The Great Train Robbery – Edwin S. Porter (1903).

Rootin’, tootin’ and a whole lotta shooting!

Rarely does a modern audience consider a film in the context of its time, and so even the most innovative triumphs are lost on a generation that’s so hard to please.

Let’s compare two reviews  –

“…absolutely the superior of any moving picture ever made”
– Thomas Edison, Edison Company 1905.

“BORING!!1 The gayer prequel to brokeback mountain.”
– ArseRaptor, Youtube commenter 2012.

In fairness to ArseRaptor, Edison’s appraisal might be biased as the film was developed by his own company. The point is, to fully appreciate these “moving pictures” we need to place ourselves in the nickelodeons of the time.

Price of admission – a nickel.

An audience from the turn of the century were accustomed to scenes from actual life.

Étienne-Jules Marey – Flight.

Eadweard Muybridge – Man with pickaxe.

These are examples of photographic motion that served only to capture scenes from real life.

For films like The Great Train Robbery, two things that have never been considered had to come into play – narrative and fiction.

Edwin S. Porter achieved this by inventing the tools of his trade which led to groundbreaking techniques; –

• Multiple scenes
• Edits
• Several locations
• Simultaneous action
• Subplots
• and contradicting points of view.

For Little Johnny Appleseed’s efforts in saving a nickel, this would’ve been like getting hit in the head with a brick.

GTR’s climactic chase scene.

Porter’s style would have been considered radical film making at the time, but his technical advances served the narrative.

Differences between story and narrative can be discussed to no end but it boils down to;

Story = an event

A simple pixelated enemy.

Narrative = a collection of related events.

A force to be reckoned with!!

The Great Train Robbery saw the emergence of a collection of related events –

• Bandits force a Telegraph Operator to make a trains unscheduled stop.
• Masked men board train.
• They kill a man onboard and open the safe.
• The train’s stopped and passengers robbed.
• Bandits mount horses and escape.
• Meanwhile, the Telegraph Operator calls for assistance.
• The message arrives at a saloon and everyone grabs their rifles.
• The bandits are chased.
• There’s a shoot out and the guilty killed.

A neat and tidy 14 shots.

Compare this to the arrival of a train by the Lumiere Brothers which screened a few years earlier. The Great Train Robbery demonstrated with astounding technical ability the potential of cinematic narrative-telling.

Edwin S. Porter was a game changer.

Look into his moustache and bask in its stoic wisdom.

Edwin Stanton Porter (1870-1941) – Experimenter, Innovator and Filmmaker.

A Trip to the Moon – Georges Méliès (1902).

A fantastic beginnings.

Our voyage through cinema opens with alchemical symbols and magic orchestrated by the wonderful wizardry of Méliès.

It’s staggering how story told over a century ago, can still be so god-damn exciting through sheer imaginative innovation. From high-concept narrative, audacious costume and adventurous set-design this journey sets an inspiring example for cinematic storytelling.

Loosely based on two separate novels by H.G. Wells and Jules Verne the short film runs a cool 15 minutes and is considered the first important work of science fiction.

Méliès was able to craft engaging visuals through invention, collaboration and intense passion. The audience can feel his creative energy burn behind each orchestrated shot – something we only see in a handful of today’s filmmakers.

This daring tale also introduces an early example of pataphor.

Padawan?

This is a Padawan.

No, pataphore.

This is Alfred Jarry.

Let’s explain.

Okay, remember the iconic scene where the rocket crashes into the moons face?

Cut to, a safe landing on a faceless moonscape.

Hmm, two scenes suggesting an inconsistent reality?

If presumed intentional and not gross error in continuity this raises the glaring question – pourquoi?

Enter mind of French surrealist Alfred Jarry, who suggests this irregularity was in fact an ancient storytellers tool allowing visual extensions of metaphor and consequently coined the term “pataphysics”.

So, two scenes creating an incongruent reality is considered a “pataphysical concept.”

I love the brain tickling of pseudo-philosophy as much as the next dude, but when the credits roll at the end of A Trip to the Moon what you take home is a rekindled love for early cinema.

If these words could reach that great theater in the sky I would raise a heart full of thanks to George Méliès and for the magic he left behind.

Georges Méliès (1861-1938) –
Illusionist, Dreamer and Filmmaker.