Jack and the Beanstalk

This early version of Jack and the Beanstalk may look, to the modern eye, as if it is a simple stage play, but it is hardly that. In reality it mixes grammars from three different forms of entertainment: the stage, Georges Melies' film grammar (which at this stage used a good deal of stage techniques, but also included stopping the camera to allow things to appear and disappear) and magic lantern grammar.

Notice how the story is structured so that some of the visions appear as a circle in the center of the screen. That is straight out of standard magic lantern productions, which were still enormously popular in this period. Indeed, this particular bit of magic lantern grammar survives in occasional use today. I have noticed it most recently in Jeunet's A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT, in which the main action appear over most of the screen, but thoughts of the lost love appear in the upper righthand corner.

Films were just starting to find their way at this point. It was an enormously exciting period in the movies as many techniques were tried out.

This representation of the popular children's story on film is pretty pathetic to watch. I know it is one of the earliest efforts at moviemaking, but this 15-minute picture is unimaginative and poorly shot. "The Great Train Robbery" (1903), which I also commented on, is much more creative and exciting to watch.

We see little long-haired Jack trade a cow (2 men in a cow-suit) for a hatful of beans from a merchant and later a beanstalk grows from where his mom throws them in the yard (I guess poor Jack attained the wrong kind). Jack dreams of a goose (actually it seems to be a chicken) and golden egg and the next day climbs the stalk into heaven.

There is no effort made to be creative in this film. The stalk looks like a rope with leaves on it, the giant is just a tall bearded guy in a home with nothing abnormally large in comparison to Jack and the climax to the film where Jack makes his escape with the goose-chicken and its golden egg is miserable as a stuffed dummy falls from out of screenshot in place of the giant and then the actor takes its place - rising up on his feet in a exaggerated death dance like in most early films. The beanstalk (leaf-covered rope) comes trailing down from above and coils neatly on the giants forehead.

Watch something else.

. . . BOTH Jack and the Beanstalk (1902) AND Fractured Fairy Tales: Jack & the Beanstalk (1959) in order to provide meaningful insights about either picture. Obviously, the Fractured crew was intimately well-versed about the earlier Edison\Porter flick, as they make on-screen references to how megalomaniac Old Tom Edison stole the Goose Laying Golden Eggs and the Singing Harp from Jack's late father, as well as filching a bulging sack of gold coins from the beleaguered Beanstalk clan. Such Edison victims were Legion, as the Ogre of Men-Low Park swiped everything in his sight. Fracture pictures Old Tom as an elderly senile doddering colossus, which seems particularly apt.

I'd like to take this opportunity to salute Edwin S. Porter's Jack and the Beanstalk on its 100th birthday. This short film is one of America's earliest surviving narrative motion pictures. Perhaps it goes without saying that we're lucky this film can be viewed in the 21st century, seeing as how so many of its neglected contemporaries are gone forever. In watching this film today we have not only a rare opportunity to witness a great advance in cinematic storytelling, but also to peer into a lost world of Victorian theater, specifically children's theater. Where filmmaking is concerned, Jack and the Beanstalk does not represent the thrilling quantum leap forward that Porter's Great Train Robbery (made the following year) most certainly would, but it's a charming work in its own right, and can be viewed as a necessary step in the director's development towards his famous achievement.

Strictly speaking, this film is a photographed stage play in which the special effects are stage effects, but that in itself was something of a novelty in 1902. Many of the earliest films of the 1890s and early 1900s consisted of only a single shot, representing what we would call 'actualities' filmed in natural locations: trains rolling past, ocean waves, street scenes, etc. The actors of Jack and the Beanstalk perform in full costume, and emote before painted backdrops as the familiar story is related in several lengthy shots presented in a methodical fashion. Although Porter's production lacks the verve that France's Georges Méliès was bringing to similar material around this same time, it does boast a moment or two of cinematic (as opposed to theatrical) wit. I like the early scene where Jack falls asleep and the Good Fairy 'directs' his dream, which is enacted for us, and includes such details as dancing bags of money and a woman hatching out of an egg. There's also a nice moment later when, after climbing the beanstalk, Jack takes another nap and the Good Fairy once more appears to him in a dream, this time treating him to a magic lantern show concerning the giant he's about to face.

Someone who posted about this film previously called it "pathetic," and asserted that the filmmakers lacked imagination. I suggest in return that a certain amount of imagination is required to appreciate exactly what filmmakers were dealing with in 1902 when this medium was brand new. We're all so accustomed to going to the movies and having TVs in our homes, popping in videos & DVDs whenever we like, but what about the people who made these first films? In 1902 most people had never seen a movie or a movie camera. This was an entirely new technology, and there must have been numerous problems for the filmmakers, e.g., simply moving those bulky cameras, loading the (incredibly flammable) film itself, technical difficulties with lab work, etc. Making motion pictures was still a brand new, experimental process. Mechanical breakdowns and disappointments must have been a common occurrence for the pioneer producers. But we should also consider how much fun it must have been to be present at the birth of a new art form, the thrill of making discoveries that advance that art form, and the great excitement experienced by the original audiences who saw these films when they were new. In short, it takes imagination simply to view and appreciate a film like Edwin S. Porter's Jack and the Beanstalk, and we should count ourselves as fortunate that we can still do that.

For its era, this was rather an ambitious and creative attempt to film the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" with as much visual detail as possible. Certainly, few of the camera effects are going to impress anyone now, but they are not at all bad given the limitations. It's really a children's story, and any children who saw this in 1902 would probably have enjoyed it more than enough to justify the effort of making it.

For all that the technical limitations are obvious, and the visual effects in the rudimentary stage, this version does clearly communicate the basic story in a generally entertaining fashion. To be sure, even in 1902 there were pioneers such as Méliès who were already doing more impressive things. But this one is by no means bad, and features like this, while their defects are obvious, still hold their appeal for those of us who enjoy seeing what the earliest movies were like.