*It took quite a while to divide stage theater from the cinema projection hall.<\/p>\n
From Annette Forster, “Women in the Silent Cinema: Histories of Fame and Fate,” 2017.<\/p>\n
“This magisterial book offers comprehensive accounts of the professional itineraries of three women in the silent film in the Netherlands, France and North America. Annette F\u00f6rster presents a careful assessment of the long career of Dutch stage and film actress Adri\u00ebnne Solser; an exploration of the stage and screen careers of French actress and filmmaker Musidora and Canadian-born actress and filmmaker Nell Shipman; an analysis of the interaction between the popular stage and the silent cinema from the perspective of women at work in both realms; fresh insights into Dutch stage and screen comedy, the French revue and the American Northwest drama of the 1910s; and much more, all grounded in a wealth of archival research.”<\/p>\n
******<\/p>\n
As Jean-Jacques Meusy asserts in his study of how cinema procured its position among the \u201cspectacles traditionnels\u201d (traditional performances), such fusion of staged and screened scenes was so ubiquitous in Paris on the eve of the war that some foresaw in it the settlement of the rivalry between stage and screen.<\/p>\n
It was an exhibition practice in the non-comic as well as in the comic genre. An early instance of a non-comic fusion of staged and screened scenes was the filmed ballet du feu (Ballet of the Fire) at the Ch\u00e2telet in 1896, which was projected within the play \u201cLa Biche au Bois\u201d (The Doe ofthe Forest) and in the shooting of which Feuillade\u2019s predecessor and mentrix at Gaumont, Alice Guy, had probably been involved.<\/p>\n
Filmed scenes included in staged plays allowed for flashbacks; for the representations of dreams, memories, obsessions; and other deviations from the narrative flow.<\/p>\n
The tangoing objects in the revue at the Folies-Berg\u00e8re constitute an instance of how revues also used to expand their illusionary space through the use of film. Henri Fescourt remembered a similar tableau in a revue he watched at the Folies-Berg\u00e8re in 1913 or 1914:<\/p>\n
Right and left on a screen hiding stage props, filmed landscapes were projected, which were shot in travelling and unfolded from the back of the stage towards the audience. At the centre of the set, the back of an American railway carriage was reconstituted as realistic scenery. On the platform, \u201clive\u201d characters walked up and down, shouted and played, while on the front stage, that is to say centre stage, an actor, seen from behind, called them, ran on the spot and seemingly pursued the train. It seemed to be moving, because at either side of it telegraph posts, wisps of smoke, meadows, forests and rivers passed towards the spectators.<\/p>\n
Most commonly, however, the mix of screen and live appearance was a feature of acts by entertainers and comic actors in caf\u00e9-concert and music-hall. By 1913, it was often applied by comic actors who had ventured into cinema. <\/p>\n
In a 1904 revue at the Folies-Berg\u00e8re, the fantaisiste Fragson let his live appearance be preceded by the screening of a film of a wild automobile race through Paris; similarly, the film comedian Max Linder\u2019s live sketch, in 1913, was preceded by a film showing his arrival in a balloon at the Alhambra music-hall roof top, after which he descended to the stage sliding down a long rope.<\/p>\n
Accordingo Paul Adrian, who has written about the interaction between music-hall and cinema in the history of music-hall and revue, such \u201cintegrated acts\u201d in which the film served as a prologue to the live appearance of an artist, occurred in revues until 1948.<\/p>\n
As already pointed out in Part I of this book, Linder even gave his mix of screen and stage appearances a distinct name\u2014\u201cKin\u00e9ma-Max- Sketch\u201d\u2014and held on to the formula even beyond his already extensive film production.<\/p>\n
The coexistence of stage and screen performances not only took shape in stage performances, but also in cinema programs. By 1913, in the middle of the second boom of cinema construction in Paris, only a minority of permanent or temporary cinemas offered film exclusively, or continuous screenings foregoing live acts.<\/p>\n
Most of them inserted live acts in the film program, much like the film act had been inserted in the music-hall program. A primary, and in the context of Musidora\u2019s oeuvre with Feuillade, most pertinent example, were the Gaumont cinemas, such as the Gaumont-Palace and the Tivoli-Cinema. The Gaumont-Palace, with its 3,400 seats, was the largest cinema in the world at its opening in 1911, and it remained one of the most prestigious film temples of Paris throughout the decade.<\/p>\n
In addition to film screenings, the program offered \u201cAttractions sensationelles\u201d (sensational attractions) or \u201cAttractions in\u00e9dites et vari\u00e9es\u201d (new and varied attractions), usually clowns, acrobats or other virtuoso acts. An undated program flyer reprinted in a booklet issued on the occasion of Gaumont\u2019s centennial featured the screening of Feuillade\u2019s comedy bout de zan vole un \u00e9l\u00e9phant (Bout de Zan Steals an Elephant, 1913) followed by \u201cLes 4 Daltons, Strong-Acrobats [sic] et \u00c9quilibristes\u201d, and the 1914\/1915 Gaumont program flyer for the cin\u00e9-vaudeville with Musidora, le coup du fakir (The Feat of the Fakir), announced as the live act \u201cLe Trio Charley Meteor (Trap\u00e8ze).\u201d<\/p>\n
