Category: Germany

The German Spy

Source: Anon. [Thomas Lediard?], The German Spy: or, Familiar letters from a gentleman on his travels thro’ Germany, to his friend in England (London: T. Cooper, 1738), pp. 312-318

Text: Letter XXXIV. Hamburg.

SIR,

I was just going to make my Observations on some other Pieces of Painting in my Friend’s Hall, when he told me, we might take another Opportunity for that; but for the present, he would shew me, for the Amusement of an Hour or two, the wonderful Operation of a curious Laterna Magica, the Invention of a very great Artist, and an extraordinary Improvement of that pretty Machine we generally call by that Name. He led me to his Attick Story, into a Gallery over his Library, which I found was set a-part, and prepar’d for that Purpose. It was entirely darkned, excepting two Candles on one Side, near which two Elbow-Chairs were placed, in which we were no sooner seated, than the Candles went out, as if it were of themselves. Immediately, upon a Signal given, a Curtain, at the End of the Gallery, was drawn up, and discover’d the most beautiful Firmament I had ever seen. On one Side, the Sky appear’d diversified with that Variety of beautiful Colors, which we see at the Setting of the Sun, after a fine Day; and, soon after, the Moon, rising in a clear Horizon, and the Stars appearing, bright and twinkling, as on a frosty Night, discover’d new Beauties on the other Side. I had not diverted myself with this beautiful Prospect above two Minutes, before there suddenly appear’d, on the Middle of the Stage, a fine transparent Globe, partly green, and partly blue, which, being in continual Motion round its own Axis, I soon discover’d was design’d to represent the Planet we live on. I observ’d round the Globe a motly colour’d transparent Æther, in which I perceiv’d seven Figures hovering, near the Surface of the Earth, so small, that, with the naked Eye, I could not make any Distinction between them: But upon making Use of a Perspective I had in my Pocket, I perceived that one, which seemed superior to all the rest, was the Figure I had frequently seen painted to represent the Goddess of Riches. I was preparing to take a more exact View of the Figures, with the Help of my Glass, when my Friend told me, I need not give myself that Trouble, I should soon see them distinct and separate.

He, thereupon, gave a Signal, and the Curtain fell; but it soon rose again, and discover’d the Goddess of Riches alone, as big as Life. One Part of the Stage represented a noble Palace, and the other a beautiful Garden, with pleasant Walks, fine Statues and Fountains. The Goddess herself sat in the Middle of the Garden, on a triumphal Char, cover’d with Purple, richly embroider’d. She was clad in a Vestment of Cloth of Gold, with a Mantle of Silver Moor, embellish’d with precious Stones. In one Hand, she held a rich Jewel, and a costly String of Pearls, and in the other, a large Bag of Gold Coin. Round about her were several open Chests of Money, and great Heaps of Gold and Silver Plate. The Horses of her Char, which were led by a Figure representing Subtlety, were adorn’d with Trappings, cover’d over with Masks, which seem’d to be so many Tokens of Deceit, Usury in the Figure of a Moor, having Bags of Mony in both Hands; Lust, almost naked; Treachery, with two Faces, and Fire in both Hands, were her Retinue; and in the Char sat forwards a little Person, in costly Apparel, but of a bold arrogant Aspect.

While I was viewing this little Figure more narrowly, the Scene chang’d, and discover’d the same Figure, as large as Life. She held a Looking-glass in her Hand, was adorn’d with Peacocks Feathers, and a Mantle embroider’d with Pearls and Rubies; which, together with her haughty Looks and Carriage, plainly discover’d her to be Image of Pride. The Stage represented a noble Square, in which were several Obelisks, triumphal Arches, Pyramids, and the like costly Vanities. The Goddess herself was seated on a Char, in the Form of a Throne, the Canopy of which was supported by a Golden Peacock. One of the Horses, which drew this Char, was decked with Trappings full of Eyes, as an Emblem of Curiosity, and the other was a lively Representation of Stubborness. They were led by the Figure of Scorn, and follow’d by three others, which to me seem’d to be the Images of Slander, Self-Conceit, and Disobedience.

