He_who_lurks
Here, the infamous high-wire walker Juan (A.) Caicedo performs his basic routine for the camera. He appears to be quite at home with his flips and bounces, and seems perfectly relaxed. If you've ever seen any Edison shorts from 1894, then you'll know that many of them featured an athlete or dancer performing for the camera, and then when released to the public Edison would make money off these performers. In this case, Edison decided to film a high-wire walker. No story, nothing, but it's simply a video of a performer long dead. Not a great film but one which will no doubt interest historians and film buffs.(Note: Caicedo also appeared in another Edison film from the same year--"Caicedo (with spurs)". Presumably, this film is considered lost).
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
If you won't come see the artists, we make them come to you. Or at least their efforts put on tape. And most people back then would have wondered what tape is before watching the likes of Caicedo wowed them. The jumping is a bit repetitive, but it's a nice transition to the somersault, the highlight at the end of the film, from Juan A. Caicedo on the high wire. His dress is also quite nice to watch and elevates the visual viewing experience of these 20 seconds. Okay movie, okay performance, surely one of the better artist films, but not among Dickson's and Heise's very best short film works although I'd have probably paid back in the day to see Señor Caicedo perform.
cricket crockett
. . . with his seemingly effortless 10 bounces (mostly off his rump) filmed in someone's backyard in what may be the first location shot in American film history. Wearing a costume not unlike something you would see at a bullfight, Juan Caicedo was a star attraction at a New York City performance hall for 17 weeks at the time of filming CAICEDO WITH A POLE July 25, 1894. Working with a slack wire and a balance pole about eight feet long, the mustached wire artist seems as if he could bounce back and forth forever on the narrow filament of which he's made a second home. While it's true one of the easiest ways to watch CAICEDO WITH A POLE is at the United States Library of Congress web site, the original score written for this 24.47-second short by theater organist Clark Wilson would be missing there. To approximate the experience users of the Edison Manufacturing Company's short-lived "kinetophone" product experienced, get your hands on disc one of the 4-dvd set entitled EDISON: THE INVENTION OF THE MOVIES from the Kino Company.
Snow Leopard
This short Edison feature does a good job of filming its subject, which in this case is high-wire specialist Juan Caicedo. It is one of many very early movies that, in addition to their value as historical examples in the development of cinema, have also preserved for later generations the memory of some of the era's popular performers who otherwise have long since been forgotten.This one is notable in that it was the first of the Edison movies to be filmed outdoors, since it was felt (no doubt correctly) that filming the act in Edison's 'Black Maria' studio would not have worked as well. Therefore, you get to see Caicedo use his balancing pole to perform a number of feats of skill in a more natural setting. One interesting and (presumably) unintentional feature is that whenever the wire is straight, it is aligned with a fence rail in the background, making the wire seem temporarily invisible.Most likely, Caicedo had to make some changes in his routine to keep all the action within the fixed camera field. But he and the Edison film crew seem to have worked together pretty well, since almost everything stays in view. Between that and the outdoor photography, this movie does a good job at what it set out to do.
AD