Likewise, the June 1916 program featuring \u201cLe grand film myst\u00e9rieux: les vampires: l\u2019homme des poisons\u201d (The great mystery film: Les Vampires: The Man Of The Poisons) was preceded by the \u201cAttraction: Le Trio Monika, jongleurs fantaisistes\u201d, and even the March 1917 program, with the seventh episode of Feuillade\u2019s judex, still included a performance by \u201cAlphonso Silvano (Sensationnel Equilibriste)\u201d, implying that the practice of inserting live acts in the film programs was sustained throughout the war. This programming practice was not only common at Gaumont cinemas, but elsewhere too, as, for instance, at Lutetia-Wagram, the Rex, and the Alhambra.<\/p>\n
Emmanuelle Toulet has argued, that the insertion of virtuoso acts may be read as a sign of a continuous relationship between music-hall and cinematographic spectacle. She also contends that such acts constituted an element of luxury in the cinemas and not, as is often assumed in film histories, a distracting relic of the cinema\u2019s music-hall heritage.<\/p>\n
Toulet\u2019s assessment can be further underscored by the findings of my examination of French music-hall, which concludes that the deft acts were highly appreciated and constitutive elements of the programs and that they contributed to the prestige of the house when brought in from abroad. Deft acts, moreover, graciously survived the shifts from caf\u00e9-concert to music-hall and revue as they primarily catered to the eye and hence kept up the revue\u2019s ambition to speak the \u201cinternational language of pleasure\u201d. The foreign names of the acrobats programmed at the Gaumont-Palace suggest that the virtuoso acts may have had a similar significance within film programs, which otherwise offered merely French film productions.<\/p>\n
A further circumstance supporting the idea of continuity between music-hall and cinematographic spectacle can be read from a side remark in the Gaumont centennial booklet: \u201cIn the back of the theater, small tables with lamp-shaded lights permitted customers to eat and drink while watching the film, a common practice at caf\u00e9-concert halls.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, just like an evening at the music-hall, the cinema program at the Gaumont-Palace started
\nat 8.00PM and lasted the entire evening. And, much like revues, which typically consisted of two acts, the cinema program was divided into two parts. <\/p>\n
All of these circumstances, the roominess of the theater, the presentation of live acts, the occasion for eating and drinking, as well as the resemblance of how the program was structured, shaped the experience of cinema-going after the model of attending popular stage performances.<\/p>\n
A final yet significant parallel between film programs and music-hall programs was the significance attributed to variety and genre differentiation. Richard Abel points out how film producers from early on used the concept of genre as a strategy to offer subject variation within \u201ccinema of attraction\u201d programs at music-halls and the like.<\/p>\n
In the previous section, I explored the importance of the notion of genre in the context of the French popular stage, as it offered audiences the assurance of what to expect as well as the pleasure of recognition. For the marketing of their novelty, then, film producers, who at the time mostly simultaneously worked as exhibitors of their films, adopted a tried and trusted strategy in the very stage context in which they entered.<\/p>\n
By consequence of the repetitiveness inherent in the emphasis on genre and the familiar, variety was required, and the film program obviously met this requirement within its own niche of a num\u00e9ro visuel as well. Not only were early and short film programs constructed upon the premises of variety and genre emphasis, but long evening film programs such as those offered by Gaumont during the 1910s as well.<\/p>\n
The coexistence of live and screened performances, the circumstances reminiscent of music-hall, and the sustained prominence in the perception of film of concepts like genre, variety, and spectacle imply that in France, the primary, and, for over two decades, foremost, film-watching experiencewas strongly marked by the expectations for pleasure and entertainment as shaped by the popular stage. From such a perspective, Feuillade\u2019s creation of the genre of cin\u00e9-vaudevilles becomes less of an anomaly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
*It took quite a while to divide stage theater from the cinema projection hall. From Annette Forster, “Women in the Silent Cinema: Histories of Fame and Fate,” 2017. “This magisterial book offers comprehensive accounts of the professional itineraries of three women in the silent film in the Netherlands, France and North America. Annette F\u00f6rster presents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"yoast_head":"\n