"The Tramp" is a well-made 1905 film from Pathé filmmaker Albert Capellani. It begins with a close-up of a character approaching the camera--a technique that the likes of D.W. Griffith ("The Musketeers of Pig Alley" (1912)) and Lois Weber ("Suspense" (1913)) have received praise for achieving years later. There's also some diagonal entering and exiting of the frame in the first scene, which is in contrast to the more theatrical cut-out framing, with a camera pan and time ellipsis, for two interior rooms. Some nice tinting, including to represent a diegetic lighting change, and snowy sets stand out, as well.
The film is based on an episode from Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables," which had also been made into a one-act play by Norman McKinnel, "The Bishop's Candlesticks." The surviving print of the film I saw, however, is missing the final scene after the remaining five shots (although a postcard on the ROM features of Edition Filmmuseum's "Screening the Poor" DVDs features a picture from the missing scene). It entirely changes the meaning of the picture's message. As it is now, the tramp is arrested for stealing the candlesticks from the charitable bishop, who had fed and offered a bed for him. Left here, the moral would seem to be that the Tramp's poverty is to be blamed on himself and that such charitable acts as those performed by the Bishop are wasted. The original ending, however, featured the Tramp's regeneration through the Bishop's continued kindness after he secures the Tramp's release by saying that the candlesticks were a gift. It's interesting to wonder whether that ending in the surviving print was intentionally cut to alter the message of the film.
Albert Capellani is an early filmmaker I'm not familiar with, but he seems to have received greater attention in recent years, as mentioned on David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's blog. There's a book and a couple DVD collections on his work that I now plan to get my hands on soon, to begin to rectify this gap in my knowledge of early silent films.
(From EYE Film Institute Netherlands 35mm print)
