In 1908,
Robert Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys was published;
The Olympics were held in London;
The Chicago Cubs won the fifth World Series;
Jack Johnson became the first African-American to win the World Heavyweight Championship;
Henry Ford introduced the Model T;
Bulgaria declared independence from the Ottoman Empire;
William Howard Taft defeated William Jennings Bryan in the US Presidential election;
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were allegedly killed in Bolivia;
The Christian Science Monitor was first published;
Two year old Puyi became Emperor of China;
William Hartnell, Simone de Beauvoir; Paul Henreid, Edward Teller, Cus D’Amato, Buster Crabbe, Tex Avery, Rex Harrison, Anna Magnani, Michael Redgrave, David Lean, Louis L’Amour, Arthur O’Connell, Buddy Ebsen, Bette Davis, Percy Faith, Edward R. Murrow, Oskar Schindler, Eve Arden, Jimmy Stewart, Ian Fleming, Mel Blanc, Don Ameche, Estée Lauder, Thurgood Marshall, Nelson Rockefeller, Milton Berle, Lyndon Johnson, Fred MacMurray, Richard Wright, Carole Lombard, Harry Blackmun, Joseph McCarthy, Alistair Cooke, Baby Face Nelson, Morey Amsterdam, Lew Ayres, and Simon Wiesenthal were born;
While Old Tom Morris, Grover Cleveland, and Joel Chandler Harris died.
The following is a list my ten favorite film released in 1908:
10) Drama at the Puppet’s House
Émile Cohl was a key figure in the short lived Incoherent Movement, anticipating the surrealists of the next century. As the movement faded, he migrated to film where he developing his absurdist techniques. Often known as the “Father of the Animated Cartoon,” his work foreshadowed the anarchic streak of twentieth century animation. While his contemporary Meliés is rightly lauded as a genius, Cohl’s work goes under recognized because of anti-animation bias.
Reflecting early twentieth century anxieties of electric-powered machinery, Segundo Chomón imagines a hotel where everything comes to life in this ambitious use of stop motion techniques.
Once again, Segundo Chomón stretches the boundaries of cinema in this live action / animation mash-up. Positioning it as the dreams of hardworking poor people allows him to experiment with reality and argue for cinema as an equalizing force transcending social and class barriers.
7) Magic Bricks
Segundo Chomón is one of the most daring early filmmakers. His work is rarely interested in storytelling or establishing a premise; it’s purely visceral, exploring his camera’s capabilities.
In Émile Cohl’s animated film, a vaguely human figure navigates his life while everything around him changes. He climbs a ladder only for it to morph into a slide; later an inanimate object transforms into a solider. This surreal focus on impermanence, reminds us how unsettling and disturbing the world can be.
5) Remote Electric Photography
This film from Georges Meliés demonstrates he’s both self-aware enough to recognize the growing fascination with cinema and savvy enough to poke fun at it. What sets him apart from his contemporaries is his frenetic energy and the crispness of his camerawork; he instinctively understood how to translate ideas into the new medium.
A little girl receives a magic hoop from a stranger. When she mounts her gift on a wall, it opens a mirror to a magical world of fantastic and surreal images. Émile Cohl once again proves himself a master of the animated short. His images are full of life and wit. His films are obviously influenced by the pioneering work of Georges Méliès, but Méliès never entered into the actual world of animation (although he frequently employed stop-motion effects). Cohl’s influence can still be seen in the surreal anarchy of modern animation (particularly Looney Tunes shorts such as Duck Amuck).
Considered the first animated film, Èmil Cohl’s two-minute absurdist short chronicling the adventures of a random stick man is a playful and surprisingly dark portrait, full of quirky, gallows humor.
American filmmaker J. Stuart Blackton’s fondness for surrealism is evident in this film about a beggar who acquires an extra arm from the “Limb Store.” Sadly, after a series of mishaps, he’s forced to pawn his rogue arm. The idea of an appendage with a mind of its own has fascinated filmmakers for a long time, but this, amazingly, still holds up over a century later.
A woman walking through a cemetery meets a ghost who sends her on an errand. Segundo Chomón’s film is a visual feast through the labyrinths of hell. While a lot of early filmmakers were obsessed with the underworld because it’s an easy way to tell a story with no words and a huge playground where normal rules don’t apply, Chomón’s is one of the most striking.