The Dream (1911)

Dream or no dream?  It's not Inception

Directed by Thomas H. Ince, George Loane Tucker
Starring Mary Pickford, Owen Moore, William Robert Daly
Produced by Independent Moving Pictures Company of America

The Dream is a simple short film about a carousing husband who comes home and verbally abuses his wife while throwing the carefully prepared dinner about.  He falls asleep on the couch and wakes to find his wife has become a lot like... well, him.  She rips curtains, tears into him and heads out for a night on the town.  The husband, despondent at this turn of events, ultimately shoots himself in the belly and collapses.  But did it all actually happen?  Or was it simply... you read the title of this movie, right?

Another very simple tale starring Mary Pickford.  She's very good in the dual role as the put-upon wife and the vampish dream girl.  On the other hand, Owen Moore chews the scenery like it was dipped in hot fudge.  It's a bizarre dichotomy between the two.

This is a 1911 film, which means we are back to the time of camera set up in front of a set with no movement or editing.  The film looks like someone set up the camera at a play and walked away.  This, of course, makes sense for the time, but won't be engaging for modern audiences.

The only interesting aspect of the film is how it mirrored real life.  Pickford and Moore were secretly married this year and their relationship was much like that shown in the first act of the film.  The movie was reportedly written by Pickford.  Is it autobiographical?  Seems odd that Moore would participate in such an exercise.  If it is, the end may be a bit of Pickford's hope for the future.  A hope that didn't come to fruition as they divorced nine years later.

** of *****

Watched on DVD through NetFlix
Photo from Silent Volume

Note: Yes, I know this one is way out of order.  It was featured as an extra on Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley.  I've gotten into Pickford's work and could not resist.

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L'Inferno (1911)

Today's movie marks a shift in a lot of ways. It's the first feature length presentation I've reviewed, clocking in at 67 minutes (not a lot by today's standards but more than the 13 minutes I've been averaging).  I watched it on DVD and not a computer monitor which added a lot to the experience.  It also featured modern music as the film was restored and scored ith music by Tangerine Dream, a German electronic group.

L'Inferno is based on the Divine Comedy by Dante and was directed by Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan and Giuseppe de Liguoro.  The film follows Dante as he is led through the rings of hell by Virgil.  The film took over three years to complete and was the first feature film to be shown in its entirety in the U.S.

The movie is on the whole great for its time, though modern audiences will find it a bit slow. The special effects were amazing for the time period with very detailed costumes and some great camera tricks.  This is also the first film I watched where production design was really notable.  The sets and locations used really evoke a gothic mood and are very effective at making the viewer feel like the leads are descending into hell.  The movie stacked with extras as the denizens of hell which gives you a sense of Hell being endless.

The film has some effects that stand up today.  When Dante and Virgil encounter the cardinal sinners blown by winds, a combination of effects including some stop motion gives a real sense of the vastness of hell. The effects used to create Lucifer are also very effective (saying more would spoil it).  Other effects, while amazing for the time do not hold up so well (Cerebus, I'm looking in your direction).

The film is well done, but moves very slowly.  It manages to be simultaneously very literal and very impressionistic.  The general format of the movie is to show us text describing a scene and then act out exactly that scene.  Repeat.  Because the movie is basically following two characters who are witnessing evenets and not really interacting with anyone, you never have any real sense of danger. It's more of a travelogue than a drama.

Finally, I have to say that Tangerine Dream's modern score made me want to take ice picks to my ears. It almost never synched with what was happening on the screen and the vocals were really distracting.

Final word is that this is a good movie for people with an interest in film history or early special effects, but is otherwise a monotonous undertaking.

DVD rented from Netflix.

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Random 1911 Movie Thought...

A movie titled "Friday the 13th" came out in 1911.  I'm going to go ahead an assume that this was not a turn of the century slasher movie about coeds at a summer camp.

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Little Nemo (1911)

Now for a touch of the surreal.