I had hardly taken a distinct View of these Things, before there was again a sudden Change of the Scene; and, instead of those Beauties which had before offer’d to my View, appear’d a melancholy and disagreable Prospect. I discover’d a Figure, sitting in a despicable Carriage on a Chair which seem’d to be compos’d of Snakes, Salamanders, and Adders, interwoven into that Form, and this Person I plainly perceiv’d to be the Figure of Envy. In her Hand she held a bloody Heart, in which were visibly the Prints of her venomous Teeth. The Stage represented nothing but Ruins and Desolation, and the very Air seem’d to be tempestuous, and fill’d with black, heavy Clouds. The Furniture of her Horses were covered with Tongues, probably, to represent Detraction, and they were drove, by Revengeful Spite with a Scourge of Serpents, and Discontent with a Rod of Thorns. On each Side of this miserable Vehicle, march’d Restlessness, with a Larom on his Head, and Sedition with a Pair of Bellows in his Hand.

This melancholy Scene was soon succeeded by another as terrifying. Here the principal Figure represented War, seated in his Chariot, branding: a naked Scymiter in his right Hand, and a burning Torch in his Left, in a wild, discompos’d Posture. At his Feet lay Muskets, Pistols, Battle-Axes, Balls and Bombs, and behind him was raised a Pile of Cannons, Mortars, Colors, Standards and Pikes. The whole Stage seem’d to be cover’d with dead Carcasses and, at a Distance, I discover’d a City in Flames. The Horses of his Chariot were lead by Rage, whose Head had the Appearance of a fiery Coal, and in his Hand he held a burning Link, almost consumed. Contention, with the Head of a Dog, Blasphemy, with the Tongue of a Serpent; Famine, gnawing a Bone, and Cruelty, loaded with Instruments of Torture, march’d on each Side of the Chariot, as the Attendants of War.

While my Thoughts were busied in reflecting on this Scene of Misery, it, on a sudden, disappeared, and the furious God of War was followed, at the very Heels, by the miserable Figure of a Woman, almost naked, which, I soon found, represented Poverty. She was seated on a paultry Cart, on which I could discover nothing but broken earthen Ware, some Pieces of mouldy Bread, and other the like Signs of Penury and Want. The whole Prospect, round about her, was waste and desolate, and discover’d only a few thatch’d Cottages, which seem’d to be the poor Remains of a general Ravage. This miserable Carriage mov’d very slowly, being drawn by two Animals, that had hardly the Appearance of Horses; but represented, in a more lively Manner, Debility and Sickness. Care, almost stiff and motionless, supplied the Place of a Driver; and Patience, bearing an Anvil, with a Heart upon it, which seem’d to be torn with Hooks of Iron, together with Servitude in Chains, were the wretched Companions of this doleful Figure.

This melancholy Scene was no sooner at an End, than a more agreable one appear’d, in which I discover’d a Woman of a staid, serene Countenance, sitting on a very low but decent Vehicle, which moved but just above the Surface of the Earth. In one Hand, she held a broken Heart, and, in the other, a Shepherd’s Crook. Every Circumstance gave me to understand, that this Figure could be no other than that of Humility; especially as she was accompanied by Faith, Hope and Charity, the latter having a Child at her Breast, and leading two more by the Hand. This humble Vehicle was drawn by Meekness and Sobriety, led by Timorousness. The Landscape, as I have before observ’d, was more agreable, than that of the preceeding Scene; but with what Satisfaction did I see it, in an Instant, changed into one of the most beautiful and noble Views, I had ever seen; upon the Appearance of a lovely Nymph, seated in a costly Char, which, as well as her Person, was embellish’d with every Thing that could please the Eye and the Imagination. I concluded, without any Hesitation, that this pleasing Figure must be the Goddess of Peace, and with that amiable Denomination it was my Friend distinguished her. Concord and Public Good, guided by Love, drove the Char; and Truth, Justice, Diligence and Liberty accompanied it. At the Goddess’s Feet lay all Manner of Mathematical, Mechanical and Musical Instruments, together with a Cornucopia; and looking more narrowly, I observed, in the Char with her, the little Figure, which, at the Beginning, I had discovered, with the Help of my Glass, to be the Goddess of Riches. I was just going to make some Reflections, on these Things, when, upon a Signal given, the Curtain drop’d, the Candles burn’d again, of their own Accord, and my Friend ask’d me, how I liked this Representation of the Instability and Vicissitude of the Transactions of this World, which were in a continual Rotation, and succeeded each other, much in the same Manner, as I had observed in this little Theater. I told him I could not enough admire, as well the Invention as the Execution of it; but this I would venture to affirm, that, the excellent Moral, which was hidden under it, far exceeded either. I added that there wanted nothing more to make it an inimitable Copy, but the Invention of a perpetuum Mobile, to keep that Rotation in a continued Revolution; which I did not doubt, but he, or some one or other of his learned Correspondents, would, soon or late, bring to bear. As I express’d a Satisfaction in what I had seen, my Friend gave me a Paper with about a Dozen German Verses upon it, in which he told me I should find the Content of the whole briefly express’d, and would serve me as a Memorandum of these Representations. I did not look upon them then; but upon perusing them, after I was retir’d to my Chamber, they put me in Mind of some homely, but expressive Lines, which I have seen at the Top of some of our Sheet-Almanacks, and, if my Memory does not fail me, are as follows;

War begets Poverty,
Poverty Peace:
Peace maketh Riches flow,
(Fate ne’er does cease!)
Riches produces Pride,
Pride is War‘s Ground;
War begets Poverty, &c.
The World goes round.
Omnium Rerum Vicissitudo.

