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

British Cinemas and their Audiences

Source: J.P. Mayer, British Cinemas and their Audiences: Sociological Studies (London: Dennis Dobson, 1948), pp. 57-59

Text: AGE: 19; SEX: F.; FATHER: HEAD CLERK, SOLICITORS MANAGING CLERK; OCCUPATION: STUDENT NURSE; NATIONALITY: BRITISH

I have been considering answering your request for a motion picture autobiography ever since the May 26th Picturegoer fell into my grasping hands a week ago, until I could not resist the urge this morning and refused to be tempted by the thoughts of a luxury lay-in or even ‘mon petit dejeuner’, so please spare me the cruel information that you are accepting no more contributions as I could not bear the thought of so much wasted energy.

My interest in films was first awakened, when I was expected to accompany my elder brothers and sisters to the nearest cinema perched on a hill some two miles distant, so that my parents were free to choose their particular choice of entertainment on Saturday afternoons. We were ‘treated’ to the front stalls but even on Saturday pennies did not always provide sufficient odd cash to travel in style so the hike not only enforced an early start, but also a delayed return.

My superiors would converse very learnedly on the way about the respective merits of the film we were about to see and it always used to puzzle me how they knew so much about it when they had not even seen it. Tarzan was a great favourite of mine in those days although even then my fellow hero-worshippers were inclined to be slightly cynical as well as highly intrigued by his magnificent feats.

I must have reached the imposing age of eight years or thereabouts when I considered Alice in Wonderland a film worthy of a three hours’ wait in the pouring rain at the aforementioned cinema partly because I had had visions beforehand of myself playing the part of the heroine. These were inspired by my mother’s insistence that I was the image of the ‘real Alice’ for whom the studio was searching, but my photo only resulted in a letter of thanks, the news that the part had been allotted to Charlotte Henry and the rapid subsidence of my dreams of fame.

These have never returned to the same extent since I have realised that magnificent swimming pools, publicity and glamour do not necessarily make for happiness, although there are times when I envy the stars the projection of their personalities on the world at large.

There is a spark of vanity in most of us which is encouraged by being the centre of attraction in some sphere however small and it must be wonderful to know that strangers too are aware of that irrepressible charm.

The disadvantage however is that people are apt to think of their screen heroes and heroines only in terms of their screen personalities instead of men and women with the ordinary trials of life plus those of their unreal environment to face.

It is mainly because of this that I am satisfied with my obscurity in the work I have chosen and have no great desire to change places with the hard working people in the entertainment world.

I always used to imagine that Hollywood hair styles, clothes and make-up were well out of my reach, but since the advent of natural beauty has arrived, it has become apparent to me that the rest are only appendages to produce the desired effect.

Ingrid Bergman is far more truly glamourous [sic] than Ginger Rogers in all her films, in Lady in the Dark while Ginger herself has no need to rely on the artificial props.

Studios tend to bring out a sparkling new star and rely on his or her talents from the start, but then gradually fit those same distinguishing features into the old pattern, thus forming an entirely new, less exciting personality.

The screen world always appeared as a dream world and although it has given me the desire to travel it has not made me feel dissatisfied with my way of life.

Travel films, pictorial, nature study, documentaries all interest me as they have something to teach, while films made from books encourage my love of literature.

My time is obviously running short with the result that my reply is conforming to the conventional pattern set by the lecturer for ‘guidance’ only, which may have prevented many irrelevancies if they had been consulted earlier and provided more of the required information. Nevertheless I intend to conclude this autobiography which more rightly belongs to the readers column, with the information that films have given me vocational ambitions to become a soldier, lawyer or nurse etc: to be more precise The Lamp Still Burns was mainly responsible for my taking up student nursing at this hospital and I can only thank all the people concerned in the production for their moving portrayal of the characters, which so greatly influenced my decision.

Comments: J.P. (Jacob Peter) Mayer was a German sociologist at the London School of Economics. His British Cinemas and their Audiences collates motion picture autobiographies submitted through competitions in Picturegoer magazine. This contribution comes from the section ‘Films and the Pattern of Life’. Contributors were asked to trace the history of their interest in films, the influence films had on them (including if they were ever frightened by films), what they imitated from films, if films made them more receptive to love-making, if films made them want to travel or to be dissatisfied with their way of life or neighbourhood, and if films gave them vocational ambitions. The films mentioned are Alice in Wonderland (USA 1933), Lady in the Dark (USA 1944) and The Lamp Still Burns (UK 1943).

