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Early American Cinema &

European Cinemas in the 1910s

Jaakko Seppl

http://www.helsinki.fi/taitu/tet/Jaakko/WorldFilmHistory1.html

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Early American Cinema

The United States was the biggest market for films

The Edison Company hoped to control the whole

American film market

Lawsuits (patent and copyright infringements)

American Mutoscope Company (1896)

American Vitagraph (1897)

A patent case victory in March 1902 allowedAmerican Mutoscope and Biograph to use its camera

and 35 mm format without an Edison license

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Edwin Stanton Porter

The Edison Company hired Porter in 1900 and he

began filmmaking in 1901

Porter soon became the most influential American

filmmaker of the pre 1908 era Porter drew on techniques used by European

filmmakers (Mlis and The Brighton School)

Life of an American Fireman (1903), The Great Train

Robbery(1903), The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend(1906)

Showing the same action from two different vantage

points was the norm (overlapping action)

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Trip to the Moon (Mlis, 1902)

Shots one and two show the same action from two different

vantage points. This is overlapping action.

Porter copied this manner of telling a story in shots and used it

for example in Life of an American Fireman (1903).

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Edwin Stanton Porter (1870-1941)

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The Motion Picture Patents Company

Due to patent struggles American companies missed

their chances to expand production in the early 1900s

1907 court decision reaffirmed that the Biograph

camera did not infringe Edisons patent In 1908 The Edison Company and American Mutoscope

and Biograph formed the MPPC

This new company was to control all competitors and

charge license fees

The MPPC set the stage for control over the entire

American market by an oligopoly

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The MPPCThe Edison Company

Biograph Company

Vitagraph Company of America

Selig Polyscope Company

The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company

Lubin Manufacturing Company

Kalem Company

National Independent Moving Picture Alliance

Independent Motion Picture CorporationThanhouser Film Corporation

Solax Film Company

New York Motion Picture Company

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The Independents Stand Firm

Many producers, distributors and exhibitors refused to

pay fees to the MPPC

Independent film theatres provided a market for

unlicensed producers and distributors The MPPC hires detectives to gather evidence against

the independents

In 1912 it was ruled that the patents were invalid

In 1915 the MPPC was order to dissolve on the basis of

the Sherman Antitrust Act

Meanwhile the independents had organised

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David Wark Griffith

D. W. Griffith is known as the most important filmmaker of

the American cinema

In 1907 he gave up his unsuccessful theatrical career

He wrote scenarios and acted in films until BiographCompany made him a film director in 1908

Before 1913 he had made over 400 films for the company

D. W. Griffith understood how different film techniques

could be used to create a coherent style Made feature films as an independent producer & director

Major developer of cross cutting and realistic acting

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D. W. Griffith (1874-1948)

Fairbanks, Pickford, Chaplin and Griffith

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Hollywood

In 1909 American production centres were New York,

New Jersey, Chicago and Philadelphia

In East poor weather could hamper production

The Selig company made films in California in 1908

In early 1910s major producers moved to California

Dry weather permitted filmmaking outdoors also into

winter months California offered a variety of landscapes

Head offices of the studios stayed in East

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Danish Cinema

Ole Olsen founded Nordisk Films Kompagni in 1906

In 1910 it was one of the biggest production companies

in the world

The international reputation of Danish cinema was basedon good acting and high production values

Typical themes: sexuality and desire

Danish films are noteworthy for psychological realism,

lighting techniques , camera-positioning and set design

Asta Nielsen began her career in The Abyss (1910)

Uniquely cinematic acting

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Asta Nielsen (1881-1972)

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Pre-Revolutionary Russia

Drankov produced Stenka Rasin in 1908

Early Russian cinema was dependent on non-cinematic

culture (influence of Film dArt productions)

In the early 1910s Russian filmmakers were influenced byDanish melodramas and Italian diva films

Russian style: slow pace of acting, melancholy mood,

morbid endings, upper middle class interiors

Russian themes: mad love, infidelity, crime, class conflicts

Yevgeny Bauer was the most important filmmaker

Vast Art Nouveau settings, tracking shots, tragic endings

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Yevgeny Bauer (1867-1917)