As it is a double Satisfaction to me, to see any Thing curious, that seems to have had its Rise from our Country, I could not but please myself with the Imagination, that my Friend’s Verses, as well as the Invention of his Laterna Magica were originally taken from these Lines of one of our Philomaths: Tho’ I must confess he has beautifully augmented the Genealogy, with two very proper Characters; Envy and Humility; and not improperly made some Alteration in the Order: For, according to my Friend, Riches begets Pride; Pride, Envy; Envy, War; War, Poverty; Poverty, Humility; (tho’ this is not always the Case, because Pride is often the Daughter of Poverty, tho’ illegitimate) Humility begets Peace; and Peace; with the Assistance of Arts and Sciences, Liberty and Trade, begets Riches again. However, all these Changes are not capable of making any Alteration in the Esteem with which I profess to be, &c.

Comments: Thomas Lediard (1685–1743) was a British historian, diplomat and surveyor. He edited and introduced a collection of letters from a traveller in Germany to a friend, entitled The German Spy, and is possibly – though not for certain – the author of the letters. Its eyewitness account of a magic lantern show is the most extensive such report known to survive from the eighteenth century. My grateful thanks to Deac Rossell for bringing the text to my attention, and for supplying an accurate transcription (with some modernisation for clarity’s sake) and background information.

Links: Copy at Hathi Trust

Bertolt Brecht Diaries 1920-1922

Source: Bertolt Brecht (trans. John Willett), diary entry for 29 October 1921, in Herta Ramthun (ed.), Bertolt Brecht Diaries 1920-1922 (London: Eyre Methuen, 1979), pp. 140-141

Text: Then I saw a little one-acter of Charlie Chaplin’s. It’s called The Face on the Bar-room Floor and it is the most profoundly moving thing I’ve ever seen in the cinema: utterly simple. It’s about a painter who enters a bar, has a drink and ‘because you folk have been so good to me’ narrates the story of his own downfall, which is that of a girl who has gone off with a bloated plutocrat. He sees her again, drunk and in rags, and it’s ‘the profanation of his ideal’, she’s fat and has children, at which he puts his hat on askew and goes off upstage into the darkness, staggering as if he had been hit on the head, all askew, my God, all askew as if he’d been blown off course by the wind, all windblown like no one you ever saw. And then the teller of the story gets drunker and drunker, and his need to communicate ever stronger and more painful, so he asks for ‘a bit of that chalk you put on the tips of your billiard cues’ and draws the loved one’s portrait on the floor – only to produce a series of circles. He slithers around on it, quarrels with all and sundry, gets chucked out and goes on drawing on the pavement – more circles and gets chucked back in and goes on drawing there and chucks them all out and they pop their heads in at the windows and he’s drawing on the floor and the end of the whole thing is: suddenly, just as he was trying to add a particularly artistic curl to the loved one’s hair, he let out a dreadful shriek and collapsed on top of his picture, dead … drunk … (ivre… mort…). Chaplin’s face is always impassive, as though waxed over, a single expressive twitch rips it apart, very simple, strong, worried. A pallid clown’s face complete with thick moustache, long artist’s hair and a clown’s tricks: he messes up his coat, sits on his palette, gives an agonised lurch, tackles a portrait by – of all things – elaborating the backside. But nothing could be more profoundly moving, it’s unadulterated art. Children and grown-ups laugh at the poor man, and he knows it: this nonstop laughter in the auditorium is an integral part of the film, which is itself deadly earnest and of a quite alarming objectivity and sadness. The film owes (part of) its effectiveness to the brutality of its audience.

Comments: Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was a German dramatist and poet. Chaplin’s The Face on the Barroom Floor (1914) is a spoof of a poem by Hugh Antoine D’Arcy about an artist who loses his love, is driven to drink, and draws the face of his lost love on a barroom floor before dying. The film was produced by Keystone Studios. Brecht wrote a poem about the film in 1944, ‘A Film of the Comedian Chaplin’.

