ESSAY : "Breaking Through"

• ,, Hi! rm::. . • -fiflllli.~:,!~~~~:.;~,i.·;~t~.·. ~ ""· The Ctnema of Attraction: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde

The Gay Shoe Qerk (1903)

Notice: This material may be pr~tected by copyright law (Tt~e 17 U }~. cw:.3)

By Tom Gunning

' Writing in 1922, flushed with the excitement of seeing Abel Gance's La Roue, Femand Leger tried to define something of the radical possibilities of the cinema. The potential of the new art did not lay in "imitating the movements of nature" or in "the mistaken path" of :its resemblance to theater. Its uni~ue power was a "matter of making images seen." It is precisely this harnessing of visibility,

this act of showing and exhibition which I feel cinema before 1906 displays most intensely. Its inspiration for the avant-garde of the early decades of this century needs to be re..explored.

Writings by the early modernists (Futurists, Dad~s~s and Surrealists) on the cinema follow a pattern sum- lar to Leger: enthusiasm for this _!lew medium ~d its possibilities; and disappointment at the way 1t has already developed, its enslavement to tradition~ art forms, particularly theater and literature. This fascination with the potential of a medium (and the accompanying fantasy of rescuing the cinema from it enslavement to alien and pass~ forms) can be under- stood from a number of viewpoints. I want to use it to illuminate a topic I have approached before from another angle, the strangely heterogeneous relation that film before 1906 (or so) bears to the films that follow, and the way a taking account of~ hetero- geneity signals a new conception of film history ~d film form. My work in this area has been pursued m collaboration with Andre Gaudreault.2

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The history of early cinema,. like the history of cinema generally, has been written and theorized under the hegemony of narrative films. Early film- makers like Smith, Melies, and Porter have been studied primarily from the viewpoint of their contri- bution to film as a storytelling medium, particularly the evolution of narrative editing. Although such approaches are not totally misguided, they are one- sided, and potentially distort both the work of these filmmakers and the actual forces shaping cinema before 1906. A few observations will indicate the wa

· that early cinema was not dominated by the narrative impulse that later asserted its sway over the medium. First there is the extremely important role that actuality film plays in early fi1m production. Investi- gation of the films copyrighted in the U.S. shows that actuality films outnumbered fictional films until 1906.3 The Lumiere tradition of "placing the world within one's reach, through travel films and topicals did not disappear with the exit of the Cinematographe from film production.

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But even within non-actuality fllming-what has sometimes been referred to as the "MiSlies tradition" -the role narrative plays is quite different than in traditional narrative film. Melies himself declared in discussing his working method:

As for the scenario, the "fable," or "tale," I only consider it at the end. I can state that the scenario constructed in this manner has no importance, since

I use it merely as a pretext for the "stage effects," the "tricks," or for a nicely arranged tableau. 4

Whatever differences one might find between Lurniere and Melies they should not represent the opposition between'narrative and non-narrative ftlm- making, at least as it is unde!stood today. _Rather, one can unite them in a conception that sees cmema less as a way of telling stories than as a way of presenting a series of views to an audience, fascinating because of their illusory power (whether the realistic illusion of motion offered to the :frrst audiences by Lumiere, or the magical illusion concocted by Melies), and exoticism. Iri other words, I believe that the relation to the spectator set up by the films of both Lumiere and Me ties (and many other filmmakers before 1906) had a common basis, and one that differs from the primary spectator relations set up by narrative film after 1906. I will call this earlier conception of cinema "the cinema of attractions." I believe that this co~ception dom:inates cinema until about 1906- 1907. Although different from the fascination in storytelling exploited by the cinema from the time of Griffith, it is not necessarily opposed to it. In fact the cinema of attraction does not disappear with the dominance of narrative, but rather goes underground, both into certain avant-garde practices and as a com. ponent of narrative films, more evident in some genres (e.g., the musical) than in others.

What precisely is the cinema of attraction? First it is a cinema that bases itself on the quality that Leger celebrated: its ability to show something. Contrasted to the voyeuristic aspect of narrative cinema analyzed by Christian Metz,S this is an exhibitionist cinema. An aspect of early cinema which I have written about in other articles is emblematic of this different relationship the cinema of attractions constructs with its spectator: the recurring look at the camera by actors. Tllis action which is later perceived as spoiling the realistic illusion of the cinema, is here undertaken with brio, establishing contact with the audience. From comedians smirking at the camera, to the constant bowing and gesturing of the conjurors in magic films, this is a cinema that displays its visi- bility, willing to rupture a self-enclosed fi.ctional world for a chance to solicit the attention of the spectator.

