Edwin S. Porter
Edwin S. Porter
"Porter is one of the enigmas of the American screen. Had he capitalized on the success of The Great Train Robbery... he might have become a father of American film."
William K. Everson, American Silent film
Birth name:
Edwin Stanton Porter
Born:
21st April 1870, Connellsville, Pennsylvania, USA
Died:
30th April 1941, New York City, New York, USA
Years active:
1900 - 1915
Edwin Stanton Porter was born and raised in Connellsville, Pennsylvania on 21st April 1870. He left school at fourteen and, after various odd jobs, including sign painting and operating a telegraph, he became a merchant tailor. When that business failed in 1893, he enlisted in the Us navy, serving as a gunner's mate.
After a spell in the electrical department of a Philadelphia ship and engine building company, Porter became a travelling projectionist, showing films in the United States South America, Canada and the West Indies. He returned to New York in early 1898, where he assembled programs of Edison films at the Eden Musée.
He joined the Edison company in November 1900 and soon became responsible for managing motion picture production at Edison’s New York studio. His responsibilities included operating the camera, directing the actors and assembling the final print. While Porter wasn’t averse to copying his contemporaries in cinema’s early years, he also strove to improve on their ideas.
Porter became one of America’s most influential filmmakers, thanks to his innovative approach to the burgeoning art. He quickly graduated from primitive one-shot films such as Kansas Saloon Smashers (1901) to more complex multi-scene narratives such as Jack and the Beanstalk (1902) and The Life of an American Fireman (1903), which combined real footage with staged dramatic scenes.
The Great Train Robbery (1903)
Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903), with its pioneering use of continuity editing and varied camera angles, transformed early American cinema, signalling a progression in film-making that would be further refined by D. W. Griffith, whom Porter directed in Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest (1908).
Porter was always more comfortable with the mechanical aspects of film-making and grew increasingly unsettled by the increasingly industrialised nature of the film-making business. He was demoted at Edison, and left in 1909 to focus on manufacturing equipment and producing. In 1910, he founded the short-lived Defender Film Company, and then, when Defender failed, the Rex Motion Picture Manufacturing Company. He sold his shares in Rex in 1912 to join Adolph Zukor as Famous Players Film Company’s chief director. While there, he directed The Prisoner of Zenda (1913) and A Good Little Devil (1914), Mary Pickford’s first feature.
In 1915, Porter effectively retired from film-making to concentrate on more technical challenges. He became president of the Precision Machine Company, a manufacturer of motion picture cameras and projectors. After retiring in 1925, the stock market crash of 1929 wiped out much of his fortune.
After two years of failing health, he died in the Taft Hotel in New York City on 30th April 1941.
Sources: Before the Nickelodeon:Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company, Charles Musser; The First Twenty Years: A Segment of Film History, Kemp Niver; The Emergence of Cinema, Charles Musser; A Brief History of the Silent Screen, Larry Telles.
Edwin S. Porter Filmography:
An Animated Luncheon (1900, short), An Artist's Dream (1900, short), Ching Ling Foo Outdone (1900, short), The Clown and the Alchemist (1900, short), Congress of Nations (1900, short), A Dull Razor (1900, short), Faust and Margeurite (1900, short), The Magician (1900, short), The Mystic Swing (1900, short), Uncle Josh in a Spooky Hotel (1900, short), Uncle Josh's Nightmare (1900, short), Why Mrs. Jones Got a Divorce (1900, short), A Wringing Good Joke (1900, short)
