Month: April 2014

If I Don't Write It, Nobody Will

Source: Eric Sykes, If I Don’t Write It, Nobody Will (London: Fourth Estate, 2005), pp. 78-80

Text: If the world was not exactly our oyster, it was most definitely our winkle. Our main Saturday night attraction was the Gaumont cinema at the end of Union Street. As for the films, the question we first asked ourselves was, ‘Is it a talkie?’and the second ‘Is it in colour?’ This didn’t bother us a bit; it was Saturday night, hey, lads, hey and the devil take the hindmost.

The Gaumont cinema was a large, luxurious emporium showing the latest films and up-to-date news, not forgetting Arthur Pules at the mighty Wurlitzer. For many Oldhamers the perfect panacea for the end of a stressful working week was a Saturday night at the pictures. Just relaxing into the armchair-like seats was an experience to savour. Uniformed usherettes busily showed patrons to their seats; one usherette stood against the orchestra pit, facing the audience with a smile as she sold crisps, peanuts, chocolates and soft drinks from a tray strapped round her shoulders; another usherette patrolled the aisles, selling various brands of cigarettes and matches from a similar tray. There was a general feeling of content in the audience, excitement slowly rising under subdued babble of conversation. The audience were the same people who had gone off to work during the week in overalls, dustcoats, ragged clothing and slightly better garb for office workers, but at the Gaumont cinema they had all, without exception, dressed up for the occasion. All the man wore collars and ties and the ladies decent frocks and in many cases hats as well. What a turnaround from my dear-old Imperial days; no running up and down the aisles chasing each other and certainly no whistling, booing or throwing orange peel at the screen during the sloppy kissing bits. In all fairness, though, I must add that it was only at the Saturday morning shows and we were children enjoying a few moments not under supervision or parental guidance. In fact when I was old enough to go to the Imperial for the evening films the audience even then dressed up and enjoyed the films in an adult fashion.

Back to the sublime at the Gaumont cinema; as the lights went down, so did the level of conversation. A spotlight hit the centre of the orchestra pit and slowly, like Aphrodite rising from the waves, the balding head of Arthur Pules would appear as he played his signature on the mighty Wurlitzer. He was a portly figure in immaculate white tie and tails, hands fluttering over the keys and shiny black pumps dancing over the pedals as he rose into full view, head swivelling from side to side, smiling and nodding to acknowledge the applause; but for all his splendid sartorial elegance, having his back to the audience was unfortunate as the relentless spotlight picked out the shape of his corsets. Regular patrons awaited this moment with glee, judging by the sniggers and pointing fingers. We were no exception; having all this pomp and circumstance brought down by the shape of a common pair of corsets on a man was always a good start to the evening’s entertainment.

At this point the words of a popular melody would flash on to the screen – for instance, the ‘in’ song of the day, ‘It Happened on the Beach at Bali Bali’ – and, after a frilly arpeggio to give some of the audience time to put their glasses on, a little ball of light settled on the first word of the song. In this case the first word was ‘It’; then it bounced onto ‘Happened’; then it made three quick hops over ‘on the Beach at’; then it slowed down for ‘Bali Bali’. The women sang with gusto and the men just smiled and nodded.

Happily this musical interlude didn’t last too long. Arthur Pules, the organist, was lured back into his pit of darkness and the curtains opened on the big wide screen. The films at the Gaumont were a great improvement on the grainy pictures at the Imperial, and so they should have been: after all, the film industry had made great strides in the eight years since John and I had sat in the pennies, dry mouthed as the shadow moved across the wall to clobber one of the unsuspecting actors.

After two hours of heavy sighs and wet eyes ‘The End’ appeared on the screen and the lights in the auditorium came up, bringing us all to our feet as the drum roll eased into the National Anthem … no talking, no fidgeting, simply a mark of respect for our King and Queen.

Comments: Eric Sykes (1923-2012) was a British comic actor and writer, who wrote and performed widely over many years for film, television and radio, including the 1970s sitcom Sykes. He was born and raised in Oldham, Lancashire, and at the time of this recollection was in his mid-teens, having left school aged fourteen. John was his half-brother. The Gaumont cinema in Oldham was at corner the King Street and Union Street, having been re-built as a cinema in 1937 out of an earlier theatre.

If I Don’t Write It, Nobody Will

Source: Eric Sykes, If I Don’t Write It, Nobody Will (London: Fourth Estate, 2005), pp. 78-80

Text: If the world was not exactly our oyster, it was most definitely our winkle. Our main Saturday night attraction was the Gaumont cinema at the end of Union Street. As for the films, the question we first asked ourselves was, ‘Is it a talkie?’and the second ‘Is it in colour?’ This didn’t bother us a bit; it was Saturday night, hey, lads, hey and the devil take the hindmost.

The Gaumont cinema was a large, luxurious emporium showing the latest films and up-to-date news, not forgetting Arthur Pules at the mighty Wurlitzer. For many Oldhamers the perfect panacea for the end of a stressful working week was a Saturday night at the pictures. Just relaxing into the armchair-like seats was an experience to savour. Uniformed usherettes busily showed patrons to their seats; one usherette stood against the orchestra pit, facing the audience with a smile as she sold crisps, peanuts, chocolates and soft drinks from a tray strapped round her shoulders; another usherette patrolled the aisles, selling various brands of cigarettes and matches from a similar tray. There was a general feeling of content in the audience, excitement slowly rising under subdued babble of conversation. The audience were the same people who had gone off to work during the week in overalls, dustcoats, ragged clothing and slightly better garb for office workers, but at the Gaumont cinema they had all, without exception, dressed up for the occasion. All the man wore collars and ties and the ladies decent frocks and in many cases hats as well. What a turnaround from my dear-old Imperial days; no running up and down the aisles chasing each other and certainly no whistling, booing or throwing orange peel at the screen during the sloppy kissing bits. In all fairness, though, I must add that it was only at the Saturday morning shows and we were children enjoying a few moments not under supervision or parental guidance. In fact when I was old enough to go to the Imperial for the evening films the audience even then dressed up and enjoyed the films in an adult fashion.

