{"id":36765,"date":"2019-06-20T11:38:45","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T18:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/?p=36765"},"modified":"2019-06-21T12:02:07","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T19:02:07","slug":"chrono-watch-catching-up-1888-1899","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/chrono-watch-catching-up-1888-1899\/","title":{"rendered":"Chrono Watch: Catching Up (1888-1899)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just to get back up to speed, here&#8217;s a quick rundown of the first couple of decades of cinema, with a few thoughts about some highlights.<\/p>\n<h2>1888-1893: Experiments<\/h2>\n<p>Cameras that could take multiple shots in quick succession were just being developed, and the earliest films are more snippets of experiments than anything else. Thomas Edison&#8217;s lab was a leader here, though if you delve into the details, he developed almost nothing related to movies &#8211; he bought innovations other inventors made and his associates (especially W.K.L. Dickson) worked to improve them.<\/p>\n<h3>Roundhay Garden Scene<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Frame-by-Frame: World&#039;s Oldest Surviving Film - Roundhay Garden Scene (1888) | Louis Le Prince\" width=\"629\" height=\"472\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nR2r__ZgO5g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Considered to be possibly the oldest moving picture, just a few seconds of people meandering around a garden.<\/p>\n<h3>Monkeyshines<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Monkeyshines, No. 1 (1890)\" width=\"629\" height=\"472\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kFgxJnvF2Jg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There were three of these, experiments done in the Edison lab, of a lone figure. The first is very out of focus and ghostly, the second a bit more defined, and the third one has been lost (be suspicious of videos on YouTube claiming to be Monkeyshines #3). I find these have a magnetic quality, though, perhaps because of the ghostliness of them.<\/p>\n<h3>Pauvre Pierrot<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Pauvre Pierrot (Emile Reynaud, 1892).mp4\" width=\"629\" height=\"472\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/426mqlB-kAY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>An anomaly for 1892, a stop-motion film at a narrative level which wouldn&#8217;t be seen again for several years.<\/p>\n<h3>Blacksmith Scene<\/h3>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/cm5g7CfXYYE<\/p>\n<p>The beginning of the actualities that would be the bread and butter for Edison&#8217;s studio, most of them actually made by W.K.L. Dickson &#8211; he gets a start on them in 1893 with this one, but there are oh so many more to come.<\/p>\n<h2>1894-1896: Actualities<\/h2>\n<h3>The Boxing Cats (Prof. Welton&#8217;s)<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Boxing Cats (Prof. Welton&#039;s)\" width=\"629\" height=\"472\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6qre61opE_g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Actual boxing movies were very popular, a way for people to watch fights they couldn&#8217;t dream of attending in person. Their popularity is perhaps the reason for this humorous parody.<\/p>\n<h3>Imperial Japanese Dance<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Imperial Japanese Dance\" width=\"629\" height=\"472\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gOy-VeWOHg4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Some of Dickson&#8217;s actualities were of normal everyday scenes, but many were exotic things like this, showing a snapshot of a world most Americans would never see. I mean, most of them were staged and not authentic at all, but that was the intention anyway.<\/p>\n<h3>Dickson Experimental Sound Film<\/h3>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/dccnVNdqtJk<\/p>\n<p>Sound may not have taken over until the late 1920s, but Edison&#8217;s lab was experimenting with it as early as 1896! Edison, in fact, thought moving pictures were a novelty, intending to use them merely as supplements for his main product, the phonograph.<\/p>\n<h3>Employees Leaving the Lumi\u00c3\u00a8re Factory<\/h3>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/BO0EkMKfgJI<\/p>\n<p>Edison had competition early on from the Lumi\u00c3\u00a8re brothers in France, whose actualities have a naturalistic quality to them as opposed to Edison\/Dickson&#8217;s studio\/controlled feel.<\/p>\n<h3>Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat<\/h3>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/RjtXXypztyw<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s an urban legend that moviegoers jumped up and ran in fear that the train would hit them, but this is still a very pleasing film due to the Lumi\u00c3\u00a8re&#8217;s sense of composition and angle.<\/p>\n<h3>Tables Turned on the Gardener<\/h3>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/IooPPi1YzkM<\/p>\n<p>The Lumi\u00c3\u00a8res try their hand at comedy, an unusual mode for them, but a delightful one. Many films from this era were copied by others since copyright law was not well-defined in terms of moving pictures, so there is also a version of this directed by Alice Guy. Dueling copycat films continued into the 1910s, and in some cases it&#8217;s almost impossible to tell for sure which version is which!<\/p>\n<h2>1896-1899: M\u00c3\u00a9li\u00c3\u00a8s Ascendant<\/h2>\n<p>There are still a lot of solid actualities in this time period, and I&#8217;ve included a couple, but 1896 marks the year Georges M\u00c3\u00a9li\u00c3\u00a8s sprang onto the scene. M\u00c3\u00a9li\u00c3\u00a8s was a stage magician who realized he could stop the camera, change something, and start it again and it would look like magic. He&#8217;s justly honored for the invention of camera tricks, and the first several years of his career are tough to beat.