The Movies in Moscow

Source: V.P., extract from ‘The Movies in Moscow’, The Manchester Guardian, 5 January 1927, p. 16

Text: Since the vogue of “Potemkin” it has been recognised that we must reckon, both artistically and politically, with the Russian historical film. It is well to remember that under the Romanoffs historical drama was practically forbidden on the Russian stage; Alexis Tolstoy’s “Czar Feodor” was an exception, and even it was cut. With such a past, is it to be wondered at that among the hundred films made this year by the Soviets’ two big companies the majority are historical? Consider some of the titles: “The Year 1905,” “The Ninth of January,” “Pushkin and Nicolai the First,” “Rasputin’s Plot,” “The End of Koltchak,” “Ivan the Terrible,” “The Decembrists,” “Black Sunday,” “The Wings of the Slave.” As for the historical accuracy of these stories, we say the Soviets distort. The retort that they merely correct a previous distortion which silence has shaped, as a hole in the ground shapes the earth about its mouth.

When I asked my Russian friends on a recent visit to Moscow “What motion pictures are on now, and what shall I see?” they answered, “Our beautiful new film ‘Matt’ you must see. It is beautiful, as splendid as “Potemkin”; but of course it is about the revolution. It shows us again our sorrows. So we ourselves like best our newest comic picture ‘The Case of the Three Million.'”

The seats at the “Kino” were from forty kopecks to a rouble, and, wishing to be as inconspicuous a stranger as possible, I compromised on a fifty-kopeck place. Yes, said the girl at the window, the picture had just begun, but, of course, I could enter. And would I not like her to keep an extra five kopecks of the change and give me this postcard instead? The extra was for the British miners – it was not obligatory, but it would be gracious of me. The postcard was a picture of Lenin making a speech.

Then I went upstairs and found myself in a long foyer, where I was made to understand that I must wait for the next show because it was taken for granted no one would care to see a picture in the middle or disturb others already arrived. After two hours I was admitted, and found myself unpleasantly conspicuous as the only person sitting in the cheap seats; three or four rows behind me the audience began to appear, and far back, where the view was good, were all the rouble places – full. As for “The Case of the Three Million,” it was a bad film, but interesting, about a comic thief whom, at the end of his nefarious adventures, we saw tailored into a serious, self-satisfied bourgeois and sending a pitiful pickpocket who had inefficiently filched his white gloves to gaol. Another day I saw a new picture, not yet released, called “The Wings of the Slave” – of little interest, except that it was incredibly cruel. The slave was a sixteenth-century peasant who made himself a pair of wings that worked and, before the Czar and his Court, flew to the ground from a high tower, proved the principle of the airplane, and was persecuted by the Czar. He was imprisoned and his wings were smashed because it was believed that such intelligence could only come from the Devil. But this flying scene was but one scene in thousands of feet of film unwinding one horror after another – stupid horror that showed all nobles cruel and all peasants kind, and showed these things without beauty or reticence or any hint of any principle of art. This indescribable picture was shown us in a little room in a school building, and as its horrors accumulated I heard the voice of little children raised in repeating lessons, and after a little while some of them came and watched with us. Could this thing be made by men of the same community as those who had made “Potemkin”? But apparently it was the public, not the company, that knew how to appraise “Potemkin.” “Its success was a great surprise to us,” said the Sov-Kino, “a great triumph.” I was told many interesting things. The great popularity here of the American films is permitted because it was felt after the Revolution that kinos must be kept open at all costs, and there were no Russian pictures to fill them, so the American pictures were freely cut and recaptioned and distributed. Now the Russians make films of their own; but a film that only runs in Russia earns only one-third of its cost, so a foreign market will be acceptable. No noticeable stars have arisen in the Red film firmament, nor are the 300 student-players now studying in Moscow at the Kinema University encouraged to aspire to stardom, nor the stage stars encouraged to come to the screen. Balanovkaya is a name to remember; and, after Eisenstein, who is now in the provinces making a new historical film, the three best producers are Ivonosky, Kilischoff, and Pudolfkin. It was Pudolfkin who made “Matt.” …