Back to the sublime at the Gaumont cinema; as the lights went down, so did the level of conversation. A spotlight hit the centre of the orchestra pit and slowly, like Aphrodite rising from the waves, the balding head of Arthur Pules would appear as he played his signature on the mighty Wurlitzer. He was a portly figure in immaculate white tie and tails, hands fluttering over the keys and shiny black pumps dancing over the pedals as he rose into full view, head swivelling from side to side, smiling and nodding to acknowledge the applause; but for all his splendid sartorial elegance, having his back to the audience was unfortunate as the relentless spotlight picked out the shape of his corsets. Regular patrons awaited this moment with glee, judging by the sniggers and pointing fingers. We were no exception; having all this pomp and circumstance brought down by the shape of a common pair of corsets on a man was always a good start to the evening’s entertainment.

At this point the words of a popular melody would flash on to the screen – for instance, the ‘in’ song of the day, ‘It Happened on the Beach at Bali Bali’ – and, after a frilly arpeggio to give some of the audience time to put their glasses on, a little ball of light settled on the first word of the song. In this case the first word was ‘It’; then it bounced onto ‘Happened’; then it made three quick hops over ‘on the Beach at’; then it slowed down for ‘Bali Bali’. The women sang with gusto and the men just smiled and nodded.

Happily this musical interlude didn’t last too long. Arthur Pules, the organist, was lured back into his pit of darkness and the curtains opened on the big wide screen. The films at the Gaumont were a great improvement on the grainy pictures at the Imperial, and so they should have been: after all, the film industry had made great strides in the eight years since John and I had sat in the pennies, dry mouthed as the shadow moved across the wall to clobber one of the unsuspecting actors.

After two hours of heavy sighs and wet eyes ‘The End’ appeared on the screen and the lights in the auditorium came up, bringing us all to our feet as the drum roll eased into the National Anthem … no talking, no fidgeting, simply a mark of respect for our King and Queen.

Comments: Eric Sykes (1923-2012) was a British comic actor and writer, who wrote and performed widely over many years for film, television and radio, including the 1970s sitcom Sykes. He was born and raised in Oldham, Lancashire, and at the time of this recollection was in his mid-teens, having left school aged fourteen. John was his half-brother. The Gaumont cinema in Oldham was at corner the King Street and Union Street, having been re-built as a cinema in 1937 out of an earlier theatre.

Ulysses

Source: James Joyce, Ulysses (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972 – orig 1922), p. 366

Text: That gouger M’Coy stopping me to say nothing. And his wife engagement in the country valise, voice like a pickaxe. Thankful for small mercies. Cheap too. Yours for the asking. Because they want it themselves. Their natural craving. Shoals of them every evening poured out of offices. Reserve better. Don’t want it they throw it at you. Catch em alive, O. Pity they can’t see themselves. A dream of wellfilled hose. Where was that? Ah, yes. Mutoscope pictures in Capel street: for men only. Peeping Tom. Willy’s hat and what the girls did with it. Do they snapshot those girls or is it all a fake?

Comments: James Joyce (1882-1941) was an Irish novelist and briefly (December 1909-January 1910) a cinema manager. In this passage from the ‘Nausicaa’ episode of Ulysses, the lead character Leopold Bloom’s erotic thoughts about Gerty MacDowell include a reference to having seen the Mutoscope peepshow in Capel Street, Dublin. The Mutoscope was a flip-card viewer introduced in 1896 (Ulysses is set in 1904), popularly known as ‘What the Butler Saw’ and notorious for some of the risqué scenes that it showed. The scenes were produced on 70mm and could be shown as projected film or through the flip-card viewer. Peeping Tom (1897) and What the Girls Did with Willie’s Hat aka Kicking Willie’s Hat (1897) were both actual Mutoscope titles, produced by the American Mutoscope Company.

Department of Physics

Source: ‘Department of Physics’, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 10 May 1893, p. 9

Text: Department of Physics. Annual Election in an Important Branch of the Institute. The Business Meeting Was Followed by an Exhibition of Edison’s New Instrument, the Kinetograph, Which Throws a Picture on a Screen Simultaneously with the Production by Phonograph of the Scene Presented and the Movements Pictured.

The Annual Election for officers in the department of physics, Brooklyn Institute, followed by an exhibition of Edison’s new instrument, the kinetograph, was held at 502 Fulton street last evening. The following new officers were unanimously elected: President, Professor Samuel Sheldon; vice president, Professor W. Gould Levison; secretary, James R. Priddy; treasurer, P.H. Van Evern. After a few words from the new officers, Mr. George M. Hopkins addressed the audience. In his desire to get something to interest the department he had written to Mr. Edison, who had replied in substance: “How would the kinetograph do?” He immediately visited Mr. Edison’s laboratory to investigate, and found that the kinetograph he had hoped to secure was beyond his reach. The instrument of that name, about which so much appeared in the newspapers a few years ago, is an optical lantern and a mechanical device by which a moving image is projected in the screen simultaneously with the production by a phonograph of the words of song which accompany the movements pictured. For example: The photograph of a prima donna would be shown on the screen, with the movement of the lips, the head and the body, together with the changes of facial expression, while the phonograph would produce the song. To arrange this apparatus for this evening was impracticable, he said, and the audience would have to be satisfied with the small instrument designed for individual observation, which simply shows the movements without the accompanying words. This apparatus is the refinement of Plateau’s phenakistoscope or the zootrope, and is carried out to great perfection. The principle can be readily understood by anyone who has ever examined the instrument. Persistence of vision is depended upon to blend the successive images into one continuous ever-changing photographic picture. In addition to Plateau’s experiments he referred to the work accomplished by Muybridge and Anschuetz [sic], who very successfully photographed animals in motion, and Demeny, who produced an instrument called the phonoscope, which gave the facial expression while words were being spoken, so that deaf and dumb people could readily understand. But Mr. Edison, Mr. Hopkins said, has produced a machine by means of which far more perfect results are secured. The fundamental feature in his experiments is the camera, by means of which the pictures are taken. This camera starts, moves and stops the sensitive strip which receives the photographic image, forty-six times a second, and the exposure of the plate takes place in one-eighth of this time, or in about one-fifty-seventh of a second. The lens for producing these pictures was made to order at an enormous expense, and every detail at this end of the experiment was carefully looked after. There are 700 impressions on each strip, and when these pictures are shown in succession in the kinetograph the light is intercepted 700 times during one revolution of the strip. The duration of each image is 1-92 of a second and the entire strip passes through the instrument in about thirty seconds. In this instrument each image dwells upon the retina until it is replaced by the succeeding one, and the difference between any picture and the succeeding one or preceding one is so slight as to render it impossible to observe the intermittent character of the picture. Ht explained the manner in which the photographs were produced by presenting the familiar dancing skeleton on the screen. A zootrope, adapted to the lantern shows the principle of the Kinetograph. In this instrument a disk having a radial slit is revolved rapidly in front of a disk bearing a series of images in different positions, which are arranged radially upon a rapidly revolving disk. The relative speeds of these disks are such that when they are revolved in the lantern the radial slit causes the images to [be] seen in regular succession, so that they replace each other and appear to really be in motion, but this instrument on exhibition, as compared with the kinetograph, is a very crude affair.

