Tag: Music

Gods, monsters

Source: Extract from Andrew Collins, ‘Gods, monsters’, Never Knowingly Underwhelmed blog, 28 March 2011, http://wherediditallgorightblog.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/gods-monsters/

Text: To the Curzon in Mayfair for our second go at NT Live, where the National Theatre in London beams one of its productions, live, or as-live, around the whole world. This time: the much-discussed rendition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by writer Nick Dear and director Danny Boyle. Having already seen and been enthralled by Rory Kinnear’s Hamlet in this format in December, I can honestly say that this experience topped it. Not only was the production something to behold, but Hamlet was in the smaller Screen 2 at the Mayfair – we were moved there to accommodate the gala opening of some new film called The King’s Speech, which sank without a trace as far as I can tell. Anyway, Frankenstein was in the massive Screen 1. Much better. […]

Here’s the deal: people at the National Theatre on the South Bank watch actors do a play. People not at the theatre but in cinemas around the country, and the world, also watch actors do a play, at the same time. It’s a brilliant initiative, and even better if you’re a member of the Curzon and your tickets are discounted. But it’s particularly brilliant if you don’t live in London. I know because people were chattering excitedly about it on Twitter yesterday that it was showing at the mighty Duke Of York’s in Brighton, for instance. […] So, that’s the background. What about the play? After all, the play’s the thing.

Well, Frankingstein [sic] has been running for a month at the National and has been showered with positive notices. (Emma Freud, who stands in the NT auditorium and introduces the live link-up while confused theatregoers take their seats behind her and gawp vacantly into the camera, informed us that people are queuing up for tickets at 1am. I must admit, we booked our tickets for the Curzon showing before Christmas, sensing a sellout, which it was. Imagine a play that not only sells out the theatre it is in, but auditoriums it is not in.) You have to see these things for yourself sometimes. I am not an inveterate theatregoer, as we have established. I’ve seen some plays. Living in London is a bit of a privilege in that sense, but I’ve always felt a little bit ripped off when I’ve seen some men and ladies standing around talking to each other. If I’m going to pay West End prices, I want to see men and ladies dancing and singing. So, bear that in mind when I review this, as I am only comparing it to a handful of other plays I have seen. In many ways, I’m an easy lay, as I am just excited to be watching a play.

Danny Boyle is known as a filmmaker, but he started out in the theatre, as everyone will tell you. Well, that’s as may be, but he brought a cinematic eye and sense of occasion to Frankenstein. Beginning with the creature’s birth and following his infantile development – he walks! he talks! he reads Milton! – most of the first act is wordless. It’s just Benedict Cumberbatch (or Jonny Lee Miller – the pair alternate the main roles of Creature and Frank[en]stein) crawling and hobbling around the vast, bare stage, and grunting his way to coherence. Ironically, although this section is a tour de force, it’s made more cinematic when you watch it in the cinema, as you get close-ups and pans, and – something really special for the non-theatre audiences – aerial shots! So, what we saw in the Curzon is not what they saw at the National. They will say theirs was better, because they were in the same hall as Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller off of the telly and the films, but I will say that ours was better. Funnily enough, the theatre crowd were still rudely talking when the play started. We were really quiet in the cinema. A huge bell sounds to signal the play has started, and yet, there they were, the big London theatre ponces, still muttering as Cumberbatch’s hand started feeling around inside the womb of his creation.

Unless you can afford to go twice in succession, you’re going to have to play the Cumberbatch/Lee Miller Lottery like the rest of us. Who will it be? It’s like a theatrical Kinder Egg – literally, as the creature bursts out of his membranous shell. Having experienced the full two hours, with no interval (Danny Boyle the bad boy rule-breaker!), I’m going to stick my neck out and say that I’m glad we got the Cumberbatch monster. It is a performance to leave your head spinning with its sheer physicality, nuanced grostequery [sic] and well balanced pathos/bathos. Lee Miller has less to do as the professor, less stagetime, and he had an audible sore throat last night, so heaven knows how he’ll cope as the grunting and squealing monster tonight. Vocalzone to the rescue, one hopes.

