Henrique X
On the long journey of cinema between documentation and dramatization — between Méliès’ theatrical enchantment and the Lumière brothers’ documentary gaze — The Great Train Robbery (1903) stands at a decisive crossroads. With this film, American cinema not only finds its narrative voice but also boldly inaugurates what would become the most mythologized genre in the country’s cinematic history: the Western. Yet the greatness of this short film lies not merely in its subject matter. Its true legacy is in its language: this is where cinema begins to construct time as action, space as tension, and the image as sequenced narrative power.
Directed by Edwin S. Porter, then working for the Edison Manufacturing Company, the film tells the story of a train robbery by a group of outlaws, their escape, and the inevitable confrontation with the law. At its core, it’s a simple story — but what Porter does with it is, in practical terms, invent modern American narrative cinema. For the first time, we see a sequence of scenes linked by causality, edited to create rhythm, suspense, and spatial continuity. The camera, which until then had acted like a passive spectator, begins to think — to link actions in order to build tension.
The innovation is apparent from the opening shots: Porter dares to place the camera inside a ticket booth at the train station, capturing the moment tickets are sold with the train passing in the background through the window — a previously unseen depth of field and framing. Later, the camera is positioned inside the locomotive, capturing the moving landscape behind — a visually ambitious composition that amplifies the sense of motion and adventure.
Performance also evolves significantly: here we find expressive gestures, reactions to unfolding events, and choreographed fights atop the train — including a bold moment in which an actor is replaced by a dummy in a subtle cut just before being thrown from the moving carriage. It’s a moment of narrative and technical creativity that reveals Porter’s ambition and pursuit of visual impact.
Technically, the film uses around 13 shots — a high number for its time — skillfully alternating between interior and exterior scenes, parallel cuts, and pans. Parallel editing makes an embryonic appearance here, interweaving the outlaws’ escape with the pursuit by an armed group of citizens. The camera no longer simply observes: it organizes time and space to heighten suspense.
The mise-en-scène is remarkable: clear staging within the frame, coordinated actor movement, and timed entrances and exits give fluidity to each shot. And though the camera trembles slightly — a technical limitation of the era — that involuntary vibration adds to the sense of unrest, urgency, and danger. The audience feels the tension not only in the story but in the physicality of the filming itself.
The film also features visual effects, such as explosions and gunfire, reminiscent of Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon a year earlier — but now applied to a realistic and violent setting. The horseback chase — long, fluid, shot in open frame — is a surprisingly well-executed action sequence for 1903.
There is even room for subverting expectations: at one point, a child helps free the captured ticket agent, flipping the conventional hero narrative. And the film includes one of cinema’s most unique camera movements — an abrupt pan followed by a tilt to reframe the characters within the setting. By today’s standards it might seem clumsy, but in 1903 it was bold, inventive, and remarkably sophisticated.
Finally, the most iconic moment: a bandit, removed from the narrative context, fires his gun directly at the camera. It could have opened or closed the film — but either way, it breaks the fourth wall with rare symbolic force. Cinema is no longer just a stage or a window: it becomes a mirror, a threat, an interaction. The viewer is no longer safe in their seat.
The Great Train Robbery is not just the first great Western — it is the cornerstone of modern action storytelling. With its gunshots, horses, and outlaws, Edwin S. Porter wasn’t just telling a story: he was discovering how time could be manipulated, how space could be fragmented and reassembled, how a viewer’s gaze could be guided with surgical precision. From here on, cinema was no longer merely a record. It was a machine. And it had already begun to gallop.
Original review in portuguese: https://henriquexaxa.substack.com/p/critica-cinematografica-the-great
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
08/04/25
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David K
Film history. 12 minutes. The first real storyline in film.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
05/02/25
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Micah H
The first great American film.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/04/25
Full Review
Miguel G
This is a historical curiosity with some cool shots for the time. It was probably meant to be seen with live narration, so it is a bit hard to follow from just the images.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
03/16/24
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Brayden V
An exciting and groundbreaking film that doesn't need dialogue to communicate its story.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
08/31/23
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DanTheMan 2
We should make train robberies great again.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
07/11/23
Full Review
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