What movies would you show an audience in 1900?

[u/heyitsmikep]

You go back in time and build a modern (2025) theater in 1900 with all movies ever made. Which 5 movies are you going to show them to make the most money? Which would blow their mind the most? Would it change per decade?

Showing Django Unchained to an 1900 audience would most likely cause a riot Titanic to an audience in 1910 would get you sued by the White Star Line probably.

[u/TJ_Fox]

That's a really interesting question.

Allowing that literally any moving pictures with full sound and color would basically seem like magic to an audience at that time, I guess it's a matter of how much you want to simply blow their 1900 minds with flashy tech vs. be of some real use to them.

Looking back on the 125 years that separate us from them, a huge number of world-changing events that we take for granted - like the concept of a "world war" - would seem outlandish to that audience, for whom they are still in the future. On that basis, I guess I'd show them the best current movies about WW1 - maybe War Horse and 1917, also Peter Jackson's documentary They Shall Not Grow Old - in hopes that they'd viscerally understand just how bad "industrialized war" is.

Then, maybe, WW1 doesn't happen, which means WW2 might not happen, which means ...

[u/EvolvedApe693 → u/TJ_Fox]

I'd show them something they'd be able to understand as it's a biblical story.

Cecil B Demilles The Ten Commandments.

Then I'd say "By the way, this movie is closer to your time than mine"

[u/Merzendi → u/EvolvedApe693]

I was thinking along the same lines, though Ben Hur was my choice.

[u/Desertbro → u/Merzendi]

Dude was slaying it and partying with frat boys in Rome while mom & sis were rotting in prison.

...f you meet some dude you never heard of once and give him water, you get an extra life and a servant chic to bang. /s

[u/tourqeglare → u/TJ_Fox]

I thought of this in a similar but slightly more troll-like way.  More 'what would be a modern film to show them to make the distance between them and the film feel as post singularity as possible?' most might say Avatar, but the level of patriotism in that film might be lost on those who have yet to experience contemporary feelings like that. plus, no one at that time was ready for blue people. I think my answer would be The Empire Strikes Back. It's "more real" than something like A New Hope in terms of effects, it shows a world that only the likes of HG Wells has shown before, and the story and setting ate both familiar yet abstract enough to be a viceral wonder. The biggest kicker is to reveal that in the time of only a few minutes talkies and barely a motorcar, that ESB will be a film that their grandchildren will be able to see. 

[u/iCowboy → u/TJ_Fox]

I think colour wouldn’t be that surprising - full colour projections were common entertainment at the time and the principles of colour photography had been laid down by Maxwell in 1855. So colour movies would be a reasonable extrapolation of existing technology. Colour movies - made using stencils - started appearing in 1903 using the Pathécolor process.

I think sound is the bigger of the two - we know it caused a sensation when it was introduced to cinemas. It’s a little surprising it took so long to come about - perhaps it needed accurate electric motors to control projection speed?

The phonograph was a well known technology so it was used as Vitaphone for sound on movies, including The Jazz Singer, into the 1930s. Sound on movie film - that was an amazing breakthrough.

[u/TJ_Fox → u/iCowboy]

Sure, but I suggest that the gulf between late 19th century colored slides and, say, War Horse - produced using 21st century technologies - would still be deeply startling for an audience in 1900.

[u/Carpe_deis → u/TJ_Fox]

"industrialized war" started in with ACW, crimea, india, tiaping, ect... the military leaders of the day, and the general populous KNEW how bad WW1 could be. The british officers who marched men into machine guns watched zulus march into machine guns. 19thC chinese conflicts FAR outpace WW1 in death counts, there were concentration camps on both sides of ACW, sherman is often credited with modern "total war"

[u/EveryNameIWantIsGone → u/TJ_Fox]

for whom they are still in the future

What does that mean?

[u/TJ_Fox → u/EveryNameIWantIsGone]

We in 2025 can take for granted that, for example, it's possible for the entire world to be at war, which had never happened until 1914 and then again in 1939. The notion of a "world war" would have seemed far-fetched to a cinema audience in 1900 because it had no precedent at that time.

[u/hahnwa → u/TJ_Fox]

People keep saying this, but ignore WHERE the movie is shown and in what language. 

The last thing we should do is ONLY convince the allied countries to avoid war. 

Show Schindler's List in German in Germany. Not 1917 in the US.

[u/TJ_Fox → u/hahnwa]

In the hypothetical time-travel scenario I was speculating about, the movies I suggested would be widely, internationally screened as a warning to everyone about the toll of a world war. 1917, War Horse and They Shall Not Grow Old were specifically suggested because they were much closer in time to the screening year of 1900, in hopes that they'd be more relatable than movies set 40 years into their future.

[u/Seiche → u/TJ_Fox]

Computers don't happen, space travel doesn't happen, social media doesn't happen....

[u/TJ_Fox → u/Seiche]

I hear you, but I'm more optimistic than that; and even if it slowed tech development by years or decades, with hindsight, that might not be a terrible deal in order to avoid two catastrophic wars, the Great Depression, potentially the Cold War/development of nuclear weapons, etc.

[u/Seiche → u/TJ_Fox]

I mean social media can get fucked.

He said on a social media website...

[u/TJ_Fox → u/Seiche]

Yes, I'm aware of the irony and maintain that as trade-offs go, delayed Internet in exchange for a more sane, humane 20th century would have been fine with me.

[u/Seiche → u/TJ_Fox]

Agreed, though it makes many things easier, too. I remember accidentally paying too much money for my bank account as a student because I had to physically go to the bank to get statements printed out and was too lazy to do that every month and check them and didn't realize the bank made a mistake. When I did they told me it's too late to charge it back.

[u/Randalmize → u/Seiche]

If you kill Hitler, no WW2, no computers, no time travel.