It’s actually scary, which is no mean feat for a stage play. The design and the lighting were spare and epic at the same time, with a stunning ceiling light made of hundreds of tiny individual bulbs that could undulate or burst into a retina-searing dazzle, and a revolving circular stage that occasionally gave birth to bits of scenery, and also coped with rain, snow and a roaring fire from below, not to mention a strip of what looked like actual grass that seemed to grow from nowhere. The design and the music – by Underworld – combined to create a fabulously Gothic setting, against which a fine cast could do their best with a script that at times was over-ripe, but on the whole managed to balance the philosophical and the portentous with bawdy and silly humour. You might find, say, the broad Scottish accents of the graverobbing crofter and his son a bit Fraser-from-Dad’s-Army, but it’s a period piece, and you have to take that onboard. There is no trendy modernisation here. It’s all industrial machinery and gaslight and rabbit stew cooked over a hearth. Naomie Harris off of the telly and the films, had a thankless part as Frankenstein’s intended, Elizabeth, until the grisly denouement, but Karl Johnson was fantastic as the old blind man who “sees” past the creature’s ugliness and identifies his soul.

I wonder if Cumberbatch and Lee Miller will share the theatre awards next year? They sort of should. Many critics said that Lee Miller’s monster was better than Cumberbatch’s. But they saw both.

I tried to read Shelley’s novel in my early twenties and gave up, defeated. Maybe I’ll give it another crack. They played a short making-of documentary before the play – risking letting light in upon magic, although the footage was from rehearsals and not the production itself – and Frankenstein was described by some academic or other as a creation myth for the age of science. This is a fascinating idea, and one that’s not fully explored in, say, the classic 1931 film of Frankenstein, which, as Boyle notes, took away the creature’s voice. His version gives it back.

Oh, and despite a full house, the two seats in front of us were empty. RESULT!

Comments: Andrew Collins is a television scripwriter, broadcaster, journalist, and film editor of the Radio Times. The stage production of the National Theatre’s Frankenstein was broadcast at part of the NT Live series on 17 and 24 March 2011. The cast included Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Miller, who alternated in the roles of Frankenstein and the Creature. The Curzon Mayfair is a London cinema. My thanks to Andrew Collins for permission to reproduce his blog post here.

Links: NT Live website for Frankenstein

We Love Glenda So Much

Source: Extract from Julio Cortázar (trans. Gregory Rabassa), ‘We Love Glenda So Much’, in Hopscotch / Blow-up and other stories / We Love Glenda So Much and other tales (New York/London/Toronto: Everyman’s Library, 2014), p. 805 (orig. pub. Queremos tanto a Glenda y otro realtos, 1980)

Text: In those days it was hard to know. You go to the movies or the theater and live your night without thinking about the people who have already gone through the same ceremony, choosing the place and the time, getting dressed and telephoning and row eleven or five, the darkness and the music, territory that belongs to nobody and to everybody there where everybody is nobody, the men or women in their seats, maybe a word of apology for arriving late, a murmured comments that someone picks up or ignores, almost always silence, looks pouring onto the stage or screen, fleeing from what’s beside them, from what’s on this side.

Comments: Julio Cortázar (1914-1984) was an Argentinian novelist and short story writer, best known for his experimental novel Hopscotch, and in film circles for his story ‘Blow-up’ which inspired Antonioni’s eponymous 1966 film. His short story ‘We Love Glenda So Much’, from which the above is the opening words, is about a group of (probably) Argentinian cinemagoers and their obsession with the actress Glenda Garson (loosely based on Glenda Jackson). In his book In Broad Daylight: Movies and Spectators After the Cinema (2012), Gabriele Pedullà says

This passage from We Love Glenda So Much offers an excellent starting point for reflecting on the condition of the spectator during the projection of a film, not least because of the novelist’s skill in sketching the dark cube experience through a catalog of such heterogeneous details. Sight, hearing, touch … A hypothetical list of the elements characterizing cinematic viewing would not be much more extensive than the one we find in the brilliant opening of Cortázar’s story.

