Blacksmith Scene (1893)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Genre:

Short

Plot:

Three men hammer on an anvil and pass a bottle of beer around.

Plot Keywords:

Beer | Blacksmith

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Charles Kayser	...	(uncredited)
John Ott	...	(uncredited)

Also Known As:

Blacksmith Scene #1 (USA)
Blacksmith Shop (UK) (informal alternative title)
Blacksmithing (USA) (informal alternative title)
Blacksmithing Scene (USA)
The Blacksmith's Forge (UK) (informal alternative title)

Runtime:

1 min

Country:

USA

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Edison Laboratories, West Orange, New Jersey, USA

Company:

Edison Manufacturing Company

Trivia:

The first film that the Edison company made for commercial distribution; hence its place on the National Film Registry as the starting point in the American motion picture industry.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Edison: The Invention of the Movies (2005) (V)

One of the most curious of curiosity pieces...

It's always fascinating to watch movies that are this old because it's like looking a hundred years into the past. You get to see a glimpse of what the world was like a century ago, even though in this particular film all we see is three guys hammering on an anvil. Blacksmith Scene was the first film ever to be shown to a large audience, I think it was something like 200 people who watched it one at a time on a kinetoscope after a lecture by the Edison Company, the creators of the film. Actual projection of movies didn't start until about a year or so later.

There are a lot of interesting things about this film, especially since it's the first one that was made to be shown to a large audience. These are actors in the film, not actual blacksmiths, so it's not even a documentary but it's interesting that the first thing portrayed is actual work. A perfect way to introduce a new medium. Another thing that is pretty interesting is the way they pass around that bottle of beer - even in this earliest of early films, they are striving to entertain. This is not just a moving photograph, but a primitive film that seeks to do exactly what every film made thereafter strives to do - hold the audience's attention. Obviously, it was a lot easier for a moving picture to hold the audience's attention in 1893 than it is today, but in this primitive film all of the major requirements of a film can be found.

Except a plot, of course...