Blacksmith Scene (1893)

Thursday

26Nov2009

William K.L. Dickson | United States of America | 1893

What a genuine sense of fun lurks in this picture! Three blacksmiths go about their business, hammering intensely on a metal rod. The job says that the metal should be cooled from time to time, and the blacksmiths believe that the human body needs its own refreshment. As the bottle of beer passes from one to the other, we are unsure whether in the end they drank more than they bothered to work. What we are certain of is that the audience is entertained.

It is intriguing to see that comedy proved so easy for the silent film from the very beginning. The lack of verbal communication made it impossible to use dialogue to construct narrative. Physical language became the only alternative and, in a period dominated by technological experimentation, slapstick emerged as less problematic than dramatic subtlety. The important element was to understand what movement might encourage laughter once it is filmed.

Blacksmith Scene is the oldest film included in the National Film Registry by the National Film Preservation Board in USA. Its original popularity is arguably the main reason for its fame. However, in time, what critics mainly saw in the film is the way it managed for the first time to achieve a conclusive action sequence with dramatic possibilities.

This is the first scene in which performance appears as intentional. Despite the fact that Dickson was using his employees to act out the scene, rather than professional actors, the spontaneity of action is surprisingly effective. The 15-years-old Charles Kayser is particularly enjoyable as the cheeky blacksmith who prefers alcohol to work slightly too early for his age (although speculations can still be made about his true age). The image might raise serious censorship issues if it was filmed in our times, yet in its original context child labour and teenage boozing play with a cheerful easiness that make the real world look dirty and sad and the world of motion pictures as the land of magical freedom.