a short history of the amercian silent screen2

8/13/2019 A Short History of the Amercian Silent Screen2

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A Short History of the American Silent Screen

The year 2003 marks the 100th birthday of one of the most influential films evermade. This film changed not only the way films were made, but, more importantly,the way they were received. It is most unusual, therefore, that neither the name ofthis film nor the director are household names, yet without The Great Train Robbery directed by dwin !. "orter, there would be no #ruce $illis, no %uentin Tarantino,and no multi&billion dollar film industry.

#ut "orter is not alone in his greatness, nor his obscurity. 'or he is (ust one of thefathers of modern film, one of those who helped to transform film from a merecuriosity into a money making art form, all before movies learned to talk)

The First Moving Pictures

#efore the days of photography, man had already perfected ways of viewing picturesthat moved. Though these were drawings rather than photographs, they entertainedthe well&to&do on long winter nights while the peasants shivered in their huts. *fterthe advent of photography in the 1+20 s, inventors began looking for ways to makephotographs move.

#y the late 1-th century there were many different devices which could make stillphotographs appear to move, from Magic Lanterns to the Fantascope . *ll thesemachines worked on the same principle the use of a series of single stillphotographs /or drawings in the days before photography viewed in se uence to

simulate movement. *lthough these forms of entertainment were popular, man wasnot content with a simulation of movement he wanted the real thing.

Edison Gets in the Picture

ot surprisingly, one of the first *mericans to become interested in making picturesmove was Tomas *lva dison. dison, whose earlier invention in 1+4- of the firstefficient incandescent light bulb would be later used for film pro(ectors, tried to tie inmoving pictures with another of his inventions, the phonograph. This invention, calledthe Kinetophonograph , used normal, rapidly moving photographs, hooked up to an

dison phonograph to give it sound. *lthough the apparatus was not efficient enough

for commercial use, dison was able to make the first moving pictures with sound in1+++, a full 3- years before 5ollywood made The Jazz !inger, the 6first7 talkie, in1-24. #ut, due to its unreliability, dison thought of the 8inetophonograph as afailure, and soon lost interest in making pictures move, preferring instead toconcentrate on making a practical 6electrical chair7, with which criminals could bee9ecuted more uickly and efficiently.

#ut though dison lost interest, he had other assistants working for him who did not.:ne of them, $illiam ;ickson, invented in 1+-0 the Kinetograph , the first real motionpicture camera.


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and he continued with his e9periments, inventing a year later the Kinetoscope , adevice which allowed a single patron, after inserting a coin of course, to view a filmfrom the kinetograph. It was decided that in order to make the device more reliable,sound would not be included, and thus, motion pictures remained virtually silent forthe ne9t 3> years.

;ickson used the kinetograph to make the world s first film, Monkeyshines , whichwas about thirty seconds of 'red :tt, ;ickson s colleague, moving around in front ofthe camera. *lthough the film was not e9actly a masterpiece by today s standards, itdid mark the birth of the film industry, and every film that has come after owes it adebt of gratitude.

The First Films

In 1+-3 dison opened the #lack ?aria, the world s first movie studio, located in$est :range, ew @ersey. The #lack ?aria was so named because, according to

dison s employees, the s uare&shaped building covered in tar paper resembled apolice paddy wagon. The studio also had a retractable roof to allow sun to come in,thus providing light for the camera, and was mounted on rollers so it could turn tofollow the sun as it moved across the sky. These were the days before strongartificial lights, therefore direct sunlight was an important ingredient when making afilm.

The first film made at the new studio, The Edison Kinetoscopic Record o a !neeze, showed (ust that, a sneeAe. The film started as 'red :tt /the star of Monkeyshinesbegan a sneeAe, and ended a few seconds later when he finished it. :nce again, notvery e9citing stuff, but movie audiences at the time were amaAed by anything thatwas put onto film, regardless of what it was. The Edison Kinetoscopic Record o a!neeze , which is also known as Fred "tt#s !neeze , is the oldest copyrighted film ine9istence, with a copyright date of @anuary, 1+-B.

The films of the 1+-0 s were not very sophisticated, and were not intended forintellectual audiences. * single, stationary camera was used, with little imaginationgoing into its placement. ?ost films were simply a demonstration of the new medium,and were used for novelty purposes to make money as uickly as possible before thepublic grew tired of them. !ome films were partially in color, which re uired an artistto paint by hand each frame of the negative, a particularly time consuming process.

* typical film was merely a documentary, uncut and unedited, showing scenes fromordinary life. Trains, ships, and balloons, all in motion, were shown in films 30 to >0seconds long, to single viewers who put coins into the slots of the viewing machines,the kinetoscopes, which stood in long rows in specialty shops and arcades. !treetscenes were popular, as well as scenes from magic shows, vaudeville, sportingevents, and, of course, strip teases. !cenes from #uffalo #ill s $ild $est !how wereone of the most popular of these early films, and audiences happily inserted coinafter coin into the kinetoscopes to view the legendary hero of the $ild $est.


