The Great Train Robbery

As soon as the movie started I was in shock at how the movie was shot. I was very confused as to if they were actually inside a room, or if the room was a set and the train moving outside the window was placed there using technology, or if the train was actually moving outside. I am still slightly confused. Although not uncommon for the time, the actors gestures were extremely exaggerated and dramatized. I was extremely surprised when the shot began to show that the camera was on top of a moving train! That was astounding to me, not only to have the technology to just shoot the movie, and to color in the flames frame by frame, which I loved, but also to keep a camera steady on a moving train. I do think that the background music to the movie could have been a bit more suspenseful considering the murders and the burglary that is going on during the movie. The background music seems a bit more serene and tranquil than what actually is going on in the scenes. Overall, I feel as if The Great Train Robbery, was an extremely large scale production for its' time. Not only the use of an entire train, and horses, but also the use of shooting a scene on the moving train, was a huge deal compared to movies that were just being shot of people doing everyday things, like feeding their babies, or watering the flowers. Also, the amount of people used in the film, for example, all of the people that got off of the train during the robbery, it took a lot of man power to shoot this early silent film. The very end is very surprising because of the breaking down of the 4th wall. The actor does not only look directly at the audience, but he ends up firing the gun at the audience. If people were scared that the train was going to hit them in the other early films, then they must have been terrified at this movie.