The Emergence of Film Language in the 20th Century
American filmmaker Edwin Porter is well known by his contemporaries in cinema for his revolutionary insights in continuity editing that led to the story film, the beginnings of narrative cinema, and the invention of editing. But what precisely was Edwin Porter’s significance in the development of film language? Film language developed in the early 20th century as Edwin Porter implemented the “cross-cutting” editing technique. Porter’s innovative use of dramatic “cross-cut” editing allowed him to manipulate the spatial and temporal boundaries of a film which enhanced storytelling capabilities in cinema.
Cross-cutting is a technique in which two sequences occur at the same time, with the camera cutting between the two. In this respect, Porter pioneered the ability to tell two stories simultaneously, or cut between two segments of the same story. Before the early 20th century, films did not employ cross-cutting. For instance, The Lumière brothers’ film The Arrival of a Train (1896) contains a stagnant, unedited shot of a train arriving at the Gare De La Ciotat train station. During this period, film language was conceived as a singular, naturalistic moving image. As editing techniques were not sophisticated or cutting-edge before the turn of the 20th century.
Although, films such as The Arrival of a Train (1896) still astonished people at the time of its release. Particularly, since people were unaccustomed to the illusion created by moving images. The train created a “camera obscura” as there is a forced perspective of the locomotive, which is moving rapidly towards the screen. Though, a single, motionless shot is used in this case which is fairly basic in terms of film language. There is very little ingenuity when it comes to editing techniques or cinematic techniques.
To the contemporary French audiences of 1896, Arrival of a Train (1896) appears to advance the capabilities of moving pictures and film language. The realism overwhelmed audiences as the moving image of a life-sized train coming directly at them, giving the audiences a feeling of anxiety. Accordingly, this film had a lasting impact on audiences of this time but is technically primitive to audiences of the following century.
In contrast, Porter’s early film, The Great Train Robbery uses cross-cutting which adds a dramatic effect, cutting between the interior of the train, the railroad telegraph office where the operator is tied up, and the passengers. Thus, enhancing the film language by adding multiple stories on-screen and multiple points of action. Before these innovations in editing Porter’s contemporaries saw cinema as an extension of the stereopticon, a magic lantern used to project photographic slides. Now, with innovative films such as The Great Train Robbery, new and inventive forms of storytelling are made possible. Specifically, the ability to create an emotional effect and parallels where narrative action can happen in several places at the same time through dramatic cross-cutting editing.
Similarly, The Life of An American Fireman (1903) is another popular film by Porter that plays a significant role in the development of film language and editing. This early narrative film contains a continuous narrative, rendered in a total of nine different shots. Notably, film scholar Charles Musser points out that this film is historically significant for representing the social role of firefighters, which was changing at the time of this film’s release. Porter displays this narrative over seven scenes comprised of nine shots. As such, Porter depicts the changing social role of firefighters is a multi-faceted way.
Cross-cutting can be used to show different ways a character can achieve a goal through different shots and options. Aesthetically, this form of editing also allows for a unique construction of space and time. Fittingly, Porter demonstrated that newsreels, coupled with staged dramatic action, could be edited in a more dynamic fashion than heretofore seen, and in doing so he stimulated, probably more than any man, a feeling for cinematic motion. Porter’s innovative storytelling methods in the early 20th century place an emphasis on narrative. Earlier films such as the aforementioned Arrival of a Train (1896) are simple artistic works that are limited in their storytelling capabilities. This film only exists within the parameters of a single, uninterrupted shot in isolation.
Conversely, with films that use cross-cutting, the storytelling capabilities are far more plentiful. For instance, by expanding the parameters of space and time, the audience can now see a character’s action followed by another character’s response on-screen, such as the final scene in The Life of An American Fireman (1903). Nationally renowned for being the practitioner and pioneer of cross-cutting, Porter’s advancements also led to further developments in film editing.
For instance, Lev Kuleshov created the “Kuleshov effect” in 1910, shortly after Porter utilized cross-cutting in his early films. The “Kuleshov effect” derives meaning from two shots back to back, showing an action followed by a character reaction, which can convey that character’s emotion or motivation. When the audience knows a character’s motivation it makes the character more fully developed, which enhances storytelling. This interaction between two shots is similar to the cross-cutting method, as both form multiple shots compiled together, rather than one shot in isolation.
This Illustrates Porter’s historical significance in the development of film language, as he inspired Lev Kuleshov to further develop film language and film editing. Moreover, Porter’s two historically significant films, The Great Train Robbery (1903) and The Life of An American Fireman (1903) enhance film language through cross-cutting, an aesthetic and cultural triumph in motion pictures that expands storytelling possibilities.