<\/p>\n<h3>The House of the Devil<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The House of the Devil (1896) with score\" width=\"629\" height=\"354\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/13n0N0j7e9k?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This is like a &#8220;greatest hits&#8221; of M\u00c3\u00a9li\u00c3\u00a8s, or at least a precursor to several strands of his future career. Costumes? Check. Conjuring and transformation tricks? Check. A devilish character playing tricks on people? Check. It&#8217;s a lot of fun, and a really great introduction to M\u00c3\u00a9li\u00c3\u00a8s.<\/p>\n<h3>Childish Quarrel<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Babies Quarrel [A Childish Quarrel] (1896, Lumi\u00e8re, silent, DVD).avi\" width=\"629\" height=\"472\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u-lmJPaQF4g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I find actualities like this pretty dang charming &#8211; just the Lumi\u00c3\u00a8re children having a little spat, but it&#8217;s cute and realistic and somehow really refreshing. Like home movies from the dawn of (cinematic) time.<\/p>\n<h3>The Bewitched Inn<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&quot;L&#039; auberge Ensorcele&quot; (&quot;The Bewitched Inn&quot;, French silent film)\" width=\"629\" height=\"354\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fPvs7nfaFBc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Among the earliest &#8220;haunted inn&#8221; films, a genre that would serve M\u00c3\u00a9li\u00c3\u00a8s very well for many years, and remains my personal favorite type of film he did. The setup is simple &#8211; a weary traveler arrives at an inn and settles in for some much-needed rest, only to have his clothes and all the furniture in his room develop minds of their own and move about the room unbidden. This one particularly amuses me because even though he&#8217;s mad, he doesn&#8217;t seem scared or weirded out by all these things moving of their own volition. It makes it even funnier.<\/p>\n<h3>The Dancing Skeleton<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lumi\u00e8re: Le Squelette joyeux (1897)\" width=\"629\" height=\"472\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uNReoA8BV_Y?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Disney would make a major thing of animated dancing skeletons thirty years later, but they weren&#8217;t the first &#8211; this unusual film for the Lumi\u00c3\u00a8res experimented with stop-motion very early.<\/p>\n<h3>The Four Troublesome Heads<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Un homme de t\u00eates (or The Four Troublesome Heads) by Georges Melies, 1898\" width=\"629\" height=\"472\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IKQRV4XKZt4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A fairly typical but high-level M\u00c3\u00a9li\u00c3\u00a8s trick film, with a magician main character pulling off his head repeatedly and putting it on a table until he has four heads (plus the one still on his body). It&#8217;s impressive trickery, and quite funny as well; maybe the best example of what M\u00c3\u00a9li\u00c3\u00a8s the Magician envisioned for expanding magic onto the screen.<\/p>\n<h3>Cendrillon<\/h3>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/XQh3PJnLKT0<\/p>\n<p>When M\u00c3\u00a9li\u00c3\u00a8s wasn&#8217;t doing magician tricks or stranding hapless travelers in haunted inns, he was most likely doing a longer (and often long-winded) costume drama, with lavish sets, costumes, and hand-coloring. These get pretty tedious later on, but this one is kind of amazing &#8211; no one else at this time was even attempting narratives at this level.<\/p>\n<h2>More?!<\/h2>\n<p>Now, this is far from all I watched from 1888-1899. Here&#8217;s my Flickchart list of the top 30 or so I watched. I picked ones for this recap that I felt were particularly notable, not necessarily the ones I liked the best, so they don&#8217;t match the top of this exactly. I ended up having seen 76 films from the 1880s and 1890s.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Top_30_of_1890s.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1110\" height=\"1618\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-36776\" data-wp-pid=\"36776\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Top_30_of_1890s.jpg 1110w, https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Top_30_of_1890s-88x128.jpg 88w, https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Top_30_of_1890s-206x300.jpg 206w, https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Top_30_of_1890s-768x1119.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Top_30_of_1890s-600x875.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Top_30_of_1890s-800x1166.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Top_30_of_1890s-137x200.jpg 137w, https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Top_30_of_1890s-549x800.jpg 549w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just to get back up to speed, here&#8217;s a quick rundown of the first couple of decades of cinema, with a few thoughts about some highlights. 1888-1893: Experiments Cameras that could take multiple shots in quick succession were just being developed, and the earliest films are more snippets of experiments than anything else. Thomas Edison&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3307],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Lumiere-Factory.