Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF

And when the world war broke out in 1914, there was already a powerful
cinematographic industry, that had flourished particularly in America,
France, and Italy. The war compelled the exclusion of foreign films,
which had until then set the tone, thus forcing the production of
German cinematographic works, so that after the end of the war a new
cinematographic industry in Germany was revealed to the surprise of
former enemies.
With indefatigable effort, inventors now went about perfecting the blackand-white
art. No day passed without some new technological advance
being registered with the patent offices. German films found their way
abroad, opening up new profit-making opportunities. The sensationalist
film was in demand. Acrobats commanded the silver screen. But this
fashion was soon passé. The public grew weary of the cinema. The entire
film world complained about the decline in business. By about 1930, the
biggest firms were struggling to survive. All smaller companies with little
capital had long since been bought out by the trusts. A new bait was
tried: films were exhibited with famous actors personally speaking the
accompanying text. For a few months the once so ardent love of the
fickle public for the cinema seemed to have ignited anew. In vain. In this
period, 1932 and thereabouts, people were keen on aeroplane races,
they undertook summer trips to the North Pole or brief excursions to
luxurious Tibet. Finally, in 1935, a young technician succeeded in
inventing a speech film without the use of gramophone recordings. His
invention was a small device with a voice that sounded deceptively like
the human voice. A mechanism set the voice in motion when the film
started. The imitation of the spoken word was so amazing that the theatres
begin to fill once again. However, there were no longer any smaller
picture theatres, because the enormous overheads would have made
them uneconomical. Only the big picture palaces accommodating more
than 3000 people could hold their own. Thanks to the new invention,
they did very nicely indeed. The devices were perfected. The introduction
of the speech film required a complete change in the way films were
made. The cinema writers could now no longer call for pantomimic performances.
Like their colleagues, the playwrights, they had now to lay
words in the mouths of their hitherto silent actors, they had to think up
admirable, brilliant, and witty dialogues. The cinematic poets had to
supply cinematic poetry. Acting, which had previously been only indicated
by pantomimic means, was transformed. The actors no longer
remained silent. They spoke. Cinema music was eliminated. Everyone
streamed to experience the speaking cinema. The many film stars discovered
in past years had to take their departure because they were inadequate
speakers. Film style changed radically. The cinema of 1925 had no
points of comparison with the cinema of 1935. It was unrecognisable.
In 1936, when the world was just celebrating the 40th anniversary of the
cinema, the breakthrough was achieved in creating the cinematic work
in natural colours. For three decades this problem had occupied whole
armies of chemists. It was only the discovery of a new chemical dye in
conjunction with a recently introduced process in the manufacture of
29 Journal of Film Preservation / 53 / 1996
Hijo de un comerciante de tabacos y de una
actriz, Egon Jacobsohn (1895 - 1969) fué,
nos cuenta el autor del artículo, camarero,
croupier, vagabundo, vendedor de salchichas
calientes, organillero, bombero o ladrón,
según las circunstancias. Por suerte, debe su
celebridad a sus actividades de cronista cinematográfico
irreverente de los años 20.
Tras diversas colaboraciones con el Kleiner
Journal y el Lichtbild-Bühne, fué sucesivamente
director de redacción de la Erste
Internationale Filmzeitung y de la
Illustrierte Filmwoche, para terminar creando
su propia revista: Filmhölle. Después
de la subida de Hitler al poder, Jacobsohn
partió de Alemania hacia Inglaterra, donde
falleció en 1969.
El texto que sigue, suerte de mirada irónica
sobre el centenerio del cine, proviene de
Filmgeheimnisse, libro que Jacobsohn publicó
en 1922. ¡Sorprendente!