Japanese Cinema

Source: Carl Koch, from ‘Japanese Cinema’, Close-up vol. VIII no. 4 (December 1931), pp. 296-298

Text: The Japanese film director and actor, Katsumi, recently showed me his latest film in a Berlin projection room. This film, in which he played the main role, told of the downfall of a Samurai who fought against the reigning Shogun about two centuries ago. The plot developed slowly and was punctuated by innumerable captions, until after about 6,000 feet a tremendous fight broke out between the Samurai and (apparently) the whole assembled bodyguard of the Shogun. This ended in the hero’s suicide after an incredible struggle against overwhelming odds. Although the movements were extremely interesting both in their details and in the way they followed through, yet it was clearly impossible to expect a European audience to tolerate anything so long. In fact, I was quite at a loss how this film could be adapted for the European market.

A few weeks later I received an invitation from Katsumi to a Sunday morning performance of this film in a small west-end cinema, where it was to be privately shown to the Japanese colony in Berlin. As I came into the cinema, I was given a printed slip containing a synopsis of the film. At the side of the screen was a lectern where Katsumi stood.

The film started. At the same time Katsumi began a running commentary to the preliminary titles in the normal explanatory tones of a narrator. The Samurai were strolling about on the screen. Silence. The actors conversed with each other. The voice began again, no longer in explanatory, everyday tones, but using the guttural utterance of the Japanese classical theatre to provide an exact accompaniment to the various actors’ conversation. Then a long caption, unaccompanied perhaps for half its length. Then some monotonous instrument like a guitar began to play, continued through the following scenes and stopped suddenly in the middle of a scene. The film continued. Silence. Then, the quiet explanatory voice of the speaker. A humorous remark elicited a titter from the audience — apparently some personal allusion of the speaker’s. Presently the voice became pathetic, continued so through scenes and captions, and then suddenly stopped dead. Silence. More music. Single plucked notes with long pauses in between. Another conversation in the deep gutteral style of the classical theatre, very carefully synchronised with the film and the various actors, who were made to speak sometimes high, sometimes low, clearly, confusedly, slowly or quickly, according to the context. Silence again. On the screen the chief of Shogun’s bodyguard vainly interrogated his daughter whom he had sent to spy on the hero in order to convict him of treason. She was in love with the hero and attempted to persuade her father that she had been unable to discover anything. The old man had now shot his last bolt. He sat there for some time, alone, motionless. Suddenly a gesture — and a man’s shriek. The girl rushed back into the room and flung herself on her father. He tried to free himself in order to reach his sword. His daughter tried to prevent him. The same terrible shriek recurred everytime the old man made some violent effort. At last his daughter broke down, gave him the required information and betrayed her lover. Light guitar music. It was all very thrilling. Finally came the fight, which was accompanied, partly by an exciting rhythmic figure that rose and fell, partly by the solemn declamation of some text that was probably well known to all the Japanese present.

A movie had suddenly been turned into a talkie by the extraordinary art of the speaker, the restrained but subtly differentiated use of different kinds of elocution, and the persistence of the transparent monodic, nearly always unisonal, music. This music had no resemblance to the illustrative music usually to be heard in the European cinema; it ran counter to the action on the screen in a kind of dialectical counterpoint. (For instance, doleful music usually accompanied gay scenes on the screen; quick and lively music, slow sad scenes.) The restraint with which this was carried out made for clearness, lucidity, excitement, variety. The subtleties of tone often lent scenes which had dragged in the projection room an extraordinary tension.

This is the way in which films are shown in Japanese cinemas. The idea of an announcer and a completely independent musical accompaniment is foreign to us, and so we can hardly hope to import Japanese films with any success, since, in spite of adaptation and revision, some passages would still remain too long and deliberate in tempo, and (apart from that) the film sequences are not such as are customary according to the unwritten convention between public and producer here in Europe.

Comments: Carl Koch (1892-1963) was a German film director, whose credits included Nippon, a compilation short of extracts from Japanese films, which at this time were scarcely known about in the West. Katsumi is presumably the Japanese actor-director Yôtarô Katsumi. The article is illustrated with stills from a Japanese film whose title is given as The Torch (made by the Shochiku company). My thanks to Dawid Glownia for bringing this passage to my attention.

Links: Copy at the Internet Archive

Im Kino

Source: ‘Im Kino’ series of chocolate cards, dated c.1916, from the Nicholas Hiley collection

Comments: Gartmann was, and still is, a German chocolate manufacturer, based in Hamburg. These cards were given out with chocolate from vending machines. The series depicts various scenes in a typical cinema of the period: the barker, the ticket office, the musicians, the manager, a drink-seller, and the audience. Each is described in verse on the back of the cards.