Comments: The article is signed ‘V.P.’. Among the films mentioned are Bronenosets Potemkin / Battleship Potemkin (USSR 1925), Devyatoe yanvarya / The Ninth of January (USSR 1925), Poet and Tsar / Poet i tsar (USSR 1927), Konets Sankt-Peterburga / The End of St Petersburg (USSR 1927), Dekabristi / The Decembrists (USSR 1927), Krylya kholopa / Wings of a Serf (USSR 1926), Mat / Mother (USSR 1926), Protsess o tryokh millyonakh / The Three Million Case (USSR 1926). The Year 1905 was a planned multi-episode history from which Battleship Potemkin was the only outcome. Ivan the Terrible was title given to Wings of a Serf when shown outside the USSR. I cannot identify Rasputin’s Plot or Black Sunday. The film directors mentioned are Sergei Eisenstein, Alexander Ivanovsky, Lev Kuleshov (presumably) and Vsevolod Pudovkin. The article continues with a review of Pudovkin’s film Mat.

Picture Shows Popular in the 'Hub'

Source: Anon., ‘Picture Shows Popular in the ‘Hub’, Moving Picture World, 16 May 1908, p. 433

Text: A lady correspondent of the Boston Journal finds that the picture theaters in the city of culture are equally popular with rich and poor, and draw their support from both sexes and all ages and nationalities. Her remarks are as follows:

Have you contracted the moving picture show habit yet? Most of the folks I know have, though for some reason they one and all seem loath to acknowledge the fact. Perhaps it is because it seems a childish pastime and not just the form of amusement one would expect worldly men and women to patronize to any extent. The man or woman who occupies a desk at your elbow may be a regular attendant upon these instructive and wholly entertaining little picture performances of an hour’s duration. You will not know it unless by chance you happen to see him or her buying an admission at the window, or after groping your way to a seat in the dark find one or the other filling the chair at your side.

Visiting the little theaters that offer an attractive assortment of pictures has long been a custom of mine, though curiously enough I have not confided my liking for this sort of thing to even my intimate friends. In the past I have paid my admission, and slipping into a seat, watched whatever the screen had to offer. Yesterday afternoon, quite by accident, I learned that a congenial friend of mine had the same interest in these fascinating views of foreign
shores, of mirth-provoking happenings and of events in the news which form the basis of the entertainment, so we made an appointment to attend one.

While waiting the young lady’s arrival, I lingered in the entrance and for the brief space of ten minutes was absorbed in watching the manner of men and women who singly and in groups approached the box office and paid their admittance fee of a dime. All kinds were represented in the steady throng that sought an entrance. The first man who held my attention looked as though he might be a bank official or broker. He had that cast-iron, blank expression that attaches itself to men who constantly handle money or constantly think about it in the day’s work. The next were a family party of three — father, mother and a two-year-old child.

Then came a woman who looked as though she might be employed in one of the great department stores. She was followed by another group of three, all women, winding up an afternoon’s shopping in town with a few moments’ recreation before returning to their homes to preside over their own supper tables and afterward put the babies to bed.

Next came two men whom I know by sight and reputation. They are partners in a flourishing business in the down-town section. I caught sight of a doctor next, whose name proclaims him prominent in his realm of endeavor, and then of a man of whom I have bought steaks and chops and other good things for several years. Beside those whom I recognized or had some inkling of their object in life, there were twenty others as interesting and as different in appearance as those I have described.

I was about to give my friend up and venture in alone when another figure loomed before me which made me feel quite conscious. It was that of a woman friend of mine who seemed to shrink within herself when she saw me. She felt as I felt no doubt — like a child caught at the jam-pot. We smilingly exchanged greetings, she murmured something about “enjoying them so much,” to which promptly responded. “So do I.” The friend whom I had been expecting pushed me through the door, brandishing the tickets as she did so, and we gave ourselves up to the enjoyment of an entertainment that appeals to all sorts, rich and poor, intelligent and unintelligent, which is instructive and helpful as well as amusing.

Comments: This piece was originally published in the Boston Journal (date unknown) and reproduced with introduction in the film trade journal Moving Picture World. ‘The Hub’ is a nickname for Boston.

