Life of an American Fireman 1903

A short film

[@professor-josh]

About the last two scenes: this is a good example of how the early filmmakers were still learning new techniques, we see an interior of the house and the fireman's wife, then her child were saved. Then we have an exterior shot of the same scene. Of course an editor would probably intercut between the two today.

[@christopherthorkon3997]

The language of cinema was being created one step at a time. Today we know a better technique, which you described, called "cross cutting". It is so common that we take it for granted.

[@futurepig]

It's great to see how more than a century ago firefighters were already trained to respond fast and efficiently and save lives. I know this is not exactly a documentary, but it shows a lot about the rescue techniques of that era. My respect to the fire-fighting heroes of all times.

[@100blueeyedboy]

I want to say something about how amazing this is considering how old it is, how this was one of the films that created editing and helped the film industry become what it is today, but honestly, all I can think of is the woman waking up, seeing the smoke and going "Oh Lord Jesus it's a fire!"

[@JH-xu4du]

You probably forgot that you wrote your comment, but, you made the day of someone living in the future, lol. I needed that laugh, thank you!

[@100blueeyedboy]

@@JH-xu4du I did forget this, but you're welcome. Seems so long ago that I was sat in class being told about this

[@rocknrollbabe09]

my great great grandpa was a fireman in 1903 :)

[@livyintheskywithdragons]

It feels so cozy and unique to watch those vintage vids 😍😍

[@Viewmagazinetv]

If you're film or multimedia student, what is of considerable awe is seeing the language of cinema/docs and sequences taking shape and of considerable difficulty both on screen and thinking it up was the dream sequence. Great stuff

[@CamTheMan8]

God dam 17 years ago

[@Cat320ELRR]

You guys expect way too much from a film made 110 years ago... This was considered a work of art over 100 years ago

[@cashcleaner]

Makes me think of how incredible a movie about the Great Fire of Chicago could look with modern filming techniques, scripts, casts, etc.

[@dunkinking]

No it wasn’t. It was confusing to the audience back then too. In fact the director never used the techniques in the way he did in this film for any of his others.

[@MCO18]

1:58 love this shot of the horses pulling the fire engine at full gallop

[@thrsalgthtnvrgosout]

look at those horses bucking and kicking ready to go out. I have read on numerous accounts that when a fire-horse was put to pasture, or transfered to light city duty such as hauling trash carts, they would often still respond alongside the fire engines when one would go rushing by.....often they would be pulling the trash cart behind them!

[@raymalayalam5016]

Thanks .. it's a pleasure to watch classic movie

[@hugobarrera7205]

It's amazing that in 1903 the definition of the films was as good as it is today, I gess when those movies were brand new the quality of the images was superbly clear

[@davidsanderson5918]

Shot on bigger format perhaps? 35mm not 16.

[@Richard-t7q1f]

Would have looked even better when new. This film is already degraded. It is fascinating to anyone interested in the grammar of film. I do love the horses. In some ways firefighting has not changed.

[@cobaltdoggo]

thanks, I really needed that film for my course at college. Thanks again.

[@CamTheMan8]

You still in college?

[@cobaltdoggo]

@@CamTheMan8 The comment was 16 years ago. So guess.

[@ddip214]

That was one of the best 6 minutes of my life....Thanks for sharing. So much crap on this site and this makes up for it...this is great!

[@captainmorgan3699]

Thank you for posting this.

[@dieselmotorcycle]

Man those horses are anxious to run!!

[@nachuni88]

wooow espectacular, me arece increible el montaje alternado hasta ese momento desconocido que se introduce en este momento. Notable obra de los comienzos del cine.

[@FenceDaGreat]

lukebccb Far from it. The decade of the 1900's was already the second decade of film-making. There were hundreds of films made before 1903. Still an incredible and influential film, although there is some controversy as to who actual invented cross-cutting.

[@FenceDaGreat]

Chris Cahill Griffith did incorporate it more as a method of story-telling but that came later. This film was highly experimental but Porter would again use cross-cutting in Great Train Robbery. It was still in its early stages and the films narrative is difficult to follow but Porter laid the groundwork for cross-cutting.

