The Great Train Robbery (1903), Movie Review Example

An Analysis and Critique of The Great Train Robbery (1903)

The Great Train Robbery (1903), a film produced by Thomas Edison and directed by Edwin Porter, does much to blaze new trails in cinematography. The work only about 11 minutes in length, includes less than twenty scenes and uses the most simple of all imaginable plots: Bad guys do bad things. Good people chase them down. Good overcomes evil. Movie critic, Boyd Tonkin, says that this is one of a small, select group of films that have “shaped and shadowed modern times (Tonkin, 7). The thing that makes this short stand tall is its treatment of the story as a kind of play, although some of the sets are primitive, one-dimensional paintings, just like the ones a theatregoer would find in a community playhouse.

At least two powerful moments emerge from certain camera angles employed by Porter. One is the angle of the locomotive when it stops a few yards from its detachment from the remainder of the cars. Filmed from an angle instead of from the side, straight on, the train’s respite has composition and interest. It has ceased to move, but it is pointed away from the eyes of its viewers (Kaufmann). Another is when the man tries to flee from the line up of passengers who robbed by the bandits. When the man runs, he runs, again at an angle, toward those who view the film. He does not run to the left or the right. When the robbers shoot him in the back, he falls in a way that causes viewers to believe he might fall into the front row of the theatre. Viewers can believe –almost, that if the fleeing passenger had not been shot, he would have run through the theatre.

The film looks like a Western. Its filming was in the east. This, in 1903, represented active story telling at its very best. Movie audiences were amazed. After the film’s climax occurred with the demise of the robbers at the hands of honest men of the law, viewers thought that their entertainment was complete. Then, the unimaginable happened. Justus Barnes, one of the robbers, alive and unharmed, points his six-shooter directly at the audience –again, the angle of the camera had magic, and he shoots. He shoots at those who view the film. The action shocked, delighted, and amused all who saw it (Page). The sophistication of cinematography that we are accustomed to in movies prepares us for unexpected things such as this. When this short film saw release, audiences did not brace themselves for Barnes’ gun blast. They had no previous movies with which they could compare this. If we try hard, we can see a few of them ducking down in their seats to avoid personal injury.

The camera shows other images that astounded early theater patrons. No longer was the set the only place where action took place. In a real theatre, when an actor moved off of the stage, audience members knew that he or she went ‘offstage.” In this film, two things remind us that the movie mirrors real life much more realistically. First, when the clerk, alert to the impending robbery, locks the chest and throws the key out of the open car of the moving train, the audience feels the “lostness’ of the key. It is not thrown offstage. It is thrown away completely. The other is the coal shoveler of the train, When he is murdered by the robbers, he is thrown off of the train before it comes to a stop. Viewers realize that by throwing him off of the train, he becomes not only dead, but just as lost as the key. The key and the dead man are gone. They have not moved off stage.

A few of the scenes show actors “overdoing” their gestures, just as they has received training to do in live theatre. These were uninspiring; but in The Great Train Robbery, Edison, showed his genius by making the outside shots more realistic. We see men running and fighting on top of a moving train. This is impressive. We see people filing out of the train with their hands held high above their heads. We feel their terror. We follow the robbers as they run through the woods, across a creek and mount

their horses that wait patiently for their return. We feel their anxiousness to escape (Lane).

Why has this film received so much critical acclaim? For one reason, some call it the first authentic narrative film (Keegan). Porter’s treatment of the subject set the format for ensuing cowboy-type shoot-em-ups that we trace, even to similar story lines of our present day. The movie said a lot in a short amount of time. It is chock full of action, and its violence is unrelenting. We see murder and greed. We see the chase. We see conflict. These things still pull us into theatres.

Works Cited

Kaufmann, Stanley. “All the World’s a Film.” New Republic 213, 10.

Keegan, Rebecca. “Little Movies Go Big Time.” Time 169, 9.

Lane, Anthony. “Third Way.” New Yorker 86, 3.

Page, Tim. “Dancing in the Dark.” Smithsonian 36, 12.

Tonkin, Boyd. “100 Films That Changed the World.” New Statesman & Society 9, 390.