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Course: The Museum of Modern Art > Unit 1
Lesson 2: 1913 Centennial Celebration- Pablo Picasso, Guitar, Glass, and Bottle
- Umberto Boccioni, "Dynamism of a Soccer Player"
- Louis Comfort Tiffany, Vase
- Vasily Kandinsky, "Klänge (Sounds)"
- Fernand Léger, "Contrast of Forms"
- Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley, "Suspense"
- Giorgio de Chirico, "The Anxious Journey"
- Olga Rozanova, "A Little Duck's Nest... of Bad Words"
- Léon Bakst, "Costume design for the ballet The Firebird"
- Constantin Brancusi, "Mlle Pogany"
- Robert Delaunay, "Simultaneous Contrasts: Sun and Moon"
- D. W. Griffith, "The Mothering Heart"
- Emil Nolde, "Young Couple," 1913
- Léopold Survage, "Colored Rhythm: Study for the Film"
- Ludwig Hohlwein, "Kaffee Hag"
- Mack Sennett, "Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life"
- Louis Raemaekers, "Tegen de Tariefwet, Vliegt niet in't Web!"
- "Composition in Brown and Gray," Piet Mondrian
- Duchamp, 3 Standard Stoppages
- 1913 | Schiess-Dusseldorf by Ludwig Hohlwein
- Matisse, "The Blue Window"
- Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, "Street, Berlin"
- Frank Lloyd Wright, Midway Gardens
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Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley, "Suspense"
For more information please visit http://www.moma.org/1913. Created by The Museum of Modern Art.
Want to join the conversation?
- @1:43they talk about the triangle of action, where three scenes are show at the same time, but I wasn't clear is this the first example of this in filmmaking, or just one of the early examples.
Thanks T.S,(4 votes) - Was this the first car chase scene ever filmed?(1 vote)
- no, as the guy up there said, some earlier one is the motorist(1 vote)
- okay how did they do this ? when did he come up with the idea of films ? and why scare the crowd ? why not some happy films back then in that time period ?(1 vote)
- At the end, why was the mother lying on the bed? Was she injured?(1 vote)
- I think she was scared and needed to lie down before she fell down(1 vote)
Video transcript
(music) Anne: American cinema was born in 1893. The first film that we know of was called The Blacksmithing Scene. It's a 30 second black and white short, called in actuality a brief
recording of an event. 20 years into the future in 1913 you begin to see the dawn of the narrative film with the film Suspense directed by Lois Weber and Philips Smalley. It's the story of a young
mother and she lives in a very remote area
in a home that is also managed by their house maid. We look at this film for the complexity of the story telling. We begin to see story
progressed through editing. One day the maid just decides to quit. She leaves the mother and the baby alone. The husband is in the
city and he's working. Then she takes the house
key and puts it under the doormat. The camera cuts to the maid walking along the desolate road. And a vagrant passes the
maid as she's leaving the house. You then see the vagrant
walk up to the house and pick up the key. The mother then looks out the window, sees the vagrant with the key. She knows that trouble is coming. What Lois Weber and Philips Smalley did that's really fascinating in terms of film production was to
create a superimposition of a triangle on the screen and in the center is the husband who receives a phone call from his wife. You see the wife on one
angle of the triangle and then you see the vagrant
at the door with the key. So what you're seeing is this simultaneity of action that was
never experienced before by the audience. The story goes on and becomes a chase. The husband gets the phone call. He steals a car along the way, which then engages the
local police to chase him. So you have this suspenseful moment in what's going on in the house. The mother is hiding with the baby. You have the vagrant walking through the house. He's eyeing the various
valuables in the house, and you have the father who is
trying to come to the rescue. Ultimately the film ends up with the dad rescuing the mother and
the child and the vagrant being taken off to prison. Pretty advanced stuff for 1913.