Wed

28/06

Cinema Lumiere - Sala Officinema/Mastroianni > 12:15

MAGGIO 1897: PROIEZIONI AL TEATRO D. MARIA PIA DI FUNCHAL

Introduced by

Camille Blot-Wellens

Piano accompaniment by

Gabriel Thibaudeau

Amongst the numerous cinematographic devices that circulated in 1896 figures the Cinématographe perfectionné, patented by Henri Joly on March 17, 1896 and marketed by Ernest Normandin beginning in the autumn of 1896. Presented as “the only one which doesn’t damage films” and “without any vibration or flickering”, what later became known as the Cinématographe Joly-Normandin seduced several exhibitors in France and abroad (United States, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal) despite its peculiar square format (35mm, five perforations per frame).
Unfortunately for Henri Joly and Ernest Normandin, their cinematograph was the one used the day when the terrible fire at the Bazar de la Charité occurred in Paris on May 4, 1897. Even if it was acknowledged that the cinematograph was not the origin of the fire, it seems nevertheless to have made life difficult for their apparatus and led the two engineers to change the name of the device.
No catalogue of films made with the Joly-Normandin system seems to have survived, but we can state with some certainty that (at least) a hundred films were made with this system, most of these shot before the Bazar de la Charité disaster.
Thanks to several collections that rediscovered in Switzerland, Spain and Portugal, about sixty films produced with their system have been identified and preserved.
The most important collection (forty-two films) comes from the Cinemateca Portuguesa which, in 2005, received as a deposit from the Photographia – Museu Vincentes the collection of João Anacleto Rodrigues, a businessman and amateur photographer from Funchal (Madeira), who purchased a cinématographe Joly-Normandin in March 1897. Between May and December the same year, he organized sessions in Funchal and in the archipelago.
In this collection not only films were saved, but also original programmes, such as those from the first screenings organized in mid-May 1897 at the Teatro D. Maria Pia of Funchal.

Camille Blot-Wellens

Projection
Info

Wednesday 28/06/2017
12:15

Subtitle

Original version with simultaneous translation through headphones

PLACE DE LA CONCORDE

Film Notes

A picture of Parisien fin-de-siécle street traffic shot by Étienne-Jules Marey between 1888-1904 with his chrono-photographic camera on 88mm wide x 19m long film strip. It is one of the first cinematographic recordings of Paris. It’s a busy street scene at the Place de la Concorde, shot sometime in March or April in sunny weather around noon. The shot is 45 seconds, scanned at 12 frames per second, totaling 544 frames of 31x88mm. Originally, this film was not intended for projection, but made for Marey’s motion analysis research. After digitization of Marey’s film in 2017, some 120 years later, it is possible to screen this for the first time. The original film’s negative film, shot on black-and-white flammable raw nitrocellulose material produced by either the Eastman Company or Lumière Laboratories in Lyon (there is no record where Marey got the film), has been preserved in the depository of the National Technical Museum in Prague.

NTM film digitized the piece in cooperation with the research project NAKI – National Cultural Identity at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague at a resolution of 13K. The image was digitally restored in 2017 but was not retouched. The whole original negative and two shorter film prints were well preserved. The restoration of Marey’s chrono-photography was complicated not in length, but in its highly dense photographic qualities. It looks like Marey had problems with the development at the time, which is understandable, given the length of the footage and the time period it was shot in. The first half of the roll is well-developed, but the second half already exhibits considerable density fluctuations and decay. Changes in density occurs between the individual frames and also within each individual picture frame. This practically prevents digital retouching, which is why the Prague expert group decided against rétouche of Marey’s picture. The photographic appearance of the image was restored by digital color grading based on analysis and comparison with the DFRP (digital facsimile of reference print) taken from the shorter of the two Marey’s positives prints – negative frame No. 155. Besides correcting density changes, the grading also corrected the brownish marks, which were probably caused by photo-chemical (not mold) defects.

Cast and Credits

DCP

Chegada d’um comboio à gare de Bel-Air [arrivée d’un train]

Director: [Henri Joly]
Year: 1896-1897
Country: Francia
Running time: 1'
Film Version

Portuguese intertitles

Sound
Mute
Edition
2017

Sahida da igreja de Notredame des victoires /Sortie de l’église Notre-Dame-des-Victoires

Director: [Henri Joly]
Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Running time: 1'
Film Version

Portuguese intertitles

Sound
Mute
Edition
2017

Carga de dragões / Charge oblique

Director: Eugène Pirou
Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Running time: 1'
Film Version

Portuguese intertitles

Sound
Mute
Edition
2017

O mar em Dieppe / La Mer a Dieppe

Director: Ernest Normandin
Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Running time: 1'
Film Version

Portuguese intertitles

Sound
Mute
Edition
2017

O Jardineiro / L’Arroseur arrosé

Director: [Henri Joly]
Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Running time: 1'
Film Version

Portuguese intertitles

Sound
Mute
Edition
2017

Hussards inglezes, desfilando / The 13th Hussars on the March Throughout Dublin Streets

Year: 1897
Country: Irlanda
Running time: 1'
Film Version

Portuguese intertitles

Sound
Mute
Edition
2017

Dança hespanhola / Danse espagnole

Director: Eugène Pirou
Year: 1896-1897
Country: Francia
Running time: 1'
Film Version

Portuguese intertitles

Sound
Mute
Edition
2017

Assalto ao boxe / Assaut de boxe entre deux champions de Joinville

Director: Henri Joly
Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Running time: 1'
Film Version

Portuguese intertitles

Sound
Mute
Edition
2017

Oficina de ferreiros / Les forgerons

Director: Eugène Pirou
Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Running time: 1'
Film Version

Portuguese intertitles

Sound
Mute
Edition
2017

Creanças no Bosque de Vincennes / Enfants au bois

Director: [Henri Joly]
Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Running time: 1'
Film Version

Portuguese intertitles

Sound
Mute
Edition
2017

Avenida do Bosque de Boulogne e Arco do Triumpho / Avenue du Bois de Boulogne

Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Running time: 1'
Film Version

Portuguese intertitles

Sound
Mute
Edition
2017

A prisão d’um ébrio

Year: 1896?
Country: Francia
Running time: 1'
Film Version

Portuguese intertitles

Sound
Mute
Edition
2017

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