They [the films] are handed out over the counter like so many feet of
sausage.
-Moving Picture World, 31 July 1909, p. 151

American films began to undergo a series of changes in 1908-1909 that would be as radical as those at any time in film history, marking as they did a major shift in the perception of the nature and function of the motion picture. Rather striking evidence of this shift is provided by Edwin S. Porter's THE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN FIREMAN (Edison, 1903), which was actually reconstructed sometime after its initial release, either to modernize the film or because the original order was thought to be a "mistake." But as modern researchers have now discovered, it is the reconstructed prints that are in error: in them, the fire rescue scenes inside the room and outside the house have been intercut to show their...