Exhibitionism becomes literal in the series of erotic films which play an important role in early film production (the same Pathe catalogue would ad- vertise the Passion Play along with "scenes griviose d'un characrere piquant," erotic films,

often including full nudity), also driven under- ground in later years. As Noel Burch has shown in his film Co"ection Please: How We Got into Pictures (1979), a film like The Bride Retires (France, 1902) reveals a fundamental conflict between this exhibitionistic tendency of early film and the creation of a fictional diegesis. A woman undresses for bed while her new husband peers at her from behind a screen. However, it is to the camera and the audience that the bride addresses her erotic striptease, winking at us as she faces us, smiling in erotic display.

As the quote from Millies points out, the trick fUm, perhaps the dominant non-actuality ftlm genre before 1906, is itself a series of displays, of magical attractions, rather than a primitive sketch of narrative continuity. Many trick films are, in effect, plotless, a series of transfonnations strung together with little connection and cc~rtain­ ly no characterization. But to approach even the plotted trick fllms, such as Voyage dans la lune (1902), simply as precursors of later narrative structures is to miss the point. The story simply provides a frame upon which to string a demon- stration of the magical possibilities of the cinema.

Modes of exhibition in early cinema also reflect this lack of concern with creating a self-sufficient narrative world upon the screen. As Charles Musser has shown,6 the early showmen exhibitors exerted a great deal of control over the shows they pre- sented, actually re-editing the films they had purchased and supplying a series of offscreen sup- plements, such as sound effects and spoken commentary. Perhaps most extreme is the Hale's Tours, the largest chain of theaters exclusively showing films before 1906. Not only did the films consist of non-narrative sequences taken from moving vehicles (usually trains), but the theater itself was arranged as a train car, with a conductor who took tickets, and sound effects simulating the click-elack of wheels and hiss of air brakes.7 Such viewing experiences relate more to tne attractions of the fairground than to tlie traditions of the legitimate theater. The relation between filins and the emergence of the great amusement parks, such as Coney Island, at the tum of the century provides rich ground for rethinking the roots of early cinema.

Nor should we ever forget that in the earliest years of exhibition the cinema itself was an attraction.

"The dose-up cut • •• may anticipate late.~ continuity teChniques, but its ·principal motive is again pure exhibitioni~m."

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Early audiences went to exhibitions to see ma- chines demonstrated, (the newest technological wonder, following in the wake of such widely exhibited machines and marvels as X-rays or, earlier, the phonograph) rather than to view films. It was the Cinematographe, the Biograph or the Vitascope that were advertised on the variety bills in which they premiered, not The-Baby's Break- fast or The Black Diamond Express. After the initial novelty period; this display of the possibili- ties of cinema continues, and not only in magic

. ,~· ----------------------------------------- : .: It was precisely the exhibitionist quality

of tum-of-the-century popular art that made it attractive to the avant-garde.

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films. Many of the close-ups in early film differ from later uses of the technique precisely because they do not use enlargement for narrative punc- tuation, but as an attraction in its own right. The close-up cut into Porter's The Gay Shoe Clerk (1903) may anticipate later continuity niques, but its principal motive is

tech- again pure

exhibitionism, as the lady lifts her skirt hem, exposing her ankle for all to see, Biograph films such as Photographing a Female Crook (1904) and Hooligan in Jail (1903) consist of a single shot in which the camera is brought close to the main character, until they are in midshot The enlargement is not a device expressive of narrative tension;it is in itself an attraction and the point of the film. 8

The term "attractions" comes, of course, fiom the young Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein and his attempt to find a new model and mode of analysis for the theater. In his search for the "unit of impression" of theatrical art, the foundation of an analysis which would undermine realistic representational theater, Eisenstein hit upon the term "attraction."9 An attraction aggressively subjected the spectator to "sensual or psycho- logical impact." According to Eisenstein, theater should consist of a montage of such attractions, creating a relation to the spectator entirely dif-

ferent from his absorption in ''illusory imitative- ness."lO I pick up this tenn partly to underscore the relation to the spectator that this later avant- garde practice shares with early cinema: that of exhibitionist confrontation rather than diegetic absorption. Of course the "experimentally regu- lated and mathematically calculated" montage of attractions demanded. by Eisenstein differs enormously from these early films (as any con- scious and oppositional mode of practice will from a popular one).ll However, it is import;mt to realize the context from which Eisenstein selected the term. Then as now, the "attraction" was a term of the fairground, and for Eisemtein and his friend Yuketvich it primarily represented their favorite fairground attraction, the roller coaster, or as it was known then in Russia, the American Mountains .. 12

The source is significant The enthusiasm of the early a\rant-garde for film was at least partly an enthusiasm for a mass culture that was emerging at the beginning of the century, offering a new sort of stimulus for an audience not acculturated to the traditional arts. It is important to take this enthusiasm for popular art as something more than a simple gestU:rfl of epater /es bourgeoise. The enormous development of the entertainment industry since the Teens and its growing accep- tance by middle class culture (and the accom- modation that made this acceptance possible) has made it difficult to understand the liberatio~ popular entertainme:nt offered at the beginning of the century. I believe that it was precisely the exhibitionist quality of tum-of-the-century popular art that made it attractive to the avant- garde-its freedom from the creation of a diegesis, its accent on direct stimulation.

