See original of that time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCs87Wru6ek
Most early filmmakers—such as Thomas Edison, Auguste and Louis Lumière and Georges Méliès—tended not to use close-ups and preferred to frame their subjects in long shots, similar to the stage.
The people in the front office got very upset. They came down and said: 'The public doesn’t pay for the head or the arms or the shoulders of the actor. They want the whole body. Let’s give them their money’s worth.’ Griffith stood very close to them and said: ‘Can you see my feet?’ When they said no, he replied: ‘That’s what I’m doing. I am using what the eyes can see.