At the conclusion of Mr. Hopkins’ address every one was accorded an opportunity of looking into the new machine, which was for the first time exhibited publicly. It is one of many Mr. Edison has made for the world fair and was exhibited last night by one of his assistants, Mr. W. Kennedy Laurie Dickson. It can be compared to the photograph, that is, it pictorially presents every object brought within its view. As described above, it shows living subjects portrayed in a manner to excite wonderment. One of the pictures seen in the machine, for example, was that of a blacksmith shop in which two men were working, one shoeing a horse, the other heating iron at the forge. The one would be seen to drive the nail into the shoe on the horse’s hoof, to change his position, and every movement needed in the work was clearly shown as if the object was in real life. In fact, the whole routine of the two men’s labor and their movements for the day was presented to the view of the observer. At the conclusion of the exhibition a vote of thanks was passed to Mr. Hopkins.

Comments: This presentation for around 400 members members of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences on 9 April 1893 was the first public exhibition of the Edison Kinetoscope peepshow (an earlier model had been presented to members of the Federation of Women’s Clubs at Edison’s home at Glenmont, 20 May 1891). The article uses the term Kinetograph (which was the name of the camera) when it means the Kinetoscope (which had not been publicly named as such as yet). The films exhibited were Blacksmithing Scene (1893) and Horse Shoeing (1893). All of the press material on Edison’s moving image experiments at this time mention the intention to marry the viewer with the Phonograph, the crude realisation of which would be the Kinetophone of 1895 (a Kinetoscope with hearing device). The experimenters in motion photography mentioned in the article are Joseph Plateau, Eadweard Muybridge, Ottomar Anschütz and Georges Demenÿ. Contrary to what was promised here, the Kinetoscope was not exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

Links: Brooklyn Newstand (online archive of Brooklyn Daily Eagle)

The Picturegoers

Source: David Lodge, The Picturegoers (London: Penguin, 1993 [orig. pub. 1960]), pp. 18-20

The Picturegoers (from Wikipedia) Text: ‘Take us in, Mister?’

The question startled him.

‘I beg your pardon?’ he said politely, and peered down through his spectacles at the group of rough dirty children who surrounded him.

‘G’orn, guv, take’s in.’

Father Kipling smiled uncertainly, and decided on an I’m-in-the-same-boat-as-you-fellows approach.

‘Well, really, you know, I don’t think that I can afford it.’ Things had come to a pretty pass when children begged unashamedly on the streets for money to indulge in luxuries such as the cinema. He glanced meaningfully at his companions, and began to explain.

‘We don’t want you to pay for us, Mister. We just want you to take us in.’

‘Jus’ say we’re wiv yer,’ backed up another.

”Ere’s the money, Guv.’ A grimy, shrivelled paw held up some silver coins.

‘But why?’ asked Father Kipling, bewildered.

The leader took a deep breath.

‘Well yer see, Mister, it’s an “A” and you can’t get into an “A”….’

Father Kipling listened carefully to the explanation. At the end of it he said:

‘The really, you’re not allowed to see this film unless accompanied by a parent or guardian?’

‘That’s right, Mister.’

‘Well then, I’m afraid I can’t help you, because I’m certainly not your parent, and I can’t honestly say I’m your guardian. Can I now?’ He smiled nervously at the chief urchin, who turned away in disgust, and formed up his entourage to petition another cinema-goer. Father Kipling stared after them for a moment, the hurriedly made good his escape.

Inside the foyer he was faced with a difficult decision: the choice of seats. The prices all seemed excessively high, and he was conscious of a certain moral obligation to go in the cheapest. On the other hand, this was a rare, if not unique occasion, and as he had few enough treats, he was perhaps entitled to indulge himself to the extent of a comfortable seat. He couldn’t choose the middle price, because there were four. As he hesitated he caught the eye of the commissionaire staring at him, and he hastily purchased a ticket for the second most expensive seat.

For the next few minutes he seemed to be in the grip of a nightmare. When the young woman at the swing door had rudely snatched the ticket from his hand, and just as rudely thrust a severed portion of it back again, he was propelled into a pit of almost total darkness and stifling heat. A torch was shone on his ticket, and a listless voice intoned:

‘Over to your left.’

In the far recesses of the place another torch flickered like a distant lighthouse, and he set out towards it. When he couldn’t see it he stopped; then it would flicker impatiently again, and he would set off once more. Beneath his feet he crunched what appeared to be seashells; he gasped in an atmosphere reeking of tobacco and human perspiration. Dominating all, the screen boomed and shifted. At last he reached the young woman with the torch. But his ordeal was not over. She indicated a seat in the middle of a full row. The gesture was treacherously familiar. Horror of horrors! He had genuflected! The usherette stared. Blushing furiously he forced his way into the row, stumbled, panicked, threshed, kicked his way to the empty seat, leaving a trail of execration and protest in his wake. He wanted to die, to melt away. Never again would he come to the cinema. Never again.