Writing of the variety theater, Marinetti not only praised its esthetics of astonishment and stimu- lation, but particularly its creation of anew spec- tator who contrasts with the "static," "stupid voyeur'' of traditional theater. The spectator at the variety theater feels directly addressed by the spectacle and joins in, singing along, heckling the comedians.13 Dealing with early cinema within the context of archive and academy, we risk

issing its vital relation to vaudeville, its primacy lace of exhibition until around 1905. Film

appeared as one attraction on the vaudeville pro- gram, surrounded by a mass of unrelated acts in

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Pexsonal (1904)

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a non-narrative and even nearly illogical succession of performances. Even when presented in the nickelodeons that were emerging at the end of this period, these short films always appeared in a variety format, trick films sandwiched in with farces, actualities, ''illustrated songs," and, quite frequently, cheap vaudeville acts. It was precisely this non-narrative variety that placed this fonn of entertainment under attack by reform groups in the early Teens. The Russel Sage Survey of popular entertainments found vaudeville "depends

Every change in film history implies a change in its address to the spectator, and each period constructs its spectator in a new way.

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upon an artificial rather than a natural human and developing interest, these acts having no necessary, and as a rule, no actual connection."14 In other words, no narrative. A night at the variety theater was like a ride on a streetcar or an active day in a crowded city, according to this middle class refortn group, stimulating an unhealthy nervous- ness. It was precisely such artificial stimulus that Marinetti and Eisenstein wished to borrow from the popular arts and inject into the theater, organizing popular energy for radical purpose.

What happened to the cinema of attraction? The period from 1907 to about 1913 represents the true na"ativization of the cinema, culminating in the appearance of feature films which radically revised the variety format Film clearly took the legitimate theater as its model, producing famous players in famous plays. The transformation of filmic discourse that D. W. Griffith typifies bound cinematic signi- fiers to the narration of stories and the creation of a self-enclosed diegetic universe. The look at the camera becomes taboo and the devices of cinema are transformed from playful "tricks" -cinematic attrac- tions (Melies gesturing at us to watch the lady vanish) -to elements of dramatic expression, entries into the psychology of character and the world of fiction.

However, it would be too easy to see this as a Cain and Abel story, with narrative strangling the nascent

possibilities of a young iconoclastic form of enter- tainment. Just as the variety format in some sense survived in the Mov:ie Palaces of the Twenties (with newsreel, cartoon, sing-along, orchestra performance and sometimes vaudeville acts subordinated to, but still co-existing with, the narrative feature of the evening), the system of attraction remains an essen- tial part of popular filmmaking.

The chase film shows how towards the end of this period (basically from 1903-1906) a synthesis of attractions and narrative was already underway. The chase had been the original truly narrative genre of the. cinema, providing a model for casuality and linearity as well as a. basic editing continuity. A film like Biograph's Penonal (1904, the model for the chase film in many ways) shows the creation of a narrative linearity, as the French nobleman runs for his life from the fiancees his personal column ad has unleashed. However, at the same time, as the group of young women pursue their prey towards the camera in each shot, they encounter some slight obstacle (a fence, a steep slope, a stream) that slows them down for thtl spectator, providing a mini- spectacle pause in the unfolding of narrative. The Edison Company seemed particularly aware of this, since they offered their plagiarized version of this Biograph film (How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the New York Herald Personal Columns) in two forms, as a complete film, or as separate shots, so that any one image of the ladies chasing the man could be bought without the inciting incident or narrative closure.IS

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As Laura Mulvey has shown in a very different context, the dialectic between spectacle and narra~ tive has fueled much of the classical cinema.l6 Donald Crafton in his study of slapstick comedy "The Pie and the Chase" has shown the way slap- stick did a balancing act between the pure spectacle of gag and the development of narrative.l7 Likewise, the spectacle film traditionally proved true to its name by highlighting m aments of pure visual stimu- lation along with narrative. The 1924 version of Ben Hur was in fact shown at a Boston theater with a timetable announcing the moment of its prime attractions:

8:35 The Star of Bethlehem 8:40 Jerusalem Restored 8:59 Fall of the House ofHur 10:29 The Last Supper 10:50 Reilllionl8

How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the New Yorlc Herald Personal Columns (1904}

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The Hollywood advertising policy of enumerating the features of a .fihn, each emblazoned with the command, "See!" shows this primal power of the attraction running beneath the armature of narrative regulation.

