1900-1910
In 1900 a strike in the United States by vaudeville actors was effectively broken by replacing the acts with motion pictures. Nevertheless, the low quality of the majority of films ensured that by the end of the strike theatre managers abandoned the novelty altogether or presented them at the end of their programmes as ‘chasers’. Despite rare examples of interesting work, film at the turn of the century was still, industrially and artistically, at a primitive stage of development. Elementary narratives were emerging, but the unique characteristics of the medium of cinema were still not understood. Even the most ambitious films by Méliès such as ‘The Impossible Voyage’ (1904) remained theatrical, rather than cinematic, in conception with the camera remaining in one position, that of a fixed spectator watching events on a stage.
The notion that a scene could be broken down into shots (such as long shots, medium shots and close-ups), or that the camera could move around the action, did not seem to occur to filmmakers. The standard distance for the camera remained around twelve feet directly in front of the action with space above the head and below the feet of the actors filmed. This remained conventional until the middle of the decade and even at this late date some filmmakers and critics regarded closer framing (showing the actor in medium shot for example) as nothing more than poor composition. Actors entered and left the stage at the beginning and end of each scene from left or right and, as in the theatre, flat painted backdrops were used to suggest locations. Acting was rooted in the ‘histrionic’ style of melodrama with, by contemporary standards, ludicrously exaggerated gestures and facial expressions being the norm.
These characteristics of early cinema changed slowly, as audiences and filmmakers began to appreciate the possibilities of film. France, Italy, the United States and, to a lesser extent, Britain were the leading film producing nations and new techniques, stories and ideas were quickly imitated from one country to another. The ‘ Brighton School ’, as one group of filmmakers has come to be known, are credited with some of the earliest innovation, many of which were copied and improved on in France and America .
Early Exhibition and The Nickelodeon
In the first years of the decade films had been shown in relatively makeshift conditions. Tents, fairs, store fronts, theatres (as part of a programme of entertainment) or in exhibitions such as ‘Hale’s Tours’ which was a cinema in the shape of a railroad car with ticket collectors dressed as train conductors. Hale’s Tours , first shown at the St. Louis Exposition of 1903, began with the clanging of bells and the rocking of the carriage simulating the movement of a train. Moving landscapes shot from the back of a train were enough to draw customers (many of whom could not afford a real train journey) wherever the Hale’s Tours travelled, making George Hale a multi-millionaire within two years.
Porter’s ‘The Great Train Robbery’, like Méliès’ films, gave further impetus to the fledgling industry because the queues that formed again and again to see this film were concrete evidence that motion pictures made money. In fact, the first permanent dedicated cinema, ‘The Electric Theatre’, opened as early as 1902 and thrived charging the easily affordable price of 5 cents for matinee showings. The success of this theatre led to the conversion of hundreds of arcades and store fronts into cinemas. In 1905, in Pittsburgh , an empty store was converted into a cinema and the owners employed a piano accompaniment and used discarded grand opera accessories to add a touch of glamour to the establishment calling their theatre ‘The Nickelodeon’. The popularity of their venture which, like ‘The Electric Theatre’ charged only a nickel, was such that the theatre’s 96 seats were full from 8 in the morning until 12 at night. News of The Nickelodeon’s stunning financial success spread quickly and by 1908 there were 8-10,000 ‘Nickelodeons’ in America, usually in the slums and poorer shopping districts (Jacobs 1967).
The most widely exhibited film in the nickelodeons was Porter’s ‘The Great Train Robbery’, and the popular multi-shot, narrative fiction films quickly became the norm. Programmes of single reel melodramas, comedies and ‘novelties’ were often interspersed with lantern and slide shows, lectures and ballad singing. These programmes were quite short (20 minutes - one hour) and the audiences of 100-200 were treated to at least one change of pictures a day. Until 1903 films were sold outright to exhibitors, but the development of film exchanges (which rented films at a quarter of their purchase price) proved to be a major boost to the industry. Rental prices for the films were initially the same but cinema owners began to outbid each other for new pictures and soon the prices varied according to how many ‘runs’ the picture had. ‘Bicycling’ of prints between cinemas to save money on rental was just one of the many commonplace illegal practices of this period.
