Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company by Charles Musser

Abstract

166 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company. By Charles Musser. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991. Pp. xii + 591; illustrations, notes, appen­ dixes, indexes. $60.00 (cloth); $29.95 (paper). The history of early film, stretching from Edison’s introduction of the kinetoscope to the rise of the Nickelodeon theaters, has often been depicted as a series of firsts: the first film camera, the first story film, and so on. Edwin Porter was the most important filmmaker of this period, and his work for the Edison Manufacturing Company produced many of these significant advances; he is most often credited with establishing the narrative form of film. The unprece­ dented popularity of his best-known film, The Great Train Robbery (1903), marked a new level of public acceptance of visual entertain­ ment. Yet as Charles Musser points out in this exhaustive study of Porter’s career, the construction of film history as a series of milestones hinders our understanding of the road they marked. Musser’s goal is to show the development of film within the context of popular culture and business relationships. He has not only examined numerous motion pictures but also delved into the business of the film industry and the psyche of its audience. The result is a comprehensive account of the origins of American film that presents some important new information. His detailed examination of Porter’s Life of an American Fireman (1903) is a case in point. This film is celebrated as the great leap forward into narrative filmmaking which told stories with new devices such as crosscutting. Many scholars had come to this conclusion after examining a version of the film that was altered significantly— “modernized,” as Musser calls it—in the years after Porter made it. Musser’s shot-by-shot analysis of the original film refutes the claim that it established the vocabulary of modern film editing. Instead, he finds a pattern of temporal repetition of shots that reflected a different mode of representation, different from the one audiences expect today. Life of an American Fireman did not mark another forward step in filmmaking; rather, it was a mode of pictorial representation that was “briefly explored, gradually discarded, and then finally forgotten” (p. 233). Musser makes it clear that he does not believe in technological determinism. He rejects the popular idea that technological innova­ tion was the driving force of American film. After reading this book it will be impossible to explain the coming of film theaters as a consequence of the perfection of the technology of film projection. Musser shows that the Nickelodeons emerged from the rise of film exchanges, the availability of longer films, and the changing relationship of producers and exhibitors. The book describes plenty of innovation, but it is innovation in the subject matter of films, in technology and culture Book Reviews 167 modes of representation, and in methods of film production as well as in machines. It was the change in the production of films that hastened the end of Porter’s career and his estrangement from the Edison company. Porter worked in a collaborative environment based on informal relationships and a loose division of labor. The important work of film editing, for example, was carried out by both producers and exhibi­ tors. The move to centralized film production brought more special­ ization in filmmaking and a rigid hierarchy of function. Porter resisted this change and the inevitable rise of the studio system. He also lost favor with the Edison company because he failed to adopt new modes of representation in film: the man so often characterized as author of modern film editing was in fact out of tune with audience needs by 1910. Porter’s methods and the way he told stories in his films were obsolete by the time motion pictures became the vehicles for mass communication. The University of California Press has done both Musser and Porter proud: this is a profusely illustrated book which contains stills from many of the films Musser consulted. As the book is meant to be used in conjunction with viewing the films, the author has also...