American Mutoscope 1896

Amid the welter of projectors with extravagant names that competed for the public’s attention in the very first years of cinema, the Biograph, developed by Herman Casler, had established itself as a product above the others, with a sharper, steadier, and far larger screen image than any of its competitors, a true source of wonder in all who saw it. The key to this success was the unperforated film of approximately 68mm width that the Biograph projector used. The American Mutoscope Company (the Mutoscope being the flip-card viewer that employed the same images, and inspired the invention of the Biograph) generated several European Biograph companies in 1897 when expanding into Europe.
Approximately 300 original Biograph films dating 1896-1903 are held by the BFI (National Film and Television Archive) and EYE Filmmuseum (then Nederlands Filmmuseum); these two collections were restored at the end of the last century in a major project, resulting in projectable 35mm prints. Even in their reduced, 35mm form, these films show why journalist R.H Mere called his article in “Pearson’s Magazine” of February 1899 The Wonders of the Biograph. Such films, in their size, clarity, and super-reality, were the wonders of their age. They are no less wondrous now.

Luke McKernan

Bryony Dixon introduces the BFI National Archive’s forthcoming Victorian film project. The aim is to restore large format films from 60mm and 68mm originals using new combinations of photochemical and digital technique as well as to digitise more than 500 British films made between 1895 and 1901. The project raises questions about duplication of archival work – some of the large format films were previously the object of an ambitious European restoration programme led by the Netherlands Filmmuseum, now EYE. It’s also about public engagement in the changing world of digital programming, how can we best present the material, to excite, educate and entertain?

Films by Paul Nadar, 1896-1898

In 1896, Paul Armand Tournachon, known as Paul Nadar, son of photographer Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, known as Nadar, shot his first films with a cine-camera that ran non-perforated 35mm film (a spiked-roller perforated the film as the camera operated). The cine-camera is preserved at Cinémathèque française together with another model (which utilised 58mm film, absent from this body of work). The 35mm vesion was demonstrated to the board members of the Musée Grevin on the 12th May 1897. Nadar was supposed to succeed Émile Reynaud and his Théâtre Optique but the board members were not enthused by the results of the screening (“The noise of the mechanism renders it absolutely unusable”, the board’s minutes of the 17th May 1897 record). Subsequently Paul Nadar used a cine-camera for 35mm film with Edison perforations. The films we are presenting were shot with both the 1896 cine-camera and the later one in the standard format. Several original films made by Paul Nadar, together with his two cameras, were acquired by the Cinémathèque française from Nadir’s widow on the 7th February 1950.