Edwin S. Porter
Directing
Born April 21, 1870 · Connellsville, Pennsylvania, USA
Edwin Stanton Porter was an American film pioneer, most famous as a producer, director, studio manager and cinematographer with the Edison Manufacturing Company and the Famous Players Film Company. Influenced by both the "Brighton school" and the story films of Georges Méliès, Porter went on to make important shorts such as Life of an American Fireman (1903) and The Great Train Robbery (1903). In them, he helped to develop the modern concept of continuity editing, paving the way for D.W. Griffith who would expand on Porter's discovery that the unit of film structure was the shot rather than the scene. Porter, in an attempt to resist the new industrial system born out of the popularity of nickelodeons, left Edison in 1909 to form his own production company which he eventually sold in 1912. Porter remains an enigmatic figure in motion picture history. Though his significance as director of The Great Train Robbery and other innovative early films is undeniable, he rarely repeated an innovation after he had used it successfully, never developed a consistent directorial style, and in later years never protested when others rediscovered his techniques and claimed them as their own. He was a modest, quiet, cautious man who felt uncomfortable working with the famous stars he directed starting in 1912. He has directed four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Life of an American Fireman (1903), The Great Train Robbery (1903), Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906) and Tess of the Storm Country (1914).
Directed (144)
The Prince and the Pauper
1915
Bella Donna
1915
Zaza
1915
The White Pearl
1915
Sold
1915
The Eternal City
1915
When We Were Twenty-One
1915
Niobe
1915
The Morals of Marcus
1915
The Crucible
1914
Such a Little Queen
1914
Tess of the Storm Country
1914
A Good Little Devil
1914
Hearts Adrift
1914
The Count of Monte Cristo
1913
His Neighbor's Wife
1913
In the Bishop's Carriage
1913
The Prisoner of Zenda
1913
The Price
1911
Lost Illusions
1911
The Lighthouse by the Sea
1911
Sherlock Holmes, Jr.
1911
On the Brink
1911
A Heroine of '76
1911
His Mother's Thanksgiving
1910
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
1910
The Attack on the Mill
1910
Russia, the Land of Oppression
1910
Faust
1909
The House of Cards
1909
On the Western Frontier
1909
The Star of Bethlehem
1909
The Colored Stenographer
1909
Miss Sherlock Holmes
1908
She
1908
The Gentleman Burglar
1908
Tale the Autumn Leaves Told
1908
A Country Girl's Seminary Life and Experiences
1908
Fireside Reminiscences
1908
A Suburbanite's Ingenious Alarm
1908
A Little Girl Who Did Not Believe in Santa Claus
1907
Laughing Gas
1907
College Chums
1907
The Trainer’s Daughter, or A Race for Love
1907
Jack the Kisser
1907
The Rivals
1907
Cohen’s Fire Sale
1907
The 'Teddy' Bears
1907
Poor John
1907
Waiting at the Church
1907
Getting Evidence
1906
The Life of an American Cowboy
1906
The Life of a Cowboy
1906
Three American Beauties
1906
A Winter Straw Ride
1906
Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
1906
The Night Before Christmas
1905
The Life of an American Policeman
1905
The Train Wreckers
1905
The Miller’s Daughter
1905
The Watermelon Patch
1905
The White Caps
1905
The Little Train Robbery
1905
The Boarding School Girls
1905
Scenes and Incidents, Russo-Japanese Peace Conference, Portsmouth, N. H.
1905
The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog
1905
Coney Island at Night
1905
How Jones Lost His Roll
1905
The Seven Ages
1905
The Kleptomaniac
1905
The Strenuous Life; or, Anti-Race Suicide
1904
Scarecrow Pump
1904
The Ex-Convict
1904
A Rube Couple at a County Fair
1904
"Weary Willlie" Kisses the Bride
1904
Capture of Yegg Bank Burglars
1904
European Rest Cure
1904
How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the 'New York Herald' Personal Columns
1904
Fighting the Flames, Dreamland
1904
Scenes in an Infant Orphan Asylum
1904
Rector's to Claremont
1904
Inter-Collegiate Athletic Association Championships
1904
Japanese Acrobats
1904
R. F. Outcault Making a Sketch of Buster and Tige
1904
Treloar and Miss Marshall, Prize Winners at the Physical Culture Show in Madison Square Garden
1904
Crossing Ice Bridge at Niagara Falls
1904
The Great Train Robbery
1903
The Messenger Boy's Mistake
1903
A Romance of the Rail
1903
Uncle Tom's Cabin
1903
Rube and Mandy at Coney Island
1903
The Gay Shoe Clerk
1903
The Unappreciated Joke
1903
Panorama of Riker's Island, N.Y.
1903
White Wings on Review
1903
New York City Dumping Wharf
1903
Fireboat 'New Yorker' in Action
1903
Sorting Refuse at Incinerating Plant, New York City
1903
New York City 'Ghetto' Fish Market
1903
New York Harbor Police Boat Patrol Capturing Pirates
1903
Panorama of Blackwell's Island
1903
Panorama Water Front and Brooklyn Bridge from East River
1903
Life of an American Fireman
1903
Electrocuting an Elephant
1903
How They Do Things on the Bowery
1902
Jack and the Beanstalk
1902
Appointment by Telephone
1902
Charleston Chain-Gang
1902
Babies Rolling Eggs
1902
Burning of Durland's Riding Academy
1902
Capture of the Biddle Brothers
1902
Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture Show
1902
Panorama of Esplanade by Night
1901
The Martyred Presidents
1901
Pan-American Exposition by Night
1901
Day at the Circus
1901
Life Rescue at Long Branch
1901
Circular Panorama of Electric Tower
1901
The Reversible Divers
1901
Sampson-Schley Controversy
1901
The Esquimaux Village
1901
A Trip Around the Pan-American Exposition
1901
The Tramp's Unexpected Skate
1901
Another Job for the Undertaker
1901
Laura Comstock's Bag-Punching Dog
1901
Love by the Light of the Moon
1901
Kansas Saloon Smashers
1901
The Old Maid Having Her Picture Taken
1901
Why Mr. Nation Wants a Divorce
1901
The Finish of Bridget McKeen
1901
The Old Maid in the Horsecar
1901
Terrible Teddy, the Grizzly King
1901
A Dull Razor
1900
Faust and Marguerite
1900
An Artist's Dream
1900
The Kiss
1900
Uncle Josh's Nightmare
1900
The Magician
1900
Ching Ling Foo Outdone
1900
An Animated Luncheon
1900
Uncle Josh in a Spooky Hotel
1900
The Mystic Swing
1900
Dewar's Scotch Whisky
1900
Strange Adventure of New York Drummer
1899
