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Grandma's Reading Glasses (1900) ** (out of 4)

This film from George Albert Smith features a young boy looking at various objects in his grandmother's glasses. This of course magnifies the objects for the movie viewer to enjoy. You can watch a film like this and understand why people in 1900 might have been entertained by it. With that said, there's very little here to keep a modern viewer interested and even those film buffs such as myself who love these early movies will find very little here. The optical effect really isn't all that impressive and nothing he's "seeing" is that that interesting either.

A young boy looks at various things through his grandmother's magnifying glass.

When people speak about innovation in films, the process of adding new shots that would eventually lead to modern film grammar, few people mention George Albert Smith. This stage hypnotist, magic lantern exhibitor and film maker was born in 1864. He entered film-making in the late 1890s and almost immediately began directing films that clearly investigated camera techniques that are still used more than a century later. He imported techniques from the magic-lantern shows, produced films that demonstrated the impact of close-ups and, with this film, was an early adopter and innovator in the point-of-view shot.

Later on, he would move to the more technical side of the industry. In concert with Charles Urban, he would develop Kinemacolour, the first really successful color film. He died in 1959.

In my comments on "As Seen Through a Telescope", I said that I preferred it to this film, "Grandma's Reading Glass" (which was made the same month and year and by the same director), because this film is merely a parading of point-of-view (POV) close-up shots of supposedly magnified things. The story is: a boy looks through a large magnifying glass (his grandmother's reading glass) at various objects, including his grandmother's eye. The set is primitive and the tight camera framing makes it seem small. The shadows make it obvious that it was made at an open-air stage.

"As Seen Through a Telescope", however, has a single POV close-up that functions within a narrative. And, its fictional story takes place outside. An analogy that seems somewhat appropriate is that "Grandma's Reading Glass" is like the modern-day special effects blockbuster that neglects further insight and compelling plot. Looking at a remake of each film further illustrates this point. Biograph's "Grandpa's Reading Glass" (1902) serves the same purpose of this film: to thrill with its novel trick. "The Gay Shoe Clerk" (1903), Porter's version of "As Seen Through a Telescope", however, is less of a clone; its setting and even its close-up is presented from a different perspective--the more standard one rather than a POV. George Albert Smith made at least one more POV close-up film in 1900, "Spiders on a Web", which is only a one-shot film of spiders (but, oddly, no web).

Regardless, "Grandma's Reading Glass" is noteworthy as an early example of POV close-ups inserted within something of a narrative. By 1900, story films of multiple shots still weren't the norm and had only recently come into existence. Film editing was only about five years old.

Another thing on a historical note: there's been some controversy surrounding the author of this film, but there shouldn't be. Some, although it would seem lacking sufficient evidence, have claimed that Arthur Melbourne Cooper made this film and a few other films attributed to Smith. This controversy originated from Melbourne Cooper himself, who made such claims to his daughter, Audrey Wadowska. Tjitte De Vries has recently argued the Melbourne Cooper claim. On the other end, Stephen Bottomore and Frank Gray, in the journal "Film History", have gone a long way to discredit these claims. Nevertheless, MOMA has attributed their copy of the film to Melbourne Cooper and the Wikipedia website (as of this date), among other places, is full of unfounded claims for Melbourne Cooper in their section on him.

The evidence for Melbourne Cooper, as of now, is entirely based on, at best, secondhand accounts originating from the memory of a now deceased man, and more likely originating from his faulty memory, or, at worst, his self-aggrandizing lies. Very little is known for certain about Melbourne Cooper's early film-making career, and his entire career isn't very well known, either; on the other hand, Smith's surviving financial records have made his film-making career probably the best documented of early British filmmakers. Concerning this film, Bottomore (in "Smith versus Melbourne-Cooper: An End to the Dispute") has pointed out that there's no documentation of an association between Smith and Melbourne Cooper, that the Warwick Trading Company grouped this film with other uncontested Smith films in its 1900 catalogue, and that the Charles Urban Trading Company credited Smith as the author of this film and others, contested and uncontested, in their 1903 catalogue. Moreover, the little boy in this film is probably Smith's son, Harold, who also appears in uncontested Smith films. The same tabby cat with a ribbon in this film probably appears in uncontested Smith films, as well. In addition, Smith's financial records reveal that he had the equipment--the camera masks--to make the POV close-ups. De Vries even admits now that "As Seen Through a Telescope", which demonstrates the same unique feature, was made by Smith.

G.A. Smith was one of film's most important pioneers. In addition to the POV close-up insert shot in these 1900 films, he helped introduce many developments in editing and camera placement within early story films, as well as some trick effects and a color cinematography process. In many respects, his films were the most advanced at the time--even surpassing those made by more acclaimed contemporaries Edwin Porter and Georges Méliès.

I watched this film on a DVD that was rammed with short films from the period. I didn't watch all of them as the main problem with these type of things that their value is more in their historical novelty value rather than entertainment. So to watch them you do need to be put in the correct context so that you can keep this in mind and not watch it with modern eyes. With the Primitives & Pioneers DVD collection though you get nothing to help you out, literally the films are played one after the other (the main menu option is "play all") for several hours. With this it is hard to understand their relevance and as an educational tool it falls down as it leaves the viewer to fend for themselves, which I'm sure is fine for some viewers but certainly not the majority. What it means is that the DVD saves you searching the web for the films individually by putting them all in one place – but that's about it.

As with his Kiss In the Tunnel, British pioneer George Smith (an English name if ever there was one!) again works with the devices possible with the camera for telling the audience what is happening. Here it is the "point of view" technique where the screen is seen through a circular frame that makes the viewer understand that this is the view from the character's eye. It is a simple device that is not used any more because of how obvious it has become but at the time this was cutting edge stuff because these techniques were not developed and the audience was being told what this meant.

Substance wise the film is again like Kiss in the Tunnel in so much as, when the technical interest is put to one side, there isn't much else to be had from it. Still, worth seeing as part of learning more about why Smith should be a name that is mentioned alongside the work of people like Lumière.

There's quite a little gang forming in these comments for films-so-old-that-no-one wants-to-watch-them-apart-from-a-few-die-hards. Apart from me there's Bob and Alice and the wonderfully informative Cineanalyst, and every now and then Plankton drops by to moan about how dull it all is. Hey-ho. Grandma's Reading Glass is notable today for its early use of 'point of view' shots, as we see through the eyes of a young boy looking through a magnifying glass. It's also an early example of extreme close-up as we're treated to a shot of Grandma's eyeball rolling about wildly for a few seconds. As Plankton has commented, given that the likes of Melies were already creating dynamic films filled with trickery by 1900, this all seems a little tame.