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The question of fantasy, and its role in cinema, is one that I've been thinking about with Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (directed by Edwin S. Porter and Wallace McCutcheon.) As with Melies' The Black Imp, Rarebit Fiend is best described as mischievous; it gives us a helpless protagonist who is helplessly manhandled and abused by various special effects for a few minutes, and then ends. For early filmmakers, there seems to be a certain appeal in humans' loss of control before the wonders of new technology. Films such as Rarebit Fiend not only unsettle their protagonists' ideas of the boundaries of possibility, but the viewers' also; neither the Fiend himself nor the audience watching him has (I assume) ever seen a bed fly. And yet, despite this shared novelty between character and audience, the reaction of the Fiend to these events vs. the intended reaction of those watching him are sharply opposed. For the Fiend, the experience is a horrible terror, akin to a bad salvia trip; but for the audience, it's a comedy.
I could simply attribute this dissonance to the inherent sadism of comedy in general--that is to say, most humor derives from the relief that something bad isn't happening to us--but I think there's more at work here. The hallucinogenic nature of the Fiend's ordeal is both a reflection of the 1906 moviegoer's relation to the medium and a reassurance that things are still under their control. An audience of the day would have had little idea of the technical details behind the film's production, and the act of viewing a film was itself still a novelty; while Rarebit Fiend (as with Georges Melies' work) is obviously influenced by the various stage magic shows and parlor tricks of the time, the transportive quality of a projected film is considerably more potent in its ability to manipulate reality. Rarebit Fiend presents phenomena that would not have been possible in any live show, some of them inherent to the medium (e.g., the projected image making performers literally larger than life), and others (i.e., the Fiend's dream) making use of the ability to stop and start filming to move and conjure objects. Yet the film hedges itself, containing its fantasy within the use of narcotics (thinly disguised as Welsh rarebit), as if hesitant to present a magical world without encasing it in the frame of the real world. Rarebit Fiend thus marks a departure from previous fantasy films in the Canon; the appeal for the audience lies not in its fantastical elements, but in the protagonist's reaction to them. It is a step removed from the depersonalized fantasy of Melies--or, if you will, a step beyond--in its focusing of attention on a character, with effects as the backdrop, rather than the whole point.
I suppose one could argue that Dream of a Rarebit Fiend is the first stoner film, but this seems too easy, and anachronistic at that (this is, after all, before most drug use had been outlawed and its consequent rise in countercultural stature); perhaps it is more accurate to say that Rarebit Fiend is the first "faux-cautionary" film. This is not a film meant to scare the audience straight, despite its terrified protagonist; this is a film that exploits fear for fun. It is not a warning against drugs, but a celebration of what drugs make possible. However, as with all trips, the possibilities end with the dose, which is, in this case, the film: upon ending, all of its marvels disappear and the viewer is back in the theatre, a few minutes older.
Other connections: Dream of a Rarebit Fiend indirectly marks the cinematic debut on cartooning virtuoso Winsor McCay, being based on his slighty-differently-named comic strip, Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend. He is, of course, best-known for Little Nemo, but was also a prolific filmmaker in his own right, beginning with the extravagantly-titled Nemo adaptation called Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics (though Gertie the Dinosaur is probably his most famous film.)
Other most-voted titles of 1906:
2. Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (J. Stuart Blackton | 735 votes)
3. The Hilarious Posters (Georges Melies | 685 votes)
4. The 400 Tricks of the Devil (Georges Melies | 561 votes)
5. The '?' Motorist (Walter R. Booth | 558 votes)
6. San Francisco: Aftermath of Earthquake (No director credited | 449 votes)
7. The Mysterious Retort (Georges Melies | 433 votes)
8. The Story of the Kelly Gang (Charles Tait | 367 votes) -- Generally considered the first feature-length film.
9. A Trip Down Market Street Before the Fire (No director credited | 333 votes)
10. Three American Beauties (Wallace McCutcheon and Edwin S. Porter | 274 votes)
IMDB lists 1,846 titles for the year altogether.
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