Catalogo Giornate del Cinema Muto 2012 - La Cineteca del Friuli

tecniche digitali. Nondimeno, resta talvolta difficile sentire certi suoni.
È già abbastanza miracoloso che così tanti negativi e cilindri del
Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre siano sopravvissuti fino ai giorni nostri,
soprattutto considerando la grande fragilità dei supporti – nitrato e
cera. Un’altra buona notizia è giunta da Manuela Padoan dei Gaumont
Pathé Archives, presso i quali è conservata un’importante collezione
di copie nitrato originali del Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre, splendidamente
dipinte a mano. Questa collezione era preservata da molti anni su
pellicola a colori e recentemente, in collaborazione con la Lobster
Films, ne è stata effettuata una scansione digitale 4K in vista di una
sincronizzazione. I due fondi riuniti dei Gaumont Pathé Archives e
della Cinémathèque française permettono oggi la ricostituzione della
quasi totalità del repertorio del Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre, per giunta
con il colore! Ormai, come ebbe a dire Baudelaire, “les couleurs et les
sons se répondent”.
Un ultimo miracolo: nella collezione dei Gaumont Pathé Archives
c’era anche il primo tableau mancante de L’Enfant prodigue. Ora il
film è completo con tutte e tre le sue parti. Scoperta finale: nel 2012
la direttrice dell’École de Danse dell’Opéra di Parigi, Claude Bessy,
mette a disposizione della Cinémathèque française una copia positiva,
e in ottime condizioni, di Le Cid (La Habanera), danzato da Carlotta
Zambelli (1875-1968), étoile dell’Opéra, che nel divertissement La
Favorita aveva sbalordito la Parigi del 1896 eseguendo – cosa mai
accaduta prima in Francia – ben 15 piroette (fouettés).
Le due équipe della Cinémathèque française (Céline Ruivo) e dei
Gaumont Pathé Archives (Manuela Padoan e Agnès Bertola) hanno
lavorato di concerto per portare a termine questo magnifico progetto,
che ci permette di assaporare, quasi come nel 1900, una delle più
belle attrazioni cinematografiche dell’Esposizione universale. Ma aprite
bene le orecchie: il sonoro non è perfetto – come d’altronde non lo
era all’origine! Godetevi comunque il piacere di rivedere, talora colori,
i più grandi artisti di quell’epoca: Sarah Bernhardt, Jeanne Hatto,
Jean Coquelin, Victor Maurel, Rosita Mauri, Félicia Mallet, Carlotta
Zambelli, Mily-Meyer, Little Tich, Cléo de Mérode, Jules Moy, ecc.,
ovvero l’élite della danza, del teatro, della pantomima e del music-hall
della Belle Époque. – LAURENT MANNONI
The long history of the sound film began with the appearance of the
Edison Kinetoscope, but achieved a prodigious leap forward during
the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900, when talking and colour films
were in evidence in a variety of forms. Among the shows presented
during the Exposition, Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre was one of the most
successful both from the technical and artistic point of view.
On 27 December 1899, the engineer and industrialist Paul Decauville
secured the concession for a space of some 210 square metres in the
body of the Exposition Universelle, near the entry at 43 rue de Paris,
close to the Pont des Invalides. The limited company S.A. Phono-
Cinéma-Théâtre was established by Decauville on 2 March 1900,
with a capital of 100,000 francs. The actress and dancer Marguerite
Vrignault, initiator of the project, was named artistic director. The
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theatre for Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre was designed by the architect R.
Dulong, modelled on the “Pavillon frais” created in 1751 by Ange-
Jacques Gabriel in the gardens of the Petit Trianon at Versailles.
The photography was undertaken by Clément-Maurice, a close
associate of the Lumière Brothers, under his real name Clément
Maurice Gratioulet. He filmed with a 35mm camera using film with
a central perforation or two lateral perforations, made by Ambroise-
François Parnaland, an excellent maker of reversible cameras and
notably, again with Clément-Maurice, a collaborator of Dr. Doyen,
the pioneer of medical cinematography.
