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	The Movies Begin - A Treasury of Early Cinema, 1894-1913 David Shepard, Edwin S. Porter Kino International, 2002 average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Under the expert guidance of film historian David Shepard, this collection is uniquely comprehensive, with fact, fiction, and fantasy represented in equal measure. All major figures are included; it's fitting that one volume is devoted to astonishing shorts by movie magician Georges Méliès, while other volumes serve as "greatest hits" compilations of movie innovations by Edwin S. Porter, Cecil Hepworth, Max Linder, Alice Guy Blanche, and many others. The breathtaking growth of movies is fully apparent by volume 5 ("Comedy, Spectacle, and New Horizons"); most viewers will find this the most entertaining, but each volume is a revelation, offering films that haven't been widely seen since they were first produced. To understand and appreciate the foundation upon which modern filmmaking is built, The Movies Begin is truly essential. --Jeff Shannon

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An extensive collection of earliest cinema

This is an incredible collection of 133 complete films from the earliest days of cinema. The first 20 years of movies are covered, with numerous examples from many of the pioneers of the cinema. The condition of these old pieces of film is often less than stellar, but they are almost always fascinating as we see the development of cinema as it happens before us. The five-disc set is broken down by topic, with a certain unavoidable amount of overlap.

Disc One: The Great Train Robbery and Other Primary Works

The motion picture had its beginnings in the sequential photography of Eadweard Muybridge. In a short film, about ten of Muybridge's sequences are presented in real time, providing the illusion of movement. That led to the kinetoscope of Edison, and a number of his kinetoscopes from the late 1890s are included. Among these are "The Kiss" and "Feeding the Doves". The next important development came with the work of the Lumiére brothers in Paris. They first developed a way to project motion pictures, and a number of their 50-foot films of such items as a day at the zoo, the beach, babies fighting and other slices of life, such as workmen loading a boiler, make up their 15 works presented on this disc.

While the movies were a popular novelty, two works of 1902 and 1903, Georges Mèliés' "A Trip to the Moon" and Edwin S. Porter's "The Great Train Robbery", paved the way for the motion picture industry we know now. Each used a greater length to tell an extended story and, in Mèliés' film, we find the importance of special effects and lavish set design made clear. While somewhat awkward and peculiar to modern eyes, it's clear to see how "Trip to the Moon" became the first blockbuster motion picture hit. The Great Train Robbery still manages to generate plenty of excitement in its nonstop action and gunplay.

A number of "actualities" make up the next segment, and these feature the skyscrapers of New York City which were then only 15 or so stories high, the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake and fire, various train rides and the like. Those with a bent toward history will find these to be quite fascinating. Some of the early American Biograph blue films are presented here, though they are racier in title than in content. An extremely funny one involves an enormously obese woman attempting to put on a corset with the aid of her much smaller husband. Nothing beyond a glimpse of limb is presented here, but they were surely seen as naughty in their day. A set of shorts from the early 1900s wraps up this disc. The double entendres of "The Whole Dam Family" and "The Dam Dog" will still bring a smile. "The Golden Beetle" has some attractive hand coloring and makes great use of stopped-camera effects to cause visual transformations.

Disc Two: The European Pioneers

The second disc, compiled by the British Film Institute, features the European groundbreakers in motion pictures. You again see the Lumiéres here, with 13 more of their 50-foot marvels. These include the famous shot of workers leaving their factory, arrival of a train and demolition of a wall. "Come Along, Do!" (1898), gives us the first film carrying action from one shot to another. In "Countryman and the Cinematograph" (1901), the first film-within-a-film appears, and in "A Chess Dispute" (1903), there the innovation of using the frame to suggest action rather than show it. G.A. Smith's "The Kiss in the Tunnel" (1899) demonstrates an early use of editing to help tell the story, and "Grandma's Reading Glass" (1900) demonstrates both POV shots and masking. "Sick Kitten" (1903) intersperses closeups into the action. Perhaps the most intriguing of the British pioneers is James Williamson, who produced a series of imaginative shorts such as "The Big Swallow" (1901) and "An Interesting Story" (1905). The latter seems to be the first instance of a steamroller-running-over a person gag, and manages to be highly entertaining nearly a hundred years later. There is one short which is a Lumiére piece on a boat leaving port contained in the program but not listed on the insert. There are also eleven shorts that are provided as Easter Eggs and are discussed in Extras.

Disc Three: Experimentation and Discovery

This third volume takes us into somewhat more accomplished filmmaking. The pictures of Hepworth Manufacturing have a number of innovative features, including the earliest known use of intertitles in "How it Feels to Be Run Over" (1901). They also produced one of the seminal dog-rescue pictures, "Rescued by Rover" (1905), which plays upon the common fears at the time of theft of infants by gypsies. "That Fatal Sneeze" shows many of the conventions of slapstick film being established as a trick with sneezing powder backfires.

Several documentaries are also included. The first is a lengthy Visit to Peek Frean & Co. Biscuit Works from 1907, which not only includes much footage of the cookie-making process, but manages to fit in a firefighting sequence as well. Fire rescue films were hugely popular with early audiences and was probably needed to spice the picture up a bit. A second documentary is "A Day in the Life of a Coalminer", which glosses over the hardships of the miner and instead focuses on the positive results of his labors. Not surprisingly, this picture was financed by a railroad company - some things haven't changed at all.

