Chapter 2 Inventions and Origins 55same rescue twice, both from inside and outside of the building. In the years
to come, we see fi lmmakers advance greatly as they begin to use cross-cutting,
through which the viewer would see back-and-forth shots between interior
and exterior during the rescue, as is seen in re-cut prints from later versions
of Life of an American Fireman.
Later that year, Porter directed Th e Great Train Robbery, a landmark
fi lm. Suddenly, audiences were shown an exciting tale with an exploding safe,
a fi ght atop a moving train, and an innocent passenger gunned down. Th e
last shot of one of the outlaws shooting directly at the spectator cemented
the outcome of grabbing the viewer’s attention. Th is western tale shot in
New Jersey featured an eff ective series of shots that built up its story well,
and although it does not feature any intricate cutting, its use of action and
staging in depth were thrilling to viewers at that time.Pioneer Alice Guy Blaché
Th e use of a close-up as an actual part of narrative can be seen in French
director Alice Guy Blaché’s daring fi lm, Madame Has Her Cravings from- In this fi lm, a pregnant woman on a park bench sees a little girl with
a candy stick, shows her desire for it, and steals it. Th e woman is seen in
close-up enjoying her prize, and then she and her husband (and their baby
in a carriage that the man is pushing) are confronted by the little girl’s father.
In the series of scenes that each feature a close-up, the pregnant woman
proceeds to guzzle a man’s drink, smoke a pipe, and deliver her baby in
a cabbage patch! A number of Alice Guy Blaché’s fi lms from this period
Figure 2-18 The individual
shots from Edwin S. Porter’s
Life of an American Fireman
shown in two frames each,
read top to bottom in two
columns. (Courtesy Photofest)Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).