A Tear for Lycidas

Source: Dorothy Richardson, ‘Continuous Performance: A Tear for Lycidas’, Close Up vol. VII no. 3, September 1930, pp. 196-202

Text: During last year’s London season we saw and heard one Talkie, Hearts in Dixie and wrote thereof in Close Up and foreswore our sex by asserting, in bold, masculine, side-taking, either-or fashion, that no matter what degree of perfection might presently be attained by the recording apparatus we were certain that the talkie, as distinct from the sound-film, will never be able to hold a candle to the silent film.

This year, therefore, though we knew there must be small local halls still carrying on, and hoped that our own little Bethel, which we had left last autumn ominously “closed for repairs,” might have taken courage to re-open, we felt that we were returning to a filmless London. Resignedly.

There was, there always is, one grand compensation: we came fully into our heritage of silent films. “The Film,” all the films we had seen, massed together in the manner of a single experience — a mode of experience standing alone and distinct amongst the manifolds we assemble under this term — and with some few of them standing out as minutelv remembered units, became for us treasure laid up. Done with in its character of current actuality, inevitably alloyed, and beginning its rich, cumulative life as memory. Again and again, in this strange “memory” (which, however we may choose to define it, is, at the least, past, present and future powerfully combined) we should go to the pictures; we should revisit, each time with a difference, and, since we should bring to it increasing wealth of experience, each time more fully, certain films stored up within. But to the cinema we should go no more.

Arriving, we found our little local hall still wearing its mournful white lie. All over London we met — there is no need to describe what we met, what raucously hailed us from the facade of every sort of cinema. Our eyes learned avoidance, of facade, newspaper column, hoarding and all the rest.

But ears escape less readily and we heard, as indeed, bearing in mind the evolution of pianola and gramophone, we had expected to hear, of the miracles of realism achieved by certain speech-films. Of certain beautiful voices whose every subtle inflection, every sigh, came across with a clarity impossible in the voice speaking from the stage. People who last year had wept with us had now gone over to the enemy and begged us to see at least this and that too marvellous. Others declared that each and every kind of speech film they had seen had been too dire.

We accepted the miracle so swiftly accomplished, the perfected talkie, but without desire, gladly making a present of it. Wishing it well in its world that is so far removed from that of the silent film. Saw it going ahead to meet, and compete with, the sound-film. Heard both rampant all over the world.

Driven thus to the wall, we improvised a theorem that may or may not be sound: that it is impossible both to hear and to see, to the limit of our power of using these faculties, at one and the same moment. We firmly believe that it is sound.

The two eloquences, the appeal to the eye and the appeal to the ear, however well fused, however completely they seem to attain their objective — the spectator-auditor — with the effect of a single aesthetic whole, must, in reality, remain distinct. And one or the other will always take precedence in our awareness. And though it is true that their approximate blending can work miracles the miracle thus worked is incomparably different from that worked by either alone.

Think, for example, of the difference between music heard coming, as it were, out of space and music attacking from a visible orchestra. Recall that an intense concentration on listening will automatically close the eyes. That for perfect seeing of a landscape, work of art, beloved person, or effectively beautiful person, we instinctively desire silence. And agree, therefore, that there neither is, nor ever can be, any substitute for the silent film. Agree that the secret of its power lies in its undiluted appeal to a single faculty.

It may be urged that to the blind the world is a sound-film whose images must be constructed by the extra intelligent use of the remaining senses helped out by memory, while to the deaf it is a silent film whose meaning cannot be reached without some contrived substitute for speech. That deaf people are more helpless and are usually more resentful of, less resigned to, their affliction than are the happier blind. And that therefore the faculty of hearing is more important than that of sight: the inference being that the soundless spectacle is a relatively lifeless spectacle.

