Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF

Programmer du cinéma victorien
Le centenaire du cinéma fut certainement
une bonne occasion de prêter plus d’attention
aux films des premiers temps. Montrer
ces films à un public et persuader les spectateurs
qu’il y avait plus à filmer dans les
années 1890 que des trains arrivant en gare
en est une autre paire de manches...
A l’occasion du centenaire, le NFTVA s’engagea
dans une entreprise particulièrement
ambitieuse: la projection de plus de 700
films des premiers temps. Groupées en programmes
de 90 minutes, les projections ont
eu lieu au National Film Theatre du BFI, en
février et mars 1996. Ce fut une tâche herculéenne
que l’on n’est pas prêt à recommencer
de sitôt.
the Boer War), Sport and Recreation (including travel), and Discoveries
(unidentified films, scientific films and pre-cinema images animated).
The NFTVA’s own substantial holdings of Victorian film were to form the
majority of films shown. It was a goal of the project that, by the time of
the cinema centenary, every piece of Victorian film in the NFTVA should
be properly preserved, accessible through a viewing copy, identified,
shotlisted, and screened during the film season. Such a target was bound
to be unattainable, with small gauge and large format films demanding
more time than could be devoted to them at such a busy period, but
many previously inaccessible films were made available, and among the
films previously unidentified or simply not looked at for years there
emerged some surprises. None was more welcome than the discovery
that a film held in the Archive since the 1930s as A Game of Cards
(France 1899?) turned out to be Une partie de cartes (1896), Georges
Méliès’ first film (number one in the Star-Film catalogue). The ultimate
intention is to have every film in the subsequent compilations accessible
both in that form and as a separate reel of film, so that all future access
requests can be satisfied. This is likely to be a long process, but the compilations
of such themes as the Boer War and Queen Victoria have already
proved most useful to researchers.
As well as the NFTVA’s own holdings the programmes were also to comprise
films from other archives. The Centre National de la Cinématographie,
as part of its project to make its restored Lumière films widely
available for the centenary, generously supplied prints of over 70 of the
films shot by the Lumière operators in England and Ireland, most of
which had not been seen in the country since the 1890s. The copies
have now been acquired by the NFTVA. The NFTVA and the Nederlands
Filmmuseum have been engaged in the joint restoration of 68mm
Biograph films through the LUMIERE programme and the NFM supplied
three reels of British and Dutch Biograph films, again bringing a large
number of key films back to a British screen for the first time since the
1890s. Finally the programme of scientific films was only possible
through the use of Virgilio Tosi’s remarkable compilation film, The
Origins of Scientific Cinematography, made available by the British
Universities Film and Video Council.
A deadline of December 1995 was set for all of the new prints to be
available, with anything remaining after that date to be discounted.
Happily we had eight complete programmes all ready, though not in
their final state of compilation, and as the opening date grew nearer the
enormity of arranging what were then thought to be just over 600 films
(the number strangely grew as the season progressed) at a time of maximum
access request for such titles proved almost too much, especially
when NFTVA staff had other, equally pressing duties to perform. The
first compilations arrived, made up by indefatigable staff at the NFTVA’s
J. Paul Getty Conservation Centre (notably Josie Poulton and Maureen
Churchill) two weeks before the first programme on February 7th .
Rehearsals had been arranged for each screening, essential with so many
films under different titles (not everything fitted into neat compilations
64 Journal of Film Preservation / 53 / 1996