The Desirable Alien

Source: Violet Hunt (with a preface and two additional chapters by Ford Madox Hueffer), The Desirable Alien at Home in Germany (London: Chatto and Windus, 1913), pp. 281-287

Text: I had never seen a cinematograph show until I came to live in Germany. I was then told that England abounded in them, and that this wild joy was at hand, and had been at hand for years in the two main streets that bounded my dwelling. I had never, so far, discovered them never known this famous form of amusement. Now I live in them. I am only sorry that the censor has lately been allowed to have anything to do with them; for now I shall never see again what I saw in the course of my first cinematograph the … No! Joseph Leopold, taking upon himself the office of the much-abused functionary, says that I am not to set down what I saw. At any rate, it was the triumph of the unexpected, and that surely is the salt of cinematographs and entertainments generally. And it was nothing wrong it was only out of place, and would not have been out of place in a musical comedy nay, it would have been indicated. … I burn to say what it was. …

Joseph Leopold does not take a frivolous view of this enormous international development. The cinematograph is an institution; it is educational; it is, at any rate, reading without tears.* It is vastly inducive of a philosophical attitude of mind; it is a vivid, cogent object-lesson in the sequence of events. The couple of stories usually given historical, cosmopolitan, revelatory of varieties of national character, as even the more laughable films are must be provocative of something like the prophetic powers that a study of history, past and present, gives.

A Hoch Spannendes Detective Drama may, in its details, pander to a vulgar taste, but it is pretty certain to reach the level of the intelligence it is designed to impress. Possibly some forger has been turned from his wickedness, some fool from his folly, some potential murderer from his crime, by the sight of one of these dramas of financial ruin, of blood and revenge, even though, owing to the obvious imperfection of the medium, blood cannot run red or the face of the ruined man blanch. It is better so; it is better, as Shakespeare’s Helena said, that “the white death should sit on their cheeks for ever,” for the coloured films are abominable. But as it is, I should not mind wagering that conscience money has been paid as a result of some evening spent in a red plush-covered armchair, with an antimacassar slung over the back of it a square of tawdry lace that is apt to follow you out into the street.

And are no simple souls induced to a more tolerant rule of piety after seeing, say, “The Bellringer,” where the devil terrifies the ancient functionary from ringing the Angelus, and only gives him leave to pursue his calling on condition that the devil shall take the first soul that enters the church while the bell is ringing? It is hard on the soul, but the philosophy of the scapegoat is sound enough. The innocent, since medieval times, must suffer for the guilty. And an angel from Heaven, her wide wings disguised under a beggar’s cloak, enters the church, and rings the bell for the charitable old bellringer, who has stooped in the porch to succour her.

This is, of course, a film which would not obtain in a Protestant town. And others which I have seen in Germany would be prohibited in England for the sake of the young person.

People rail in England against this large-looming personage, and her invasion of the library committees and the stalls at the “problem” plays, so dear to the English soul. But we have a short way with her in Germany. English people, who have a reasonable zest for seeing life as it is, complain that they are driven by their parental susceptibilities to read milk-and-water stuff, and view plays that are only fit for babes. But no one suggests that the onus of chaperonage might be thrown on the police, as it is in Germany, and the young person, deaf to moral suasion of parents, kept by armed force from the book or the play, instead of the play or the book from the young person! Yet it is practically so in Germany as far as the theatre is concerned. Reasonable plays are put on and enjoyed by the elders. An angel with a flaming sword stands at the gate of the theatrical Eden and forbids the young of both sexes to enter Paradise before their time i.e., eighteen years old. The Chief of Police prescribes to what plays young men and maidens under this age shall be admitted or no, and places a simple policeman at the doors of the theatre to enforce his behest.

And as for children of tender years, the Germans see that the lesson shall not be too strong, too deeply driven home to the tender intelligence. When a film that may prove a bugbear is presented, or one holding the powers-that-be up to execration or vilifying the Army, and any other lawfully consstituted authority, children are not allowed to enter at all.

It is impossible for local governments to take such a tender interest in the morals of their subjects without the conflict of authorities producing some odd results. It must never be forgotten that Germany is a mass of little, ill-welded nationalities, all under a First War Lord. That is what the Kaiser literally is. The curious local jealousies existing between one State and another are the unknown factor, and make a topsy-turveyness which in operation remind one of an opera of Gilbert and Sullivan.

