6: Film, Edison Manufacturing Company’s “Cohen’s Fire Sale,” 1907.
This thirteen-minute film was directed by one of the most important early innovators in narrative film, whose most famous works include “The Great Train Robbery.” The representation of a Jewish business owner is typical of vaudeville and older stereotypical representations of Jews. In the film, the milliner Cohen, to make up for some lost merchandise, devises a scheme to win money from his insurance company through setting an "accidental" fire in his shop. At the end of the film, he gleefully holds his insurance policy and slides a glittering ring onto his wife's finger.
Suggested activity: Watch the film (or excerpted clip). Have students describe what they think is happening in it. Ask them what they notice about Cohen and his wife. How does the film portray them? What in the clip might have been expected to delight audiences of the day? What in it might make audiences today—say, in your own classroom—shudder?
Source: “Cohen’s Fire Sale,” directed by Wallace McCutcheon and Edwin S. Porter (Edison Manufacturing Company, 1907; Kino on Video and the Museum of Modern Art, Edison: The Invention of the Movies, disc 3), DVD.