Comments: David Lodge (born 1935) is a British novelist and academic, who often writes on Roman Catholic themes. The Picturegoers is his first novel. The novel follows the visits to a London cinema in the late 1950s of a group of characters, using their thoughts and experiences to comment on religion and a changing society, reflected in the decline of cinema itself. Father Kipling has gone to the cinema under the misapprehension that he is to see The Song of Bernadette. Children asking adults to accompany them into the cinema so that they could see ‘A’ certificate films was a common activity in the 1950s.

Our Antipodes

Source: Godfrey Charles Munday, Our Antipodes; or, Residence and rambles in the Australasian colonies, with a glimpse of the gold fields (London: R. Bentley, 1855), p. 287

Text: This evening, after dinner, the Governor entertained a select party of Aborigines with an exhibition of the magic lanthorn. His swarthy guests squatted on the floor in solemn silence, and maintained perfect gravity and decorum during the more ordinary passages of the spectacle — only testifying their admiration by an interjectional grunt, or their recognition of the object represented by pronouncing its name – “Teema,” steamer – “Hoia,” soldier, &c. But when, in the character of showman, I manoeuvred the double slides, under the operation of which a plum-pudding was seen to blow up just as the clown was sticking his fork in it; or the huge eyes were made to roll in the head of a monstrous ogre, their childish glee broke forth unrestrained, and it became impossible to prevent some of them from violating the old nursery commandment, “Look with your eyes and not with your fingers;” for three or four great bushy heads were soon shadowed forth on the magic tablet, and a dozen great black hands rushed to manipulate its surface. Like Quixote’s showman, I began to fear for my puppets; but all passed off quietly! As for me I made the utmost possible allowances for their excitement; for, next to Punch, the magic lanthorn ranks, in my memory of by-gone enjoyments, as the most attractive of minor spectacles.

Comments: Godfrey Charles Munday (1804-1860) was a British soldier and travel writer. Together with his cousin Charles Augustus FitzRoy, governor of New South Wales, he made tours of the New South Wales outback, Victoria, Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and New Zealand. His travel book Our Antipodes was very popular and is still valued by historians. The magic lantern show for the Maoris described here took place end of December 1847, near Auckland.

Links: Copy at Hathi Trust

A Thousand Pities

Source: Dorothy Richardson, ‘Continuous Performance IV: A Thousand Pities’, Close Up vol. I no. 4, October 1927, pp. 60-64

Text: It was the winter’s strangest happiness, coming into mind with autumn’s first dead leaves and forgotten only at the budding of the new green. Its great day brought together by magic a concourse of people to sit in wedding garments at the gate of heaven, blithely chattering until the golden air became moonlight and a breathless waiting for the swish of curtains gliding open upon heaven itself. Sometimes puzzling but always heaven and its inhabitants celestial; save at those moments when one of the blessed, turning from his blissful mystery, came down to the footlights and sang at us, incomprehensible songs that quenched the light and brought strange sad echoes such as we knew on earth. Heaven recovered when the celestial being went back into his place, and was lived in until the end, incalculably far away. And after the end there was a fresh beginning, a short scene made of swift and dreadful moments, charm and mystery and shock, just outside heaven’s closed gates. A little troop of beings, half-earthly, born of the earlier scenes, romped close at hand in a confined space before a facade of earthly houses. Harlequin, lightly leaping, snaky, electric, sweetly-twirling Columbine, lolloping Pantaloon with sad, frightened mouth. Swish-whack. Shocks unfortellable. Bangs of exploding fleas. Ceaseless speechless movement, swift leaping, whirling, staggering, light and heavy together making strange shapes in the diminished light until the immortals vanished and we were down on solid earth with the largefooted policeman, the nursemaid and perambulator and infant, funny and dreadful on a scene where the power of the vanished immortals still worked and brought us joyous moments: the moment of the falling of a house-front, the squashing and the sight, a moment later, of the squashed, flat upon the centre of the stage.

We knew that everything happening after the immortals had vanished was out of place and if the mortals in their foolishness had been all that we saw, the scenes, no matter how short, meaning nothing, would have brought weariness. But we gazed without weariness because we saw somewhere within the stilted speechless pasteboard movements something of the glory that had passed. Our eyes were still full of the last scene in heaven from which the lovely celestials who came down to dance in the street had been created, the opening of the heaven of heavens in the Transformation Scene where everything and everyone had assembled in a single expanded shape, shimmering, flower-like, that slowly moved in changing form and colour, stretching out attention to the uttermost lest some lovely thing be missed. It foretold the end of beauty but was itself endlessly beautiful, holding us to its eternity by its soundlessness. If any part of it had broken into sound, its link with us would have been snapped, its spell broken. Of its moving stillness and our own that it compelled was born something new, a movement of our own small selves. Only because in its continual movement it was silent did it reach the whole small self. It demanded less than the rest of the performance and much more. Taking part in that we had been everything by turns, keyed up to the limit of our green faculties, living rapidly, thinking thoughts, going beyond ourselves, moving now here now there, loving and hating, laughing, shrieking aloud at need. But the appeal of the Transformation Scene was not to single faculties in turn but to all at once, to the whole small spirit gathered at home in itself. Stilled stage, stilled music gave the surrounding conditions.

So with the film, whose essential character is pantomime, that primarily, and anything and everything else incidentally. But primarily pantomime. Vocal sound, always a barrier to intimacy, is destructive of the balance between what is seen and the silently perceiving, co-operating onlooker. It is no accident that the most striking and most popular film success to date is that of a mime. This man was the first to grasp the essential quality of the medium, to see what to do and what to avoid to reach the maximum of collaboration with the onlookers. His technique admits sound, but only of things and that sparingly. Himself and his assistants dispense as far as possible with the appearance of speech. The language of his films is universal. And though the world-wide success of this d’Artagnan of the gutters rests partly upon shameless gaminerie, perpetually defying even the most dignified slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with perpetual custard pie, its securest prop is his unerring art. His use of the film as a medium. Wealth of imaginative invention is held together by simplicity of design, the fullest use is made of the thoughtlike swiftness of movement made possible by the film. His small grotesque figure, whether going with incredible swiftness through its clever, absurd evolutions, or a motionless mask of ever-varying expressiveness, or geometrically in flight down a long vista, was the first to exploit these possibilities. Rudimentary in material, his work is sound in foundation and structure, an advance sample of what the film, as film, can do.

