He_who_lurks Even if you don't want to know how it feels to be run over, this is still a very creative little film. Made by the Hepworth Manufacturing Company it is one of the first uses of self-reflectivity in film, as both the camera and the cameraman have an important role in the joke. Even the people of today couldn't think up such a creative idea, and we'd never actually know how it feels to be run over, (unless, of course, we really did get run over, but let's hope not).The camera is set up so we're looking down the country road. A horse and buggy passes to one side and goes off the range of the camera. Down the middle of the road comes a motor car. It swerves toward the camera and collides with the cameraman, thus making us feel as though we are being run over. I am glad we can know how it felt without it being a painful experience, so it's a good thing they made this. Well, enough of that, let's get on.What follows is a series of titles cards that flash on the screen, delivering the punchline: "Oh, Mother will be pleased!" These titles cards are believed to be the first intertitles ever put in a film. So for 1900 this is a pretty clever film that not only has a remarkable use of subtitling, but also puts the idea of self-reflectivity to a rather creative use. The early film audiences might've been freaked out by this, don't forget the shot of the train arriving in the station which received that reaction. Only here, they warned us. Okay, I'll shut up. Ground-breaking film because of the intertitles and also very creative for 1900. A good minute with a good, original gag.

Michael_Elliott How It Feels to Be Run Over (1900) I really love to watch these older movies but, to be honest, very few of them really stand out because the majority of them either feature someone dancing, boxing, walking, standing around or just doing something that we've seen in other films. This one here is at least original and lives up to its title. The camera is set up at the end of a road when we see a carriage go by. We then see another carriage coming straight towards the camera and crashing into it. This gives you the idea of being ran over.Funny? Not really but at least the film was somewhat creative and especially when compared to other films from this era. I really don't think the film was all that funny but I can imagine it scaring a few people who saw it back in 1900.

Cineanalyst I think self-reflexive films, or self-referential films, meta-film, or whatever you want to call them, offer some of the most interesting experiences available in the art form--giving insight into the complexities of their very nature. Three of the earliest films to explore this territory bare some striking similarities, but the filmmakers strike upon very different ways and techniques for their self-reference. In addition to this film, "How It Feels to Be Run Over", I'm also discussing "The Big Swallow" and "The Countryman and the Cinematograph". These motion pictures are, of course, similar in that they all are about the process of themselves, whether it be film-making or the cinema viewing experience. They are also very old, short and, perhaps, somewhat deficient to the expectations of some modern viewers. They were all intended as comedies. Additionally, the English made them all. They were made independently of each other by three of the major producers in Britain at the time--three of the most historically important founders of film language, really. They are Cecil Hepworth, who produced "How It Feels to Be Run Over", Robert W. Paul and James Williamson (only George Albert Smith is missing here). During this period, it was the nation leading the world in filmic innovation.There are earlier examples in film history of self-reflexivity if you look deep enough (which I've attempted), such as some Lumière and Edison films. In one Lumière short, for example, the cameraman records another cameraman filming a subject--making the filming of the subject the subject (see "Fête de Paris 1899: Concours d'automobiles fleuries"). In another, Louis Lumière, who was primarily involved in still photography throughout his life, poses for a picture. In an early Kinetograph experiment at the Edison Company, entitled "A Hand Shake" (1892), William K.L. Dickson comes from behind the camera and enters the frame to shake hands with assistant William Heise--basically congratulating themselves on film over the invention of film.Another previous motion picture, produced by the American Mutoscope Company, is rather similar to this film in particular. It was planned as an actuality film of the reaction of a fire department. Yet, in this onrush, one of the engines was forced to crash into the Biograph camera and film crew. The film, which survived, was released as "Atlantic City Fire Department" (1897). "How It Feels to Be Run Over" is, however, a staged fiction film, which perhaps was inspired by the Mutoscope production.In it, a horse carriage avoids the camera safely by moving to the right side of the road. Then, a wild automobile motorist driving down the right lane (which, of course, would be incorrect in Britain) smashes into the camera. The screen goes black and a quick flash of question marks and exclamation marks are followed by the words "Oh! Mother will be pleased", which appear on individual frames. That's it.Here, there are two aspects interesting from a historical standpoint aside from making noticed the camera within the film that is filming that very film. First, it's one of the first films to feature intertitles. They're not the kind of title cards one is accustomed to viewing in later silent films, though. They're quickly gone, appear on separate frames and in non-fancy white letters against black background. The words may have been written on the negative themselves; otherwise, they may have been filmed against some black background, and then edited in stop-motion fashion. The only filmmaker to experiment with title cards before this film that I know of was George Albert Smith, who introduced his 1898 film Santa Claus with the title of the film. In 1900, he also included an intertitle ("Reversed") during "The House that Jack Built". In those days, exhibitors would tell audiences the titles of films as well as describe their action, or they would use title cards in the magic lantern fashion. But, Hepworth, Smith, in France, Ferdinand Zecca and, in the US, Edwin S. Porter, among others, would assume more narrative responsibility for the producers with the introduction of intertitles.Second, Hepworth probably started the common thread in early films of parodying the dangers of the newfangled horseless carriage. In another film from 1900, "Explosion of a Motor Car", he took the trick film, which was invented inside a studio by Georges Méliès, outdoors. Apparently, Hepworth was actually an automobile enthusiast, which demonstrates these films were meant to be facetious. In the end, however, it's not so much the car in "How It Feels to Be Run Over" that disrupts, but rather it is the filmmaker, who fiendishly takes a position on the road, and the camera, which by assuming our point-of-view runs us over.

bob the moo OK so the title more or less gives away the entire "plot" of this very short short film but it is still quite interesting. The point obviously is to try and amaze the audience and draw a reaction by having a car rushing towards the viewer in the hope that audiences still dealing with this new technology will instinctively panic somewhat. Watching it now of course I didn't react this way but you can imagine how it once did (even today we do it in the cinemas – it now just means it has to move faster and have effects that make it a lot realer.However the film is nicely done because the cart going by first makes us assume safety before the car is seen approaching and the music lifts to become more dramatic. Of course it also plays on the fear of that other "new" piece of technology – the motor car, so the combination of these factors would have got a good reaction I would guess. Nothing really to it now but it is still interesting to see how it is structured to achieve its aim and then hits it well.