The story surrounding the early 1896 short-film 'The Kiss' is a little strange: it was made at the dawn of cinema and was one of the first films shown to the public. It was also a collaboration between the incredibly-influential early filmmaker William Heise and, yes, the legendary inventor and on-and-off filmmaker Thomas Edison (who was quite an influential early filmmaker in his own right too, as well as an inventor of a couple different pieces of filmmaking technology who eventually founded his very own film production company called Thomas A. Edison, Inc.). The film (or, the more appropriate label, short film as the movie is only around one or two minutes long) depicted a kiss between at-the-time popular Broadway actor John Rice and at-the-time popular Broadway actress May Irwin- a snippet from a play they both acted in together called 'The Widow Jones.' At the time of its release, 'The Kiss' was incredibly controversial because a lot of people held the view that a kiss was a private moment which should not be filmed and distributed for people to see and enjoy and that the short-film was "indecent and pornographic" (which just comes to show just how much people's views and society's standards have changed over around 120 years later). But origin story and stupid controversy aside, a question remains. Which is, "why should you watch this short-film?" And the reason is because even though it lacks a plot, dialogue, has very little acting, has close to no music, and lacks so many of the other elements required in movies and even though it is ridiculously short and simple, it did however introduce a lot of influential filmmaking techniques to cinema that are commonplace in movies today- such as the close-up camera angle seen throughout the movie and clear, nonstop kinetic movement of the actors seen in the movie, which was something a lot of film projectors couldn't do at the time. Also, the film was filmed in one-shot I believe, which is kind of cool too. But another two reasons why this film was important was because it was one of the first films ever made, which makes it important to see regardless of quality, and also because it managed to capture a kiss- which is an intimate and romantic moment- on screen for everybody to see, so it basically introduced the romantic movie genre to cinema as well. It was also an early example of what movies could do that other art forms couldn't, as the film managed to capture an important though everyday moment in motion, and preserving it for all to see. Though I should add that this movie is best viewed in a historical context due to its shortness and simplicity and because it is not very entertaining. Though it does have its merits and is still important for everyone to see because of the influential filmmaking techniques that it demonstrates and because it is an early example of what movies could do that other art forms couldn't do- and because it also technically introduced the world to romance movies and was also one of the first films shown to the public. A must-see for anybody studying the history of cinema and a must-see for any film fanatic in general.
Review of The Kiss
