Uncle Tom's Cabin

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN was made by the Thomas Alva Edison Company in Orange,New Jersey at the turn of the century (1903). It was a film that was produced, directed, and photographed by Edwin S. Porter. His screenplay was based upon H. B. Stowe's classic novel. Fortunately, this film has been preserved by the Library of Congress on Paper Prints, for best maximum quality. It is really a great 13-minute short version of Stowe's novel, with all the great characters-Aunt Opheilia, Little Eva, St. Clair, even Simon Legree, who might just've been the movie's first real villain! Best for people already familiar with the story, as this is a condensed, "revue"-esque version of the story.

My assumption as I watched this was that the film was intended to be shown to folks who had read the book. This is because instead of showing a narrative of the story, it shows snippets...scenes from the book. Without having read the book, a viewer would be completely lost. I am guessing but assume MOST Americans (at least those living in the north) had read it...perhaps for school. Today, however, the film looks confusing and disjoint.

So why am I giving the film a 7? Well, for 1903, the quality of the work is amazing. Sure, today you can look at all the indoor sets and think they are quaint or silly...but for the time, it was very nice. Worth your time if you appreciate early films.

The Edison Company's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" represents an outdated, stagy and tableau style of film-making, which especially suffers in comparison to contemporary and more cinematically innovative story films, such as Edwin S. Porter's "Life of an American Fireman", which he made before this film, and "The Great Train Robbery", which he made later. It's more theatrical than even the fairy films of Georges Méliès, without any deviation from the tableau series of stationary shot-scenes filmed from the proscenium arch (except for maybe the miniature models in the ship race scene). A theatrical troupe was hired to perform this staple of the American stage for the Edison camera, with the resulting carryover of the projection and gesticulation from the actors, which was typical of the theatre back then. The minstrel dancing (which is interestingly comparable to Méliès's use of dancing girls in his films) and employment of white actors in blackface also came from traditions in stage versions of the novel. Additionally, the Edison Company's simple and cheap decors with painted backdrops and occasional props painted on the walls may have made for an exceptionally expensive motion picture for 1903, but it, nevertheless, allows for some poorly-staged scenes and very confined spaces, with no depth or even much lateral spacing.

A title card introduces every shot-scene, which, according to Charles Musser ("Before the Nickelodeon"), was adopted from G.A. Smith's "Dorothy's Dream" (1903). It's one of the earliest films to use title cards. (By the way, some of the titles are illiterate, especially in the use of apostrophes.) Besides the titles, the filmmakers and exhibitors would rely on live lecturers and audiences' preexisting knowledge of "Tom plays" to understand and follow the not-entirely self-contained narrative in this film. The style of storytelling used by Porter and the Edison Company for "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had been used in other early screen adaptations, such as the British films "Scrooge; or Marley's Ghost" (1901) and "Alice in Wonderland" (1903), to name a couple that I've seen. The style of a series of stationary shot-scenes also largely continued as late as in some of the earliest feature-length filmed plays, such as "Queen Elizabeth" (1912).

This film uses superimposed images of Eva and angels, as do later screen adaptations of "Uncle Tom's Cabin", including the 1914 and 1927 films. There are also superimposed images of the Civil War, Lincoln and emancipation of the slaves in the final tableau of Uncle Tom's death, to help place the story within a larger context.

The Lubin Company made an imitative remake of this film shortly after its release, and then Lubin sold his movie for cheaper than the Edison film, thereby stealing part of the market and potential profit from Edison.

Given how early it was in the history of cinema, this attempt to film the story of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is creditable and quite ambitious. The flaws of this movie version are now quite noticeable, but at the time it may well have been a satisfying experience, for those who remembered the impact of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, to see the action portrayed on screen. Regardless of what today's critics would think of the novel and its characters, the book had an impact on history that few works of art have ever achieved.

The story is told with a clear assumption that the viewer is already familiar with the story, and it would probably be nearly incomprehensible for those who had never read the book. Within a fairly short period of time, film-makers would develop standard ways of introducing characters and situations so as to make sure that no one got lost, but at this early stage of cinema, an adaptation of well-known literary material was more likely to count on viewers knowing the story already.

The movie illustrates several of the most significant events from the novel, using the kind of tableau format that for a time was the usual way to present this kind of story. It does re-arrange a couple of things, rather than sticking strictly with the book, and it was clearly an enterprising project. Although it only partially comes off, it's still worth seeing for its historical interest alone.