The Big Swallow (AKA A Photographic Contortion)

Dir: James Williamson

1901

*****

When you think of the great pioneers of film and cinema you generally think of The Lumière Brothers Robert W. Paul and Georges Méliès – and rightly so, as they were geniuses – but more often, some of the real technical masters such as Cecil Hepworth and James Williamson are overlooked. In 1898, James Williamson moved his chemist's and photographic business to 55 Western Road, Hove, where he and his family took up residence, and issued his first catalog, which was expanded that year to include, among others, the trick film The Clown Barber and comedy Washing the Sweep. Williamson's Popular Entertainments, a Saturday night showing of his films, ran for five weeks from January to February 1900 and for a further four weeks from November to December at the Hove Town Hall. The latter series featured the premiere of Williamson's innovative Attack on a China Mission, which included four shots that developed the narrative and a reverse-angle cut giving the audience an alternate perspective. The 1901 census has Williamson as a chemist & druggist only but the truth was that by this point he had entered a period of dedicated film-making during which he produced trick film The Big Swallow. What is so striking about The Big Swallow – more so than many films of the era that were all in experimental and development mode – was that it was one of the first to deliberately exploit the contrast between the eye of the camera and of the audience watching the final film. The premise is simple - a man, irritated by the presence of a photographer, solves his dilemma by swallowing him and his camera whole. It’s funny because one of the first thing people do when they are first filmed seems to be to approach the camera and put the lens in their mouths, at least that’s what I always did. Despite being less bitten by the trick-film bug than his contemporaries, Williamson made one of the most striking genre entries of all with his simple three-shot trick surreal comedy. George Albert Smith pioneered close-up photography in 1900 with Grandma's Reading Glass and Spiders on a Web but Williamson took it a stage further by featuring a man advancing towards the camera, remaining in more or less perfect focus, until his mouth appears to swallow the lens. Williamson’s intention was primarily comic and was inspired by unwanted attention from increasingly savvy passers-by while filming his actuality shorts (described in his own catalog with the words: "I won't! I won't! I'll eat the camera first."), but he ended up making one of the most striking genre entries and his imaginative use of an extreme close-up became one of the seminal images of early British (and world) cinema. His film had great appeal also to the Surrealist movement. A simple film that helped write the rule book but also told other film makers to re-write the rule book and most importantly, to have fun. He soon followed The Big Swallow with the dramas Fire! and Stop Thief!. Their use of action continuity across multiple shots established the basic grammar of film and remain to this day. The following year these films became available in the US where they are said to have influenced Edwin Porter's Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery – one of the greatest silent films of all time.