1903 crime, dir. Edwin S. Porter;
IMDb. The robbers tie up the
telegraph clerk, board the train, and make their getaway…
This is one of the earliest films I've watched, and it's
definitely still in what I think of as the honeymoon period of cinema:
put something exciting on the screen, and people will be happy to
watch it, even if there isn't much else. That said, Porter was trying
to imitate Meliès and the Brighton School with more narrative films,
while most of the Edison studio output (along with that of the Lumière
brothers) was more straightforward very short reels showing one
interesting thing.
This isn't the first Western, and it's not even the first Western with
a plot, but I think it's remembered for one scene in particular. One
should remember that in 1903 train robberies were, if not an everyday
occurrence, still the sort of news story with which the audience would
be familiar—so there's no need to explain anything.
There are some interesting technical innovations though, particularly
a scene "inside a carriage" with an open door showing the landscape
going past, combining a travelling background with a studio shot in a
way that was rare and tricky at the time.
But I think the reason this is remembered at all is the last scene
(though, according to the notes to projectionists, it could be shown
first): an outlaw, perhaps one of the ones we've seen getting gunned
down but without any other close-up shots it's hard to tell, faces the
camera and empties his pistol towards it. This is the pure cinema of
spectacle, I think, something the audience probably hasn't
experienced, and the reminder that even if all these outlaws are
dead it's still a wild world out there.
It's interesting to someone like me learning about early film, but I
don't think it stands well on its own. I think one could regard it as
what film tended to be like before D. W. Griffith came along.
This is on YouTube.
I talk about this more on
Ribbon of Memes.