Edwin S. Porter was definitely one of the most important men in the history of American film-making, as one of the very first directors to experiment with the cinema as a new language to tell stories. Director of two of the most important films in history ("Life of an American Fireman" and "The Great Train Robbery", both in 1903), Porter began experimenting with film since the late 1890s, when he began to work for Thomas Edison as projectionist and mechanic, eventually impressing Edison with his knowledge and becoming one of his first directors. Influenced by another pioneer, the legendary Georges Méliès, Porter began to experiment with the many tricks the new medium allowed him, often copying Méliès' works in order to eventually improve them. In "The Mystic Swing", his fourth film, he experiments in the same way that Méliès did: with a story about magic.
"The Mystic Swing" is a short story about a magical duel between two strange men during a magician's show. The Professor and Mephisto meet when the Professor is giving a magic show, Mephisto challenges him to a duel and so the fight begins. The Professor starts by magically appearing a young lady in a swing. To his surprise, Mephisto makes her disappear, so then both engage in a fight for the disappeared lady, the Professor making her appear and Mephisto disappearing her. The magicians continue their fight until one final trick proves who is the most powerful of them.
Written by Porter, the plot is very simple, and it's obviously devised to make the "disappearing" trick the main attraction of the movie. It's truly amazing the improvement Porter was doing in this early years, as the cuts that make the trick look a lot better and subtler than what those he pulled off in the inferior "Faust and Marguerite", where the cuts were done in a less artistic way. The whole staging of the film is also superior, and while there is basically no dialog between the characters, the whole movie feels really vivid and very alive. This is another difference with "Faust and Marguerite", as while obviously the movie is driven by the "trick", he builds up a certain storyline that makes the movie interesting.
At this point Méliès was still having the upper hand in terms of film-making, with his grandiose pieces about fantasy and magic being the most popular films of his time; however, "The Mystic Swing" is an early prove that Porter was really a talent worthy of consideration, and it shows the skills that would take him to make his highly influential movies. One can't help but wonder the kind of reactions this movie made when first released, when this kind of tricks were still a novelty or something unheard of. "The Mystic Swing", the magical duel between a magician and Mephisto certainly could only be classified as the closest thing to magic. 5/10
"The Mystic Swing" is a short story about a magical duel between two strange men during a magician's show. The Professor and Mephisto meet when the Professor is giving a magic show, Mephisto challenges him to a duel and so the fight begins. The Professor starts by magically appearing a young lady in a swing. To his surprise, Mephisto makes her disappear, so then both engage in a fight for the disappeared lady, the Professor making her appear and Mephisto disappearing her. The magicians continue their fight until one final trick proves who is the most powerful of them.
Written by Porter, the plot is very simple, and it's obviously devised to make the "disappearing" trick the main attraction of the movie. It's truly amazing the improvement Porter was doing in this early years, as the cuts that make the trick look a lot better and subtler than what those he pulled off in the inferior "Faust and Marguerite", where the cuts were done in a less artistic way. The whole staging of the film is also superior, and while there is basically no dialog between the characters, the whole movie feels really vivid and very alive. This is another difference with "Faust and Marguerite", as while obviously the movie is driven by the "trick", he builds up a certain storyline that makes the movie interesting.
At this point Méliès was still having the upper hand in terms of film-making, with his grandiose pieces about fantasy and magic being the most popular films of his time; however, "The Mystic Swing" is an early prove that Porter was really a talent worthy of consideration, and it shows the skills that would take him to make his highly influential movies. One can't help but wonder the kind of reactions this movie made when first released, when this kind of tricks were still a novelty or something unheard of. "The Mystic Swing", the magical duel between a magician and Mephisto certainly could only be classified as the closest thing to magic. 5/10