Those who reason thus have either never seen a deaf spectator of a silent film or, having seen him, have failed to reflect upon the nature of his happiness. For the time being he is raised to the level of the happy, skilful blind exactly because his missing faculty is perfectly compensated. Because what he sees is complete without sound, he is as one who hears. But take a blind man to a never so perfect sound-film and he will see but little of the whole.

In daily life, it is true, the faculty of hearing takes precedence of the faculty of sight and is in no way to be compensated. But on the screen the conditions are exactly reversed. For here, sight alone is able to summon its companion faculties: given a sufficient degree of concentration on the part of the spectator, a sufficient rousing of his collaborating creative consciousness. And we believe that the silent film secures this collaboration to a higher degree than the speech-film just because it enhances the one faculty that is best able to summon all the others: the faculty of vision.

Yet we have admitted, we remember admitting, that without musical accompaniment films have neither colour nor sound! That any kind of musical accompaniment is better than none. The film can use almost any kind of musical accompaniment. But it is the film that uses the music, not the music the film. And the music, invisible, “coming out of space,” enhances the faculty of vision. To admit this is not to admit the sound-film as an improvement on the silent film though it may well be an admission of certain possible sound-films as lively rivals thereof.

Life’s “great moments” are silent. Related to them, the soundful moments may be compared to the falling of the crest of a wave that has stood poised in light, translucent, for its great moment before the crash and dispersal. To this peculiar intensity of being, to each man’s individual intensity of being, the silent film, with musical accompaniment, can translate him. All other forms of presentation are, relatively, diversions. Diversions in excelsis, it may be. But diversions. Essential, doubtless, to those who desire above all things to be “taken out of themselves,” as is their definition of the “self.”

Perhaps the silent film is solitude and the others association.

* * *

Wandering at large, we found ourselves unawares, not by chance, we refuse to say by chance, in a dim and dusty by-street: one of those elderly dignified streets that now await, a little wistfully, the inevitable re-building. Giving shelter meanwhile to the dismal eddyings and scuttlings of wind-blown refuse: grey dust, golden straw, scraps of trodden paper. Almost no traffic. Survival, in a neglected central backwater, of something of London’s former quietude.

Having, a moment before, shot breathlessly across the rapids of a main thoroughfare, we paused, took breath, looked about us and saw the incredible. A legend, not upon one of those small, dubious façades still holding their own against the fashion, but upon that of the converted Scala theatre: Silent Films. Continuous Performance. Two Days. The Gold Rush.

Why, we asked, stupefied, had we not been told? Why, in the daily lists, which still, hopelessly hopeful, we scanned each day, was there no mention of this brave Scala?

A good orchestra. Behind it the heart of Chaplin’s big wandering film: the dream wherein the sleeping host entertains his tragically absent guests with the Oceana Roll, showing itself to an empty house.

To the joy of re-discovering a lost enchantment was added strange new experience. Within us was all we had read and heard and imaginatively experienced of the new conventions. All that at moments had made us sound-fans. Enhancing critical detachment. We were seeing these films with new eyes. They stood the test. These new films, we said, may be the companions, they can never be the rivals of the silent film. The essential potency of any kind of silent film, “work of art” or other, remains untouched.

Later we saw The Three Musketeers and agreed, perhaps with Fairbanks, we trust with Fairbanks, that if melodrama be faithfully sought all other things are added unto it. And we were looking forward to Metropolis and The Circus when suddenly the theatre closed.

The experiment, we gathered, had not been a success.

But what, we would respectfully enquire of the Scala management, what is the use of winking in the dark? What is the use of having a silent season, in an unfrequented by-street, and leaving London’s hundreds of thousands of silent-film lovers to become aware of it by a process of intuition? Advertisement is surely less costly than an empty house. And we are prepared to wager that any house bold enough to embark on a silent season and to advertise it at least to the extent of listing it in the dailies will gather its hundreds for each showing.

[Humble apologies to The Boltons cinema in Kensington and the Palais de Luxe in Piccadilly; of whose current loyalty to the silent film the writer is informed too late for tribute in this article.]