A studio was installed on the roof of the “Pavillon frais” and the
films were recorded shortly before the opening of the Exposition.
They were made in “play-back”, like the later Gaumont phonoscènes.
The phonograph used was Henri Lioret’s Idéal, which used large
cylinders (22cm long, 13cm diameter) which could record 4 minutes;
in September 1900, the Idéal was to be replaced by Pathé’s Céleste.
Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre is an attraction which mingles several
different genres: sound films synchonized with the phonograph (songs,
monologues, extracts from plays), but also dances and pantomimes
which were simply accompanied by a pianist or orchestra. There was
also a sound effects man and possibly a bonimenteur (narrator).
The programme presented the most prestigious artists of the time,
coming from the Comédie-Française and the theatres of the Grands
Boulevards, from the music hall and the circus. For the first time,
L’Enfant prodigue was adapted to the screen – a little marvel of
pantomime by Michel Carré, with music by André Wormser, first
produced in 1890 and a great success of the day. Another current
theatrical success filmed was Henri Meilhac’s Ma Cousine, which
premiered at the Théâtre des Variétés on 27 October 1890, with
the great actress Gabrielle Réjane (1856-1920). The film is only
comprehensible if the action of the scene represented is known –
the rehearsal of a pantomime entitled Le Piston d’Hortense, which
appears in the 3-act play.
The first performance of Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre took place at the
Exposition on 28 April 1900. The projectionists were Georges and
Léopold Maurice, the sons of Clément-Maurice; the synchronisation
was manually controlled by the projectionists, who slowed or
accelerated the phonographic cylinder as necessary.
Despite the celebrity of the actors, singers, dancers, clowns, and mimes
who had taken part in the enterprise (Sarah Bernhardt, Coquelin,
Réjane, Mily-Meyer, Émile Cossira, Jeanne Hatto, Carlotta Zambelli,
première danseuse of the Opéra, the dancer Cléo de Mérode, the
clowns Footit and Chocolat, and the comic Polin in his soldier act,
etc.), despite the enthusiasm of the press, despite the beautiful poster
by François Flameng, despite the gala soirées (notably for the Shah of
Persia at the Palais de l’Optique on 10 August 1900), the public did not
flock to Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre and the accounts, at the close of the
Exposition, showed only a tiny profit.
Although the Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre company was dissolved on
26 November 1901, the show continued in Paris (42 boulevard
Bonne-Nouvelle, 10 November 1901; Olympia, 1901), and toured
in Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Britain, Germany, Austria, and Italy
during 1901-1902. The Lumières’ former cameraman Félix Mesguich
undertook some of the projection during these tours.
After this the attraction was forgotten, until the early 1930s, when a
group of the original negatives was rediscovered. In 1933 the producer
Bernard Nathan, who had a great interest in the origins of the cinema,
financed a documentary directed by Roger Goupillières, Le Cinéma
parlant en 1900. Thus it was once again possible to see several titles
from Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre, among them Cyrano de Bergerac,
Sarah Bernhardt in Hamlet, Mariette Sully in La Poupée, Little Tich,
and others, either with the original sound from the cylinders or
newly-recorded music. The original Parnaland négatives had to be reperforated
in Edison format in order to be copied.
Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre was again discovered by chance in 1961,
thanks to Mme. Bernhart(!), an employee of the distributors and
producers U.G.C. (Union Générale Cinématographique). This time 24
negatives (sometimes several takes of the same title) and one positive
print, comprising 18 different titles, were found.
In 2010, the Cinémathèque française decided to restore this entire
collection digitally in 2K. The work was carried out at Bologna’s
L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory. Some negatives have suffered over
the years, but many are still of fine quality. At the end of one of the
takes, a beautiful woman crosses the scene: it is the artistic director,
Marguerite Vrignault, in person.
In 2011, the important collector of early cinéma, Olivier Auboin-
Vermorel, deposited in the Cinémathèque française a group of very
precious early films, among them works by Méliès, Marey, Nadar, and
several Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre films until now unseen, for example
Ma Cousine, with Réjane, and L’Enfant prodigue – unfortunately two
only of the three tableaux. All in good state, these films were also
digitally restored.
