Product Description
-------------------
A Five-Volume Boxed Set. The Great Train Robbery And Other
Primary Works. 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. The
European Pioneers. While some may consider the cinema a
distinctly American invention, the most influential figures
during it's infancy were two brothers in France: Auguste and
Louis Lumiere. In the beginning, they dominated world film
production and distribution. Through the magic of cinema, such
ordinary s as the demolition of a wall, the arrival of a
train, a family enjoying breakfast or workers exiting a factory
were transformed into mystifying spectacles of light and motion,
having their premiere on December 28, 1895. Experimentation And
Discovery. More than any other decade, the first ten years of the
moving picture saw the greatest a of experimentation and
development. Ranging from the ingeniously creative to the
audacious, the films represented in this volume offer a sampling
of the primitive masterworks that allowed the technical novelty
of the cinema to so quickly flourish into an artistically
expressive medium. The Magic of Melies. Decades before the term
"special effects" was coined, audiences of the newborn cinema
were witnessing spectacular screen illusions, courtesy of the
medium's first master magician: George Melies. The films
collected on this disc offer an unparalleled view of Melies's
career, introducing the viewer to the rich body of work that lies
beyond a Trip to the Moon (1902), which is featured in Volume One
of the Movies Begin. Comedy, Spectacle And New Horizons. By 1907
the cinema's initial growing pains had subsided and fairly
distinct generic categories of production were established. This
volume of the Movies Begin examines some of these integral works
that begin to reflect the modern day cinema - punctuated with
authentic hand-tinted lantern slides used during early theatrical
exhibition.
.com
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The home-video revolution has yielded a wealth of valuable
compilations, but few are as miraculously definitive as The
Movies Begin. Equally suited to home or classroom viewing, this
authoritative five-volume set is a vital document of film
history, providing a one-stop destination for anyone wishing to
witness the first two decades of motion pictures. That
period--from 1894 to 1913--saw movies develop at a breakneck
pace, from the earliest "actualities" of the Lumière brothers in
France to D.W. Griffith's audacious development of dramatic
action in the Biograph shorts of the early 1910s. Sensibly
organized into pivotal stages of technical and creative progress,
each of these volumes represents the priceless value of film
preservation; all 133 films in the set are presented in the
finest condition available, from archival prints to complete
restorations, and accompanied by music that perfectly captures
the spirit of each film and the time of their creation.
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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Additional Features
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Each DVD of The Movies Begin includes concise, authoritative
onscreen program notes by film historian Charles Musser, offering
illuminating details about nearly every film in the set. Volumes
2 and 3 are further enhanced by Barry Salt's historical
commentary, defining the cultural contexts and creative advances
of the films under discussion. Together, these valuable
supplements serve as further proof that The Movies Begin was
produced with the utmost concern for serious students of
motion-picture history. --Jeff Shannon
From the Back Cover
-------------------
Volume One: The Great Train Robbery and Other Primary Works,
1893-1907
The genesis of the motion picture medium is vividly re-created
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 s 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 Méliès'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 Kinetos (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 Muto 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. 75 minutes.
Volume Two: The European Pioneers, 1895-1906
While some consider the cinema a distinctly American invention,
the most influential figures during its infancy were two brothers
in France: Auguste and Louis Lumière. In the beginning, they
dominated world film production and distribution. Through the
magic of cinema, such ordinary s as the demolition of a
wall, the arrival of a train, a family enjoying breakfast, or
workers exiting a factory were transformed into mystifying
spectacles of light and motion, having their premiere on December
28, 1895.
Perhaps the most extraordinary elements of this collection are
the early British films, virtually unseen in the United States.
Robert W. Paul, a scientific instrument maker by trade, devoted
15 years to motion pictures, designing his own camera and
projector and, in March 1896, staging the first performance by an
Englishman of projected motion pictures to a fee-paying public.
Paul's works range from Lumière-influenced actualities to
experiments with stop motion (Extraordinary Cab Accident, 1903)
and miniature effects (The (?) Motorist, 1906, made with Walter
R. Booth).
Other inventive artists represented herein include George Albert
Smith, a well-known scientific lecturer of the day; Walter Haggar
and sons, who exhibited their films in a traveling tent show;
Frank Mottershaw of the Sheffield Photographic Company; James
Bamforth, also a manufacturer of lantern slides and picture
postcards; and James A. Williamson, whose 1901 short "Stop
Thief!" is considered the source of the subsequent development of
the chase film. 58 minutes.