[@Lewis_Clark]

Nice. Very nice. THANK you for postin'.

[@pjblake1969]

we had the same beds when i worked at E-31 in Buffalo

[@Svetlap]

Porter invented the continuity editing. Melies was the one who invented the montage of film. So they are both genius'

[@Magnetron33]

Melies is the editing King.A true genius that was also a magician. Hence his talent for slight of camera.

[@AGD55]

Thankfully, this is the original version - the film was re-edited some time after release, and the two final scenes intercut: it was this later version on which Porter's status to be a pioneering and innovative editor was falsely based.

[@davidsanderson5918]

Yes. Just been reading about this in Mark Cousins' The Story Of Film. This version is more interesting, seeing it BEFORE the two last scenes were edited to be concurrent.

[@Anwarl2022]

Another very good example of a short done right from the.saidfrom none other than wikipedia. "The film was long considered important for its unusual editing style, being considered the earliest example of cross-cutting, notably during the final scenes of the rescue of the woman and her child. On the basis of this, Porter was hailed as an innovative editor. However, subsequent research by the paper print project at the Library of Congress suggested that the cross-cut version was re-edited at some unspecified time after the film's 1903 release, and that in its original form it used few, if any, of the pioneering edits claimed. As originally released, the interior point of view of the burning house is shown first and completed. Then the exact same action repeating itself is shown again from the exterior. Charles Musser has chronicled thehistory of this controversy in and concluded that the paper-print version containing the repetitive action was the one released in 1903." "

[@aeaeaaeee]

Hey matash21. This film was the first to create a continuous narrative using multiple shots and perspectives. Melies' films were revolutionary for their use of special effects, but even when they had more than one scene, each scene was distinct from the last. Only one camera was used to film each scene and the story was only shown from one perspective. That is probably what dappy42 is referring to.

[@ellieaine1496]

Like Cat320ELRR said, you all expect way too much from this. This was edited with analogue machines. They would physicaly have to cut the film using scissors and glue and that would be the cuts in the film. If they made a mistake then they couldn't change it, they would just have to deal with that cut. Its not like digital software where you can just remove that cut by pressing undo, they would have to start the entire thing again.

[@cashcleaner]

Awesome old timey action!

[@Truseneye92]

Fascinating! I read that this was the first time editing was used in films!

[@jamesm2078]

Life of an American Fireman is another one of the old short films I watched for my Film 1895 to 1945 class and a good look into how film was first made, especially with it’s use of cuts and different angles.

[@stlmopoet]

I've looked through the comments and don't think anyone mentioned that the wall plaque behind the door says Thomas A. Edison in the familiar signature. Love it.

[@kalxlak]

That's how they attempted to thwart pirating which was rampant during the silent era.

[@memahselfni]

you also are wrong. The first film was made in 1888, the Roundhay Garden Scene

[@semraoymakkoc]

Edwin S. Porter's film. (1903).

[@RobertoDeNegro]

@SongsofInnocence I saw no intercutting in this film. An intercut is a cut to a different shot within the same scene. An example that would have worked for this movie is the "fire trucks" were going to the location of the fire. We see the fire trucks "whizzing" by, if Edwin Porter at that time would have used an intercut, he probably would have shown a close-up of one of the men riding the fire engines to show the fierceness on his face as they ride to save the day.

[@pig3292]

I know! It's in my "Defining moments in movie history" book OoO

[@michaelpalmieri7335]

What was the title of that song heard at the end, and who was singing it?

[@timmartin7664]

I'm guessing those fire wagons were hauling about 20 to 25 mphs max.

[@myunknownvirus]

Yes. This film is almost an exact copy of Fire!

[@Attraktor72]

my god.. this is a Porte movie,from 1903 Porter was the first that use cut and multiple scenes... this hystory!!!

[@2skeeto]

In reality all that was missing were the flames and the stiffling , bling black smoke and heat. However, the point was made and the heroes still exist.

[@Vladimir-Putin-]

What department was this?

[@SongsofInnocence]

@Suppanutt no you are wrong. An intercut (or cross cut) is to interweave two seperate, usually concurrent scenes in a film. As in the scenes inside and outside the house. Whether the term can also be used in the sense you are suggesting I do not know.

