The Seven Ages
About The Seven Ages
Porter stages Jaques's seven ages from As You Like It as titled scenes. A girl gives a crying baby a bottle and kisses him, a boy kisses a playmate who holds a doll, and another boy sits beside a girl reading under a tree. Later titles run through lovers, a soldier, a judge, and second childhood. A last scene, What Age?, shows a woman stroking a cat.
Cast & crew
More about The Seven Ages
Edwin S. Porter directed and photographed it. Edison copyrighted it on February 27, 1905, at 415 feet, and released it in April 1905. Some copies tint two scenes, and intertitles name the ages.
Themes
Making
Porter cuts from a wide shot to a closer one in several of the ages, and he tints two of the scenes in some prints.
Look
Porter shot the ages himself. The night fires are daylight reflected from a pan of water set in the fireplace.
Preservation
The Library of Congress holds a 35mm paper positive from the copyright deposit. The film is public domain in the United States.
Notes
- The scene titles are Infancy, Playmates, Schoolmates, Lovers, The Soldier or The Judge, and Second Childhood.
- What Age? is the extra scene: a woman of no stated age pets a cat.
- Two fireplace scenes were shot in daylight. The fire is sunlight bounced off a tray of water in the grate.
- A 35mm paper positive is in the Library of Congress paper-print collection.
- Robert Hamilton Ball notes that the reel may have been shown with someone reading Jaques's speech aloud.
Scenes
- A girl kisses a crying baby after giving him a bottle.
- A boy finally kisses the girl with the doll.
- A woman strokes a cat under the title What Age?
Influenced by
- As You Like It (William Shakespeare), Jaques's speech
