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The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Thomas Edison is credited as the director of this piece, but that's probably a record-keeping error, confusing the Edison company with its owner. They'll get around to correcting it one of these days, maybe. As for this movie, it looks like the unedited version of the piece as, for the first ninety seconds or so, we watch trick riders do various things, including what looks like falling off the bike just offscreen. Apparently all of those rather simple examples of, to the modern eye, dull performance pieces were elaborately staged and carefully edited -- just not in any style of editing that makes sense to the modern eye.The final thirty seconds shows a loop which the cyclist is supposed to ride so fast that centrifugal force will keep him on the bike while he is riding upside down. The fact that all we get to see is someone trotting down the ramp is mildly amusing.