We seem far from the avant..garde premises with which this discussion of early cinema began. But it is important that the radical heterogeneity which I find in early cinema not be conceived as a truly oppositional program, one irreconcilable with the growth of narrative cinema. This view is too senti- mental and too aliistorical. A ffim like The Great Train Robbery (1903) does point in both directions, toward a direct assault on the spectator (the spec- tacularly enlarged outlaw unloading his pistol in our faces), and towards a linear narrative continuity. This is early filin's ambiguous heritage. Clearly in some sense recent spectacle cinema has re-affinned its roots in stimulus and carnival rides, in what might be called the Spielberg-Lucas-Coppola cinema of effects.

But effects are tamed attractions. Marinetti and Eisenstein understood that they were tapping into a source of energy that would need focusing and intensification to fulfill its revolutionary possibi· lities. Both Eisenstein and Marinetti planned to exaggerate the impact on the spectator, Marinetti proposing to literally glue them to their seats (ruined garments paid for after the performance) and Eisen- stein setting firecrackers off beneath them. Every change in film history implies a change in its address to the spectator, and each period constructs its spectator in anew way. Now in a period of Ameri- can avant-garde cinema in which the tradition of con- templative subjectivity has perhaps run its (often glorious) course, it is possible that this earlier carnival of the cinema, and the methods of popular enter- tainment, still provide an unexhausted resource-a Coney Island of the avant-garde, whose never domi- nant but always sensed current can be traced from Melies through Keaton, through Un au·en andalou (1928), and Jack Smith.

NOTES 1Femand Leger, "A Critical Essay on the Plastic Qualities of Abel Gance's Film The Wheef' in Functions of Painting ed. and intro. Edward Fry, trans. Alexandra Anderson (Ne~ York: Vlldng Pres$, 1973), 21.

~See. my articles "The Non-Continuous Style of Early Film" m Cznema 1900-1906, ed. Roger Ho1man (Brussels: FIAF !982) and "An Unseen Energy Swallows Space: The Space' m Early Film and its Relation to American Avant Garde Film" in Film Before Griffith, ed. John L. Fell (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1983), 355 .{i6, and our collabora- tive paper delivered by M. Gaudreault at the conference at C~risy on Film History (August 1985) "Le cinema des pre- 1 rmers temps: un defi a l'histoiie du cinema?" I would also like to note the importance of my discussions with Adam Simon and our hope to further investigate the history and archaeology of the film spectator.

3Robert C. Allen, Vaudevme and Film: 1895-1915 A Study inMedialnteraction (New York: Amo Press 1980) 159,212-13. ' '

4Melies, "Importance du Sc6nario" in Georges Me/ies, Georges Sadoul (Paris: Seghers, 1961), 118 (my translation).

5Metz, The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cine"!'h trans. Celia Britton, Annwyl Williams, Ben Brewster and AJired Guzzetti (Bloomfugton: Indiana Univ. Press, 1982),particularly 58-80, 91~97.

6Musser, "American Vitagraph 1897-1901" in Cinema Journal, 22,3 (Spring 198.3), 10.

7Raymond Fielding, "Hale's Tours: Ultrarealism in the Pre-1910 Motion Picture," in Fell, 116-30.

81 wish to thank Ben Brewster for his comments after the original delivery of this paper which pointed out the importance of including this aspect of the cinema of attractions here.

9Eisenstefu, "How I BeclUne a Film Director'' in Notes of a Film Director (Moscow: Foxeign Language Publishing House, nd.), 16.

lOEisenstein, "Montage of Attractions " trans. Daniel Gerould, in The Drama Review, 18, 1 (March 1974), 78-79. ll[bid.

12Yon Barna, Eisenstein (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1973), 59. ,

13"The Variety Theater 1913" in Futurist Manifestos, ed. Umbro Apollonio (New York: Viking Press 1973) 127. ' ,

14Michael Davis, The EJqlloitation of Pleasure (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, Dept. of Child Hygiene, Pamphlet, 1911).

15oavid Levy, "Edison Sales Policy and the Continuous Action Film 1904-1906," in Fen, 207-22.

16''Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," Screen, 16, 3 (Autumn 1975), 6-18.

17Paper delivered at the FIAF Conference on Slapstick, May 1985, New Yoik City.

18Nicholas Vardac, From Stage to Screen: Theatrical Method from Garrick to Griffith (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1968), 232.

Tom Gunning teaches fihn history and theory at the State University of New York, College at Purchase.