Life of an American Fireman

Remembered as historically significant in film history for introducing the early audience favorites of random dogs and horse drawn carriages with the novel idea of telling a story...oh yeah, and the editing or something too I guess. I mean the film has that sweet heroic rescue, that was so nice they showed it twice, but I mean still...did you see the dogs and the horses? The new genre may have just peaked here.

Much more interesting than so many other acclaimed films of this era, due to it's innovative use of editing and POV. You shouldn't underestimate the road towards the use of cross-cutting what virtually is one of the backbones of all of modern films. This is one of the last steps towards it, and thank you Porter - much appreciated.

I guess I'd never really thought about the logistics of turn-of-the-century firefighting, so this short very briefly captured my interest. Otherwise, it's the same as every other humdrum, interminable early film.

Porter looked at film more as an engineer than as an artist, and thank god for it, because we now have cross-cutting. This does not mean that his movies are interesting to watch today (epecially when you compare him to real artists such as melies) this IS one of his better efforts however.

Reasonably made film for the time. There's no real story aside for a sleeping fireman must wake up and help battle a fire.

Porter manages to bring editing one step closer to cross-cutting, by first showing an action from the inside, followed by showing what happened from the outside. It's an important step for film, but still not a terribly interesting one. Has the same value as other very old films in recording a past so far removed from us.

It's not the first or best short of this type (the recycled fire engine footage drags on too long, and the burning house scene looks very fake); still, it's one of Porter's earliest goes at a multi-scene narrative, and the sum is definitely greater than its parts.

Blew my mind when I first saw this to understand that the invention of cinema as a distinct medium didn't simply appear simultaneous to the technology necessary for it. Makes you appreciate Griffith to see a pre-Griffith movie, like this short. Amazing how things that seem entirely intuitive 100 years later could never have occurred to people like Edwin Porter before cinema was fully realized by dwg [with those initials in lower case, it makes it look like he's mah dawg... not true].

Carriage after carriage after carriage...

Struck in particular by what must be the first instance on film of a hero "saving" his loved ones vicariously, with the protagonist's climactic rescue of a mother and child acting as a kind-of realization of his opening daydreams of, presumably, his own wife and child at home. First instance of technique transcending a schematic conceit?

fireman has a vision

Cool for a few editing techniques and a rough narrative. It's kind of silly and not that great, though.

It is what it is, mostly interesting to watch to see the early days of film. Although I did think that watching the house from the outside at the end was nicely done.

Pretty cool, the woman got owned in the end though

Shmendrek basically said all that needed to be said. It's certainly a film.

Not bad, but no big deal.

Porter almost invents cross-cut editing.. But only almost. He gets to the entrance door of it and then he marches right into the doorframe. Good effort, though.. almost.

One of the better early films.