1903: The Great Train Robbery

This movie is pretty violent.  It's about a train robbery which may have been apparent from the title, but in these primitive days of early cinema one may need reminding that when the title says the film's about a train robbery that's all you get.  Some desperadoes rob a train and that's it.  They shoot a bunch of people who die hilariously over the top deaths and at one point one of the bandits beats a guy until he becomes a dummy then throws him right off the train.  I saw this and Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds today and honestly I was a little more shocked by the blatant disregard for life in this movie than in that movie which specifically follows a group of men who scalp Nazis.  Not that The Great Train Robbery is a bloodbath or anything, but even though I've seen this film before, I was still taken aback by the gunplay and that beating scene.  

All that stagey violence is well and good, but what this movie is really known for is that final shot.  The outlaw staring straight into the camera, raising his gun, pointing it at the audience, then firing.  It's a very striking image that we still see imitated today.  What's fun about movies of this era is imagining what it was like to see this stuff for the first time; to witness the development of editing, and cinematography.  It must have been wondrous.  It's still overwhelming today what great filmmakers and editors can accomplish. I can only imagine how incredible this form must have been in those early days.  These films may seem simple to us, and they are, but these were "the movies" that the world was watching.  I believe it's important to see these movies in the context of their time.  It's easy to say it was good for it's time, but I'm looking to view it in the context of its own time and judge the film on its own merit.

 That having been said it's perhaps impossible to watch anything without your own life experience coloring it in some way.  This movie makes me think about that episode of The Brady Bunch when Peter was obsessed with Jesse James.  He has a dream that the whole family's on a train in the old west when Jesse hops aboard to rob it and just be a jerk in general, really.  Peter learns that Jesse was turned into a hero by the public and by legend, but in reality Jesse was a real drag.  That's the cultural touchstone that The Great Train Robbery brings to mind.  As much as I'd like to say I was thinking about film history and where this particular movie fits into all that, or what a great step forward this movie was in the world of cinema, I cannot.  I was thinking about how it took the Bradys a half hour to learn the lesson The Great Train Robbery gave me in ten.  Effective and compact.  That's how I will rate movies from now on.  Is it better than The Brady Bunch?  This movie is probably better than The Brady Bunch, but if asked to make a choice I'd have to stick with Greg, Marcia and the fam.  It's just stupider and more my speed.