Detours in Film Narrative: The Development of Cross-Cutting

Abstract

For some time now the appearance of cross-cutting has been a problem for film historians. An earlier generation of historians traced it to the Brighton school (Attack on a China Mission, among other films) and the films of Edwin Porter. Many of them agreed that Porter discovered this form of editorial construction, relying on certain documents to suggest its presence in Life of an American Fireman (1903). They were, however, unable to see the film itself, which was lost. Since its rediscovery, various investigators have made attempts to get to the bottom of the problem, but controversy still continues, for there now exist two contradictory versions of the film. One of these versions employs cross-cutting, the other does not. Which one is closer to Porter's original? Champions for each version have not been lacking. Several year ago, for instance, readers of the French periodical Cahiers de la Cinematheque opened its pages to find two separate articles on Life of an American Fireman, each defending one of the two versions in terms that no doubt typify a controversy that has fascinated and challenged the historians of two continents.1 Roman Guber argued for the authenticity of what we shall call the Cross-Cut Version, finding it, if not a masterly instance of parallel editing, then at least an early example of it, and quite possibly the earliest. This is the version that can be seen in the Film Department of the Museum of Modem Art, and I will discuss its origins further on. Barthelmy Amengual, on the other hand, gave persuasive reasons for believing that the so-called Copyright Version-that is, the version of the film that in 1903 was deposited by the Edison Company at the Library of Congress for copyright-was authentic. I believe that this controversy is of the utmost importance, hinging as it does on the genesis of filmic expression, on the convergence of narrativity and cinema, and on the evolution of narrative constructions at which first Griffith and then other filmmakers would excel a few years later. For the sake of clarity, here (adapted from the one given by Roman Gubern) is a shot-by-shot breakdown of the two versions of the film which specifies the differences between them.