There is one famous film, “Heisses Blut,” which was prohibited in Frankfort and forbidden to be performed in Trier. That is why I was able to see it in H—, because H— is in Hessen-Darmstadt, not in Prussia. And it is really, as its name denotes, a “Spannendes Drama.” A beautiful and famous Danish actress has played in the preparation of the film the part of the woman of strong passions united to a gentleman unable to satisfy them. She casts her affection on the new chauffeur, and makes an assignation with him during her husband’s absence. He returns and surprises the pair, and turns the temperamental lady and her lover out of the house. The degraded one becomes a burglar’s mate, and we see her in a thieves’ kitchen concocting a plan for the breaking into her former abode. She is persuaded by her truculent chauffeur lover to dress as a boy, to scale the window and let him in. She naturally chooses the nursery window. By her boy’s cot the ex-husband finds her; she confesses, and he takes her back. Hoch Spannendes, indeed!

For novelists like Joseph Leopold and me the rage for picture theatres is a distinct gain. It may be the novel-form of the future. When there will be so many books published that no one has time to read them, the author, wise before his time, will devote his intelligence to the presentation of his message, whatever it is, through this hasty medium, to all who will not wait for the development of style, niceties of dialogue, and so on. It is not perhaps generally known that the actors who take the parts of characters in a film accompany all their gestures, for the sake of vraisemblance, with speeches appropriate thereto half gag, half set down for them.

But without envisaging such a total abnegation of the merits of style in the future, let us see that in so far as the present condition of things affects authors they have all to gain by the tales that are told nightly in dumb show. The audience, composed pretty nearly of rustics in the classical sense, unsophisticated, unlettered, slow at apprehending the contortions, the mysteries of a good plot, will gradually get more and more used to following its peripatetics, tracing out its issues, holding the multiple strands that go to make a story, weaving them gradually, skilfully, into the main one, till by the time the light suddenly grows in the “Saal,” and the Pathe cock seems to stand on the empty sheet and crow triumphant, the whole has grown coherent in their minds. It is magnificent training for readers. We see in “Das Gefahrliche Alter,” another good German film, the spendthrift at the restaurant confronted by la douloureuse, and the elegant harpy who has cost him so dear at his side egging him on: “Get the money to pay it!” Her speech is given in writing on a board, but it is hardly necessary the context is explanatory enough. The slide shifts, we see his mother weeping over her secretaire, where notes for fifty pounds are tumbling about, mixed with correspondence cards, as they will in the desks of mothers in films. We see her go to bed. And in the next slide her son appears, walking in the peering, creepy way which is suggestive of proposed criminal attempts on secretaires. … And so on and so on, to a mother’s inevitable forgiveness.

Yes, I consider the advent of the Boy Scouts, the invention of picture postcards, and the rage for picture theatres, as the three most important developments of this age of brass and iron.

* The village of Kreuzberg on April 14, 1913, allocated £50 of its yearly revenue to purchasing seats for poor children at the local cinematographs on Sundays throughout the year. J.L.F.M.H.

Comments: Isobel Violet Hunt (1862-1942) was a British author, feminist, associate of the Pre-Raphaelites, and literary hostess. Closely linked with many of the literary notables of her age, she was the lover of the Anglo-German novelist Ford Madox Hueffer, who later changed his name to Ford Madox Ford and portrayed her as Sylvia Tietjens in his novel series Parade’s End. He collaborated with her on this book, which is a record of her impressions of time spent in Germany over 1911/12. ‘Joseph Leopold’, identified as her companion in the book, is Ford Madox Hueffer (his giveaway initials J.L.F.M.H. follow the footnote about poor children in cinemas). Heisses Blut (Germany 1911) starred the Danish actress Asta Nielsen. There were two German films entitled Das gefährliche Alter made in 1911. I have not been able to identify the ‘Bellringer’ film. Eyewitness accounts of cinemagoing at this period which refer to artificially coloured films are rare.

Links: Copy at Hathi Trust

The Log of a Noncombatant

Source: Horace Green, The Log of a Noncombatant (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1915), pp. 127-129

Text: I was conscious of a distinct break between the crisp, official atmosphere of Berlin — where the war hurts least and the mechanical appearance of success is strong — and the sentiment of the rank and file of people whose suffering, as the war continued, became a more and more important factor.