Poetry, epigram, metaphor, chit-chat social, philosophic or scientific are the reactions and afterthought of spiritual experience, are for the stage. And even upon the stage the actual drama moves silently, speech merely noting its movement. The “great dramatic moments” are speechless. The film at its best is all dramatic moment. The film is a spirit and they that worship it must worship it in spirit and in truth. Like the garish Transformation Scene and the debased Harlequinade of the old-fashioned pantomime, the only parts remaining true pantomine, its demands are direct and immediate, at once much more and much less than those of the vocal stage-play. And its preliminary demand is for concentration. Given favourable surrounding conditions for concentration, the film’s powers of making contacts are, so long as it remains consistent with itself, a hundred to the one of the theatre: the powerful actor, the stage play’s single point of contact with the “audience”, with those who are indeed, though not hearers only, throughout the course of the collaboration largely concentrated on listening.

The sounds that have so far been added to the film, of falling rain, buzz and hoot of motors, roll of thunder, pistol-shots and bombs, are sometimes relatively harmless. And if they were an indication of experiment, suggesting that sound is to be tested and used with discrimination, their presence might cease to be disturbing. But they are being introduced not in any spirit of experiment or with any promise of discrimination. They are there because they are easy to produce. More sound is promised as soon as the technical difficulties shall be overcome. The bombs are fore-runners, evidence of a blind move in a wrong direction, in the direction of the destruction of the essential character of the screen-play.

Comments: Dorothy Richardson (1873-1957) was a British modernist novelist. Through 1927-1933 she wrote a column, ‘Continuous Performance’ for the film art journal Close Up. The column concentrates on film audiences rather than the films themselves. The performer she refers to is of course Charlie Chaplin.

Links: Copy at Internet Archive

Het verhaal van den provinciaal

Source: Jacobus vann Looy, ‘Het verhaal van den provinciaal’ in De wonderlijke avonturen van Zebedeus, nieuwe bijlagen (Amsterdam: S.L. van Looy, 1925), pp. 149-161, originally published as ‘Nieuwe bijlagen. XXV’, in De Nieuwe Gids (1917) pp. 361-376