Volume Three: Experimentation and Discovery, 1898-1910
More than any other decade, the first 10 years of the moving
picture saw the greatest a of experimentation and
development. Ranging from the ingeniously creative to the
audacious, the films represented in this volume offer a sampling
of the primitive masterworks that allowed the technical novelty
of the cinema to so quickly flourish into an artistically
expressive medium.
In the films of Cecil Hepworth, one witnesses a primal use of
titles (How It Feels to Be Run Over, 1900) and some rather
gruesome visual comedy (Explosion of a Motor Car, 1900). A Visit
to Peek Frean and Co.'s Biscuit Works (1906) by G.H. Cricks
features the extensive use of indoor arc lighting; at the same
time being a key transitional film between the early actualities
and a more involved form of nonfiction filmmaking that would
ultimately blossom into the documentary.
From France's Pathé Frères come films that are alternately
titillating (Par le Trou de Serrue/Peeping Tom, 1901),
awe-inspiring (Aladin, or the Wonderful Lamp, 1906), colorful
(Magic Bricks, 1908), and dramatic (Revolution in Russia, 1905,
which depicts the same event as Eisenstein's Battleship
Potemkin). Particularly striking is History of a Crime (1901), in
which a criminal's memories are visually rendered through a
unique bit of production design.
This volume concludes with several works from the Edison
Manufacturing Co., including the first-known advertising film
(Dewar's--It's Scotch, 1898) and Edwin S. Porter's The Dream of a
Rarebit Fiend (1906), a stunning visual fantasy adapted from the
comics of Winsor McCay, whose animation can be glimpsed in Volume
5 of this series. 58 minutes.
Volume Four: The Magic of Méliès, 1897-1904
Decades before the term "special effects" was coined, audiences
of the newborn cinema were witnessing spectacular screen
illusions, courtesy of the medium's first master magician:
Georges Méliès. The films collected on this disc offer an
unparalled view of Méliès's career, introducing the viewer to the
rich body of work that lies beyond A Trip to the Moon (1902),
which is featured in Volume One of The Movies Begin.
Such films as The Eclipse (1907) and Long Distance Wireless
Photography (1908) not only demonstrate Méliès's astounding
employment of double exposure, makeup, editing, and theatrical
trickery but provide mesmerizing in into the social context
of his work, which blended Victorian approaches to astronomy,
superstition, and feminine beauty with the unnatural wonders of
20th century technology and heavy doses of slapstick. The
centerpiece of the collection is The Impossible Voyage (1904), a
fantastic tale of an around-the-world expedition, presented with
the authentic frame-by-frame hand-coloring and narration penned
by Méliès himself.
Georges Méliès: Cinema Magician is a documentary on the
filmmaker's life, integrating rare photographs, early drawings,
and numerous clips, charting his rise from shoe factory worker to
proprietor of Paris's mystical Théatre Robert-Houdin, where
Méliès learned the skills to become a cinematic illusionist and
developed an interest in the supernatural, exquisitely
represented in The Mysterious Retort (1906) and The Black Imp
(1905). 103 minutes.
Volume Five: Comedy, Spectacle and New Horizons, 1908-1913
By 1907, the cinema's initial growing pains had subsided and
fairly distinct generic categories of production were
established. This volume of The Movies Begin examines some of
these integral works that begin to reflect the modern-day
cinema--punctuated with authentic hand-tinted lantern slides used
during early theatrical exhibition.
Visual comedy, with notable elements of slapstick, is
represented in Pathé Frères' The men's Little Run (1907),
Bangville (1913, representing the first appearance of the
legendary Keystone Kops), and Max Linder's Troubles of a Grass
Widower (1908). Best remembered today as a major influence on
Charlie Chin, Linder was one of the first and most popular
stars of the cinema. The comic potential of such a basic device
as an undercranked camera is exhibited in Pathé's Onésime,
Horloger (Onésime, Clock-Maker, 1912).
Alice Guy Blaché's Making an American Citizen (1912) is an
excellent example of the films of social conscience, always an
undercurrent beneath the apparently smooth surfaces of commercial
productions. Released the very same week was D.W. Griffith's The
Girl and Her Trust, a superb film of wide emotional range and
great technical virtuosity made near the end of his tenure at the
Biograph Company. Nero, or the Fall of Rome (1909) strains at
conventional film limitations in dimension and duration, looking
forward to the revolutionary Italian epics (Cabiria, The Last
Days of Pompeii) that followed a few years later. Equally
prophetic are the dazzling animations showcased in the Vitagraph
Company's Winsor McCay and His Animated Pictures (1911). 85
minutes.
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