Month: October 2016

Dream Pictures and Real

Source: Marion P. Bartlett, ‘Dream Pictures and Real’, The Motion Picture Story Magazine, March 1912, p. 58

Text:
I sat by the fireside dreaming of days of long ago,
And pictures seemed to form in the midst of the embers’ glow;
But faded e’er I could catch them, the coals to ashes died,
E’en as my hopes had perished and the heart within me sighed.

I left the dying firelight and the lonely, cheerless room,
And wandered down the avenue, seeking to lift, the gloom;
When I heard the sound of music, saw countless lights agleam,
And, suiting an idle fancy, I entered as in a dream.

I entered into darkness, but sudden, before my eyes,
On a curtain of white came pictures, and I stared in mute surprise;
Pictures that moved! In wonderment I quite forgot my pain;
Pictures that lived! And with them I lived my youth again.

The North, the South, the East, the West were all at my command;
The whole world came before me, at touch of an unseen hand.
Ah! the pictures by the fireside may fade and die away,
But those on the magic canvas live anew for me every day.

Comments: This poem appears in an American journal that reproduced film stories for fans. I have not been able to find out more about its author. The anthology Red Velvet Seat: Women’s Writing on the First Fifty Years of Cinema (2006 ed. Antonia Lant with Ingrid Periz) credits the poem to Hattie M. Loble, but it is merely cited at the end of an article by Loble, entitled ‘A Western Woman’s Opinion of Pictures’, in Moving Picture World, June 1912 p. 820.

Links: Copy at Hathi Trust
Copy of Moving Picture World article at Internet Archive

Journal des voyages de Monsieur de Monconys

Source: Journal des voyages de Monsieur de Monconys, Conseiller du Roy en ses Conseils d’Estat & Privé, & Lieutenant Criminel au Siège Presidial de Lyon (Lyon, Horace Boissat & George Remeus, 1665-66), vol. 2, pp. 17-18, diary entry for 17 May 1663. Translation in Herman Hecht (ed. Ann Hecht), Pre-Cinema History: An Encyclopaedia and Annotated Bibliography of the Moving Image Before 1896 (London: Bowker Saur, 1993), p. 19

Text: 17 May 1663. After we had eaten we went to Longuecker [Longacre] on the way back to see Mr Rives [Reeves] who makes telescopes which he sells at six Pounds Sterling each. But he had none ready and deferred us to another time as regards this matter and also to show us how a bulls-eye lantern works which has a crystal half-sphere of about three inches in diameter and which represents the objects well. The latter he puts between the light source and the crystal, using a glass-plate on which objects are painted. This plate, which is like a frame, he slides into a square box which obtrudes from the lantern and which contains the half-sphere crystal.

Toutes les allées font bordées ou de jonquilles ou de geroflées ou de lis. Aur etour apres auoir fait collation nous fufmes encore à Longuexer, chéz M Riues qui fait les Telefcopes, qu’il vend fix liures fterlin piece. Mais il n’en auoit point de prets, & il nous remit à vne autre fois tant pour cela que pour voir l’effet d’vne lanterne fourde qui a vn demi-globe tout entier de criftal , d’enuiron poulces de diametre, & qui porte bien loin la reprefentation des obiets qu’il met entre la lumiere, & ce criftal, par le moyé d’vne feüille de verre fur laquelle ces obiects font peints, laquelle lame ou feüille il fait couler comme vn chaffis dans l’eftuy quarré qui auance au dehors de la lanterne, & qui enferme le demi-globe de criftal.

Comments: Balthasar de Monconys (1611–1665) was a French traveller, diplomat and diarist. He travelled to Portugal, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands (where he met Vermeer), the Near East and England. On a visit to London he saw a magic lantern demonstrated at the shop of the optician Richard Reeves (also referred to in Samuel Pepys’ 19 August 1666 diary entry about seeing a magic lantern demonstrated). This is the first known reference to the magic lantern in Britain.

Links: Copy in French at Hathi Trust

An Image of Leda

Source: Frank O’Hara, ‘An Image of Leda’, from Selected Poems (New York: Borzoi, 2008), p. 15 [orig. pub. 1950]

Text:
The cinema is cruel
like a miracle. We
sit in the darkened
room asking nothing
of the empty white
space but that it remain pure. And
suddenly despite us
it blackens. Not by
the hand that holds
the pen. There is
no message. We our-
selves appear naked
on the river bank
spread-eagled while
the machine wings
nearer. We scream
chatter prance and
wash our hair! Is
it our prayer or
wish that this
occur? Oh what is
this light that
holds us fast? Our
limbs quicken even
to disgrace under
this white eye as
if there were real
pleasure in loving
a shadow and caress-
ing a disguise!

Comments: Frank O’Hara (1926-1966) was an American poet and art curator. He wrote several poems on the themes of film and cinemagoing. ‘An Image of Leda’ alludes to the Greek mythological tale of Leda, who was seduced by Zeus in the form of a swan.