In one respect, it's funny how people complain that nearly all commercial film has to offer these days is a never-ending range of special effects, rather than focus on characterization in order to move a story forward. I won't exactly defy this opinion, but I find it interesting because one may say that's pretty much how narrative cinema began its course, attracting audiences with its ability to go beyond physical laws and still let the special effects remain a mystery. Surely the earliest films of a Méliès or a Porter could not offer much depth in terms of characterization, which was one reason why they could never, according to most at the time of their making, be considered a threat to the art of live theater. Even so, these films were still bound to fascinate as their fantastic visual extensions seemed to require no compromises.
Initially based on a comic strip by Winsor McCay and featuring vaudevillian Jack Brawn, THE DREAM OF A RAREBIT FIEND may not strike one as Edwin S. Porter's most outstanding achievement. He had behind him THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, which for its time was remarkably complex in structure and photography, so by comparison, the nightmares of a man-about-town who has allowed himself too much food and drink in one evening appears rather anchored in the vaudeville-tradition, less uniquely suited for the possibilities of film. At least it's easy to think in that direction at first. However, Porter does not disappoint; through inventive, unpredictable use of the camera, he did in 1906 make a strong case as to just why film deserved to be estimated as a medium on its own terms, rather than being compared to the theater stage. Certainly the feeling of intimacy provided by live actors performing on a real stage cannot be obtained with film, but Porter's recognition of film's advantages to the theater stage is one of the things which make his films so enjoyable to this day, THE DREAM OF A RAREBIT FIEND being no exception. Plotwise it may be rather ordinary, but it's what Porter does with this much-used topic that is the point. The clever effects have a close to dazzling effect at times, and it's not hard to see why it has later gained a reputation as a "surreal" work. That Porter, like Méliès, chose to explore the technical aspects of film- making in the earliest days, rather than consider more advanced methods of telling a story, may simply have been because even they were unable to foresee the full potential of the new medium; but seen in retrospect, to let technique come before dramaturgy was in fact a necessity. Every creative medium is a handcraft in essence, and the rules must be settled before they can be questioned.
Initially based on a comic strip by Winsor McCay and featuring vaudevillian Jack Brawn, THE DREAM OF A RAREBIT FIEND may not strike one as Edwin S. Porter's most outstanding achievement. He had behind him THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, which for its time was remarkably complex in structure and photography, so by comparison, the nightmares of a man-about-town who has allowed himself too much food and drink in one evening appears rather anchored in the vaudeville-tradition, less uniquely suited for the possibilities of film. At least it's easy to think in that direction at first. However, Porter does not disappoint; through inventive, unpredictable use of the camera, he did in 1906 make a strong case as to just why film deserved to be estimated as a medium on its own terms, rather than being compared to the theater stage. Certainly the feeling of intimacy provided by live actors performing on a real stage cannot be obtained with film, but Porter's recognition of film's advantages to the theater stage is one of the things which make his films so enjoyable to this day, THE DREAM OF A RAREBIT FIEND being no exception. Plotwise it may be rather ordinary, but it's what Porter does with this much-used topic that is the point. The clever effects have a close to dazzling effect at times, and it's not hard to see why it has later gained a reputation as a "surreal" work. That Porter, like Méliès, chose to explore the technical aspects of film- making in the earliest days, rather than consider more advanced methods of telling a story, may simply have been because even they were unable to foresee the full potential of the new medium; but seen in retrospect, to let technique come before dramaturgy was in fact a necessity. Every creative medium is a handcraft in essence, and the rules must be settled before they can be questioned.