The movie opens with a medium shot of the gentleman-diner drinking alcohol and eating rarebit. But immediately after this conventional emblematic shot, Porter begins to employ tricks. The second shot is a double exposure of the gentleman, a swinging lamppost set in an exterior cityscape, and a background of panning, blurring New York City streets. As Charles Musser has written, âIt suggested the subjective sensation of the fiendâs predicament without being a point-of-view shotâ. After cinematically establishing the fiendâs inebriated state, the film depicts the manâs drunken adventures in his bedroom, a studio interior. First, his shoes appear to scamper across the floor and then the furniture disappears â the result of stop-motion cinematography.
The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend took longer to produce and was a more elaborate production than most films of the time. Increased sales at Edison gave Porter and his collaborator Wallace McCutcheon (who left Edison for Biograph shortly after this film was released) the ability to work more painstakingly, using miniatures, scripts, and the unheard-of length of 2 monthsâ time to develop the elaborate effects in this movie. As the manufacturerâs catalogue said, âThe picture is probably best described as being humorously humorous and mysteriously mysterious, and is certain to make the biggest kind of a âhitâ with any audience. Some of the photographic âstuntsâ have never been seen or attempted before, and but few experts in photography will be able to understand how they are done.â The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend has generally been credited as an important American-produced antecedent of animated film.» â Lauren Rabinovitz, Pordenone Catalog 2009
General Information
The Dream of a rarebit find is a motion picture produced in the year 1909 as a USA production. The Film was directed by Edwin S. Porter, with , in the leading parts. We have currently no synopsis of this picture on file; There are no reviews of The Dream of a rarebit find available.Literatur Hinweise Giornate del Cinema Muto Pordenone 2009, Katalog