[002] The Great Train Robbery : Edwin S. Porter

The Great Train Robbery. 1903
Edwin S. Porter (1869~1941) / 35mm film, black and white with color tinting, silent, 11 minutes

The Great Train Robbery is not the earliest film in which the former showman and film exhibitor, Porter, told a story through the editing together of images in sequence, not is it the first Western.

Nevertheless, it is a milestone in American film history for combining these two elements into what was, for 1903, an exceptionally long film at eleven minutes and one that captured the imagination of the movie-going public worldwide. In the film, bandits hold up a train and rob passengers. After an escape and cahse on horseback, the bandits are caught. The ourlaw fires at the viewers as if they are the passengers, in an extra shot that, Porter  noted, could be shown at the beginning or the end of the film.

With the Great Train Robbery Porter pulled the American film business out of its early doldrums, using cameras mounted on moving trains, special optical effects, and-colored images of gunshots and explosions, and trick photography-all to tella story drawn baltatly from the popular dime novels of the day.

Porter had begun his career at the turn of the century as a designer and builder of cameras for the Edison Company factory in West Orange, New Jersey, and eventually became a cameraman and director in charge of all work turned out by the Edison Studio in New York City. This is his best-known film. - quote from MOMA hightlights (Copyright MOMA)