Text: In het Phebus-theater,
Waar anders geen geschater
Van luiten heerscht, maar nu een gróot orchest
Spelende was en tevens voor het lest,
Naar ik las in een advertentie,
In een blad uit de residentie,
Provinciale, wel te verstaan,
Ofschoon het mij er heen toch heeft doen gaan,
En alhoewel ik heimelijk bleef hopen
Dat het niet zoo’n vaart zou loopen,
Dat het niet zou zijn als wat
Ik er over gelezen had…
Ik ging om kort te gaan door ‘t drukke avondlicht,
Als of ik ging naar een gewijd gesticht;
En vroeg ter plaatse naar een plaats, een bèste…
‘U komt toch zeker niet om het orchest, è?’
Vroeg mij een gemobiliseerde man;
‘Achter-an,
Het beste is ook het duurste, zult u weten.’
Hij deed een dame glimlachen daar, gezeten
In een soort van tempeltje,
Voor een poortje als een vlieggat met een drempeltje,
Als eene duive, in kraagdons, ja,
Van Venus of van Diana,
Al zat zij er gelijk een fotografiste
In ‘t rooie kamertje en bleek te zijn de caissiste,
En jong genoeg nog om de favouriete
Van een roman te zijn, zelfs nog zonder…
Evenmin als Diana, ‘t woord behelst geen schand’,
Is aan het Fransch ‘têter’ verwant,…
Tout homme a deux pays, le sien et puis la France,
Spreekt ook Englands dichter niet van popkens laten dansen?
Bestaat iets lievers dan wanneer van honger en van dorst,
Zoo’n heel klein menschje nog klokt aan de moederborst?…
Gewis, zij lachte, wis…
‘k Begrijp niet goed wat steeds aan mij te lachen is;
Zooals van ochtend ook de Directeur
Der Hulpbank deed, toen ‘k mij vergist had in de deur,
En heel ‘t lokaal met zijn persoon vervulde,
Een mensch is meer toch dan ‘n bankje van duizend gulden…
Al moog’ geen ridderorde mij de borst bepralen,
En had ik nooit ‘t geluk om mijne graad te halen,
Een ieder heeft zijn weet,
Lachen is wreed.
‘Smaadt de materie niet,’ als laatst de poldergast zei,
Toen hij zijn hand op ‘t zware heiblok lei;
‘Ik wil wel graag een praatje met u maken,
Maar smaadt mij niet de materie, ze kan je zoo leelijk kraken.
In het Phebus-theater,
Als in een grot onder water,
Als in een school of in de kerk
Van een ondergrondsch loopgravenwerk,
In eene pijpenlade
Waar ieder vrij mocht rooken zonder schade,
Zat ik dan
In afwachting van…
Er gloeiden lampen,
Lantarentjes, tegen rampen,
Er was een radertje, ik hoor nog hoe het snort,
En over mij zag ik een blind-wit bord;
Er zaten andren reeds, die hun gezicht toekeerden;
Allen gemobiliseerden,
Allen mij onbekenden,
Gelukkig niet een mij kende;
Er kwamen er nog meer,
Naast mij zeeg een juffrouw op het stoeltje neêr…
Een paartje volgde, een moeder en een zoon;
Van welk geslacht dan ook, ‘t geldt altijd een persoon;
Een heer zei overluid: ‘hij wou bij de kachel zitten,’
Al meer en meerder kwamen samenklitten,
Om zoo te zeggen, in dit hol,
En aldus werd het Phebus-theater zienderoogen vol.
En toen, nog stom,
Triangel kwam, horen schreed aan en trom,
Allen gemobiliseerden,
Een vedel dan een weinig soupireerde,
Want die het hoogste zat, vóor de piano, was
Dezelfde Diana van zoo pas.
Maar de klavierlamp nu ontstak
Haar roode tunica, haar bloese of haar jak.
Eensklaps werd het donker.
De lampjes smeulden als door kolengasgeflonker
En heel de ruimt’ verkeerde tot een klonterig gewemel
Onder den zolderhemel,
En op ‘t bord
Kwam een nattig maanlicht aangestort.
En toen, als eens voor koning Belsasar, verscheen
Schrift en weder verdween
En duister en bevlekt,
Ik zag het bord met schaduwspel bedekt.
Ik kan niet alles ordelijk vertellen,
De tafereelen bleven naar elkaâr toe snellen,
Er schoven landen
Van de een naar de andere rande,
Geheuvelde oorden,
Rivieren glommen tusschen lage boorden,
Ik kon niet immer goed zien wat het was,
Doch altijd wuivelde er wel ergens gras…
Het bord te schrikken leek; het bliksemde er en schudde,
Kolonne-lange kudden
Gemobiliseerden marcheerden door het ruim,
Zonder glorie of pluim
En zonder marketensters,
Zonder te blikken naar vensters,
Ze beenden fel
En groeiden snel…
Ik zag hun hurken gaan en eten gaan uit blikken,
Ik zag de bajonets op de geweren prikken…
Er kwamen telkens woorden op het bord,
In spiegelschrift en dikwijls schoot de laatste zin te kort,
Het leek bijwijlen een gecensureerde brief;
En aldus zag ik al de voorbereidselen van het groote offensief
Aan de Somme…
Al heviger ze roerden de tromme,
De piano, de fluit, de horen,
Het daverde in mijn ooren,
Ze ontwikkelden minder leven nauw
Dan het orchest in het Concert-gebouw;
‘t Geweld ter tonen maakte mij benepen…
‘Maar u hebt nooit van Wagner veel begrepen,
Hij brengt u van de wijs,’
Zooals mevrouw van M… mij zeide te Parijs…
In Parijs, o, toen Wagner daar was en vogue,
En ik bekende dat mijn hart meer naar Beethoven trok,
De negende simfonie…
Eensklaps voelde ik mijn buurvrouws knie,
Zoo beenen zenuwachtig worden voor ze dansen gaan,
Wroetelen tegen de mijne aan,
En weder raasde ‘t leven om mij om
Van de stalen driehoek, ‘t koper en de trom
En van het heet-bestreken snaar-instrument,
Maar toch, die pianiste had beslist talent…
Een heele poos leek alles mij te ontwijken,
Toen zag ik ammunitie als mij aan staan kijken,
Ontzaggelijk en vreemde…
‘De kneuzende oorlogsvracht beploegde Vlaandrens beemden’
Ging mij door het brein, ziende het vervoer,
De logge leger-auto’s horten langs den vloer.
Ik zag de kogels uitgespreid en opgesteld,
Zooals gerooide rapen liggen op het veld;
Ontelbaar, her en der, tot in het ver verschiet,
Als wat in ‘n lang gevoelde behoefte eindelijk voorziet.
Ik zag ze staan en zonder blussen, deuken,
En heb gedacht aan beuken,
Niet aan het werkwoord van dien naam natuurlijk,
In eenen zin figuurlijk,
Die vrouwelijkste boomen in het bosch,
Zoo blank ze waren, elegant en los,
Gebonden en gevlerkt,
Geen damesnagels fijner afgewerkt;
Ik zag ze daar verpakt als flesschen wijn,
In mandjes als om teêre vruchten zijn;
Soms kerkbeeld-hoog en als een spitsboograam,
En vele droegen ‘n naam,
Een naam als bakers voor de kinderen bedenken…
Een Tommie lag er languit bovenop te wenken,
Hij streelde met zijn handen zulk een pracht-granaat;
En nooit zal ik vergeten zijn gelaat,
Het vroolijke, dat mijlen van mij was,
En sneeuwwit was.
Bom! bom!
Kanonnen sjorden aan en stonden stom,
Als steigerende rossen in hun stalen toomen,
Onder het loof van boomen;
Kolossaal,
Als één stuk zwart metaal;
Machines als nog nooit een industrie gebruikte,
Ze nergens stuikten,
Na goed te zijn gesmeerd.
Het leek wel of zij ‘t hadden uit hun hoofd geleerd…
Ik zag het projectiel erin gedreven,
‘Many happy returns,’ met krijt er op geschreven,
En toen ze schoten zag ik dunne smook,
En schimmen loopen gaan die leken rook,
Voorover, met de vingers in hun ooren…
Hoe vreemd het is daar niet iets van te hooren…
Dan kreeg de dikke loop vanzelf een schok
En gliste weêr terug alsof er een aan trok,
Zoo zoetjes-an,
Si doucement.
En toen verscheen een randje gras met draad behekt,
Een lucht er boven was met wolkjes bedekt,
Het leek een droomerige aquarel,
Van Mauve of Israëls…
Dat al die mooie dingen gaan zoo duur…
Er ijlden door het bord stralen en spetten vuur;
‘t Verbeeldde ‘de overkant’.
En duidelijk was er brand,
Ik kan niet alles melden zoo ik wou,
Het ging zoo gauw.
Ik heb ook mijnen uit elkaâr zien slaan,
Fonteinen modder, als een inkt-vulkaan,
Of bergen sintels werden opgeblazen
Van al de boeken, schriften waar wij over lazen;
En daarna was
Weêr alles grijs als asch.
En hangend aan de gordels van soldaten,
Zag ik de handgranaten,
En in een schans en op een planken vloer,
Aan balen zand geleund, een schim staan op de loer,
Zijn helm blonk bovenuit den rand der terp,
Leek een historisch kunstvoorwerp,
Een omgekeerde kop of een bokaal
Waaruit gedronken werd bij ‘t schimmenmaal,
In het Walhalla,
Der in den krijg gevallen,
Verslagen reuzen,
En dienend om de hersens niet te kneuzen…
Een paard met bollen buik, geloof ik, ik dan zag,
Het was het vierde of het vijfde dat er reed of lag,
En naar twee hondjes heb ik ook gestaard,
Ze tripten naast een fuselier of naast een Gordon-guard.
En in een hut die leek van sneeuw gebouwd,
Werd, meen ik, door Lancasters met ‘n katapult gesjouwd;
Ik zag een bom hen stellen en ze duiken snel,
En weg hij was als de appel van Willem Tell;
Een ‘liebesgabe’ naar het bord vermeldde…
Mortieren zag ik klaar of gaan te velde,
Mitrailleuses, ik weet niet wat het was,
Maar altijd wuivelde er wel ergens gras…
Plots hel het werd;
Ik heb mijn blikken in de zaal toen opgesperd,
Het leek mij of zij waren ingekort,
Of alle menschen zeulden naar het bleeke bord.
Het zien van kleuren schonk wat leniging,
Het was of allen waren in versteeniging,
Een moeder raakte aan den arm haars zoons, bij ongeval,
En dat was al.
De juffrouw zag mij aan… het werd al weder donker,
En boven het geflonker
Der roode jaagster aan de piano,
En boven al de kruinen der gemobiliseerden, o,
Grimde naar het duister van de hal:
‘De aanval.’
En de jacht
Van de gelijke schimmen reed weêr door den nacht,
Ze spookten op het roeren onzer trom,
Bom-bom, bom-bom!
Uit hoeken en gaten,
Met glad-geschoren gelaten,
Door rattengangen, een voor een,
Verdekt ze slopen door de maan die scheen,
Naar de verzamelplaatse, zoo
De varkens in fabrieken gaan te Chicago:
‘k Hoorde in de verte: ‘Tipperary!’
Joelen uit veel bombarie,
En zag ze samen in paradedos,
Ze maakten hier wat vast, ze maakten daar wat los,
Er was er eentje bij
Die groette mij.
Ik zag hen in gelederen en rijen,
Gegroept, gescheien,
En voor een priester op de knie gevallen,
Ik zag de geultjes in hun halzen alle;
De evangeliedienaar had een wit hemd aan,
Zoo blank en zuiver als de volle maan;
En ‘k zag hen uit hun korrelige slooten springen,
En over gruis en stronken voorwaarts dringen,
Er viel er een neêr als een leêge jas,
En verder nog een waar nog woei wat gras…
Ik kon het niet ontwijken…
Ik was gekomen hier toch om te kijken…
Het was voorbij…
Plots spraken er twee heeren achter mij,
De een zei: ‘t was kemedie, dat ‘t hem tegenviel,
Dat ‘t hem tegenviel,
En de andre hooren deed:
‘Och, alle waar is naar zijn geld, je weet.’
Ik keek niet om en heb me stijf gehouden,
Uit vreeze dat zij mij misschien herkennen zouden;
Doch weder was er de aandacht uit mij henen…
Een overwonnen krater was op ‘t bord verschenen,
Eén stond er midden in, hij ging er gansch in schuil,
Gelijk een mierenleeuw, verzonken in zijn kuil.
Ik had door al die tusschenwerpsels wat gemist,
Vast en beslist,
Er woei niet langer gras,
De gronden leken van verbrijzeld glas,
Of rullige akkers vol geschilde rapen;
Er doolden een paar schimmen om van knapen,
Padvinders, zoekende herinneringen op…
En ‘k zag een open hut aan de uitgang van een slop,
Een tunnel, en de vedel was gaan klagen…
Ze droegen zwarte staven aan waarop gestalten lagen;
De ruimte van het bord
Was veel te kort.
De dragers met de kruisen op hun mouw,
Aanbukten reuzengroot en blinkend weg in ‘t nauw,
Lieten de baren blijven.
Ik kan het niet beschrijven,
‘t Was alles afgekeerd en dichtgemaakt…
Een beeld zat in de hut tot aan zijn gordel naakt.
Zijn arm hing naar mij toe, de hand geheel beklad,
Er leek een volle inktpot over uit gespat,
Hoog op zijn bovenarm was ook ‘n donkre smet,
De witte dokter boog er naar en heeft gebet,
Gewindseld dan en met een rappen stoot,
Den mond des mans een sigaret hij bood;
De Tommie keek zijn arm langs, ademhaalde rook…
‘Hoe goed geholpen zij worden’, had ‘k gelezen ook,
Maar achter mij sprak weêr de knorge stem:
Dat ‘t tegenviel hem;
En de andre ontevreeën:
‘Dat je je geld wel beter kon besteeën.’
Wij hebben de uitgeputte krijgers ook terug zien komen,
Een wapenschouw ik zag, hen neêrgevlijd in drommen,
Hun rust genietende,
Plassend, water vergietende;
Ze wreven wapens schoon en keken soms mij aan:
‘’s Wounds, ‘t gaat daar jullie geen van allen aan.’
En op dezelfde wijs ik zag die languit lagen,
Met zware spijkerlaarzen werden aangedragen;
En ‘k heb aan gras gedacht;
Ver in het spikkelig licht ze delfden ‘n gracht;
‘Dat is een lange,’ zei mijn buurmans mond,
Toen alles op het trillend bord verzwond…
Ik wilde henengaan, doch ‘t was niet uit;
Wij kregen nog ‘de buit’.
Al de verwonnen
Kanonnen;
Allerlei zonderlinge
Geweldige keukendingen,
Ze lagen overhoop
Zoo op de Maandagmarkt de rommel ligt te koop…
En ‘k zag ‘de levende buit’,
Kluit ik zag na kluit,
Als mijnvolk uit hun schachten opgekomen;
De ontwapende, gevangen genomen
Hol-schonkige Duitschers;
Ze hieven handen, als afwerpend kluisters,
Al op en neêr in ‘t gaan,
Of trokken er touwtjes aan;
Klemden ze voor hun oogen;
In de schoeren gebogen,
Van-af de borst bedropen,
De lippen hangend open,
En met den blik aan ‘t loenen
Of wijd naar visioenen.
Ze vonden wel hun weg daar door de bermen,
De duizelende zwermen,
De spookge horden,
Versloofd, verworden,
Zonder vertoon van militair
En zonder eenig air;
Knie-knikkende,
Schimmen van schaterlachers, hikkende,
Met schel-witte verbanden
Om het gemillimeterd brein en dikwijls om hun handen;
Er stapte er een op één been,
Omhelzend twee gezwachtelden, hij hinkte heen.
Ik kon het schier niet zien, het struntelen en douwen…
Van die ‘feldgrauen’,
Het deinzen en het dollen,
Ze leken van het witte bord te rollen;
Ik zag er een stooten, bij ongeluk,
Tegen een reine Tommie, met een ruk,
Schokte zijn lijf opzij, hij blikte net
Of hij de punt gevoeld had van een bajonet…
Er schoten telkens schichten
Den warrel door der wiebelende gezichten:
De vuurge scheuten in het bord,
Als met tranen overstort.
Tranen van Tommies en grauwen,
Tranen van mannen en vrouwen,
Tranen van bruiden, moeders,
Tranen van weezen, voeders,
Van hongerige armen,
En tranen van erbarmen…
Ik heb mij goed gehouden,
Geveinsd, dat niemand iets bespeuren zoude…
Er waren witte wolkjes komen zweven,
Als die der ‘plumpuddings’ en andere granaten zooeven.
Ze boden sigaretten, hadden zich verzoend;
En toen was ‘t bord weêr blank, als plotseling afgeboend.
De zaal ontsteeg gerucht…
Ik voelde me opgelucht…
De damp van de sigaren
Verzweefde naar het licht der tooverlantaren,
Een ellenlange pluim
Die kringelblauwend schuin schoof door het ruim.
En ‘k heb gewacht…
En heb gedacht…
Het raadje snorde steeds zijn maniakke wijs,
En schoon het warm was, was ik koud als ijs…
Schimmen van stokken, stronken,
Van kluiten, brokken, bonken,
Ze bleven op het bord als aan een keten gaan,
Gelijk een menschenledig landschap op de maan…

