The Movies Begin

"133 Complete Motion Pictures": now that's a boxed set! Subtitled "A Treasury of Early Cinema, 1894-1913," The Movies Begin offers an exceptional compilation of shorts tracing the origins of cinema, from Eadweard Muybridge's nude studies dating from the 1880s (presented as consecutive frames) and one-shot shorts by Edison and Louis Lumière to the cinema's first notable narrative film "The Great Train Robbery" (1903), all the way up to the first appearance of the Keystone Kops in "Bangville Police" (1913). My favorite volume of the lot is the opener, The Great Train Robbery and Other Primary Works, where we see in shorts such as the 1895 "Serpentine Dances" (featuring a hand-painted clip of a swirling dancer) those initial moments of pure cinema, prior to the later evolutionary additions of multiple cameras, editing, music, etc. Other highlights include, on The European Pioneers (Volume 2), "An Interesting Story," a tale of a literally nose-in-his-bookworm bolstered with early special effects; on Experimentation and Discovery (Volume 3), the 1905 "Rescued By Rover" (with a plot very similar to the later Benji) and the 1906 documentary "A Visit to Peek Frean & Co." (which traces the entire biscuit-making process); the whole of The Magic of Méliès (Volume 4); and on the final volume Comedy, Spectacle and New Horizons, early woman director Alice Guy Blaché's 1912 "Making of an American Citizen." Volumes 2 and 3 include interesting commentary from Barry Salt and all five volumes feature a short-by-short accessible text commentary by Charles Musser that adds truly enlightening historical and technical context on the films. While the 133 titles presented here vary widely in quality--both literally and figuratively--The Movies Begin is an amazing collection, a peep through the chronological keyhole at the--if I may borrow one of Pauline Kael's pungent book titles--"kiss kiss bang bang" birth of the 20th century's most visible art form. Highly recommended. (R. Pitman)