'Early Cinema - From Factory Gate to Dream Factory' by Simon Popple
and Joe Kember (London and New York: Wallflower, 2004. ISBN
1-903364-58-2. 6 illustrations. Preface + 136pp. £12.99)
This review formed part of a longer review essay which first appeared
in the June 2006 issue of SCOPE- The Online Journal of Film Studies
It is a lamentable fact that, of the many thousands of films made in
the silent era, only an estimated one in ten survives today. In
cultural terms, this loss alone would be bad enough were it not for the
pervading fallacies about silent films themselves that still persist.
These fallacies have a real, active danger of affecting reception of
silent cinema for those who have yet to experience the delights of the
Keystone Cops, the technical inventiveness of Georges Melies or the
sheer beauty of Sunrise (Murnau, 1927). It is my view that
literature covering this silent period must, as a matter of necessity,
explicitly address the prevalent fallacies. Thus, the books that have
appeared (and continue to do so) regarding silent cinema have an
important task in hand -- to inform, to educate and, above all, to
inspire.
Early Cinema -- From Factory Gate to Dream Factory starts from
almost a losing position, for (as is freely admitted in the preface)
‘its bias is predominantly British’. There is nothing wrong with this
condensed approach (indeed, a mammoth book that endeavoured to cover
the entire pre-talkie production worldwide would be a major task) but
to produce ‘an appropriate introduction to the study of Early
Cinema’(preface) and largely omit the crucial role played by France and
the United States (to name but two countries) seems oddly paradoxical.
There is also no mention (in the section referring to ‘the great man
theory’(27) of William Friese-Greene (1855-1921), surely deserving of a
mention here, as he is often unjustly overlooked in more general
accounts of cinema’s early development.
Moving away from the slightly problematical nature of the book’s
coverage, the text is divided into five main chapters (covering ‘Cinema
1895-1914’, ‘Approaches to Early Cinema’, ‘The Uses of Cinema’,
‘Exhibition and Reception’and Film Form: Genre and Narrative’. These
chapters average twenty pages each, but are then further divided into
many smaller pertinent aspects, such as ‘Why Study Early Cinema?’,
‘Critical Approaches’and ‘Technological Determinism’). Although this
makes the book less daunting, and, by extension, easy to dip in and out
of, it can create a rather ‘loose’, haphazard feel to the text and the
information within it that is exacerbated by the absence of an index.
Thus, looking for specific information about Robert Paul entails a
trawl through each section, rather than flicking directly to the index.
Perhaps the idea is to engage the reader and avoid the book being used
as a mere reference tool. Whatever the reason, it only serves to
alienate the reader looking for follow-up references to any point of
interest. The range of the book is vast in terms of its ambition but it
does not always succeed. However, a very useful chronology of key dates
in the first chapter clearly outlines important developments that are
of use to both the casual reader and the committed film historian,
thereby fitting in with the ‘appropriate introduction’cited earlier.
Later in the section entitled ‘Understanding Early Film Spectatorship’,
the authors refer to ‘the heterogeneity of layered performances and
performance styles’and ‘the increasing significance of personality to
the successful film institution’(68). Occurring as it does just into
the chapter allegedly assisting comprehension of ‘early film
spectatorship’, this is an academically dense complication which is as
wordy as it is unnecessary. The book as a whole suffers from being
seemingly caught between desiring to produce a detailed academic study
of early cinema to interest the ardent film historian and seeking to
provide what it sets out to do by using the word ‘introduction’.
Although Popple and Kember do provide a useful ‘Sources and
Resources’section, which brings early cinema into the digital age by
citing useful websites, they do not tackle the basics in sufficient
depth, as has previously been argued. Under the heading ‘A Primitive
Cinema?’in chapter two, the following is to be found ‘- ‘without a wide
range of contextual knowledge, the small fraction of early films that
still survive are of limited value’(33). In common with much of the
rest of the book, this raises more questions than it answers, the major
reaction being that this is blatantly untrue. One can marvel at the
imaginative creativity in Williamson’s The Big Swallow (1901)
and appreciate its blurring of the spectator/performer divide without
needing ‘a wide range of contextual knowledge’.
Likewise, Hepworth’s How It Feels To Be Run Over (1900) is both
amusing and surreal -- it does not demand any prior knowledge of
Hepworth or his production background. Films can gain from a more
detailed knowledge (Bamforth’s The Biter Bit takes more than
inspiration from the Lumieres L'Arroseur Arrose for example),
but they can be appreciated per se as artefacts precursing what follows
without having to be analysed with strict reference to a pre-existing
structure of ‘contextual knowledge’.
Overall, Early Cinema -- From Factory Gate to Dream Factory
promises more than it delivers -- it would have been nice to see more
illustrations of early cinema’s coverage in contemporary media and even
a case study of how cinema developed in a large city (say Manchester)
and a less industrial part of the country. In a more measured,
stimulating approach, mention could also have been made of British
exhibition (The Gem cinema in Great Yarmouth, which opened in 1908, for
example, was the first electric cinema in the country), as opposed to
the eclectic collection of oddments which constitutes this necessary
attempt to provide ‘an introduction’to early cinema. There is a
pressing need for a book which not only provides a clear overview of
early cinema for the interested observer but takes this further to
interest the film scholar, but, unfortunately, this is not yet it.
'Early Cinema - From Factory Gate to Dream Factory' is published by the
Wallflower Press.
Wallflower Press
website
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