Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF

the sublime philosopher of our mutual experiences, who expresses the
essential. He writes in the “Cinegrafie 9” about his habit of scribbling
notes which he then never consults afterwards, except perhaps exceptionally.
“Elles font tout simplement partie de mon plaisir de spectateur,
qui n’est complet que quand je puis lui adjoindre le plaisir de l’écriture.
Avoir crayonné pendant la vision du film suffit à mon bonheur.” That’s
the word. Happiness was total.
Programming Victorian Cinema
Luke McKernan (NFTVA - London)
The centenary celebrations of cinema have meant that more attention
has been focused on the first films ever made than is usually the case,
but getting such films on a public screen and persuading people that
there was more to film in the 1890s than trains arriving can be a difficult
business. In February and March 1996, to coincide with the British centenary
celebrations, the National Film and Television Archive in London
took a particularly demanding course of action. During those two
months, in eight 90 minute programmes at the BFI’s National Film
Theatre, the NFTVA screened over 700 film titles from the earliest period
of cinema, a Herculean task not likely to be repeated in a long time.
Plans for the season began over a year in advance, when three successful
‘Pre-1900 Cinema’ programmes in December 1994 showed that there
was an audience for long programmes of these earliest of films. A particular
style of presentation was adopted, where there was no musical
accompaniment but instead a lecturer gave an informal guide to the
films and invited comment from the audience throughout. Once the
audience caught on to the idea it proved to be a successful formula,
though one requiring much preparation and rehearsal. It was decided to
expand these shows of films made before 1900 into eight programmes of
films from the Victorian era; that is, films made up until the death of
Queen Victoria in January 1901.
The original shows had been arranged in plain alphabetical order by
filmmaker, but for the Victorian shows a more thematic approach was
chosen, partly for the sake of different audiences, partly in the hope of
attracting press interest for specific programmes (which indeed happened),
and partly because the eventual film compilations would be of
greater use to researchers in the future. The eventual themes chosen, and
the titles of the programmes, were: Firsting the Firsts (the filmmakers of
1895), Brighton and Britain (British filmmakers, with a particular focus
on the ‘Brighton School’), Lumière (all of their British productions),
Personalities and Performers (the names that first brought people into
see films), The Wonders of the Biograph (the American and British
Mutoscope and Biograph companies), War (with a particular focus on
63 Journal of Film Preservation / 53 / 1996