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 films mentioned are Hearts in Dixie (USA 1929), The Gold Rush (USA 1925), The Three Musketeers (USA 1921), Metropolis (Germany 1927) and The Circus (USA 1928). The Scala was a small theatre between Charlotte Street and Tottenham Court Road in London which occasionally showed films in the 1910s and 1920s.

Links: Copy at the Internet Archive

Ancient Mysteries Described

Source: William Hone, Ancient Mysteries Described, Especially the English Miracle Plays, Founded on Apocryphal New Testament Story, Extant Among the Unpublished Manuscripts in the British Museum etc. (London: William Hone, 1823), pp. 230-231

Text: The English puppet-show was formerly called a motion. Shakspeare [sic] mentions the performance of Mysteries by puppets; his Autolycus frequented wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings, and ‘compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son’ On a Twelfth night, in 1818, a man, making the usual Christmas cry, of ‘Gallantee show,’ was called in to exhibit his performances for the amusement of my young folks and their companions. Most unexpectedly, he ‘compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son‘ by dancing his transparencies between the magnifying glass and candle of a magic lanthorn, the coloured figures greatly enlarged, were reflected on a sheet spread against the wall of a darkened room. The prodigal son was represented carousing with his companions at the Swan Inn, at Stratford; while the landlady in the bar, on every fresh call, was seen to score double. There was also Noah’s Ark, with ‘Pull Devil, Pull Baker,’ or the just judgment upon a baker who sold bread short of weight, and was carried to hell in his own basket. The reader will bear in mind, that this was not a motion in the dramatic sense of the word, but a puppet-like exhibition of a Mystery, with discrepancies of the same character as those which peculiarized the Mysteries of five centuries ago. The Gallantee-showman narrated with astonishing gravity the incidents of every fresh scene, while his companion in the room played country-dances and other tunes on the street organ, during the whole of the performance. The manager informed me that his show had been the same during many years, and, in truth, it was unvariable; for his entire property consisted of but this one set of glasses, and his magic lanthorn. I failed in an endeavour to make him comprehend that its propriety could be doubted of: it was the first time that he had heard of the possibility of objection to an entertainment which his audiences witnessed every night with uncommon and unbounded applause. Expressing a hope that I would command his company at a future time, he put his card into my hand, inscribed, ‘The Royal Gallantee Show, provided by Jos. Leverge, 7, Ely Court, Holborn Hill:’ the very spot whereon the last theatrical representation of a Mystery, the play of Christ’s Passion, is recorded to have been witnessed in England.

Comments: William Hone (1780-1842) was a British satirist, bookseller and campaigner against censorship. A Galantee show was one provided by a travelling entertainer of the first half of the nineteenth century, whose entertainments could include magic lanterns, puppets, shadows shows etc. Autolycus is a character in William Shakespeare’s play The Winter’s Tale. Hone’s book Ancient Mysteries Described traces the history of the English miracle and mystery plays, and here finds traces of their survival in the magic lantern show performed for a child audience.

Links: Copy at Internet Archive

Cinema Hero

Source: Siegfried Sassoon, ‘Cinema Hero’ in Picture-Show (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1920), pp. 27-28

Text:
O, this is more than fiction! It’s the truth
That somehow never happened. Pay your bob,
And walk straight in, abandoning To-day.
(To-day’s a place outside the picture-house;
Forget it, and the film will do the rest.)

There’s nothing fine in being as large as life:
The splendour starts when things begin to move
And gestures grow enormous. That’s the way
To dramatise your dreams and play the part
As you’d have done if luck had starred your face.

I’m ‘Rupert from the Mountains’! (Pass the stout)…
Yes, I’m the Broncho Boy we watched to-night,
That robbed a ranch and galloped down the creek.
(Moonlight and shattering hoofs. … O moonlight of the West!
Wind in the gum-trees, and my swerving mare
Beating her flickering shadow on the post.)
Ah, I was wild in those fierce days! You saw me
Fix that saloon? They stared into my face
And slowly put their hands up, while I stood
With dancing eyes, — romantic to the world!

