Elements of Stability in Early Cinema

Early cinema enjoyed a distinctive “mode of reception.” The ways in which spectators understood and appreciated motion pictures regularly took one of three basic forms, none of which was privileged or preferred. First of all, the film’s subject or narrative was often already known by the spectators. Especially with the aid of a brief cue (such as a main title) to identify the well-known story or event, viewers brought this special knowledge to bear on the film. When the Biograph Company showed filmed excerpts of Joseph Jefferson performing his famous stage role in Rip Van Winkle , for example, the audience’s familiarity with the play was assumed. Early cinema thus evidenced a profound dependence on other cultural forms, including the theater, newspapers, popular songs, and fairy tales.

Alternatively, the spectator might rely on the exhibitor to clarify the film’s narrative or meaning through a live narration and other sounds (music, effects, even dialogue added by actors from behind the screen). PARSIFAL (Edison, 1904) and William Selig’s films of Armour & Company (the meat-packing concern) were intended to be presented with a lecture. The exhibitor’s spiel usually did more than simply clarify, however: it conveyed the showman’s own interpretation of these images or rendered them subordinate to his authorial vision. 2

Finally, spectators might easily find themselves in a position where they had to understand the film story without recourse to either special knowledge or the exhibitors’ aid. Here, the representational system sharply limited the filmmakers’ ability to present a self-sufficient narrative. Certain genres, such as Méliès’ trick films, did not require the spectator to discern a coherent plot, since their narratives were not based on a logical progression of events. Some pictures—for example, chase films such as MEET ME AT THE FOUNTAIN (Lubin, 1904)—told simple stories that could be readily understood. Others, such as A KENTUCKY FEUD (Biograph, 1905), relied heavily on intertitles to explain the story line.

Since the mechanisms for audience comprehension were so diverse, one might wonder what they shared. Here, if only for a moment, early cinema is worth defining negatively: its representational system could not present a complex, unfamiliar narrative capable of being readily understood irrespective of exhibition circumstances or the spectators’ specific cultural knowledge. In practice, a significant number of films left their viewers somewhat mystified and confused. Often, the key to following the narrative was not widely known or exhibitors failed to perform their job, but it was also not unusual for filmmakers to exceed the capacities of their representational system. This does not mean that cinema lacked an array of conventions that facilitated audience comprehension of projected images, for spectators were generally familiar with various strategies for conveying meaning (certain genres, certain gestures by actors or relations between shots). Rather, these conventions only operated effectively within strict limits.

The early cinema’s system of representation became more elaborate over time but did not fundamentally change. Once again, it was not until 1907 that the system began to break down. This mode of representation was predominantly presentational in its acting style, set design, and visual composition as well as in its depiction of time, space, and narrative. Rooted in theatrical discourse, the concept of a presentational style was originally used to describe a method of acting that dominated the American and English stage during most of the nineteenth century. Actors not only played to the audience but used highly conventionalized gestures to convey forceful emotions. The style was frontal and relied on indication. Among many late-nineteenth-century practitioners of high theatrical art, the presentational style was superseded by one that emphasized greater verisimilitude and restraint. The older representational techniques continued, however, in diverse cultural forms, including not only such popular theatrical genres as melodrama and burlesque but the magic lantern, cartoon strips, and early cinema.

The presentationalism of early cinema is most obvious in the pro-filmic elements (the mise-en-scène) and the manner in which they were organized vis-à-vis the camera and the audience. Lacking words, actors often resorted to extensive pantomime to convey their thoughts or actions, pushing the use of conventionalized gestures to an extreme. Within scenes, time and space were likewise indicated rather than rendered in a verisimilar manner. In LOST IN THE ALPS (Edison, 1907), the time it takes for actions to occur offscreen ( i.e., “offstage”) is radically condensed. The mother, looking for her children, leaves but quickly returns. Yet the audience knows that this search took much longer than was actually depicted. The passage of time is thus signaled and dealt with in terms that satisfied old-style theatrical conventions (in the naturalistic theater that was replacing this system, meanwhile, such indicating was much less acceptable).

The same type of indicating also characterized the production design for many of these films. Schematic sets eschewed all illusionism. For HOW THEY ROB MEN IN CHICAGO (Biograph, 1902), a simple flat identifies the type of location without actually trying to simulate it. The fact that the same backdrop was shot with the same frontal camera framings for many other Biograph films amply demonstrates its iconic nature. Elaborately painted theatrical drops were also commonly integrated into these films, but again, they only suggest depth and perspective. Their effect was quite different from that of full three-dimensional sets or real locations for exterior scenes. Studio sets were routinely used for exteriors as well as interiors, reflecting not only a theatrical tradition but a continuing practice of indication.

