Doug Galecawitz until this film came along the use of motion picture had been mostly hobby of gadgetry for the rich and idle. the idea that stories could be told through the medium of film was as distant an alien as one could be. the this came out in 1892, and what by today's standards would be considered a short film with little as far as plot or anything else would instead set some of the key components of film that would developed over the next twenty years and finalized by DW Grifith early in the twentieth century. If you can find an archival institution that has this film, find it and see. For the first attempts at translating theater to the silent screen. All the primordial aspects of film from direction, plot, narrative, action, arch, development, acting, et cetera exist in this movie in some form or another.10 out 10, with historical bias