On the night of my second arrival in the capital I sat in the rear of a motion-picture theater, just off the Friedrichstrasse. It was a long, dark hallway, such as one may see in any of the cheaper “movies” on Washington Street or Broadway, where the audience sits in silence broken by the whirr of the cinematograph and in darkness pierced by the flickering light upon the screen. The woman in the seat beside mine was the typical Hausfrau of the middle class. She was, of course, dressed in mourning: the heavy veil, which was thrown back, revealed the expression so common to the German widow of to-day — that set, defiant look which begs no pity, and seems to say: “We’ve lost them once; we’d endure the same torture again if we had to.” It was a sad enough story that the reel clicked off, and about as melodramatic as “movies” usually are. But the woman kept herself well in hand, since the public display of grief is forbidden and they who sorrow must sorrow alone.

A Bavarian boy, as I recall it, — the youngest son, — runs away from home to join his father’s regiment in Poland. When his captain calls for volunteers for a dangerous mission, the boy steps forward. For hours they trudge over the snow until surrounded by a Cossack patrol. The Bavarian boy, although having a chance to escape, goes back under fire to succor his wounded comrade. Just as he is about to drag the comrade into the zone of safety, a bullet pierces his lung. For two days he suffers torture on the snow. The body is found and brought home to his mother.

Now and then the widow next me bit her lip and clenched her fist, but she gave no other sign of emotion. Another film was thrown on the screen, humorous, I believe. Suddenly the woman began to laugh. She did not stop laughing. It was a long, mirthless, dry, uncanny sort of cackle. People stared. She laughed still louder. An usher came down the aisle, and stood there, uncertain what to do. Hysterics had given way to weeping: the tears were now streaming down the woman’s face. She tried to control herself, but could not, and then arose and between choking sobs and laughter fled from the darkened room out into the Friedrichstrasse.

Comments: Horace Green (1885-?) was an American journalist with the New York Evening Post, who visited Belgium and Germany during first few months of the First World War.

Links: Copy at Hathi Trust

Die Illusion im kinematographischen Theater

Source: Fred Hood [Friedrich Huth], extract from ‘Die Illusion im kinematographischen Theater,’ Der Kinematograph, 17 March 1907, quoted in Gabriele Pedullà (trans. Patricia Gaborik), In Broad Daylight: Movies and Spectators After the Cinema (London/New York: Verso, 2012, originally published in Italian in 2008), p. 51

Text: When we enter into a movie house, we immediately see the screen on the wall, which is nothing other than a large cloth framed with wood or velvet. We know that on this cloth nothing can really happen, as it were; it is as if it lacks the stage to put a good number of people in the scene. We would like to fall under the illusion, but this ought not to be made so difficult for us. Entering the auditorium, for example, we expect to see a stage. It is incredible how our emotions rise when, taking our place, we find the familiar old stage and curtain; certainly, the curtain should cover only the screen, hiding its edges. But our fancy enchants us, and we imagine a complete set design with wings, dressing rooms, trapdoors, machines that put actors in flight, etc. If one does not want to construct an artificial stage, there is still another possibility for intensifying the illusion. An architectural frame can be placed on the wall to make the screen seem to emerge from a big opening. In this way we would see the events, as it were, from the balcony of a salon, from a castle loggia. This seems like an even better solution because we get something like the impression that everything is happening far away. Anyone who keeps these elements in mind will manage greatly to increase the public’s interest in movies.

Comments: Fred Hood was the pseudonym of Friedrich Huth (1866-c1935), a German secondary school teacher. He wrote several commentaries on film and cinemagoing in German journals at this period.

First Flying Cinema

Source: E. Bacon (photographer) ‘First Flying Cinema’, 6 April 1925, Hulton Archive, courtesy of Getty Images, Editorial Photos #2666504

Comments: This photograph shows passengers on an Imperial Airways flight from London to Berlin, watching what is claimed to be the world’s first screening of a film in the air. The film they saw was The Lost World (USA 1925). The record for the photograph on the Getty Archive (originally from the Hulton Archive) is dated as 6 April 1925 with the caption “Passengers on a German airline watching the first ever in-flight film”. A live radio broadcast from Berlin supplied the music to accompany the film. However, apparently there was an earlier ‘in-flight movie’ in 1921 on an Aeromarine Airways plane circling the Navy Pier in Chicago, which showed a film called Howdy Chicago to the passengers.

Links: Paleofuture: ‘The First In-Flight Movies Had a Live Orchestra’

A Sociology of the Cinema

Source: Emilie Altenloh, Zur Soziologie des Kino: Die Kino-Unternehmung und die Sozialen Schichten Ihrer Besucher, translated in part (by Kathleen Cross) as ‘A Sociology of the Cinema: the Audience’, Screen, vol. 42 no. 3, Autumn 2001, p.267

Text: Do you go to the theatre, public lectures, concerts, variety shows?
I go to almost everything. On Mondays I go to the cinema, Tuesday I stay at home, Wednesday I go to the theatre. Fridays I have gymnastics at 9.30 pm and Sundays I go walking in the woods with my girlfriend from next-door.

