Blacksmith Scene (1893)

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 mixing of work and alcohol was commonplace in the early 19th century, especially amongst heavy laborers. By the 1890's, however, the practice had died away. The use of the bottle of beer in this film is intended to invoke a sense of comic nostalgia of a bygone era.

Movie Connections:

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

Historically Important, & Still Looks Very Good

The footage in this very early movie still looks very good, and it still works as a vignette (albeit a staged one) of life in a bygone era. In itself, it's a simple scene, but it's far from a lifeless one, and the composition works as well.

The scene, which features the leisurely-paced efforts of the blacksmiths as they do their work while occasionally refreshing themselves, is not without a little irony. Even in its day, although the blacksmith shop itself was a familiar sight, the laid-back feel of the scene was deliberately imagined as a throwback to an earlier day, rather than as a picture of the (then) present of the 1890s. (The notes in the new Kino collection of Edison films confirm this.) By contrast, many of the other earliest movies were made with a deliberate emphasis on things of the present.

The images still look quite clear in comparison with some of the other experiments in the earlier 1890s, so it must have looked quite good in its time. Then, it was an intriguing taste of things soon to come. Now, it is a chance to revisit the past.