Links: Copy at Internet Archive

Picture Shows Popular in the ‘Hub’

Source: Anon., ‘Picture Shows Popular in the ‘Hub’, Moving Picture World, 16 May 1908, p. 433

Text: A lady correspondent of the Boston Journal finds that the picture theaters in the city of culture are equally popular with rich and poor, and draw their support from both sexes and all ages and nationalities. Her remarks are as follows:

Have you contracted the moving picture show habit yet? Most of the folks I know have, though for some reason they one and all seem loath to acknowledge the fact. Perhaps it is because it seems a childish pastime and not just the form of amusement one would expect worldly men and women to patronize to any extent. The man or woman who occupies a desk at your elbow may be a regular attendant upon these instructive and wholly entertaining little picture performances of an hour’s duration. You will not know it unless by chance you happen to see him or her buying an admission at the window, or after groping your way to a seat in the dark find one or the other filling the chair at your side.

Visiting the little theaters that offer an attractive assortment of pictures has long been a custom of mine, though curiously enough I have not confided my liking for this sort of thing to even my intimate friends. In the past I have paid my admission, and slipping into a seat, watched whatever the screen had to offer. Yesterday afternoon, quite by accident, I learned that a congenial friend of mine had the same interest in these fascinating views of foreign
shores, of mirth-provoking happenings and of events in the news which form the basis of the entertainment, so we made an appointment to attend one.

While waiting the young lady’s arrival, I lingered in the entrance and for the brief space of ten minutes was absorbed in watching the manner of men and women who singly and in groups approached the box office and paid their admittance fee of a dime. All kinds were represented in the steady throng that sought an entrance. The first man who held my attention looked as though he might be a bank official or broker. He had that cast-iron, blank expression that attaches itself to men who constantly handle money or constantly think about it in the day’s work. The next were a family party of three — father, mother and a two-year-old child.

Then came a woman who looked as though she might be employed in one of the great department stores. She was followed by another group of three, all women, winding up an afternoon’s shopping in town with a few moments’ recreation before returning to their homes to preside over their own supper tables and afterward put the babies to bed.

Next came two men whom I know by sight and reputation. They are partners in a flourishing business in the down-town section. I caught sight of a doctor next, whose name proclaims him prominent in his realm of endeavor, and then of a man of whom I have bought steaks and chops and other good things for several years. Beside those whom I recognized or had some inkling of their object in life, there were twenty others as interesting and as different in appearance as those I have described.

I was about to give my friend up and venture in alone when another figure loomed before me which made me feel quite conscious. It was that of a woman friend of mine who seemed to shrink within herself when she saw me. She felt as I felt no doubt — like a child caught at the jam-pot. We smilingly ex/hanged greetings, she murmured something about “enjoying them so much,” to which promptly responded. “So do I.” The friend whom I had been expecting pushed me through the door, brandishing the tickets as she did so, and we gave ourselves up to the enjoyment of an entertainment that appeals to all sorts, rich and poor, intelligent and unintelligent, which is instructive and helpful as well as amusing.

Comments: This piece was originally published in the Boston Journal (date unknown) and reproduced with introduction in the film trade journal Moving Picture World. ‘The Hub’ is a nickname for Boston.

Links: Copy at Internet Archive

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.

Bioscoop

Source: Louis Couperus, ‘Bioscoop’, Haagsche Post, 2 December 1916, English translation by Ivo Blom in ‘North and South: two early texts about cinema-going by Louis Couperus’, Film History vol. 20, issue 2 (2008), pp. 127-132

