Page 37 - @ccess 1 Reader´s Book

Practice 5

Company and the Georges Melies Company, the pioneer
of the dark comedy, horror, andscience fiction gen es, were
his fie ce competitors.

By the end of the nineteenth century, filmmaking was being
taken seriously. As the twentieth century began, Edwin S.
Porter was the first consequential filmm er. Using a style
known as “primitive”, he began working for the Edison
Company. He was very casual about organizing his duties as
a filmma er. This led to him being the camera operator, the
director, the negative processor, the film edito , he even paid
the bills and repaired and maintained the equipment. After
working this way for ten years, his methods began to be
criticized by the company, and he was asked to resign.

Later in his life, he was praised for his courage and hard
work in a job that had no set criteria to follow. The Life of
an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery are
two of the noteworthy movies Porter filmed for Edison in
1903. The originality, the techniques used and the plot of
both films eceived recognition in America and Europe.
Until 1912, The Great Train Robbery was the single most
original movie, and it is widely considered to be the classic
American film In order to move the plot along and to omit
non-essential details, Porter used ellipses. This generated
a lot of excitment about the film because audiences could
understand the technique. In the closing scene of the film
the sheriff kills off the last three robbers by aiming his gun
straight at the camera. The ending was both frightening and
thrilling and left the audience wanting more.

ellipses
(n.): elipsis,
omisiones

36 Reader's Book