The Georgetown Loop (American Mutoscope & Biograph, 1901) 2.5 min.
Camera: G. W. Bitzer. Preserved by the British Film Institute National Archive.
Music composed and recorded by Jessica Wen Jun Ciprian, 2021
Also known as A Ride on the Famous Georgetown Loop, Colorado.
G. W. Bitzer, the most renowned of the first generation of cinematographers, shot this
“phantom ride” in Georgetown, Colorado, his camera mounted on a train loaded with tourists. The narrow-gauge railroad built high in the Rocky Mountains in 1884 was recorded with a large-gauge film stock. The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company used a proprietary 68mm film, comparable in quality to today’s IMAX. Copies were also shown in novelty venues (Hale’s Tours of the World) that seated viewers in a simulated railway car as they watched.
Also streamable here.
A collaboration between the Orphan Film Symposium and NYU’s Screen Scoring Program.
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Dan Streible, Associate Professor of Cinema Studies
NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies
Orphan Film Symposium director