This movie is an adaptation of a weekly comic strip created by Winsor McCay that ran from 1905 to 1914.  The strip was a journey into the dreams of a young boy named Nemo.  Through his sleep, he was trying to reach Slumberland to play with the daughter of King Morpheus.  This strips would end with Nemo awakened from his dream, usually because of some terrifying event taking place in his subconscious.

The movie of course takes this fantastical world and does its own meta take on it. The basic plot is that McCay boasts he will create 4000 images from his strip and create an animated movie, an idea that is mocked by his friends.  The rest of the movie follows a comedic interpretation of McCay's attempts to bring his strip to life.

The plot of the movie is slight and not terribly interesting.  McCay ends up contending with bumbling assistants and a ridiculous amount of paper.  Modern audiences will know exactly how this is going to end.  Also, after discussing some fun movie tropes with The Lonedale Operator, here we get the equivalent of the money bag with the '$' sign on it as laborers bring in barrels and boxes that helpfully labeled 'INK' and 'DRAWING PAPER'.

That said, this movie has two things to recommend it.  First, throughout the film there are shots of McCay drawing his elaborate creations freehand. It really is amazing to watch his hand move over the paper and see these strange characters come to life.

Second, the animated feature at the end is very surreal.  We've seen a lot of this type of imagery before, but his work still felt completely fresh and in a strange way even contemporary.  And it is in COLOR.  Yes, I am seeing my first colors on screen much earlier than I ever thought.

In the end, the movie served to make me more interested in seeking out Little Nemo comic strips.  The idea of the fantasy world he created on paper sounds more fascinating than the slight diversion the film represents.  But the animation is amazing.

Watched on YouTube.

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The Lonedale Operator (1911)

It's been over a week, but we are back with what seems to my eyes a leap forward for cinema, The Lonedale Operator.  The film is about a telegraph operator at a train station who uses her wits to outsmart a couple of would-be robbers.

This movie is another directed by D.W. Griffith and continues to show his mastery of the medium.  It is a great example of using any number of techniques that we take completely for granted today.  Jump cuts, changing camera angles within the same scene and most notably a close-up which is essential to the story all are on display here.  The close-up (watch and you'll see it) was amongst the first in movies and certainly the most notable to date.


Watching The Lonedale Operator after the previous movies makes me feel like an anthropologist unearthing the people responsible for inventing the language of cinema.  Beyond the technical accomplishments, there are a ton of movie tropes crammed into this short film.  You see the plucky heroine (who is also a damsel in distress), the hero racing against time, bad guys with facial hair.

For modern audiences this will be nothing more than a curiosity. For cinephiles, this is an envelope pushing accomplishment from the man who will ultimately introduce the feature length film as a commercially viable property (1915's controversial Birth of a Nation).

Viewed at VodPod (warning: no sound at all with this one).

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1911: Banned in Pennsylvania

We are entering 1911 and, because we are still in the infancy of the film industry, we are still seeing a lot of firsts.  Hollywood sees the opening of its first studio (yes, there was a time when Hollywood was not synonymous with cinema).  Russia releases its first feature length film (Defence of Sevastopol).  L'Inferno (Dante's Inferno) became the first feature length movie released in the U.S., clocking in at 69 minutes.  And, Pennsylvania became the first state to pass a film censorship law.

Yes, my home state was the first in the nation to start controlling what would be shown on the screens throughout the Commonwealth.  In the early years of the film industry, Pennsylvania served as a model for federal and other state governments to follow in controlling film content.  The Pennsylvania Board of Motion Picture Censors required changes, edits and reshoots of films in order to allow them to be shown, a problem that only became worse once talkies were introduced.  To give some sense of what the Board might consider, there was an effort to influence Gone with the Wind in 1939 because of its depiction of southern soldiers. It was not until 1956 that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down the act as unconstitutional.

I'm going to be doing some research on what's available to watch, but L'Inferno and The Lonedale Operator (featuring one of the first notable uses of a close-up) are available on YouTube and will definitely be on the list.

Image courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives. Record Group 22 Records of the Department of Education, State Board of Censors (Motion Picture).

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