The Barbershop (1893) User Reviews

A Close and Fast Shave

[ronin-88 · 6/10 · 18 February 2022]

In 1891, Thomas Edison and his staff, led by William K. L. Dickson, successfully produced demonstration films on the Kinetograph camera, and showed them to one person at a time through the Kinetoscope projector. For 1892 and the early part of 1893, Edison and Co. Geared up for commercial production. As part of this endeavour, Dickson oversaw the building of a dedicated motion picture studio, the Black Maria. This film was one of the first ones to be made at the Black Maria.

The Barbershop, along with Blacksmithing Scene, was one of the films directed by Dickson and William Heise, at the Black Maria, in 1893. In this 22 second masterpiece, while one man gets a very quick shave, and the start of a haircut, two other actors share a bit of business involving a newspaper. These may be the first instance of background performers, or extras in a scene. Although, in this case, they are more like foreground performers. There is a lot of motion in this particular film. For the time, it was quite an ambitious film.

Pleasant Footage of a Once-Familiar Scene

[Snow Leopard · 14 March 2005]

This simple footage of "The Barbershop" is pleasant to watch, and like many other features of its time, it preserves forever a view of a once-familiar scene. In itself, the action is nothing exciting, but the camera is positioned well, and for such a short running time it does capture many details. Like a carefully composed still picture, it presents every aspect of the scene, while in this case showing you the complete action of the doings that it depicts.

Originally, the film-makers set out to capture a scene that their audiences would have observed every day. But, like a number of movies of its era, it now allows us to get a more intimate view of ways of life that are no longer common to our experience – in this case, to feel what it was like to visit an old-fashioned barber shop of the era. The footage does well in conveying this feel, capturing not only the man getting a shave, but also the leisurely interactions in the foreground – an efficient and well-conceived piece of cinematography.

The double footage may seem like something of an odd idea, but it would be interesting to know how many of its original viewers noticed it. And, beyond that, we are quite fortunate that the earliest film-makers had such a spirit of experimentation, and that they were so willing to try even offbeat ideas. Early efforts such as this, as plain as it may now look to some viewers, did more than their part in getting cinema history moving.

A quick look into turn-of-the-century life...

[kobe1413 · 2/10 · 28 February 2014]

Edison innovators W.K.L. Dickson and William Heise made this short showing a slice of life from end of the nineteenth century. A man is getting a shave at a barbershop, while two other men discuss something in the foreground.

This was the best Edison film up to that point, as it feels almost like a still-life coming alive. Viewers come that time must have felt like they were watching a scene familiar to them come alive. One thing I am curious about is whether the men acting out the short scene are just Edison men fooling around, or whether they are hired actors performing a scene laid out for them.

I give it a 2 out of 10.

Not worth two views

[jhaugh · 2/10 · 17 March 2003]

Yes those were the days when you could get a shave and a haircut for a nickel (according to the sign behind the barber). This barber shop is on the stage in the Black Maria studio - so called because, to some people, the weird design of this building made them think of a horse-drawn police paddy-wagon that was called a "Black Maria" - at the Edison laboratory. The barber is working on a customer while a man sits screen-right. Another customer enters and sits in a vacant chair screen-left. The man-on-the-right gets up and briefly shows the man-on-the-left something in the newspaper he is holding. All this takes about 20-seconds. Then for some unknown reason, the entire scene is shown over again to produce a 40-second Kinetoscope presentation.

Wrong year?

[vukelic-stjepan · 3/10 · 11 December 2016]

I thought that this movie is from 1893. Please check once more time is 1894 correct year.

This movie is fun movie which shows how the barber do his job. I have never been in barber shop, but it sounds interesting to me, and I am curious is it like a gossip shop for men, like hair salon for woman.

On YT you have version with music in background, although this is not original version (original version) has no any sounds, I suggest you to watch this sounded version because it is somehow more cheerful.

Did you notice that same scenes played two times? I am in group of people which doesn't notice this. I had to watch again to notice this.

20*2@

[someguy889 · 7/10 · 29 June 2004]

The Barbershop is another short that I saw on the Landmarks of Early Film DVD. A guy walks up to a barbershop, a man is getting shaved, and another man is there reading the newspaper. The newspaper reading man says something to the waiting man and they both start laughing. Then the shave is done. It lasts about 20 seconds. Then the whole scene is repeated again! The exact same scene. It took me a few seconds to realize that I was watching the same thing twice. Although this short doesn't have the amazing insight and stuff of the Lumiere shorts, and seems much more planned and acted, and the insight into the life in only the most narrow of forms, I thought it was a delightful little short, pointing out the hilarious repititions of every day life.

My grade: 7/10

Apparently, in 1893 no one had ever heard of . . .

[cricket30 · 7/10 · 25 July 2013]

. . . the dangers of second-hand smoke, as the American tobacco industry is one of the first groups to engage in product placement (note the guy with a pipe clenched between his teeth seated stage left of the barber), beaten out only by the liquor guild, which got a bottle of booze horned in to an otherwise innocent BLACKSMITH SCENE filmed slightly earlier in 1893 by the Edison Manufacturing Company. An advertising sign prominently displayed in THE BARBER SHOP 22.4-second short reads "The Latest Wonder: Shave & Hair Cut for a nickel," which, oddly enough, was about the exact same cost of watching SOMEONE ELSE get a shave and hair cut at the kinetograph parlor, which would soon morph into the more aptly named (and easier to pronounce) "nickelodeon." Though this short is set and filmed in the North, it is interesting to note that the barbershop shown is just as segregated (i.e., all-white, in this case) as any in the Jim Crow South would have been in the 1890s.

