You've ignored this film. It will no longer appear as a recommendation. View ignored films.
You've decided to remember The Great Train Robbery for later. You can see all your remembered films here.
Summary: The clerk at the train station is assaulted and left tied by four men, then they rob the train threatening the operator. (They) take all the money and shoot a passenger when trying to run away. A little girl discovers the clerk tied and gives notice to the sheriff, who at once goes along with his men hunting the bandits. (imdb)
Like Trip to the Moon, this title is very hard to rate. It's fairly interesting, but unlike Moon, it feels very much like "let's see what we can do with this stuff we've got" rather than "let's see how awesome a story we can do with this stuff we've got," resulting in a film that's more noteworthy for its context than content.
Probably the first film with an actual plot that resembles modern film enough to still be watchable and enjoyable not only because it's laughably bad. This is Porter's most important film, and it's a landmark in movie history. Invents techniques in editing that are used still today.
Perhaps the very first film that showcased a fluid and logical narrative flow. The use of color is interesting, and the back screen effects are pretty cool.
This and A Trip to the Moon really brought narratives to great importance. Some sense of oddness prevails stemming from the lack of modern editing which we are conditioned to (i.e. closeups, more then one take per scene) but it's still a whole bunch of fun. Spawned a bunch of action and western cliches that pervade to this day, and is an interesting historical artifact.
It's important, and it was a milestone, but that doesn't make it great. That being said, it's still a decent short. It's just got a lot of flaws, not least of which is its inability to portray realistic deaths.
Very innovative at its time, 8 years after the first films by the Lumiere brothers. Its technical innovations are cross-cutting, double exposure, camera movement and on-location-shooting. It also contains all the classical elements a 'good' Western needs to have.
Old school to the max! Look at the fuckin' date! First western/crime saga ever made. I mean, obviously it isn't all to impressive nowadays, but it was a thing of its time.
On the one hand, the static way of filmmaking limits the impact of the visuals. On the other hand, one of the robbers pummels the shit out of the driver and throws him off the moving train. That's straight up hardcore.
Not as instantly accessible or entertaining for your average modern punter as the likes of Méliès but definitely an astonishing achievement & a deservedly praised film in regards to cinematic historical importance. The grandness of some scenes with a moving train, large crowds & stunts are, in perspective, a great achievement & speak volumes about the vision and talent of director Edwin S. Porter.
Whether or not it's the "first" narrative film, but it's one of the first anyway, and that's enough to make it a historical curiosity. It's also fairly entertaining, and certainly worth 10 minutes. Not really the kind of thing you're going to watch over and over again, though, except maybe if you're studying cinema history.
Not really sure how to rate this movie, so I just went with my gut instinct, seems about right. It's entertaining, obviously a landmark and revolutionary, all that jazz, but it's undeniably been ravaged by time. Still, pretty solid and even if you hate it...hey, it's 12 minutes, suck it up.
I saw this as part of a DVD series put out by Kino called "Movies Begin". They claim to have restored the films, but I've seen restored prints of similar time period that were much better done. They did restore the hand coloring, which made the scene where the robber explodes the chest to open it quite magical. I found the whole short to be entertaining.
Trivia I found: The final shot is homaged in Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" when Joe Pesci's character fires a gun into the camera (and at the audience) at the end of the movie. Well what do ya know ? This is a guilty pleasure for filmlovers, but still a great short for everyone else. Beautiful score aswell (well, the version I saw). Go see it !!!
Impressive & important, but a bit boring. It does have a coherent narrative, but because it doesn't have dialogue or any real identifiable characters (all long shots until the final shot) it feels more like a documentary re-enactment than a real story.
Loading Products from Amazon and Ebay