[@MrBettedemille]

Thanks for sharing

[@Wildrose1366]

I liked the dogs. Its a shame they're dead a hundred times over

[@allisonalmodovar]

A firetruck went by when I was watching this. But after all, I live in L.A.

[@kalxlak]

On the discussion of whether this is the original cut or the cross-cut version--which cuts back and forth between the firemen outside and the woman inside--the jury is still out. Others have cited a book published in 1991. Cook's History of Narrative Film, last copyrighted in 2016 (after some of these comments even, he lays out the case for the cross-cut version: Life of an American Fireman, however, was a lost film until 1944, when MoMA acquired a 35mm nitrate print from Pathé News Inc. Although MoMA has never claimed that this print, known today as the “Cross-Cut Version,” was the original, it conforms in principle to the editing continuity of the original, as it has been described by American film historians from Terry Ramsaye through Lewis Jacobs and beyond. Ramsaye’s description was based either on memory or on Porter’s own account of the film (more recently set forth by Budd Schulberg in Variety, May 9, 1979). Jacobs’s description was based on a combination of Ramsaye’s version, the Edison catalogue description, and a sequence of production stills made for copyright purposes by the Edison Company, which seem to suggest intercutting at the film’s climax.

[@SongsofInnocence]

Can anyone tell me whether Porter uses intercutting techniques in this film? I've read somewhere that there are two versions of this film...one copyright and one cross-cut...now somewhere else it said that only later filmmakers after Porter used intercutting,

[@kinkchaser]

Well as a retired "kinkchaser" many years ago I had officers that actually worked with the horses. The old station I served in still had the horse troughs and stalls. They are part of the history, just as I am now. A kinkchaser is the lowest form of a Probie. You run into your first building fire and the Captain screams at you, "What the %^&*$ are you doing in here? Your usless, put that %#$ axe down abd get the %&^& out of here and get the %^& outside and get the kinks out of the hose line"

[@LeSedici]

Horse 12, Horse 22, Horse 18, Pony 18, Ladder Horse 2, Rescue Horse 14, Bucket of Water with Wheels 14, assist Stable 8 and Stable 16 on a 4 Alarm building fire. Operations on Bugle Horn 2.

[@BeiradaRicardo]

Um clássico de Edwin S. Porter.

[@RobertoDeNegro]

@SongsofInnocence I know that some names for certain techniques in Hollywood are interchangeable this is not the case with intercutting and crosscutting. A crosscut shows parallel action, two different scenes going on simultaneously cutting back and forth. An intercut is going from a long shot to e.g. a close of the character.

[@decimated550]

it creates steam pressure to drive pumps which shot the water out the hose.

[@hamiltondematos]

Watching because of "The story of film"

[@TashJonesUk]

@Andreasfromsanleone if we're going this way about it. Yes melies invented a lot which porter used, but melies was influenced by the lumiere brothers who in all fairness made it possible. I'm using Porter for my essay for uni, have you guys all seen 'dream of a rarebit fiend'? the trick photography on that is fantastic, arguing whether it's needed for the narrative, but even me who is a teen in this modern day world finds the humour of it. the parallel editing in this is done really well,

[@smithyvip]

Is this the original or the recutted version?

[@fanzeldadaniel]

+smithyvip The original.

[@regikeyz]

I'd love to take the people who saw this film in the cinema and bring them forwards in time to show them eg Avitar or even Terminator 2.. it would have completly blown them away..!

[@ninjamyasta]

I believe the intercut version was done by D.w. Griffith.

[@robmartin2008]

Ahh, the birth of inter-cutting!

[@davidsanderson5918]

Not so much in this version though ie. the two last scenes here.

[@moncorp1]

That old wooden tinder box of a house would have been completely engulfed in flames and almost burnt to the ground by the time the fire dept. could have reached it.

[@selim5476]

it seems like a theatre show.

[@raider8sox]

this was released in january 1903, wow!!!

[@TheDave102]

Do some research ronnieknotts. The Lumiere brothers made the first film in 1895. It was of a train pulling out of a station; the first time it was shown people ran out of the theater screaming cause they thought it was going to come out of the screen and run them over.