Things happened afterwards … You know the story …

The sheriff’s daughter, bandaging my head;
Love at first sight; the escape; and making good
(To music by Mascagni). And at last
Peace; and the gradual beauty of my smile.
But that’s all finished now. One has to take
Life as it comes. I’ve nothing to regret.
For men like me, the only thing that counts
Is the adventure. Lord, what times I’ve had!

God and King Charles! And then my mistress’s arms. …
(To-morrow evening I’m a Cavalier.)

Well, what’s the news to-night about the Strike?

Comments: Siegfried Sassoon (1866-1967) was a British poet, renowned for his poems about the First World War which revealed much of the reality of life in the trenches. This poem comes from his 1919 collection Picture-Show, whose title poem has the famous lines “And still they come and go: and this is all I know / That from the gloom I watch an endless picture-show … And life is just the picture dancing on a screen.”

Links: Copy of Picture-Show at Hathi Trust

Pictures and Films

Source: Dorothy Richardson, ‘Continuous Performance: Pictures and Films’, Close Up vol. IV no. 1, January 1929, pp. 51-57

Text:

American films, sharp as steel, cold like the poles, beautiful as the tomb, passed before our dazzled eyes. The gaze of William Hart pierced our hearts and we loved the calm landscape where the hoofs of his horse raised clouds of dust.

Quite so. True, true, perfectly true. Something, at any rate, did, pierce our hearts, and we did love the calm of the landscape whereon the wild riders flew, the dust-clouds testifying to their pace. Just those things and as they were, unrelated to what came before and after. And to whatever it might be that had preceded, and to whatever it was that might follow, the splendid riding in the vast landscape gave its peculiar quality. We were devotees of the vast landscape and the wild riding and all the rest passing so magnificently before our eyes.

But however devout our feelings it did not occur to us to express them quite so openly and prayerfully. And, I beg … has not the quoted tribute a strange air? An air at first sight of being an extract from an out-of-date hand-book on the year’s pictures, part of whose compilation had been entrusted to a youth with literary ambitions, and a somewhat exotic youth at that, and therefore a youth who properly should not have been the prey of the wild west film? And yet here most certainly is cri du coeur, with no question of tongue in cheek.

But young Englishmen of no period, and under no matter what provocation, are to be found gushing in these terms. Gush they may. But not quite in these terms. A young Englishwoman, then? An aspiring and enthusiastic young Englishwoman writing to suggest to other aspiring and enthusiastic young Englishwomen exactly what they think about the movies, and well understanding the heart-piercing and the adoration of the landscape.

But though the sentiments may be thus accountable, the expression of them remains a little mysteriously not an English form of expression until – turning the page to discover in whose person it was that The Little Review at any point in its thrilled and thrilling career should have waxed lyrical over the movies in their own right, as distinct from their glimpsed possibilities – one finds the signature of a French writer, one of the super-realists who had hoped the war would have rescued art from romanticism, had been disappointed and, having enumerated the few artists who in Europe were giving the world anything worth the having, looked sadly back upon the movies in their pristine innocence.

With the strange unsuitability of the English garb to the sentiments expressed thus cleared up by the realisation that the article was a literal translation, one could give rein to one’s delight in the discovery of this genuine feeling of the day before yesterday, even though immediately one was forced to reflect that this wistful young man, given the circumstances and the date, could not possibly have seen any FILMS.

Accepting, therefore, its French reading, I have set down this tribute in the manner of a text, first because with an odd punctuality it came to my notice immediately on my return, from a first visit to London’s temple of good films, to get on with the business of extracting forgotten treasures from a packing-case, and also because its sentiments chimed perfectly with certain convictions floating uninvited into my mind as I talked, on matters unrelated to the film (if, indeed, at this date any matters can be so described), with a friend encountered by chance on my way home from The Avenue Pavilion.

