kobe1413
William Heise, the veteran cinematographer from the Edison Film Company's earliest years, and James H. White, the relative newcomer to Edison, both worked on this short. It was Edison's first attempt at the burgeoning train genre in silent film.It starts with several men working on the track. In the distance you can see a train making its way towards the camera. As it approaches, the men step off of the track. You can feel the speed of the train as it takes the bend. On-lookers and the riders on the train wave flags towards each other. Though not as good as Lumiere's 'Arrivee d'un train', it is still one of Edison's better early shorts.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
Unfortunately I did not hear this one coming as it's still from the silent era. But the people standing roadside did and they're euphorically waving their hats as it moves closer and closer. The amount of steam in the air increases rapidly and we see it has to be almost there. And there it is. Shooshhhhhhhh. And there it's gone again. It disappeared as quickly as it came, but there's no pleasure like anticipation right? Nice name for a train BTW. Sounds majestic. Unfortunately it was gone so quickly I can't say if the train does its name justice. The people inside the train were waving with their hats too though, so I guess they must have had a good time. Okay short-film all in all. A good watch for people who love silent films, especially documentaries.
tavm
Just watched this very brief depiction of a train coming as railroad workers striking on tracks start to leave as the locomotive comes nearer. At only 26 seconds, at least that was the length on Internet Archive, this was another fascinating document from the nineteenth century as captured on film from The Edison Company. Supposedly, many in the audience that were watching a moving picture for the first time also ran away as the train on the screen went toward them as had happened in France when a similar image was depicted earlier on screen as filmed diagonally by the Lumiere brothers. Well worth a look for anyone interested in early cinema.
Snow Leopard
Footage of moving trains made up one of the most popular genres in the very earliest years of motion pictures, and the Edison movies featuring the "Black Diamond Express" were far from the only movies of their kind. Much of their interest now lies in comparing them with the other features of the same type.The most famous and memorable of all such movies is still the Lumière feature, "Arrivée d'un train
", made the year before Edison started making the Black Diamond Express series. The composition in the Lumière feature, with the train coming in diagonally relative to the camera frame, is still the classic shot and the most effective perspective. The Edison features, though, were made more in competition with other American-made movies of trains.Like most of the features in the Edison series, this one shows the train coming straight on, rather than at a diagonal, creating a different, simpler effect. One other difference is that it catches the train at its peak speed in mid-journey, rather than as it approaches a station. Thus the sensation of pure speed is a little greater, though at the cost of a much less aesthetically pleasing camera angle.This movie is supposed to have produced the same kind of dramatic effect on its first US audiences as the Lumière feature did in France, and you can see why. Although it does not have the masterful sense of composition to be found in the Lumière features, it succeeds well enough in accomplishing its primary goal of conveying a sense of speed to its viewers.
AD