[@Roncace]

notice that the film tells the story from two perspectives first the woman's and then the firemen's

[@curse.352]

why is there no color

[@randomsamno9]

The first time I saw this I saw a version with no singing. I geuss during the age of the nickelodeon some films would have had singers accompanying them as well as music, or even narration for some films.

[@camilachaves425]

music?

[@Imshotmate]

one wagon's gonna take care for the fire and smoke, another for the water to extinguish it with?

[@XanarchyX]

Was probably thinking first "Talkie"...

[@westlock]

What is that smoking wagon at 2:03 for?

[@jalphabet5]

What I don't understand: The fireman on watch turns in an alarm based on what he is dreaming? Not knocking it, just don't get it.

[@jhaimlet]

I mean, Roundhay Garden Scene, it's just a shot that's the reason why it calls at itself as "scene", not film this one is unique Hace uso de las herramientas visuales para contar una historia y transmitir una sensacion no será goddard pero es la diferencia entre un burgues con una camara, y un burgues con una camara y una idea

[@PantherstrikeWarrior]

Ronnieknotts...You seriously believe that The Jazz Singer was the first film ever made? Have you graduated the third grade yet? It wasn't even released in 1929, it was released in 1927.

[@TashJonesUk]

@Andreasfromsanleone ps I don't think the last comment was really aimed at you, other than to 'youtube'. but yes, I think the editing here is great, it's not often where they show the story through one camera and cut to another camera and show the exact same thing, it's usually done continuously as a continuity. fantastic.

[@jjsctta]

Este film no es elroigunal de Porter---

[@SuperLexop]

Edwin S. Porter worked for Edison...

[@Shiflis2]

@Attraktor72 not be sure see albert smith works

[@undocumentedspot]

2 horses disliked this video.

[@rachelseagroatt]

Lol, I can see Goodall xD I'm still working on my presentation :O

[@UsoppSpell]

How come this is not in 3d?!

[@giuseppebarletta89]

ed ecco che Porter inventò il cinema

[@217d3]

@SimoMcGauneo 1903 actually ..... looks like we do make mistakes 0_0

[@MRG0ATED]

So old movie

[@Cblackk]

its an older movie what do you expect ^_^ obviously film has changed drastically since the early 20th century.

[@217d3]

@SimoMcGauneo what the fuck did you expect ?, 3D w/Full surround sound in 1930 .

[@da604688]

did anybody else catch the line pull at 3:06??? crazy

[@Lauskaro]

exelente film... se paso Porter, aunque igual algunas de esas tomas no las grabo el, sino, que eran anteriores... como la de los bomberos saliendo de la estacion.... Exelente obra de Porter... aunque cabe decir que Edison era un ladron de mierda... xD... y Porter trabajaba para el... Un saludo

[@sanathgoonesekera.9887]

You guys do know that this is the first film ever made right?

[@irenegarmendia7983]

no

[@AGD55]

Wrong by about fifteen years.

[@undocumentedspot]

3:04 They are pulling the hose out of the horse.

[@sqolami]

@lukebccb yeah you're right.

[@matash21]

Guess you never heard of Georges Melies then...

[@ooxcfhxoo]

that was the first public showing of a film there were films in "peep show" boxes before that

[@jhaimlet]

that's just a shot :S

[@elgordovilca]

105 años guau

[@gersicadasilvasouza3550]

não aguento mais assistir isso

[@Chodaa]

the last part its kind of a mith

[@darioleon8791]

cuando el cine era bueno

[@therealdjcammONUTUBE]

@kyleisreallycool in 1903 you couldn't...

[@zaphodmaphod]

this is the "copyright version"

[@Chodaa]

I guess. English its not my native language. ;) kisses

[@bobthomas5958]

always thought tim Conway was the best

[@OsirisT]

shouldn't the little girl been rescued first though? lol

[@Roiben100]

Im pretty sure the song was added on later and is not supposed to be original.

[@stevenrichards3699]

No women need apply,men only! ( the good old days)

[@darktejada95]

The shit I watch just to pass an American Film class in college -_-