I had seen, in great comfort, and from a back seat whose price was that of the less valuable portions of the average super-cinema, The Student of Prague. This film, I am told, though excellent for the date of its production, a good play, well acted and likely to remain indefinitely upon any well-chosen repertory, has been out-done and left behind by films now being shown in Germany and in Russia. It is approved by the film intelligentsia, including psycho-analysts who delightedly find it, like all works of art, ancient and modern, fuller of wisdom than its creator clearly knows. And it was most heartily approved by a large gathering of onlookers, revealed when the lights went up, as consisting for the most part of those kinds of persons to be seen scattered sparsely amongst the average cinema crowd.

For me, personally, and before the human interest of the drama began to compete with whatever conscious critical faculty I may possess, it joined forces with the few ‘good’ films I have seen at home and abroad in convincing me that the film can be an ‘art-form’. There is much in it I shall never forget, and that much was supported and amplified in a way that no conceivable stage setting can compete with. The absence of the spoken word was more than compensated. Captions there may have been. I remember none. Clear, too, was the role of the musical accompaniment, though this was now and again a little obtrusive, and one grew intolerant of the crescendo of cymbal-crashing that accompanied every great moment instead of being reserved for the post-script, the final discomfiture of the wonderful devil with the umbrella, surely one of the best devils ever seen on stage or film? The same uniform cymbal-crashing did much, a week or so later, to spoil the revival of Barrymore’s Jekyll and Hyde, first seen in England to the tune of the Erl-könig, itself a work of art and fitting most admirably to Barrymore’s achievement.

But the rôle of the musical accompaniment was clear, nevertheless, its contribution to the business of compensating the absence of the spoken word, its support and its amplification that joins the many other resources of the film in deepening and unifying and driving home all that is presented. Conrad Veidt on any stage would be a great actor. Conrad Veidt moving voiceless through the universal human tragedy in surroundings whose every smallest item ‘speaks to the occasion’ has the opportunity that at last gives to pure acting its fullest scope.

I left gratefully anticipating such other good films as it may:be my fortune to see. Yet within and around my delights there were, I knew, certain reservations at work waiting to formulate themselves and, as I have said, taking the opportunity, the moment my attention was busy elsewhere, of coming forward in the form of clear statement.

The burden of their message was that welcome for the FILM does not by any means imply repudiation of the movies. The FILM at its utmost possible development can no more invalidate the movies than the first-class portrait, say Leonardo’s of the Lady Lisa, can invalidate a snap-shot.

The film as a work of art is subject to the condition ruling all great art: that it shall be a collaboration between the conscious and the unconscious, between talent and genius. Let either of these elements get ahead of the other and disaster is the result, disaster in proportion to the size of the attempt.

The film, therefore, runs enormous risks. Portraits are innumerable. The great portraits produced by any single nation are very few indeed. And the portrait that is merely clever or pretentious, be its technique what it will, is no food for mankind. But the snap-shot, and the movie that offers to the fool and the wayfaring man a perfected technique, is food for all. It can’t go wrong. It is innocent, and its results go straight to the imagination of the onlooker, the collaborator, the other half of the game.

The charm of the first movies was in their innocence. They were not concerned, or at any rate not very deeply concerned, either with idea or with characterisation. Like the snap-shot, they recorded. And when plot, intensive, came to be combined with characterisation, with just so much characterisation as might by good chance be supplied by minor characters supporting the tailor’s and modiste’s dummies filling the chief rôles, still the records were there, the snap-shot records that are always and everywhere food for a discriminating and an undiscriminating humanity alike. ‘Sharp as steel, cold like the poles’; of landscape calm or wild, of crowds and all the moving panorama of life, of interiors, and interiors opening out of interiors, an unlimited material upon which die imagination of the onlooker could get to work unhampered by the pressure of a controlling mind that is not his own mind.

I was reminded also that the Drama, for instance, the Elizabethan drama, became Great Art only in retrospect. Worship of Art and The Artist is a modern product. In the hey-day of the Elizabethan drama the stage was despised, the actor a vagabond and a low fellow.