About half of the program is devoted to the Pathé brothers and their studio, which featured stencil-coloring prominently in its films. Among the eight shorts here are their notable fantasies, "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" (1906) and "Aladdin and the Marvelous Lamp" (1907). Among the other intriguing material here is "Revolution in Russia", a 1905 recounting of the Potemkin riots in Odessa that same year, later made into the classic "Battleship Potemkin" by Sergei Eisenstein. Wrapping up disc three are several shorts from the Edison studios, including the oldest surviving advertising film, an 1898 bit for Dewar's Scotch. The final short is Edwin S. Porter's adaptation of the Winsor McCay comic, "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend". This picture is window-boxed, because much of the action goes to the very edge of the frame. Plenty of special effects and a wild sense of abandon make this one highly enjoyable even today.

Disc Four: The Magic of Méliès

Trained in stage magic, George Méliès quickly seized upon the motion picture camera and its capabilities for providing a magical experience not possible on any stage. This disc includes fifteen of Méliès' later works, after he had made a sensation with A Trip to the Moon. Many of these pictures take the form of a magic show, such as "Tchin-Chao, the Chinese Conjurer", "The Mermaid", "The Living Playing Cards" and "The Enchanted Sedan Chair". Others involve pictures that come to life, such as "Long Distance Wireless Photography", an incredibly early satire on television. Fantasy is still one of Méliès' strong points, noted in "The Impossible Voyage" (1904). Unfortunately, this short suffers from poor narration. "The Eclipse" features a blatantly erotic encounter between the sun and the moon. "The Black Imp" features one of the many demonic impersonations that Méliès favored throughout his early films. Méliès was not above knockdown farce, anticipating endlessly reused Three Stooges schtick in "Good Glue Sticks" (1907).

Disc Five: Comedy, Spectacle and New Horizons

Wrapping up the package are eight fairly mature shorts from the very end of the nickelodeon era. Slapstick comedy gets a workout in The" Policemen's Little Run" (1907), "Bangville Police" (1913), "Troubles of a Grass Widower" (1908) and "Onésime, Clock-Maker" (1912).

With the Italian one-reel "Nero and the Fall of Rome" (1909), we see what will clearly become the epics of a few years later. Even though the sets here are clearly just painted scenery, the characters already are dwarfed by the scale and there is nonetheless an epic feel behind the proceedings. In an odd choice most of this picture is tinted emerald green. It switches to red as Nero goes mad. In a more modern tone is Alice Guyy-Blaché's "The Making of an American Citizen" (1912). Ivan Orloff (Lee Beggs), a Russian immigrant, treats his wife worse than he would cattle. He even has her pulling his cart while he whips her. He is advised in none too pleasant terms that this is not acceptable in America, leading to a derisively optimistic transformation.

This set provides an excellent example of his D.W. Griffith's late work at Biograph. "The Girl and Her Trust" (1912) features Dorothy Bernard as one of a long line of plucky Griffith telegraph operators trying desperately to save the payroll. This is one of Griffith's wild 'race to the rescue' films, and it's quite breathtaking. The pursuit is via speeding locomotive, with the camera also speeding along. Griffith uses rapid cuts to build the suspense far beyond what the trivial melodrama really deserves. "Bangville Police" (1913) wraps things up. Young Grace (Mabel Normand) thinks she's in danger, and the Keystone Kops, alas, come to her rescue. Unfortunately, the only source of danger is the Kops themselves. Where Griffith supplies tension by his editing, Keystone provides humor. Despite melodramatic touches, these pictures both hold up well even 90 years later.

This is a great boxed set for film history buffs that will provide hours of entertainment and exploration. I highly recommend it.

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Best Silent Film Library Around

Covers history of silent films with textual menu and includes 133 complete motion pictures. The best historical treasury of silents films I have ever seen.


Essential, but by no means perfect

There's no doubt that this is an essential purchase for anyone interested in early cinema: MOVIES BEGIN includes many of the landmarks, as well as some fascinating rarieties. There are tons of fun: classics by Cecil Hepworth, Edison, the Lumieres, and many others. There's no other such extenstive DVD compillation on the market and KINO ON VIDEO should be immensly praised.

However, if you consider it not for its educational values, but as a DVD edition per se, there are major flaws. First of all, commentary track (no matter how insightful) isn't optional, which is below any standards. Secondly, all the foriegn films have electronically imposed English subtitles which are impossible to reduce - it makes a bad ?old video tape" impression. Film notes included on the disc itself are very interesting, but the edition as a whole simply yields for a booklet which could accompany you while watching. Furthermore, there's no precise information on the sleeve notes about the exact duration of each separate movie, only enigmatic ?total running time", which makes it less comfortable to use e. g. during classes.

It may seem that I sneer at something very beautiful and indeed it is so - but every beautiful thing may be improved upon. In fact, the amazing recent edition of the Edison films also by KINO proves that they are learning.

Whatever are my complaints, this one remains a compulsory viewing.

Michal Oleszczyk, Tarnowskie Gory, Poland

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A Nice Addition to a Film Student's Library

This series of films on DVD makes a nice addition to the library of any student of early silent-era cinema. It includes a sampling of iconic films from some of the important pioneers in motion pictures, including Edison, the Lumiere Brothers, Melies, Pathe, R.W. Paul, Alice Guy, and D.W. Griffith. It offers a way to gauge how quickly film developed from a novelty to a true art form. Viewers, no doubt, will be amused by the early attempts at special effects, editing, and continuity. The only negatives I can offer are that the set is a bit pricey, and the soundtrack (piano) is so loud the narrator (who offers some important contextual anecdotes) is drowned out.

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