bombay by P.R. Tipnis and N.G. Chitre"
- DirectorChristy CabanneStarsPancho VillaDon Luis TerrazasAlthough some scenes were re-enacted after the fact, this is a real documentary on the struggle of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa to overthrow dictator Porfirio Díaz . Directors Christy Cabanne and Raoul Walsh took a camera crew to Mexico during the Mexican Revolution of 1912 and traveled with Villa, filming footage of his army on the march and engaged in battle with federal troops (director Walsh confirmed in an interview the long-rumored story that Villa insisted on the filming of execution by firing squad of several dozen federal prisoners, but that when he returned to Hollywood the studio thought the footage too grisly and cut it out)."Cinema was playing an important role in Mexico’s bloody civil war which would claim over a million lives between 1911 and 1917. Cameramen in the north of Mexico, like the intrepid Lumière employee Francis Doublier outside Moscow in 1896, filmed the battles of the revolutionary Pancho Villa. Although some scenes were re-enacted after the fact, this is a real documentary on the struggle of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. La vista de la revuetta/View of the Uprising (Mexico)
- DirectorWilliam FosterStarsWilliam FosterLottie GradyEdgar LittersonThe first race comedy made inaugurating the chase idea, later copied by Lubin, Keystone Cops,etc.."The Railroad Porter was a type of chase comedy that was becoming popular, but it had an all-black cast and a black director, Bill Foster. Despite some further pioneers in the 1930s, it wouldn’t be until the 1970s that a range of black filmmakers emerged in the US and that the very first black film would be made in Britain. "
- DirectorArthur MackleyStarsArthur MackleyJulia MackleyMarguerite ToddJoe Simmons, the town loafer, is warned by the ranch boys that he had better get to work and provide for his family on the penalty of a severe horse whipping if he does not do so. After repeated warnings the boys fake action and Joe is given the lashing he has been promised. Jim threatens that he will kill the ring leader of the band if he ever finds him out, but the boys scoff at the idea. The next morning Jim Wrayburn, the leader in the horsewhipping incident of the day before, calls on Joe, and presents him with a team of horses and kindly advice to get to work. Years go by. Joe has become a wealthy ranchman when he learns that it was Wrayburn who had horsewhipped him. Joe has never forgotten the whipping he received and plans to carry out the threat. However, finding Jim about to be turned out of his home, Joe pays off the mortgage and presents it to Jim with a note which says, "Given in payment for the good a whipping and two horses did for me.""Eye-line matching had still not been perfected in 1911. Two men in the film appear to be staring in opposite directions, yet they are supposed to be talking to, and looking at, each other."
- DirectorDhundiraj Govind PhalkeStarsD.D. DabkeAnna SalunkeGanpat G. ShindeThe film opens with a Ravi Varma like tableau showing King Harishchandra, his wife Taramati and his young son. The king is teaching his son archery. They go on a hunt. The king enters an area controlled by the Sage Vishwamitra. Three furies appear before the king caught in flames. The king tries to rescue them. These fairies try to seduce the king into renouncing his kingdom for his love of truth. The king endures much hardship including being banished from his kingdom before a god appears to reassure everyone that the whole narrative was merely a test of the king's integrity."Phalke took the ancient stories of Indian myth which form The Mahabharata (collected between 400BC and 400AD), and adapted them for screen. He created a whole genre, the mythological, which has survived to this day"
- DirectorEnrico GuazzoniStarsAmleto NovelliGustavo SerenaCarlo CattaneoAn epic Italian film, "Quo Vadis" influenced many of the later movies."Quo Vadis? was a landmark in early Italian historical epic films and certainly Enrico Guazzoni's grand scale masterpiece laid the foundations for what genuine kolossal Italian spectacles should be. It had a great deal of influence on Giovanni Pastrone's "Cabiria" and D.W. Griffith's "Intolerance"
- DirectorYevgeny BauerStarsNina ChernovaA. UgrjumovV. DemertA young, rich woman decides to dedicate her life to helping the poor, but a tragic incident changes her life."...developed early tracking shot even further. Like many of the eighty or more films he would make in the next four years, Twilight of a Woman’s Soul derived from the heady fatalistic naturalism of Russian literature in the second half of the nineteenth century."
- DirectorRalph InceStarsRalph InceAnita StewartGladden JamesThe fighter is a "second-rater" and loses his fight for the championship title. After his defeat he goes downhill very rapidly until he meets the captain of the sloop "Wasp," which is manned by desperadoes. The captain is a second edition of Wolf Larsen, of Jack London's story, a very bad man. The down-and-out fighter ships with the captain and goes to sea with him. On an ocean steamer, a young heiress and young man, newly married, are going abroad on their honeymoon The steamer founders in mid-ocean, all hands going down with it except the young couple, who escape in a life-boat. Later they are picked up at sea by the "Wasp." The captain takes advantage of the girl's helpless position, after setting her husband to work in the forecastle. The young couple try to reason with the captain by promising him a liberal reward. The ex-fighter, now a sailor of the sloop crew, takes their part. While he is fighting off the captain and some of his gang, the young husband and wife manage to escape from the sloop in one of the dories. They are later picked up by another steamer and saved. While they are getting away, their protector fights off the captain and his villainous desperadoes, and finally falls dead in the struggle. The last seen of the young couple is a view of them in the cabin of another steamer, thinking of what may have befallen the man who sacrificed his life for them."An early example of the now familiar technique of reverse-angle cutting, in which we are shown the main character first and then what she is looking at"
- DirectorVictor SjöströmStarsHilda BorgströmGeorg GrönroosAron LindgrenFinancial struggles separate a single mother from her children."Victor Sjöström's early feature film "Ingeborg Holm" is not only considered by many the first film in the golden age of Swedish cinema lasting from 1913 to 1924 but also the real beginning of Swedish cinema in general."