Early cinema’s presentational approach was also, as Tom Gunning has pointed out, concerned with display, exhibitionism, and the offering of spectacular, realistic, or novel effects. 3 As in D R . D IPPY’S S ANITARIUM (Biograph, 1906), set designs often sacrificed realistic perspectives for an opening up of the space and mise-en-scène. In a film such as G RANDPA’S READING GLASS (Biograph, 1902), objects are shown in close-up “as if” viewed through a magnifying glass. But this “as if” is based not on verisimilitude but on display, for the objects were photographed against plain backgrounds that removed them from the mise-en-scène, further isolating them for the spectator. This style often involved an acknowledgment of the camera and the spectator. The genre of facial-expression films, for example, usually entailed a single close-up of a performer confronting the camera. In FACIAL EXPRESSION BY LONEY HASKELL (Biograph, 1897), the performer grimaces into the camera and shares the humorous results with his audience. The viewer is a voyeur but not, as in later cinema, apparently effaced. The compositional dynamics of many chase films, such as the immensely popular P ERSONAL (Biograph, 1904), in which pursuer and pursued run toward and past the camera, offer another form of this display.

Cinema’s pervasive presentational style was not limited to fiction films with their recognizable theatrical antecedents or parallels. The train (E MPIRE S TATE E XPRESS [Biograph, 1896]) or cavalry (CHARGE OF THE S EVENTH FRENCH CUIRASSIERS [Lumière, 1896]) rushing toward the camera and visually assaulting the spectator was equally characteristic. Since speeches, parades, and inaugurations were subjects that involved conscious uses of display and spectacle, this approach was readily applied to the making of actualities ( i.e., films of actual events). These events replicated and reinforced a tendency toward frontal compositions. Nonetheless, it was with actualities that the presentational style was most vulnerable. FEEDING THE BABY (Lumière, 1895) or HERALD SQUARE (Edison, 1896) captured the phenomenal world as it unfolded in resolutely real time. Camera movement, which became increasingly common after 1897 but was initially used only for actualities, further emphasized the existence of offscreen space and a real world beyond the edges of the frame. Here the cinema offered a verisimilar approach that was compatible with naturalistic theater.

What Georges Sadoul describes as the snapshot quality of these films 4 and their application to fiction filmmaking in the early 1900s might have undermined the strong presentational tendencies of early cinema much sooner except for the fact that the system of representation was resolutely syncretic in its combination and juxtaposition of different mimetic means. In many films, such as FRANCESCA DI RIMINI (Vitagraph, 1907), exteriors were taken both in specially constructed studio sets and on location. Even within many sets, some props and design elements were rendered with paint, while others were three-dimensional or real objects. In THE BOLD BANK ROBBERY (Lubin, 1904), a real lamp is used, but the light rays are painted on the wall. Filmmakers thus routinely shifted between different levels of representing reality. This syncreticism can be contrasted with later cinema’s predominant emphasis on mimetic consistency. To be sure, artifice such as backdrops would continue to be used, but the goal was increasingly to meld the juncture of different mimetic means until they became seamless. Early cinema was predominantly syncretic, presentational, and nonlinear, while later classical Hollywood cinema favored consistency, verisimilitude, and a linear narrative structure, particularly in its dramas and light comedies.

The presentational approach was also apparent in the way narratives were depicted. Many narratives were highly conventionalized and operated within genres far narrower than those found in later cinema. The bad-boy and fire-rescue genres are only two examples. 5 The spectator knows that the bad boys will engage in a series of humorous, mischievous acts; only the specific form of their mischief is in doubt. In other instances, as Noël Burch points out, stories were not told “as if for the first time” insofar as they were assumed to be a part of the viewers’ previous knowledge. 6 Since the films did not usually create or convey a complex original story in themselves, the producers’ energies could be directed elsewhere. The filmmakers assembled spectacular images that evoked the story rather than telling the story in and of itself; indeed, images jumped from high point to high point with crucial causal connections left unarticulated. This was also true for magic-lantern images, while a similar presentationalism was enjoying its greatest success in the theater. The repertoire of plays, Janet Staiger indicates, was limited and well known to the audience: “Sets, props and costume were conventional and spare; the drama was less the plot and more the actor and the individual interpretation of the plot.” 7

