Various - The Movies Begin Vol. 1: The Great Train Robbery and Other Primary Works (1880

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Quote:

The genesis of the motion picture medium is vividly recreated in this unprecedented collection of the cinema's formative works. More than crucial historical artifacts, these films reveal the foundation from which the styles and stories of the contemporary cinema would later arise.

An animated rendering of Eadweard Muybridge's primitive motion studies (1877-85) begins the program, immediately defining the compound appeal of cinema as both a scientific marvel and sensational popular entertainment.

This is followed by the works of Louis and Auguste Lumière, who offer cinematic glimpses of such commonplace sights as children quarreling, a lion in a zoo or the feeding of poultry.

As for more obvious fictions there is the myth-making of Edwin S. Porter's seminal The Great Train Robbery (1903) and the pictorial splendor of Ferdinand Zecca's The Golden Beetle (1907), both presented in mint condition prints with the original hand-tinting, as well as Georges Méliês's extravagant A Trip To The Moon (1902, complete with narration penned by the director, intended to accompany its performance).

The low art origins of the cinema are represented in some of Thomas Edison's Kinetoscopes (1894-97, serpentine dances, a cockfight, a bedroom full of seminary girls engaged in a pillow fight and the notorious first screen kiss) and a collection of mechanized peep shows from American Mutoscope and Biograph, whose burlesque origins are free from social or aesthetic pretense, being designed solely for titillation and amusement. When social crusaders spoke of the evils of film, this is what they had in mind.

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Includes:

Homage To Eadweard Muybridge (1880s)

Edison Shorts (1894-1897)

* The Kiss (1896)
* Serpentine Dances (1895)
* Sandow (Strong Man) (1894)
* Glenroy Brothers (Comic Boxing) (1894)
* Cock Fight (1896)
* The Barber Shop (1894)
* Feeding The Doves (1896)
* Seminary Girls (1897)

Lumière Films (1895-96)

* Swimming In The Sea
* Children Digging For Clams
* Loading A Boiler
* Dragoons Crossing The Sâone
* Promenade Of Ostriches
* Childish Quarrel
* Lion, London Zoological Garden
* Photograph
* Transformation By Hats
* Carmaux: Drawing Out The Coke
* Poultry-Yard
* Arab Cortege, Geneva
* New York: Brooklyn Bridge
* New York: Broadway and Union Square
* Policeman's Parade, Chicago

A Trip To The Moon (1902)

Actualities

* President McKinley At Home (1897)
* Packtrain On Chilkoot Pass (1898)
* Skyscrapers Of New York City (1903)
* The Georgetown Loop (1903)
* San Francisco: Aftermath Of Earthquake (1906)
* The Dog And His Various Merits (1908)
* Moscow Clad In Snow (1908)
* Airplane Flight And Crash (1910)

Blue Movies

* Fire In A Burlesque Theatre (1908)
* Airy Fairy Lilian Tries On Her New Corsets (1908)
* From Show Girl To Burlesque Queen (1908)
* Troubles Of A Manager Of A Burlesque Show (1908)

The Great Train Robbery (1903)

The Whole Dam Family And The Dam Dog (1905)

The Golden Beetle (1907)