Text: The contrast between North and South manifests itself in many different ways. At the Bioscoop, too. First of all, in the South the Bioscoop is called Cinematografo in Italy or Cine in Spain. Well, this difference is negligible. But in both southern countries the difference is great as compared with cinema in Germany and the Netherlands. As soon as we go North, the cinema becomes something of a theater, becomes pretentiously heavy. You are received by employees in braided frocks, your coat and stick are taken from you, you are allocated a certain, fixed seat, you are not allowed to stand up, you notice everyone around you in the shimmering darkness in their seats for hours, there is an intermission … Nothing of all this in Italy or Spain. Not only is the cinematografo or the cine much cheaper than the bioscoop, but the whole interior is more light-hearted, comfortable, accommodating. The illuminated foyer which you can see from the street is inviting, with a salon orchestra (albeit not very attractive to me personally), and a reading table. To enter when it rains, when I don’t want to go to a bar, when I have paraded around enough, when I am tired, bored … I pay 30 centimes and whenever I want to look rich, 50 centimes. I cannot go above that, unless for a world famous film such as Quo Vadis? Even for 50 centimes – both in Italy and Spain – my seat is too chic, so terribly chic, that I prefer to pay 30 centimes … Around me are casual, very decent people, so decent that if I want to see the less decent, I need to descend into places where I pay only 20 or 15 or 10 centimes. I see the same films, but … one week later. But everywhere the experience is light and capricious, an ephemeral joy, while in the North cinema has shut itself inside an impenetrable shell. Really, when I walk into a cinema I want to do it in a light-hearted and casual way. I’ll stand up for a quarter of an hour if necessary, just to see Max Linder or a scene of the war, and then leave again. Dear heavens, you really notice when you are in the North, as soon as you are away from Italy: in Munich or … The Hague. There is no question of standing up; everything is so solemn and heavy, that your first casual impulse to see a film is immediately crushed. In Italy I saw the whole war in Tripoli screened before me, surrounded by a decent officer-with-family audience, without reserving seats and always for 30 centimes each day. Here, I am hesitant to go and see The Battle of the Somme because I don’t want to reserve a seat. I want to keep my coat on, even keep my wet umbrella with me; I’d rather stand than sit; in particular I don’t want to turn my cinema joy into a solemn visit; rather I desire an unpretentious, casual ‘walking in’, a passing pleasure, which should not last more than twenty minutes at the most.

Oh North and South, not even in the bioscoop and cinematograph do you have anything in common.

But now the analysis. Why is it so different in the North and the South? Because of the heavy soul of the Northerners? Of course, but also because ‘street life’ does not exist in the North and because in the South ‘walking into a cinema’ is a part of everyday life. Just as in the North it is not allowed in a lunchroom bar to toss off a little glass of vermouth standing up, so it is not normal to consider the cinema as a short halt in your flanerie, as a shelter from the rain, as a short, oh, so short, distraction from the melancholy which can so affect the flaneur when he is lonely, wandering among the busy crowd. And so he longs for Max Linder or Charles Prince; yes, even some lively pictures of actuality, whose photographic ugliness, teasing and screeching, scratch the silently suffering soul of the purposeless street wanderer when the winter twilight hour nears, when the shopping lights and street lanterns are starting to flame and the pain of wistfulness hurts him, without really knowing why …

It is then that you lose yourself – not in a bar where the electric light shines mercilessly – and where you need to drink something; it is then that you lose yourself, in the South, in the cinematograph, where you can watch pictures as if still on your mother’s lap.

Comments: Louis Couperus (1863-1923) was a Dutch novelist and poet and is considered one of the leading figures in Dutch literature. He wrote about films in his regular ‘Bioscoop’ column for the Dutch newspaper Haagsche Post. The films referred to are Quo Vadis? (Italy 1913) and The Battle of the Somme (UK 1916). Max Linder and Charles Prince were French film comedians, the latter known on-screen as Rigadin. Bioscoop is the Dutch word for a cinema building, taken from the English word Bioscope. My thanks to Ivo Blom for his permission to reproduce his translation, and to Deac Rossell for alerting me to the Film History article. Ellipses are as given in the Film History translation.

Il Cinematografo

Source: Louis Couperus, ‘Il Cinematografo’, Het Vaderland, 22 April 1911, pp. 1-2, English translation by Ivo Blom in ‘North and South: two early texts about cinema-going by Louis Couperus’, Film History vol. 20, issue 2 (2008), pp. 127-132

