Film History
Week 2 | Date: 1/25/12 | The Birth of an
American Industry | Reading: Short History of
Film 2
Winsor McCay
Edwin Porter
Lois Weber
Robert Flaherty
Erich von Stroheim
Charlie Chaplin
Buster Keaton
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Winsor McCay (1867-1934)
 Began painting circus signs
and posters
 Began illustrating criminal
trials and sporting events in
Cincinnati
 Became a newspaper
cartoonist (famous for Little
Nemo)
 Inspired by Porter, he drew
and produced Dreams of a
Rarebit Fiend, which he took
on the road and introduced
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Winsor McCay
 His work met with
confusion—audiences did
not know how to see
animation
 Gertie the Dinosaur was his
breakthrough—the first time
audiences got it (he took it
on the road as well).
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Winsor McCay
Film History
Gertie was a cultural breakthrough; suddenly audiences
realized they were not being fooled. Appearing in person,
McCay displayed tall stacks of original drawings before
making the extinct reptile come to life on a screen behind
him. His live performances consisted of a dialogue between
the animator and his creation. The audience stared in
amazement as they realized no magical wires or mirrors
could create a moving dinosaur before their eyes. Although
Gerties did not speak, she responded instantly to every one
of McCay’s commands. She charmed audierices with a
distinctly demure personality. She was comic and coy. She
was alive' She was the first true animated cartoon character.
(Film 100)
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Winsor McCay
Gertie the Dinosaur and Dreams of the
Rarebit Fiend
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Edwin Porter (1869-1941)
 Born in Italy.
 “Porter’s clever method of
snipping and splicing celluloid
strips into coherent storypictures became the foundation
of film editing” (Film 100).
 Early in his career illegally
duplicated Melies films.
 Firsts: first night filming, first
time-lapse, first 360 degree
panorama, first full-fledged
documentary: The Life of an
American Fireman (1902).
Film History
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Edwin Porter | The Great Train Robbery
Notables:
 An identifiable Western.
 Use of title cards.
 Huge cast of 40!
 Shot in three days.
 A recognizable narrative structure.
 The beginning of modern editing—
cross-cutting.
 Caused a sensation on first screening.
Watch The Great Train Robbery on
YouTube
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Lois Weber (1879-1939)
"Along with D.W. Griffith, Lois
Weber was the American
cinema’s first genuine auteur, a
filmmaker involved in all aspects
of production and one who
utilized the motion picture to put
across her own ideas and
philosophies.”—Anthony Slide
About Lois Weber (IMDB)
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Lois Weber
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Lois Weber
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Lois Weber
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Lois Weber
Film History
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American
Industry
Lois Weber
Watch Hypocrites on
YouTube
Lois Weber's HYPOCRITES, was a bold
indictment of political corruption, the
church, and the business world. Much
of the film has a pictorial quality.
Many of the scenes are carefully
composed, to make visually beautiful
patterns. In a dual role, the lead actor
plays a monk who sees the hypocrisy
of the world and a minister who is
stoned to death by his congregation
for unveiling a statue of "The Naked
Truth." As film historian Kevin
Brownlow relates, "Audiences flocked
to see the nudity and were then
obliged to sit through the moral
lesson." Critics were astonished.
Variety proclaimed, "After seeing it,
you can't forget the name of Lois
Weber!" –from an IMDB Post
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Film History
Robert Flaherty (1884-1951)
Key Works
 Nanook of the North
(1922)
 Moana (1925)
 Man of Aran (1934)
 Louisiana Story (1948)
British filmmaker John
Grierson coined the term
“documentary” to
characterize Nanook.
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Robert Flaherty | Nanook of the North
David Lavery “Nanook of the North.” The
Encyclopedia of American Indian Literature. Ed. Alan
R. Velie and Jennifer McClinton-Temple. Detroit:
Facts on File, 2007. 242.
Nanook of the North: A Story of Life and Love in the
Actual Arctic was the first film of American
documentary pioneer Robert Flaherty (1884-1951).
Coming as it did less than a decade after the overtly
racist silent film milestone Birth of a Nation (D. W. Griffith,
1915), Flaherty’s film, funded by the French fur
company Revillon Frères and distributed by Pathé,
presented a stark contrast: a humanistic, poignant,
dramatic, starkly beautiful, and sympathetic look at an
Inuit hunter’s struggle to survive in an inhospitable
environment. Described by film historian David A. Cook
as “the first sustained encounter between the civilized
world and the Eskimo, outside of professional
ethnographic circles” (A History of Narrative Film, 4th
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Robert Flaherty | Nanook of the North
Edition, 191), Nanook was made for $50,000 and was a
box-office success. Flaherty knew a great deal about
his subject from long service in the far north as a
businessman and engineer, but Nanook, like many of
the great documentaries, was anything but an exact
record. Nanook’s family in the film, for example, is a
fictional construct. The dramatic capture of a seal,
killed by Nanook through a breathing hole in the ice,
was, in fact, staged for the camera. The suspenseful
ending, in which Nanook struggles to find life-saving
shelter, was completely staged. (In reality, Nanook
would indeed die of starvation two years after the film’s
completion.) A natural storyteller but a not so authentic
anthropologist, Flaherty was determined to craft his tale
of a noble savage even if he had to lie to tell the truth
as he perceived it. Nanook nevertheless captures, with
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Robert Flaherty | Nanook of the North
admiration and without condescension, a multitude of
valid and engaging ethnographic moments in the lives
of his subjects: Nanook’s “son,” suffering from a
stomach-ache, actually enjoying the taste of castor oil;
Nanook’s rapid construction of an igloo, complete with
an ice window, before our very eyes (though one wall
of the bigger-than-life-sized enclosure was left
unfinished to allow for proper lighting and camera
access); the collective vanquishing of a two-ton walrus;
the “family” settling down for a night’s sleep, naked,
wrapped in furs. Silent film, theorist Béla Balázs argued in
his Theory of Film, specialized in the art of
“physiognomy”: the ability to simultaneously reveal the
wonder of the face and the inner workings of the soul.