What do you enjoy best?
I particularly enjoy Mozart’s music, Richard Wagner’s dramas and Schiller’s dramas in the court theatre and national theatre on Sundays.

Do you go to the cinema? How often? On your own or with others?
Cinema now and then, but not on my own.

When do you usually go to the cinema (day of week, time of day)?
On weekdays between 8 30 and 11 pm.

What kinds of film do you like best?
Love dramas, stones about trappers and Red Indians, current news from around the world and films about aviation and airship travel.

What have been your favourites?
Das Leben im Paradies/Life in Paradise, Fremde Schuld/Strange Guilt, Die keusche Susanna/Chaste Susanna and Moderne Eva/Modern Eve, all four-acters.

Which cinema do you like best? Why?
The Saalbau, it’s dark, with a nice programme.

Comments: Emilie-Kiep Altenloh (1888-1985) was a German politician and economist with strong social welfare interests. Over 1912/13 she conducted a study of cinemagoers in Mannheim, Germany, part of which involved a questionnaire sent to 2,400 cinemagoers in Mannheim asking about their gender, age, social standing, marital status, employment, religious persuasion, politics and filmgoing habits. Altenhoh’s methodology and conclusions continue to be of great interest to cinema historians. Her published study is in two parts, covering production and audiences. It reproduces little from the completed questionnaires: this submission from a fifteen-year-old machine-fitter is an exception. The favourite films mentioned appear to be, in order: unknown, Um fremde Schuld – Eine Episode aus dem Leben (Germany 1912), Die keusche Susanna (Germany 1911 – a one-reel synchronised sound film of the Jean Gilbert operetta, not a four-part film), and unknown, but presumably derived from the 1912 operetta Die moderne Eva by Victor Holländer and Jean Gilbert.

Links: Complete German text
English translation of Audiences section

A Sociology of the Cinema

Source: Emilie Altenloh, Zur Soziologie des Kino: Die Kino-Unternehmung und die Sozialen Schichten Ihrer Besucher, translated in part (by Kathleen Cross) as ‘A Sociology of the Cinema: the Audience’, Screen, vol. 42 no. 3, Autumn 2001, p.267

Text: Do you go to the theatre, public lectures, concerts, variety shows?
I go to almost everything. On Mondays I go to the cinema, Tuesday I stay at home, Wednesday I go to the theatre. Fridays I have gymnastics at 9.30 pm and Sundays I go walking in the woods with my girlfriend from next-door.

What do you enjoy best?
I particularly enjoy Mozart’s music, Richard Wagner’s dramas and Schiller’s dramas in the court theatre and national theatre on Sundays.

Do you go to the cinema? How often? On your own or with others?
Cinema now and then, but not on my own.

When do you usually go to the cinema (day of week, time of day)?
On weekdays between 8 30 and 11 pm.

What kinds of film do you like best?
Love dramas, stones about trappers and Red Indians, current news from around the world and films about aviation and airship travel.

What have been your favourites?
Das Leben im Paradies/Life in Paradise, Fremde Schuld/Strange Guilt, Die keusche Susanna/Chaste Susanna and Moderne Eva/Modern Eve, all four-acters.

Which cinema do you like best? Why?
The Saalbau, it’s dark, with a nice programme.

Comments: Emilie-Kiep Altenloh (1888-1985) was a German politician and economist with strong social welfare interests. Over 1912/13 she conducted a study of cinemagoers in Mannheim, Germany, part of which involved a questionnaire sent to 2,400 cinemagoers in Mannheim asking about their gender, age, social standing, marital status, employment, religious persuasion, politics and filmgoing habits. Altenhoh’s methodology and conclusions continue to be of great interest to cinema historians. Her published study is in two parts, covering production and audiences. It reproduces little from the completed questionnaires: this submission from a fifteen-year-old machine-fitter is an exception. The favourite films mentioned appear to be, in order: unknown, Um fremde Schuld – Eine Episode aus dem Leben (Germany 1912), Die keusche Susanna (Germany 1911 – a one-reel synchronised sound film of the Jean Gilbert operetta, not a four-part film), and unknown, but presumably derived from the 1912 operetta Die moderne Eva by Victor Holländer and Jean Gilbert.

Links: Complete German text
English translation of Audiences section