It may be that the hey-day of the film will come when things have a little settled down. When the gold-diggers, put out of court, shall have ceased to dig, when the medium is developed and within reach of the vagabonds and low fellows, when writing for the film shall no longer offer a spacious livelihood. Then, by those coming innocently to a well-known medium, the World’s Great Films, the Hundred Best Films, will be produced. And, since history never repeats itself, they will probably be thousands, some of which, it would seem, have already been made in pioneering Russia.

But the movies will remain. The snap-shots will go on all the time. And there will always be people who infinitely prefer the family album of snap-shots to the family portrait gallery. And this is not necessarily the same as saying that there will always be irresponsible people, people who are happy merely because they are infantile. Much has been said, by those who dislike the pictures, of their value as evidence of infantilism. It is claimed that the people who flock to the movies do so because they love to lose themselves in the excitements of a dream-world, a world that bears no relationship to life as they know it, that makes no demand upon the intelligence, acts like a drug, and is altogether demoralising and devitalising.

Such people obviously know very little about the movies. But even if they did, even if they cared to take their chance and now and again submit themselves to the experience of a thoroughly popular show, it is hardly likely that they would lose their apparent inability to distinguish between childishness, the quality that has of late been so admirably analysed and presented under the label of infantilism, and childlikeness, which is quite another thing. The child trusts its world, and those who, in all civilisations and within all circumstances, in face of all evidence and no matter what experience, cannot rid themselves of a child-like trust are by no means to be confused with those who shirk problems and responsibilities and remain ego-centrically within a dream-world that bears no relation to reality.

The battles and the problems of those who trust life are not the same as the battles and problems of those who regard life as the raw material for great conflicts and great works of art. But only such as regard the Fine Arts as mankind’s sole spiritual achievement will reckon those who appear not to be particularly desirous of these achievements as therefore necessarily damned.

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 films mentioned are Der Student von Prag (Germany 1926) and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (USA 1920). The Avenue Pavilion cinema was in Shaftesbury Avenue, London, and specialised in showing foreign films. The Little Review was an American literary magazine.

Links: Copy at Internet Archive

Blanche Sweet: Moving-Picture Actress

Source: Vachel Lindsay, ‘Blanche Sweet: Moving-Picture Actress (After seeing the reel called “Oil and Water”)’ in The Congo, and other poems (New York: Macmillan, 1918 – orig. pub. 1914), pp. 108-110

Text:
Beauty has a throne-room
In our humorous town,
Spoiling its hob-goblins,
Laughing shadows down.
Rank musicians torture
Ragtime ballads vile,
But we walk serenely
Down the odorous aisle.
We forgive the squalor
And the boom and squeal
For the Great Queen flashes
From the moving reel.

Just a prim blonde stranger
In her early day,
Hiding brilliant weapons,
Too averse to play,
Then she burst upon us
Dancing through the night.
Oh, her maiden radiance,
Veils and roses white.
With new powers, yet cautious,
Not too smart or skilled,
That first flash of dancing
Wrought the thing she willed:-
Mobs of us made noble
By her strong desire,
By her white, uplifting,
Royal romance-fire.

Though the tin piano
Snarls its tango rude,
Though the chairs are shaky
And the dramas crude,
Solemn are her motions,
Stately are her wiles,
Filling oafs with wisdom,
Saving souls with smiles;
‘Mid the restless actors
She is rich and slow.
She will stand like marble,
She will pause and glow,
Though the film is twitching,
Keep a peaceful reign,
Ruler of her passion,
Ruler of our pain!

Comments: Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) was an American poet with a particular interest in the cinema. He wrote several poems on film stars, and a somewhat high-flown work of early film theory, The Art of the Motion Picture (1915). Blanche Sweet was an American film actress, best known for her performances in the films of D.W. Griffith, including Oil and Water (USA 1913).

Links: Copy of The Congo, and other poems at Internet Archive

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.

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)