Year: 1901
Director: James Williamson
Country: UK
Language: N/A
The very beginning of Motion Picture entertainment featured some remarkable shorts, but had very predictable staging. Essentially everything was framed in a wide/long shot wherein every prop, set piece and actor was visible. Early film-makers didn't have the greatest sense of space & it would be a half a decade after the first film ever made (The Lumiere Brothers' Workers Leaving the factory) before we would see unique angles, shots & actor positioning.
In The Big Swallow a man, objecting to being filmed, comes closer and closer to the camera lens until his mouth is all we see. Then he opens wide and swallows camera and cinematographer.
The Big Swallow is a fairly unique joke film that demonstrates the ingenuity of some of the early filmmakers. While this effort from British filmmaker James Williamson doesn’t use trick photography, it does use a vivid imagination to deliver an unexpected punchline to an innovative little movie. Considering moviegoers of the day have been seeing the same style of shots over and over before this, I can imagine this "closeup" & "extreme closeup" would have been quite startling.
Williamson's work is a surreal experimental picture that finds humor in its own offbeat way. The camera doesn't necessarily move, rather the character moves towards the camera to make the "closeup" & "extreme close up" but still, it's quite a unique oddity that entertains despite its incredibly short run-time.
Influential on a technical level and important in regards to the history of film, The Big Swallow is a film from the beginning of the 20th Century that would likely please audiences today. It's a priceless work of art with an enjoyable punchline.
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This is a film short and Pythonish way before its time.
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