This season’s conversations about film in 1904 often turned to the “awkwardness” of finding standout titles and defining the most representative developments in the art, business, and reception of cinema. Nevertheless, this year’s five guests presented exciting threads of potential futures that, in many ways, were resolved into the narrative model one expects a few years later.

Films mentioned:

• Court Ladies Bathing (1904) - unknown
• How a French Nobleman Got a Wife through the New York Herald Personal Column (1904) - Edwin S. Porter
• A Butterfly’s Metamorphosis (1904) - Gaston Velle
• Dog Factory (1904) - Edwin S. Porter
• The Impossible Voyage (1904) - Georges Méliès
• The Suburbanite (1904) - Wallace McCutcheon
• Barcelona Park at Twilight (1904) - Segundo de Chomón
• Burglars at Work (1904) - Gaston Velle
• The Christmas Angel (1904) - Georges Méliès
• A Trip to the Moon (1902) - Georges Méliès
• Personal (1904) - Wallace McCutcheon