With melodrama continuing the presentational approach on the turn-of-the-century stage, it is not surprising that cinema quickly appropriated many of its characteristics. As Roberta Pearson reports, character motivation was notably absent in both melodrama and early film. 8 In both cases, characters “do not carry the full weight of real life” and “are devoid of any individuality.” 9 In THE PAYMASTER (Biograph, 1906), the factory manager embodies evil as he tests the good paymaster and the mill girl. Moreover, chance rather than a realistic or “organic” development of events propels the plot, which is therefore subject to dramatic, striking reversals: a chance discovery of the stolen money exposes the factory manager’s scheme at the crucial moment. Film companies also adopted the common melodramatic technique of double titles, as with Vitagraph’s ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES; OR , HELD FOR A RANSOM (1905) or Selig’s TRACKED BY BLOODHOUNDS; OR , A LYNCHING AT CRIPPLE CREEK (1904). Both play and film titles played a key naming function, and the titles of play acts and film scenes within the respective productions also had a common orienting or identifying role. 10

One of the pre-1907 cinema’s most distinctive features was its nonlinear temporality in the arrangement of scenes. The relationship between the outgoing and incoming shots could take several forms. As seen in the seminal LIFE OF AN AMERICAN FIREMAN (Edison, 1902–1903), filmmakers often relied on temporal repetitions, returning to earlier points in time to pick up their story. The same actions or event could thus be shown from multiple viewpoints, as in THE LAUNCHING OF THE U.S.S. BATTLESHIP "CONNECTICUT " (Biograph, 1904), wherein the launching was shown three times, each time for a different camera position. In other instances, different lines of action that occurred simultaneously were shown successively; in THE K LEPTOMANIAC (Edison, 1905), for example, the concurrent lives of two women are presented one after the other, rather than shifting back and forth between the two.

By 1908–1909, temporal repetition, early cinema’s solution to the problem of simultaneity, was superseded by a linear progression and parallel editing. Linear continuities with matching action across the cuts did appear, however, in a few early films, such as THE E SCAPED LUNATIC (Biograph, 1903), which contains a cut to a different camera position just as the lunatic throws a guard off the bridge. Yet employment of this type of continuity was exceptional, and spectators could not assume that a film story would unfold in simple chronological order. This nonlinear organization of shots was consistent with the general framework of reception discussed above. While repeated actions or narrative cues sometimes provided sufficient information for the spectator to follow the flow of events and relationships between shots, in other cases, help had to come from external sources—either the exhibitor or the spectator’s previous knowledge of the story.

In contrast to this temporality, the spatial relations constructed through editing are much more familiar to the modern viewer. Exterior/interior relations, the establishing shot and closer view, even the point-of-view shot, all appear with some frequency in early cinema. Indeed, all had well-established antecedents in screen history. Although extensive creation of a spatial world through successive close-ups within a scene, shot/counter-shots, and cuts on the glance was part of a later repertoire of cinematic techniques, none of the spatial constructions that appeared in early films were later excluded by Hollywood. Rather, pre-1907 methods of constructing a spatial world through editing became more frequent, subtle, and suggestive of mood in later years.

Although many aspects of film production changed between 1895 and 1907, the organization of work within the small studios remained relatively constant. Here again, early filmmaking activities were organized in many different ways. The most characteristic method of production, however—which might be called the collaborative system—usually involved two men, the stage manager and cameraman, who worked together in an informal and nonhierarchical manner. Throughout this period, America’s film companies were often started or at least staffed with collaborative teams. J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith of Vitagraph, Edwin S. Porter and George Fleming at Edison, William Paley and William Steiner of Paley & Steifier, and Wallace McCutcheon and Frank Marion of Biograph are only some examples. Such collaborative methods of work were also evident in the invention of cinema’s “basic apparatus”—the camera and projector.

Within this system, and unlike the dominant post-1907 production methods that organized staff along more hierarchical lines of authority and accountability, early filmmaking involved little specialization. The originator(s) of a story would often direct the actors, appear in the films, operate the camera, develop the exposed raw stock, cut the negative, and—if necessary—run the projector. This knowledge of all aspects of the craft was what distinguished these pre-1907 filmmakers from their more specialized successors. 11

Finally, it must be recalled that film production occurred within a white, virtually all-male world. Even female roles were often played by men—either professional female impersonators like Gilbert Saroni in THE OLD MAID HAVING HER PICTURE TAKEN (Edison, 1901) or employees like the bookkeeper who played “the wife’s choice” in THE SERVANT GIRL PROBLEM (Vitagraph, 1905). The selection of narrative elements and the application of presentational techniques consistently enhanced the element of male voyeurism. The display of normally concealed female anatomy was common, particularly in Biograph productions. Many short comedies were made by men, for men, and revealed a number of the preoccupations and assumptions of this “homosocial” world that was just beginning to break down. 12