Another Job for the Undertaker (1901, short), Aunt Sallie's Wonderful Bustle (1901, short), The Automatic Weather Prophet (1901, short), Building Made Easy, or How Mechanics Work in the Twentieth Century (1901, short), Catching an Early Train (1901, short), Circular Panorama of Electric Tower (1901, short), Day at the Circus (1901, short), The Donkey Party (1901, short), Esquimaux Game of Snap-the-Whip (1901, short), Esquimaux Leap-Frog (1901, short), The Esquimaux Village (1901, short), Execution of Czolgosz with Panorama of Auburn Prison (1901, short), The Farmer and the Bad Boys (1901, short), Faust Family of Acrobats (1901, short), The Finish of Bridget McKeen (1901, short), The Finish of Michael Casey, or Blasting Rocks in Harlem (1901, short), Follow the Leader (1901, short), Fun in a Butcher Shop (1901, short), Gordon Sisters Boxing (1901, short), Happy Hooligan April-Fooled (1901, short), Happy Hooligan Surprised (1901, short), How the Dutch Beat the Irish (1901, short), The Jeffreys and Ruhlin Sparring Contest at San Francisco (1901, short), A Joke on Grandma (1901, short), Kansas Saloon Smashers (1901, short), Laura Comstock's Bag-Punching Dog (1901, short), Life Rescue at Atlantic City (1901, short), Life Rescue at Long Branch (1901, short), Little Willie's Last Celebration (1901, short), Love by the Light of the Moon (1901, short), Love in a Hammock (1901, short), The Lovers, Coal Box and Fireplace (1901, short), Lukens, Novel Gymnast (1901, short), The Martyred Presidents (1901, short), The Musical Ride (1901, short), The Mysterious Cafe (1901, short), The Old Maid Having Her Picture Taken (1901, short), The Old Maid in the Drawing Room (1901, short, also known as The Old Maid in the Horsecar), Pan-American Exposition By Night (1901, short), Panorama of the Esplanade By Night (1901, short), Panoramic View of Electric Tower from a Balloon (1901, short), A Phenomenal Contortionist (1901, short), The Photographer's Mishap (1901, short), Photographing a Country Couple (1901, short), Pie, Tramp and the Bulldog (1901, short), President McKinley and Escort Going to the Capitol (1901, short), President McKinley's Funeral Cortege at Washington, DC (1901, short), The Reversible Divers (1901, short), Rubes in the Theatre (1901, short), Sampson-Schley Controversy (1901, short), Soubrette's Troubles on a Fifth Avenue Stage Coach (1901, short), Stage Coach Hold-Up in the Days of '49 (1901, short), Terrible Teddy, the Grizzly King (1901, short), The Tramp and the Nursing Bottle (1901, short), The Tramp's Dream (1901, short), The Tramp's Miraculous Escape (1901, short), The Tramp's Strategy That Failed (1901, short), The Tramp's Unexpected Skate (1901, short), Trapeze Disrobing Act (1901, short), A Trip Around the Pan-American Exhibition (1901, short), A Trip Through the Columbia Exposition (1901, short), “Weary Willie” and the Gardener (1901, short), What Demoralized the Barber Shop (1901, short), What Happened on Twenty-third Street, New York City (1901, short), Why Brigit Stopped Drinking (1901, short), Why Mr. Nation Wants a Divorce (1901, short)
Appointment by Telephone (1902, short), Babies Rolling Eggs (1902, short), The Bull and the Picnickers (1902, short), The Burlesque Suicide, No. 2 (1902, short), Burning of Durland's Riding Academy (1902, short), Burning of St. Pierre [Martinique] (1902, short), Capture of the Biddle Brothers (1902, short), Charleston Chain-Gang (1902, short), Chinese Shaving Scene (1902, short), Facial Expression (1902, short), Female Facial Expressions (1902, short), Fun in a Bakery Shop (1902, short), The Golden Chariots (1902, short), Great Bull Fight (1902, short), Happy Hooligan Turns Burglar (1902, short), Hooligan's Fourth of July (1902, short), How They Do Things on the Bowery (1902, short), The Interrupted Bathers (1902, short), The Interrupted Picnic (1902, short), Jack and the Beanstalk (1902, short), Mt. Pelee in Eruption and Destruction of St. Pierre (1902, short), Mt. Pelee Smoking Before Eruption (1902, short), New York City in a Blizzard (1902, short), Oh! Shut Up (1902, short), Prince Henry at Lincoln Monument, Chicago, Ill. German and American Tableau (1902, short), Rock of Ages (1902, short), Smashing a Jersey Mosquito (1902, short), Smith's Wife Inspects the New Typewriter (1902, short), The Twentieth Century Tramp; or, Happy Hooligan and His Airship (1902, short), Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture Show (1902, short), The Weary Hunters and the Magician (1902, short)