With the object of reconstituting as far as possible the near-totality of
the repertoire of Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre, with its original sound, the
Cinémathèque française asked the expert Henri Chamoux to provide
the recordings already made from the still-existing original cylinders.
He located 17 Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre cylinders, corresponding to 8
titles, including Cyrano de Bergerac, Iphigénie en Tauride, and Les
Précieuses ridicules. The majority of the cylinders are conserved
at the Musée de Radio-France in Paris. Chamoux perfected the
“Archéophone”, an apparatus able to read and record cylinders in
bad condition or even broken. The synchronisation was therefore
once again possible, above all thanks to the use of digital techniques.
Certain sounds still sometimes remain difficult to hear.
It was already miraculous that so many negatives and cylinders of
Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre had survived to the present, given the great
fragility of the supports – nitrate and wax. Then excellent news came
from Manuela Padoan of the Gaumont Pathé Archives, which have
themselves conserved an important collection of original nitrate
prints of Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre, very prettily painted by hand.
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This collection has been preserved for several years on colour film
and recently 4K digital scans have been made in collaboration with
Lobster Films, with the prospect of attempts at synchronisation.
The combined collections of the Gaumont Pathé Archives and the
Cinémathèque française now make possible the reconstitution of
practically the entire Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre repertoire, moreover
with colour! Henceforth, to cite Baudelaire, “les couleurs and les sons
se répondent”.
A final miracle: in the collection of the Gaumont Pathé Archives was
the missing first tableau of L’Enfant prodigue. The film is thus now
complete in its three parts. Final discovery: in 2012 the director of
the École de Danse of the Opéra de Paris, Claude Bessy, put at the
disposal of the Cinémathèque française a positive print, in very good
condition, of Le Cid (La Habanera), danced by Carlotta Zambelli
(1875-1968), prima ballerina of the Opéra, who had astonished Paris
in 1896 with her unprecedented (in France) 15 fouetté turns in a
divertissement in La Favorita.
The two teams of the Cinémathèque française (Céline Ruivo) and the
Gaumont Pathé Archives (Manuela Padoan and Agnès Bertola) have
worked in concert to achieve this magnificent project, which permits
us to savour, almost as in 1900, one of the most beautiful cinema
attractions of the Exposition Universelle. But keep your ears open: the
sound is, as it was at the beginning, less than perfect! But savour the
pleasures of seeing again, sometimes in colour, the greatest artists of
that era: Sarah Bernhardt, Jeanne Hatto, Jean Coquelin, Victor Maurel,
Rosita Mauri, Félicia Mallet, Carlotta Zambelli, Mily-Meyer, Little Tich,
Cléo de Mérode, Jules Moy, etc. – the élite of the dance, the theatre,
pantomime and music hall of the Belle Époque. – LAURENT MANNONI
Répertoire du Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre
(*I film contrassegnati con un asterisco non sono stati ritrovati. / The
films indicated by asterisks have not been found.)
Air de Roméo and Juliette, musique de Charles Gounod, chanté par
Émile Cossira, ténor de l’Opéra
Air d’Iphigénie en Tauride, Invocation à Diane, musique de Christoph
Willibald Gluck, chanté par Mlle. Jeanne Hatto, de l’Opéra
Après la bataille, Mily-Meyer(?)
Ballet de “Terpsichore” (Un Mariage aux Flambeaux), dansé par Mlle.
Christine Kerf, M. Achille Viscusi du Palais de la Danse
Ballet espagnol, avec Christine Kerf
*Caroles du Moyen Age, danse ancienne, musique de William Marie,
dansées par Mlles. Blanche et Louise Mante de l’Opéra
Chanson en crinoline, chantée par Mlle. Mily-Meyer
*Chapeau récalcitrant
Le Cid (La Habanera), musique de Jules Massenet, dansé par Mlle.
Carlotta Zambelli et M. Michel Vasquez de l’Opéra
*Le Cid (Pas de la Castillane), musique de Jules Massenet, dansé par
Mlle. Carlotta Zambelli et M. Michel Vasquez de l’Opéra
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