Complex, contrapuntal motion and artificiality

[BrandtSponseller · 9/10 · 22 March 2005]

This is a 40-second long Edison Company kinetoscope short. Four men play out the scene. One is sitting in a barber's chair getting a shave and a haircut. Another is the barber working on him. The third and fourth flank the barber on either side of the frame, positioned in front of the barber chair and cabinet. The scene actually lasts only 20 seconds, but is repeated in full.

Some sources date The Barber Shop to mid-1893 or earlier, and some sources consider it to be "pre-commercial" (that is, prior to an intention for the film to be exhibited commercially on the kinetoscope). While this may indeed be the case, it's unusual in that The Barber Shop is clearly a staged scene; one that is more complex than some of the commercial Edison Company shorts, such as Sandow (1894) and The Cock Fight (1894).

This is one of the more successful shorts of the era. While it presents a scene that ostensibly might be an actuality (actualities were something like cinematographic records of everyday scenes), closer examination reveals that the scenario is extremely artificial and directed. For example, there are props that are arranged in exact spots to create maximum effect in the frame of the camera. More notably, each "actor's" motions appear to be precisely planned and directed; they're almost choreographed. The actions provide a fascinating contrapuntal mise-en-scene--each performer is constantly moving, and even inanimate motion is incorporated by way of the smoke from the pipe.

The two men flanking the customer stand up at one point and move to the middle of the frame, blocking the view of the barber and customer. All of this complicated motion allows for a repetition that most people do not notice on a first viewing (it took me a couple viewings to notice--I didn't catch it until I switched to a more analytical mode), despite the fact that the man on the left is obviously taking off his coat and hat and sitting down once again. You don't notice because your eye is busy darting around the frame, trying to take all of it in at once.

The staging is similar to Glenroy Brothers (Comic Boxing) (1894), but more complex. In the Glenroy Brothers short, the "rear guard" sit motionless, more props than persons. The Barber Shop's approach to creating a "realistic scene" involving a number of people has been much emulated in later films, down to the present, and was subsequently honed artistically to a point that many people no longer noticed the artificiality of the "background action".

Edison: Invention of Movies

[Michael_Elliott · 31 December 2008]

Blacksmith Scene (1893)

Barber Shop, The (1893)

These two Edison shorts are more "film like" than previous items from the studio, which were pretty much just camera tests. In the first film we see three men hammering some iron before taking a break and passing a beer around. The second short has three men sitting around a barber shop with one of them receiving a shave. Once again these two are basically going to be for those wanting to see early examples of history so coming to either one of these films for entertainment, as we use the word today, would be quite useless. I find watching these other films to be quite entertaining because of anything Edison could have filmed, they thought audiences would want to see this.

The Choreography of Layers

[tedg · 27 December 2004]

The history of anything involves trying to discover the accidents of convention that stuck. Movies could have taken off from any of a number of the already mature arts: especially painting. It turned out — much the worse I fear — to have adjusted to become a continuation of drama, probably starting in earnest with "Birth of a Nation."

But here we have a very early film, an experiment really, that shows one link that continues today, the link with dance.

I'm particularly fond of modern films that reconnect with the notions of dance — especially the dancing eye of the camera — whether they have explicit dancing in them.

This is framed as a contemporary photograph, which means it inherits the painterly conventions of composition of the time. But see how well the motion is planned in two layers: a foreground and background. This comes from the dance tradition, especially the choreography of the day.

And it has stuck with us all this time as a basic rule. Pretty interesting, that. And accidental too, I surmise.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

This is the First True Advertising Movie

[Tornado_Sam · 5 November 2017]

Before I discuss this film, I'd like to clear up the date discrepancy surrounding the short. On the Kino's "Movies Begin" set we aren't actually given a date to the short, as it is put in a collection of eight Edison movies that aren't in chronological (since "The Kiss" comes at the beginning and this is near the end of the list). Yet on the same company's "Edison: Invention of the Movies" it has been listed as being an 1893 short, made the same year as "Blacksmith Scene" and "Horse Shoeing" which I do not believe to be correct. If "The Barber Shop" was from 1893, it would have been among the first several publicly exhibited movies. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I've read before that the other two titles were the only known productions made by Edison that year. The evidence backing up the 1893 theory is probably because all three productions attempt to recreate a scene of everyday life in a studio--and they all seem connected together in that regard.

Moving on, I will explain what I meant by that first advertising movie comment. Yes, this movie was never really recognized as such, and certainly it doesn't appear to be a commercial of any sort outright, but I think that, known or not, the advertising concept was clearly in Edison's mind when he had Heise and Dickson film this. Let's start with the fact that the shave and a haircut for a nickel fad was, I believe, still quite fairly new when this movie was shot. It was a deal no one should have passed up. And so, thinking that he should alert the U.S. of this amazing bargain, Edison combined the two things in one--the haircut and the motion pictures. In this way, he would, shall we say, be able to cash in on charging the public to view his movie, while also spreading the news of this fantastic deal. In this way, both the barber and the company would be happy with the process. The signs of the advertising concept are quite obvious--the sign stating the deal makes the point clear, the comicality of the view amuses the audience to make it entertaining. Don't we do the same today? Like this short, we, with our fancy technology, are able to entertain while advertising our own products. And that is what I mean when I call this the first commercial.

Additionally, more historical value is attributed to this movie when you consider how early it was made (1893 or 1894, it doesn't matter). Edison's later works in 1894 and 1895 were mostly performance acts of famous dancers and athletes. Bearing that in mind, this is where "Blacksmith Scene", "Horse Shoeing" and this film come in. All three have simple brief narratives, all three attempt to tell a miniature plot within the brief run-time. And thus, all three are responsible for being the first staged narratives. What else can I say? Even in 1893 Edison was way ahead of the Lumiere Brothers when it came to narrative development.