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":36770,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/chrono-project-catching-up-1900-1908\/","url_meta":{"origin":36765,"position":0},"title":"Chrono Project: Catching Up (1900-1908)","author":"Jandy","date":"July 26, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"1900-1908: Imitators and Innovation Moving into the 20th century saw a lot of filmmakers try to imitate M\u00c3\u00a9li\u00c3\u00a8s' camera trickery, and soon begin outpacing him. Unfortunately, as innovative as M\u00c3\u00a9li\u00c3\u00a8s was in creating the trick film, he never really went past that, never able to break free from his conception\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Chrono Project&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Chrono Project","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/chrono-project\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Great-Train-Robbery.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Great-Train-Robbery.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Great-Train-Robbery.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Great-Train-Robbery.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Great-Train-Robbery.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":36743,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/introducing-the-chrono-watch-project\/","url_meta":{"origin":36765,"position":1},"title":"Introducing the Chrono Watch Project!","author":"Jandy","date":"June 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the things I enjoyed the most about the Movie Recommendation Challenge I did last year, surprisingly, was not having to think about what movie to watch next. Apparently indecision is a bigger damper on my spirits than lack of agency. Weird. Anyway, because I enjoyed having such a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Chrono Project&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Chrono Project","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/chrono-project\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Great-Train-Robbery.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Great-Train-Robbery.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Great-Train-Robbery.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Great-Train-Robbery.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Great-Train-Robbery.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":36760,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/wow-its-dusty-in-here\/","url_meta":{"origin":36765,"position":2},"title":"Wow, it&#8217;s dusty in here!","author":"Jandy","date":"May 23, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"So...it's been a VERY LONG TIME since I updated things around here, and what a time it's been! Last time I posted, I was just starting a Chronological watchlist project (known to me as Chrono project or sometimes just Chrono), and planned to post an update on that at the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Personal&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Personal","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_2279-2-crop.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_2279-2-crop.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_2279-2-crop.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_2279-2-crop.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_2279-2-crop.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":33408,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/the-story-of-film-on-tcm-chapter-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":36765,"position":3},"title":"The Story of Film on TCM: Chapter 12","author":"Jandy","date":"November 26, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In the 1980s, greed is good. Conservative idealogues tell false stories about life and love. Innovative filmmakers spoke back to them - speaking truth to power. This is one of the most politically-charged episodes in The Story of Film, as Cousins positions the innovative filmmaking in the 1980s as political\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Film&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/SoF-The_Story_of_Film.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36881,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2022\/07\/how-costumes-mean\/","url_meta":{"origin":36765,"position":4},"title":"How Costumes Mean","author":"Jandy","date":"July 7, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently finished a brief course on fairy tales and one of the recurring motifs was how changing clothes signals a change in identity or perceived identity, and it was fun to see that same idea coming up as fashion historians and costume designers talk about how they approach costuming\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;ephemera&quot;","block_context":{"text":"ephemera","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/ephemera\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/W0hBvuNqOV0\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36601,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/challenge-week-48-son-of-frankenstein\/","url_meta":{"origin":36765,"position":5},"title":"Challenge Week 48: Son of Frankenstein","author":"Jandy","date":"December 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"True confession time. I have apparently seen this. I don't know why I didn't log it (either on Flickchart OR Letterboxd), and I was looking forward to it as a new-to-me Frankenstein film. But once it got going, things started to be familiar, and yeah, I've definitely seen it. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;2016 Movie Challenge&quot;","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/tf-lab.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}