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Competition Comes to Edison

dison held the patent rights to ;ickson s kinetograph, which included the use ofsprockets to hold and move the film, and also the kinetoscope, which was themechanism used for viewing films from the kinetograph. The sprocket system was

the key to both devices, and as no other way had yet been invented to make movingpictures, this meant that dison s was the only company in the first half of the 1+-0 sthat could legally make films. This brought in an enormous sum of money to dison,and he was an9ious to keep his patent rights. 5owever in 1+-=, ;ickson, who had finally grown tired of living in dison s immenseshadow, left to form his own company, the *merican ?utoscope and #iographCompany, more commonly known as #iograph. ;ickson, who was restricted by

dison s patents from using the sprocket&driven movie camera and viewer that hehimself had actually invented, was able to make films by inventing a new type ofcamera and viewer that didn t use sprockets. $hile this was a breakthrough for;ickson, a simple look at the film we use today will tell you that the sprocket systemwas, and still is, much more efficient. !till, the days of dison s monopoly on

*merican films were over, and would never again return. 'aced with this new competition, in 1+-> dison bought the patent for the firstmachine produced in *merica which could pro(ect a film onto a screen, allowing onefilm to be viewed by mass audiences, rather than by single viewers as was before.The first movie pro(ector had been made in 'rance earlier that same year, andproved a commercial and technical success. The results in *merica were the same,and thereafter the single&viewer kinetoscope began to fade from fashion. 5owever, dison s victory over #iograph was only short lived, as it was not longbefore ;ickson s Company had their own pro(ector, and, to make matters worse forboth ;ickson and dison, a third company, the *merican Ditagraph Company, beganmaking films a year later, in 1+-4.

#y 1+-+ these three companies were competing against themselves and smallerentities. That same year the dison Company filed a patent infringement lawsuitagainst ;ickson and his #iograph Company. It was the first of many such lawsuitsagainst many such companies, and would drag on for over ten years, providing alarge amount of lawyers with a large amount of money, while leaving dison

unsatisfied and poorer.

Edwin S Porter and The !ew "ave

*s the e uipment for making films became more sophisticated, so too, did the films.

The first motion pictures created using the kinetograph had to be short ,or the tensioninside the camera would become too strong, causing the film to break. 5owever,advances in technology in the late 1+-0 s allowed for the production of longer andlonger films. *t the same time, audiences began to grow bored with seeing things

they could see by looking out their windows, and longed for something more, or, atthe very least, something longer for their money. 'ilm companies could not now


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make money simply by showing a film of 'red :tt sneeAing, or the same actsaudiences could see on the vaudeville stage. *t this time, strange new films werecoming from urope, filled with what would later be called special e ects , somelasting as long as five minutes.


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*fter the release of The Great Train Robbery , audiences would never again be happywith the mundane. ?otion pictures had finally moved from curiosity to realentertainment, and all the film companies began making films to supply this demand. The greatest audience for films in *merica at the turn of the century was the vast

number of immigrants, most with only limited knowledge of nglish, who werepouring daily into the country.


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Monopoly

#y 1-0+ dison and ;ickson had been suing each other for many years. *long theway other film companies had been named in the lawsuits, and it seemed clear to allinvolved that all these suits and counter&suits would eventually lead to nowhere,

e9cept perhaps bankruptcy.

*fter coming to a collective agreement, dison, ;ickson, and seven other companies (oined forces to form the ?otion "icture "atents Company. #eginning operation in1-0-, the ?""C comprised all of the top film companies on the *merican east coast,and had a monopoly on every aspect of film production. The dison Trust, as it cameto be known, controlled the raw material /called ilm stock , making it illegal andalmost impossible for films to be made using anything other than ?""C stock,determined the fees charged to cinema owners to e9hibit the films, and even set thelimit of films at two reels /one reel was appro9imately 1= minutes, thus films were ama9imum of only thirty minutes long . *nd as films gained in popularity, the ?""Crefused to allow the listing of credits, so as to keep actors from becoming famous anddemanding higher pay. This monopoly closed the business of making films to allother companies not in the ?""C, and started what came to be known as the"atents $ar.

The Patents "ar

The ?otion "icture "atents Company was determined to keep a stranglehold on thefilm industry. 5owever, the smaller, independent film producers were (ust asdetermined to continue making films. This led to inevitable conflicts, both in and outof court. *s the ?""C could afford much better legal representation, theyconsistently won lawsuits against their smaller, and poorer adversaries. Theindependents, however, continued to make films anyway, relying on a series ofappeals to draw out the lawsuits against them. The ?""C therefore resorted tostronger tactics to eliminate the independents.

:ne of the most effective tactics used by the ?""C was to attack the e9hibitors whoshowed non&?""C, and therefore illegal, films in their cinemas. If an e9hibitor wasfound to be showing a non&?""C film, the ?""C would stop distributing theirproducts to the offending cinema, which would lead to certain financial ruin for the

e9hibitor. *long with suffering financially, non&complying e9hibitors could also lookforward to a certain physical danger, as the ?""C 6inspectors7 were usually hiredgunmen who were paid to destroy the independent film being shown in a particularcinema, along with the cinema s pro(ection e uipment. The ?""C thugs would useviolence against those who got in their way, and were very persuasive in many acinema owner s decision to stop running independent films. This personal army of the ?""C was also used against the independent film makersthemselves. Groups of gunmen would roam the east coast, looking for the productionteams of non&?""C film companies. $hen they came upon the location of an6illegal7 film maker, they would use the same strong arm tactics which proved so

successful against the cinema owners. Cameras, film, and any other e uipment athand was destroyed, and often times bodily harm was done to the film crew. In an


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#acked by their new&found financial power, the independents suit was successful,and the

a short history of the amercian silent screen2

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