The Big Swallow

While quite simple both in concept and in execution, this early short feature is rather amusing. The self-referential idea that it explores is interesting, both as one of the earlier examples of its kind, and also for the way that it is handled. Whereas so many present-day movies handle references to themselves and to other movies in such a labored and often pretentious manner, the idea here is carried off not only with some skill, but also with an appropriately light touch.

Unlike many of the characters in these earliest films, who are sometimes too indistinct to have any real presence on the screen, in this feature the actor playing the main character, whose responses to being filmed form the basis for the story, does a pretty good job of carrying the movie with his mannerisms and facial expressions. He has a slight hammy touch that works pretty well here, and it helps in making a very simple feature turn out rather well.

Like Hepworth's film "How It Feels to Be Run Over", made the previous year, James Williamson's "The Big Swallow" is self-referential in its parody of film-making. (The third early self-reflexive film I discuss, "The Countryman and the Cinematograph", reverses this and parodies cinema viewing.) Both are about the camera and the cameraman (and, in a way, through their point of view, the spectator) coming to a violent collision with their filmed subject. That Williamson's film seems more likely to involve a still photographer rather than a cinematographer doesn't matter. In Hepworth's film, a motorist drives his automobile into the camera. In this film, the person being photographed swallows the camera and cameraman. Another notable difference between these two scenes is that Hepworth's film ends with the collision, as the screen goes blank and only intertitles end the film. In Williamson's film, the film (or point of view) we are watching (or were watching) is shown from another perspective, which shows the swallowing and the satisfied munching afterwards by the subject. It would seem more logical if the film ended as a single shot film with the subject's mouth taking up the entire frame, and thus blackening the entire frame in the way of Hepworth's film. Yet, it would be less clear in that way and would lack the added self-reflexive moment of showing the film we're watching being shot. This is likely the first movie to show, in a sense, itself being filmed--a self-referential device later used, for example, in François Truffaut's "Day for Night" (La Nuit américaine) (1973).

A similarity between "The Big Swallow" and R.W. Paul's film "The Countryman and the Cinematograph" is that they were both part of the early cinema genre of trick films. Although their special effects seem of rather secondary interest now, they were still novel for 1901. Positioned within the trick film also adds further layers of self-reference to these films because the special effects (the swallowing shot here and the superimposed films within Paul's film) show the films' main self-reflexive devices. Additionally, cinema itself is a kind of trick. On a note of technique, Williamson's refocusing of the image as the subject approaches the camera was very rare for 1901.

"The Big Swallow" was also part of the facial expression genre, which tended to be one-scene films framed in a close-up of a person's face. There were quite a few of these films, but none that I know of were nearly as interesting as this. Most of them were merely curios of the newfound close-up.

Furthermore, the scene being photographed within "The Big Swallow" reminds me of actualitiés, which was still the most popular motion picture genre in 1901. "The Big Swallow" seems to parody this type of documentary. In it, a man is merely reading something until disturbed by a cameraman photographing him--recording the image of the man that we see, which is the film proper. Michael Brooke, for the BFI website, however, suggests that "The Big Swallow" was inspired by Williamson's experience with "savvy" passers-by while filming his actuality films.

"The Big Swallow" is the beginning of a thread of films that goes through "Kid Auto Races at Venice" (1914) to "The Truman Show" (1998).

This early film by James Williamson's Kinematograph sees a man enraged by photographer who is setting up to take his picture. The yelling man gets closer and closer until all we see his gaping mouth, into which the hapless photographer falls, camera, tripod, and all. The film-maker's camera then pans back and we see the man, no longer angry, chewing in a very satisfied way. I imagine in 1901 the twist ending was quite surprising. Comical in an archaic, anarchic way.

The first film that shows a man devouring a camera from the camera's perspective. This takes some mundane, contrived event and makes it quite interesting. I'm sure early audiences must have found it quite fascinating and humorous.

The Big Swallow (1901)

**** (out of 4)

The "story" here is pretty simple as a man is standing in front of the movie camera arguing with someone. He keeps walking towards the camera until he swallows the entire thing and even the man operating it. I'm sorry but I really, really loved this little film. At just a minute the entire thing is basically being sold on the "effect" of the man swallowing the camera and when this happen it's quite funny. I'm sure this was meant to compete with the work of Georges Melies and while I've seen many rips, this one here actually manages to capture the type of magic that the French master did with his films. The special effect of how the trick was done is quite obvious today but I can just imagine the laughter and sense of wonder that this thing must have caused back in 1901. At just a minute there's really no reason why someone who loves films shouldn't check this out.