Those Awful Hats

those awful hats has a surprisingly funny and witty plot, despite it's short lenght and real purpose. the film serves as an experiment for griffith, who tries out new and interesting things, succeeding brilliantly, i think. the early trick with 'film on film', what we call the blue screen technique today, works well for it's time. i'm curious about the restoring process, and overall about griffith, i have no sufficient info to give an in depth analysis, i just have to count on what i see on the screen. the bucket works nicely. i would be certainly interested to learn more about the making of this short.

surprisingly good, really. i don't know anything about film technology, so this from a guy who just likes films; 7/10

the first griffith film i saw, more to be seen in the weeks to come.

I, personally, believe in common human decency, and in order to be a human of decency I believe that you shouldn't start a whole fuss when going to a film in the theater. However, right in front of me while I was watching this film, there was a woman in the theater wearing a ridiculously large hat! My complaint about this caused a whole string of events that kept me from properly viewing the film!

What I DID see of the film, however, was quite interesting and experimental. Definitely impressive for such an old film! The film actually included some wildly creative special effects and can be used as an early example of more satirical cinema.

8/10 for the film...1/10 for the time I had watching the film.

This three-minute farce is one of the most unique and unusual Biograph shorts. Those Awful Hats sees DW Griffith, father of film narrative, doing what is virtually a non-narrative film. A one-liner, basically, giving a message to the audience in a fresh, entertaining form that they would take notice of.

This is also Griffith's only special effects film in the mode of Georges Melies. Melies' trick shot shorts had been widely imitated throughout the 1900s, although by 1909 they were dying out as cinema became less of a magic show and more of a storytelling medium. Griffith not only makes smooth use of a few Melies techniques (superimposition and stop motion) but has also absorbed some of the older pioneer's extreme and absurd comedy style, with the huge grabbing machine. Griffith was just making passing use of the style though – he was rather more subtle (for the era) in his regular shorts.

What is more interesting today is that this is one of the earliest films in which cinema references itself. You have a screen audience being watched by a real audience, and a film within a film. Nothing really symbolic here – this isn't Fritz Lang – but it does show you how much of an institution cinema was becoming, as well as being a rare glimpse into what a movie theatre of the time would look like (minus the grabby thing of course).

Although his point-and-shoot approach has been denounced as theatrical (although it is no more so than that that of his contemporaries), at this point Griffith was really starting to experiment with the infinite possibilities of depth within the frame. The screen was a stage for Griffith, but it was the biggest and most versatile stage imaginable, into which a street, a beach or even another theatre could be placed. The idea of a "show-within-a-show" may date back to Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, or perhaps even earlier, but at this stage in the game Griffith's introduction of theatrical and literary devices was moving the medium forward, not holding it back.

When you recall that it was made as a public service announcement, in the same vein as those "turn off your phone" things you get in cinemas today, Those Awful Hats is simple yet effective. It doesn't show you Griffith the master of film technique, just a functional short by a practical filmmaker.

This ultra-short film (only 2 minutes long) uses very rudimentary techniques, but it's rather interesting. It's about a theater full of people watching a movie, so there are two different screens combined into one image, and while the 'special effect' is not very good by the standards of later eras, it was probably a clever idea for its time. The light-hearted nature of this feature is an interesting contrast to the ultra-serious films that Griffith usually made.

Those Awful Hats (1909)

*** (out of 4)

D.W. Griffith comedy about a movie crowd getting angry because the women's large hats are blocking the screen. This is shorter than most of the shorts from this period but it's a very funny little gem.

Adventures of Dollie, The (1908)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

The first (of 400+) film directed D.W. Griffith is about a pair of gypsies who kidnap a three-year-old girl. When the girl's parents come looking for her the gypsies hide her in a barrel, which they accidentally drop in the river. Griffith's skill is certainly in full display here as his use of editing is right on the mark as he builds suspense of the girl going down the river. A wicked sense of humor is also on display here.