ABSTRACT
In the beginning of the cinema, all films were, by definition, experimental. The Lumière brothers were making 1-minute films that documented real life in the late 1800s; Thomas Edison was concerned primarily with commercial projects, as evidenced by such exploitational short films as Electrocuting an Elephant (1903), as well as the first advertisement created for the cinema, Dewars Scotch Whiskey (1897). Alice Guy, Edwin S. Porter, R. W. Paul, Georges Méliès, and others were making early stabs at narrative formats, creating such film genres as the Western (The Great Train Robbery, Porter, 1902), the science fiction film (Le Voyage dans la lune [“A Trip to the Moon”], Méliès, 1902), and the fantasy film (La Fée aux choux [“The Cabbage Patch Fairy”], Guy, 1896).
