Thomas Edison as a movie maker
WEEKENDER, Feb. 20, 2009
Thomas Edison is America’s most famous inventor.
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By 1888, his main interest appeared to be motion pictures. His studios experimented with short motion pictures from 1888 to 1918.
Much of this work survives and was made into an intriguing DVD set, “Edison: The Invention of the Movies.”
Compiled on four discs, it interweaves old, old, REALLY old film with comments and background by film historians.
You can watch the movies only, or you can watch with the historians’ introductions.
If you enjoy films and / or history, this gives you more background into this artform.
The problem is if you rent them from Netflix, as I did, you want to watch everything in a couple of nights so you can send them back. Each disc is 4 1/2 hours long, filled with short movies, some less than a minute, others up to 15 minutes.
At first, it is sort of fascinating to see people prancing about nearly 120 years ago. You are looking at people from another world, so far from our reality.
The first effort was tiny images spiraling around a modest-sized cylinder. Hmm, not too compelling, there.
The first real film is the co-inventor of the motion picture system, W.K.L. Dickson, waving to Edison. This film is shown to the press, which anxiously waits for news on this invention.
Other films get into manly sports like boxing and cockfighting. There is even a comical film showing boxing cats.
We see Native Americans dancing, women dancing, magic shows, snippets of what you might see on a Vaudeville stage during that period.
Commentators point out women would not have been able to go to a cockfight or boxing match, but were welcome to view the films.
Later films show the inside of blacksmith and barber shops
By 1894, the Edison Kinetoscope Parlor opened on Broadway in New York, the first place the public could watch movies.
A sneeze filmed Jan. 7, 1894 was immortalized in Harper’s Weekly. More interesting was a firearms demonstration by Annie Oakley on Nov. 1, 1894. What caused a huge stir was a kiss between John C. Rise and May Irwin, filmed April 1, 1896. We learn May was in her 30s but looked much older. In fact, she could have been mistaken for an ugly man. But the kiss caused sparks and Rise decided to go off on his own and give kissing lessons. Irwin got another kissing partner to travel the country with and wow audiences, but he turned out to be a lousy kisser. The original two eventually got back together. This is entertainment? Films got longer and more detailed. Everyone has seen “The Great Train Robbery” in 1905. Later, the film was recreated using kids. The movies looked very stagy. The cameras are fixed, with actors walking into and out of scenes. A version of “Goldie Locks and the Three Bears” has Father Bear going into his house. The camera just hangs on the outside until he ventures out with the rest of the family. Goldie shows up and goes through her routine, including watching some dancing teddy bears that must have been fascinating for the time. Teddy bears were popular because they were created with President Theodore Roosevelt in mind. The films don’t always make a lot of sense. The bears return home and find Goldie. She runs. The bears chase her. A hunter shoots and kills Momma and Poppa bears and baby bear skips off with Goldilocks, leaving his dead parents. In one film, where someone is pulled out of the water, the film characters’ idea of CPR is to grab the victim’s arms and alternately pull them up over the victim’s head and down to her side. When ambulance attendants show up, they take over, doing the same thing. Maybe they were pumping the water out. One film has a man traveling the world, visiting painted backgrounds of the French Alps and pyramids of Egypt. Hilarious. Eventually the novelty wears off and the films get boring. They are more interesting in small doses. After awhile I dreamed of watching a loud, modern film with plenty of quick cuts and blaring music and closeups and professional special affects. You can only spend so many nights with quaint. EDISON: THE INVENTION OF THE MOVIES • Literally hundreds of small movies with various directors • Not rated but OK for entire family, although it won’t hold kids’ attention for long • 2 stars out of 4
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