Early Studios
Demand for films was so high from the nickelodeons that products were churned out by the first studios without any real regard to quality. Actors, directors and camera operators regarded themselves as factory hands taking little pride in their occupation. Screen credits were withheld because of the studios’ well founded fear that a public reputation would lead to a demand for higher wages. In this decade actors were often obliged to double up as carpenters, painters and dress makers. Vitagraph was the first studio to form a stock company offering 20-40 dollars a week to have a permanent supply of actors, in what many regarded as a ‘shabby’ profession.
Production methods varied little between the various early studios, which were largely based in New York , despite their lack of contact and secrecy. One reel (800-1000 feet of film) was shot in a single day in consecutive order, without retakes. Every film, or reel, was made up of about eight scenes each of about equal length. The necessity of keeping films within a single reel of approximately 11-15 minutes meant that the final scene was often cranked more slowly by the camera operator, resulting in a furious final burst of activity. Such failings were rarely corrected in the desire to sell as many films as possible.
The MPPC Trust
There is a distinctly ‘wild west’ flavour to film making in the first decade of the century that owes as much to the legal and professional warfare that raged between film entrepreneurs as to the subject matter on the screen. Copying of prints and stories, patent disputes and industrial sabotage were a permanent feature of the ‘gold rush’ that capturing film markets represented. The Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), a trust formed by Edison ’s studio and other major international patent holders, attempted to gain control of all production and exhibition through the (frequently violent) exercise of patent rights. Between 1908 and 1912 ‘The Trust’, as the MPPC was popularly known, demanded a weekly license fee from exhibitors, and independent film makers such as Cecil B. De Mille often arrived fully armed on the set to protect themselves from the Patents Company’s hired thugs.
The MPPC also attempted to stop the flood of foreign films entering the US market. In 1907 two-thirds of films released in the United States were from Europe, mainly France . The American film industry often attacked these imports ‘for their narrative incomprehensibility and, worse yet, un-American morals.’ (Smith 1996) The Trust’s strong arm tactics with exhibitors ensured that only certain European distributors could operate in the States so that the percentage of imports fell to less than 50% of released films by 1909, a figure that continued to fall.
The European ‘Threat’ and Moral Panic
On the European continent French, Danish and Italian productions were threatening the popularity of the theatre by the end of the decade. French chase and trick films sold very well, with comedians such as the Frenchman Max Linder gaining star status. In 1907 a company known as Film d’Art began to bring a series of famous plays and stage performers to a mass audience. While working class audiences were generally indifferent to the silent mouthings of literary works, this move did prove popular with middle-class audiences who were prepared to pay higher prices to see such films. Italian historical epics were also influential and widely exhibited and Italian producers were among the first who consistently made films of more than one reel, or fifteen minutes. Danish dramas were also admired for the quality of the acting and production and the Danish actress Asta Nielsen was one of the first international stars (Bordwell 1994).
The threat to established forms of entertainment was not limited to Europe . As the number of nickelodeons multiplied across the States churches, saloons and vaudeville found that their trade had diminished. Consequently, these groups attacked the medium for its ‘depravity’. Certainly, the subject matter of films in the early years of the decade was drawn from the life of the common man: poverty, debt, homelessness, theft, and alcoholism were reoccurring themes which received scant attention in other art forms. Many movies were sympathetic to those drawn into crime and distrustful of rich bankers and politicians. Pornographic films, otherwise known as ‘teasers’, were secretly available for so-called ‘smoking concerts’ and there was widespread concern at the sexual, racial and ethnic mix of the darkened nickelodeons.
In response to the rising tide of criticism from newspapers, judges, priests and other moral guardians of the era, filmmakers began to move away from dramatic subjects drawn from everyday life towards literature, history (particularly of the early West) and moralistic dramas.
Many of those groups who attacked the medium finally came to recognise film’s huge popularity and potential and added it to their own programmes, with projectors becoming a regular addition to chapels, theatres and bars. By the end of the first decade, the foundations of the motion picture business had been laid. Furthermore, it was clear, even to the social commentators of the day, that the medium had great power to communicate and reflect changing values to vast audiences.