Edwin S. Porter and his colleagues, James H. White and George S. Fleming, expand their ambitions. While Life of an American Fireman does not compare with the contemporary works of Ferdinand Zecca or George Melie, it shows the workman-like techniques of the Edison company.
The film is a straight-forward tell of a fire company responding to a fire. Much of the film is the driving of the fire engines, focusing on the movement and action of the race to the fire. When the firemen get to the house on fire, a fireman, played by co-filmmaker James H. White, races up the ladder, into the room. He rescues a woman and her daughter, then fights the blaze. Interestingly, the same action is then shown again, but from the perspective from outside of the house. This is a less elegant and dramatic way of presenting the action than later directors would employ. As later films by Griffith and Porter himself would prove, cross-cutting between the two locations builds drama and tension.
Overall it represents a step foreword for the Edison filmmakers, yet was still far behind the inventiveness and wizardry of the contemporary European filmmakers.
The film is a straight-forward tell of a fire company responding to a fire. Much of the film is the driving of the fire engines, focusing on the movement and action of the race to the fire. When the firemen get to the house on fire, a fireman, played by co-filmmaker James H. White, races up the ladder, into the room. He rescues a woman and her daughter, then fights the blaze. Interestingly, the same action is then shown again, but from the perspective from outside of the house. This is a less elegant and dramatic way of presenting the action than later directors would employ. As later films by Griffith and Porter himself would prove, cross-cutting between the two locations builds drama and tension.
Overall it represents a step foreword for the Edison filmmakers, yet was still far behind the inventiveness and wizardry of the contemporary European filmmakers.