"Automobile Parade" |
The Mechanical Arts and the Coming of the Machine Age
To a large
degree, modern culture as we understand it owes much to the concurrent
emergence of the automobile and motion picture. Introduced at roughly the same
time, cars and film grew in a synergistic relationship with one another. One
would be hard pressed to find a film depicting modern life where the automobile
does not carry some bit of significance in the progression of the story. From
simply transporting people from one place to another to conveying nostalgia,
creating the elaborate chase scenes found in so many modern action films, or
enabling characters to enter in a dialogue while in an isolated space, the automobile
has an established role in film.
Thus, it is
virtually impossible to understate the significance of the automobile in the
evolution of film. From being a vehicle for transporting characters from scene
to scene to a weapon in the hands of a demented driver, much drama, comedy and
tragedy in film have taken place in and around the automobile. Despite this,
the topic of automobile and film has been rarely addressed systematically or
comprehensively. Film can sell automobiles and automobiles can sell a
particular film. The automobile strongly influenced the film industry, from
being a major “character,” to shaping film techniques involving motion and
camera angle.
Several
decades ago, film scholar Julian Smith drew on the vast collection at the
Library of Congress to survey hundreds of films made before 1920. Smith’s work
uncovered short documentaries like Automobile Parade or the 1902 one
reel, A Unique Race Between Elephant, Bicycle, Camel, Horse and Automobile.
Each of these short films featured mechanical novelty associated with the early
automobile.45 The first film to depict the automobile was Thomas
Edison’s 1900 short, Automobile Parade. It featured cars driven by
Newport, Rhode Island’s motoring elite, along with stray pedestrians,
horse-drawn carriages, and bicycles and tricycles.46
Cars were
first featured in the 1903 narrative film Runaway Match. This work
employed a theme that was to recur again and again – a rebellious couple elopes
in a car to avoid the insensitive opposition of her rich father to their
intentions to marry. Because of the car, young lovers, characteristically never
thinking of the long term, escaped from a father, who was perhaps more wise and
practical than given credit for. Thus, traditional courtship patterns were challenged
by the possibilities of flexible transportation. Now a middle-class man had the
same freedom as one more affluent, and glandular impulses were triumphant.
Racing was
critical to early technological developments, enhancing a manufacturer’s
reputation as well as fueling popular enthusiasm for the automobile among all
classes. In October 1904 the Vanderbilt Cup races on Long Island, New York were
filmed for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. The scenes in this film
are remarkable, and include an international cast of cars, what appeared to be
a challenging road course, and a variety of camera angles. It set the standard
for the hundreds of racing films that would follow.47
Early films
played off the dangerous side of the automobile. The portrayal of risky
accidents evidently enhanced a sense of adventure; however, accidents as
depicted in the crashes contained in the 1909 Edison film Happy Accidents
rarely killed anyone in action-adventure films and certainly not comedies. With
few exceptions, the villain got what he deserved. Slapstick accidents, a staple
of early comedy like Mack Sennett’s Keystone Kop series, trivialized crashes –
they resulted from clear incompetence rather than automobile design, and driver
and passengers were never killed or seriously injured.48
One such
example was Sennett’s Gussle’s Day
of Rest, produced in March 1915 and featuring a Ford Model T. The day at an
ocean resort begins with an accident in which Gussle’s plain-looking,
overweight wife is run over by a Model T driven by a middle-aged man with a
beautiful young companion at his side. Perhaps the first message of the film is
that a car – even a Ford Model T – can take you far with attractive women. But
this blonde has eyes elsewhere, including for Gussle, who ends up trying to
escape from his wife and the woman’s friend by taking the Ford on what becomes
a rollicking chase. A second theme might be that while you can attract girls
with a car, you might not be able to keep them. Ultimately, Gussle and his
blond companion are buried in a landslide, and the story ends with a grin.49
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