De maan blonk aan de lucht, hoog boven alles uit,
De straat in donker door ‘t gemeenteraad-besluit,
Van lichtbesparing om de groote kolennood,
Deed me weldadig aan, het stemde me, ik genoot
Door die afwezigheid van overdaad en tinkels,
En ‘t aangegaapt te zijn door opgeschoten kinkels.
Het was nog steeds in mij, alsof in mij wat sliep,
Alsof ik binnen in een levend wezen liep,
En zag de donker-gloênde wandlaars gaan en komen,
Zooals in aderen de bloed-lichaampjes stroomen;
Het was nog steeds in mij of ik niet wakker was,
Of wat ‘k gezien het leven, dit een droom slechts was;
De toren in de diepten van den manehemel stak,
En stille, zachte waden dekten huis en dak,
En in de heimelijke schemering der straat,
De lijven bleven gaan met hun befloersd gelaat.
Tot eindelijk weder sprak in mij herinnering,
Het snorren van een raadje uit mij zelf ontging;
En ‘k langs de toeë winkels loopend verder trad,
Al mijmerzieker door de vreemde stilt’ der stad.
Ik voelde rond mij om de warmte weêr als weelde,
En overdacht de waarde dezer oorlogsbeelden,
Wat ‘k had gelezen in verslagen eener krant,
Om waar- en eerlijkheid, verheldering van verstand,
Het algemeen, groot nut van deze levende platen,
Omdat zij niets aan de verbeelding overlaten.
Ik dacht aan België, dat voor de Vrijheid vecht,
Aan nooit te delgen schuld van het geschonden Recht,
En werd al wandeldenkende weêr welgemoed,
Wijl ‘t bij ons Vreê nog is, tot dusver, alles goed.