Text: The following night, while my wife is exchanging small talk with the German Generals’ wives and Majors’ widows – in the drawing room of the pension house – I am walking around at a loose end, ‘with my soul under my arm’, and with that same soul I walk into a cinematografo, for the sum of 20 Centesimi. I just happen to like contrasts. I just happen to like to sit one night, chic, with my wife, on a rather expensive poltrone in a gala performance, and the next night visit those public amusements where the common man for a few Soldi gives himself the illusion of something very beautiful sad, gay, and in particular sentimental. I once read that Edison invented the cinema to give the common-man his theater. I entirely agree with that, but … But what I want to say, I won’t say right away. First I will describe what the waiting room looks like … because, if you have paid 30 Centesimi, you don’t wait: there are always places, however, if you want something cheaper, for two Soldi less, you need to wait … in the waiting room. You’ll understand, dear reader, that I am frugal that I will wait, right … [e]specially because the waiting amuses me, or rather interest me … This waiting room is very dirty. People often spit on the ground with great gobs, and nobody minds. The ground is covered not only with saliva but also with tangerine peel, used matches, cigarette butts and torn entrance tickets. On a platform is a palm-court orchestra of some pale girls dressed in white. All around are test-your-strength machines, shooting galleries, candy automats …Chairs are against the wall; every chair is taken; the place is full to the brim. Look at all those tired faces that sharply light up like ghosts in the cruel and stark electric light. These are not the Roman marchionesses, princesses, loaded with their family jewels; these are not gentlemen in tails and elegant lieutenants shining in gold; this is not the noble spawn of the Duke of the Abruzzi. This is the tired waiting of the ‘common man’ – with wife and kids, often with babies – after the common man has finished working. He is out, he is going to amuse himself; he wants above all to see something. When he is out with his family, it easily costs him almost a Lira. But he gets a lot in return. He starts with resting on a chair, in front of an enormous ‘mirror’, which, ghostlike, reflects to him his pale, tired face. He also perceives electric light on walls with art nouveau patterns and he hears the din of the palm-court orchestra. When he is finally allowed to enter, then he, his worn-out wife and worldly-wise children, first see a dal vero: a parade or an instructive industry film or a trip through Norway or Switzerland. Secondly, a sentimental drama, which moves their petty bourgeois souls to tears in such a marvellous way: stolen children, noble little chimney sweeps, virtue especially rewarded … And now and then something of opera or true comedy, but without the words and with no more music thank the plonky piano accompaniment. And as life is so merry and gay, the delicious show ends with a farce, which often consists of drunken men and people tumbling over each other and running after one other through fields and roads: oh such merry farces, drawn from lovely merry life! The little citizen, for his four soldi, is educated, has a tear squeezed from the eye, and has his ‘laughing muscle’ tickled. Alright, I allow him that. I allow him this cheap theater of Edison. But … And now I will say it … Why, after he is educated, cannot the tear be squeezed from his eye with beauty; the laughing muscle tickled … with grace? Does it have to happen – is it not possible to let it happen – but with coarse, false, weepy sentimentality … and with an even more coarse, more false, drunkard’s burlesque?

The show is over. I have stayed until the end. And not like yesterday, in the chic Opera, left before the end. It is because I wanted to see that distressing exodus of common men, with their pale, spent faces, arm in arm with their worn-out wives, behind them their worldly-wise children. And they seemed even more tired than when I saw them in the waiting room. They didn’t seem to be cheered up by the vulgar drunkard’s farce. Reader, forgive me that I led you to a gala night of the Cinematografo … I like contrasts, you know.

Comments: Louis Couperus (1863-1923) was a Dutch novelist and poet and is considered one of the leading figures in Dutch literature. He wrote about films in his regular ‘Bioscoop’ column for the Dutch newspaper Haagsche Post, and occasionally elsewhere as in this piece on visiting a Rome cinema for Het Vaderland, which is part of a series ‘Pages from my diary’. The previous ‘diary’ article had covered a visit to the Teatro Costanzi in Rome to see Verdi’s opera Macbeth, alluded to here (the Roman marchionesses etc). My thanks to Ivo Blom for his permission to reproduce his translation, and to Deac Rossell for alerting me to the Film History article. Ellipses are as given in the Film History translation.

They that go in darkness

Source: Fred Spurgin, ‘They that go in darkness’, ‘Cinema’ series no. 250, posted Devon, November 1915?, from the Nicholas Hiley collection

darkness

darkness_back

Comments: Frederick Spurgin (1882-1968) was a prolific British postcard illustrator of the First World War period, who produced several cards with a cinema theme, usually with a mild sexual theme.

Them was the Good Old Days

Source: Thornton Fisher, ‘Them was the Good Old Days, or words to that effect’ (‘Grinding the Crank’ series), Moving Picture World, 10 August 1918, p. 831

family

themwas

Comments: Thornton Fisher (1888-1975) was an American cartoonist, illustrator and radio sports commentator. This cartoon for a 1918 film journal already looks back on the development of the cinema business with nostalgia. My thanks to Beth Corzo-Duchardt for bringing this to my attention.

Links: Copy on Internet Archive