Nanook is full of faces: the rich countenance of Nanook
himself, the extraordinary muzzles of his team of huskies,
the face of nature itself.
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Robert Flaherty | Nanook of the North
The Library of Congress has designated Nanook a
“culturally significant” work worthy of preservation in The
National Film Registry.
Further Reading
Barsam, Richard Meran. The Vision of Robert Flaherty:
The Artist as Myth and Filmmaker. Bloomington: Indiana
U P, 1988.
Flaherty, Robert J. “How I Filmed Nanook of the North:
Adventures with the Eskimos to Get Pictures of Their
Home Life and Their Battles with Nature to Get Food.
The Walrus Fight.”
http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/bookshelf/23_rf1
_2.htm
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Robert Flaherty | Nanook of the North
Watch Nanook in its entirety on
YouTube
Film History
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Erich von Stroheim (1885-1957)
 Born in Austria
 One of many European
expatriates in Hollywood
Most famous for:
Foolish Wives (1922)
Greed (1924)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Week 2 | The Birth of an American
Industry
Erich von Stroheim |
Greed
Newsreel: Von Stroheim
Directs Greed
Watch the last three
minutes of Greed
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Charlie Chaplin
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Born in London.
First performed on stage at age 8.
Raised in orphanages and boarding schools.
Discovered by Mack Sennett.
First movie millionaire.
Chaplin merchandise popular for 25 years.
Formed United Artists with Mary Pickford,
Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith.
Stayed silent even into the sound era.
Never an American citizen, was denied
reentry to the US in 1952 because of back
taxes and Communist sympathies, and
“subversive morals.”
20 year late career exile.
Knighted in 1975.
Film History
Chaplin at the IMDB
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Charlie Chaplin
“Chaplin’s career peaked at the perfect time. After
the 1890s, the novelty of moving images was
gone and throughout the first decade of the
twentieth century, audiences were still viewing
movies as sideshow entertainment. . . . . But
Chaplin lent the sheer force of his personality to
the medium. His mesmerizing expressions and
enigmatic mannerisms gave cinema its most
infectious quality. To millions of people abroad, his
radiant face was the first they had ever seen in a
motion picture. In America, his outlandish
performance were responsible for the word of
mouth that lured reluctant parents and eager
children to a theater for the first time, and his
indelible characterizations made moviegoing a
habit.”—Film 100
Film History
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Charlie Chaplin: Key Works
 The Kid (1921)
 The Gold Rush (1925)
 City Lights (1931)
 Modern Times (1936)
 The Great Dictator (1940)
 Limelight (1952)
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Charlie Chaplin
The Gold Rush (1925)
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Charlie Chaplin
Easy Street (watch entire film on
YouTube)
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Charlie Chaplin
The deeply personal nature of Chaplin’s movies
revealed motion pictures as a form of expression,
and with each new film his admirers witnessed an
evolution. As a performer Chaplin continued to
add new meaning to the persona of the Tramp. As
a filmmaker, Chaplin seemed to follow his muse
rather than trends of the film industry. when
studios had abandoned short film for feature
lengths, Chaplin continued to pump out two-reel
comedies until he had exhausted the form. When
talkies took over after 1929, Chaplin continued
with pantomime in City Lights and Modem Times
(1936), well into the sound era. Each picture
charted Chaplin’s journey into new territory, and
this had a significant effect on artists, who would
now see film as an avenue of self-exploration.—
Film 100
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Buster Keaton (1895-1966)
“Keaton, even more than Chaplin,
knew how to create a tragedy of
the object.”—Andre Bazin
 From a vaudeville family.
 His father threw him all over the
stage, prompting Harry Houdini
to call him “Buster.”
 His start in the movies was with
the infamous Fatty Arbuckle.
Keaton at the IMDB
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Film History
Buster Keaton (1895-1966)
 Best known for his “ability to
mix trick photography,
unprecedented stunt work, and
elaborate prop gags in a way
never again matched” (Film
100).
 Career went into sharp decline
due, in part, to his heavy
drinking. He ended up in a
mental hospital in 1935.
Keaton at the IMDB
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American
Industry
Buster Keaton: Key
Works
 Our Hospitality (1923)
 Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
 The Navigator (1925)
 The General (1927)
 Steamboat Bill, Jr.
(1928)
Watch The General.
Film History
Week 2 | The Birth of an American Industry
Buster Keaton
 Buster Keaton Montage
 Keaton Stunts
 Keaton's Sherlock, Jr. (entire
film)