Doch in den nacht daarop ik droomde droef,
Dat ‘k eigenhandig in een tuin een mensch begroef,
Tusschen het wuivelende gras,
En ik was
Die doode zelf;
Hij lag te staren naar het luchtgewelf
Met rond verwijde oogen:
En door den hooge
Het snorde rusteloos en heeft gewaaid,
Of werd een eindelooze film afgedraaid:
Van Donau’s, Marne’s, Aisne’s en van Yzers,
Van diplomaten, en magnaten en van keizers…
En die begroef mij deed het smart noch pijn…
Ongeloofelijke menschen wij zijn.

Comments: Jacobus van Looy (1855-1930) was a Dutch painter and writer. His 1916 poem ”Het verhaal van den provinciaal’ (‘The tale of the provincial’) tells of a man visiting a city and going to the cinema, whose conflicted views on the war and being in a cinema are revealed through the long poem’s stream of consciousness style. It is only gradually made apparent that it is the British documentary film The Battle of the Somme that he is watching. Geert Bulens (see link below) provides an analysis of poem’s themes. Practical elements referred to include projection, intertitles, and the accompanying music. Van Looy lived in Haarlem, but no cinema named Phebus-Theater is listed on the historical database of Dutch cinema, Cinema Context, in Haarlem or elsewhere. The Netherlands was neutral during the First World War. I can find no full English translation of the poem, but the penultimate stanza was translated (by Klaas de Zwaan) for my silent film blog, The Bioscope, as follows:

I felt the comforting warmth surrounding me again,
And thought over the value of these images of war,
What I’ve read in the reports of some newspapers,
About truth and honesty, clarification of the mind,
The overall, great usefulness of these living pictures,
Because they leave nothing to the imagination.
I thought of Belgium, fighting for Freedom,
An irredeemable infringement of Justice,
And while walking I pleasantly realized
Peace was among us, so far so good.

Links: Dutch text in copy of De wonderlijke avonturen van Zebedeus in DBNL (Digital Library for Dutch Literature)
Geert Buelens, ‘Sound and Realism in British and Dutch Poems Mediating The Battle of the Somme’, Journal of Dutch Literature, vol. 1 no. 1, December 2010 (includes discussion of the poem, in English)