Edison: The Invention of the Movies

There are simply not enough superlatives to describe Edison: The Invention of Movies, a four-disc set that maximizes the potential of DVD as an interactive educational tool, historical archive, and vast compendium of motion-picture study and entertainment. A joint venture of Kino on Video and the Museum of Modern Art, with the cooperation of the Library of Congress, this astonishingly thorough collection contains 140 complete films from the Edison Company, spanning the years 1889 to 1918, from the birth of movies as a penny-arcade diversion to their evolution as a narrative art form. Space limitations prevent a thorough examination of what's included, but all of the Edison milestones are here, from the earliest camera tests to 1903's The Great Train Robbery (often called the first narrative feature) and The Unbeliever (1918), said to be the final Edison release. Presented in chronological order, painstakingly restored and digitally remastered, the films offer a direct conduit to our cultural past, running the sociopolitical gamut from travelogues to early vaudeville, pranks and stunts, literary adaptations, the depiction of racial stereotypes, the evolution of fashion, sporting events, historical milestones, wartime battle, comedy, tragedy, and everything in between. To watch these films is to gain immediate insight into both who we were and who we are as Americans. Some of the images seem ghostly and remote, others crystal clear, and some color-tinted, but all have been painstakingly preserved in their original form. Equally impressive are the expert interviews and thorough documentation provided with these films, featuring prominent archivists and early cinema scholars (including series curators Steven Higgins and Charles Musser, film historian and Rutgers Associate Professor of English Richard Koszarski, and former MOMA curator Eileen Bowser), coupled with easily-navigated menus that lead to a veritable treasure-trove of onscreen documents, stills, script fragments, memos, and other supplementary materials. An archive of unprecedented importance, to say that every library should own a copy of Edison is a vast understatement. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. Aud: H, C, P. (J. Shannon)