The Countryman and the Cinematograph
Featured in Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood: Where It All Began (1995),This early classic is done rather cleverly, is amusing, and is even a little thought-provoking. The rudimentary special camera effects really work just fine, and the scenario is so economical and straightforward that it belies the substance that underlies what you see. The story starts with an outgoing, but rather dull-witted, person watching movies and reacting to them in various ways. It's very simple, but done skillfully enough, and it's interesting in at least a couple of other ways.

The concept of using other films and film itself as points of reference has clearly been around almost as long as cinema itself. Some early films handled such material in a fashion that is both amusing and efficient. Unfortunately, film-makers of the present too often over-indulge in the use of self-referential devices, and in an overabundance of references to other films, popular songs, and the like, far beyond the point where any of this serves a constructive purpose.

Then too, since cinema began, the basic idea of confusing film with reality has changed only in terms of the specific applications. It's easy enough to laugh at the "Countryman", as we were meant to do in this feature, but viewers of movies and television in any era often find difficulty in separating film from reality: in forming opinions, in their priorities, and in their attitudes towards life. Just as the "Countryman" doesn't quite understand the nature of what he is seeing, so too, many films can dazzle the senses of today's audiences, and persuade uncritical viewers to think that the films have more substance than they really do. So there's more to this feature than merely a clever little film about the ways that early movies affected their viewers over a century ago.,