A FEW EIFFEL TOWERS AND BICYCLES FROM THE FIRST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY

A FEW EIFFEL TOWERS AND BICYCLES FROM THE FIRST DECADE OF THE LAST CENTURY

A Few Eiffel Towers and Bicycles from the First Decade of the Last Century

The 1900 Paris Exhibition celebrated the arrival of the new century and the innovative technologies that came with it, including some spectacular new forms of cinematography: the Lumière Brothers’ projections on a giant screen, the panoramic Cinéorama and the first sound cinema, the Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre (based on playback). Camera operators from all around the world captured the Fair and its many attractions on film, creating a vivid panoramic documentation. They filmed from boats and also mobile platforms – Scene from the Elevator Ascending Eiffel Tower, for example, takes us on a dizzying ride high up the Eiffel Tower. While the tower and its elevators, a triumph of mechanical genius, gave a foretaste of what it would be like to really fly above the city, cinema wasted no time in triumphantly departing from reality. In his Pathé film The Conquest of the Air, Ferdinand Zecca flies on a hybrid of bicycle, fish and rocket over Paris-Belleville.

Of the first three film wizards who specialised in visual tricks and transformations, Méliès was the great pioneer, Chomón impressed with his range and productivity, while Gaston Velle, who made films from 1902 to 1913, charmed us with his je-ne-sais-pas-quoi of extra beauty and additional good mood. His The Riderless Bicycle is a demonstration of an early theory of comedy and humour – incongruity – featuring the Fratellini circus clown family.

Chase films flourished in those years, in countless variations involving policemen, barrels, dogs, pumpkins and anything else that happened to speed across the screen leaving a trail of havoc in its wake. A Ride on the Tandem Bike combines serial mayhem with another popular genre, that of the travelogue. An accident-prone couple leads us through Paris and back to the magical, majestic appearance of the monumental arch of the Eiffel Tower. In case you’re wondering, having the wife played by a man in drag was common practice in French comedies before 1910. Of course, this cross-dressing was all part of the fun but it also had more pragmatic reasons – namely, the dangerous stunts the actor was given to do, such as jumping from a bridge or crashing into a tram. (Mariann Lewinsky)

 


Scene from the Elevator Ascending Eiffel Tower (À la conquête de l’air) (Edison Manufacturing Company, USA, 1900)
dir.: James White

  35 mm, 65 m, 17 fps , 3’; bw; source: CNC Restauration

The Conquest of the Air (Pathé Frères, France, 1901)
dir.: cast: Ferdinand Zecca

  35 mm, 30 m, 17 fps, 1’; bw; source: CNC Restauration

The Riderless Bicycle (La Bicyclette presentée en liberté) (Pathé Frères, France, 1906)
dir.: Gaston Velle

  35 mm, 59,5 m, 17 fps, 3’; bw; source: La Cinémathèque royale de Belgique

A Ride on the Tandem Bike (Une Promenade sentimentale) (Eclipse, France, 1909)
dir.: unknown

DCP, 17 fps, 4’30”; tinted; source: Desmet Collection / Eye Filmmusem

introduction to the movie: Svetlana Furman
section: NOT ONLY BY RAIL

  music by: Aga Derlak

FRIDAY | OCTOBER 22

18:30  | screening room: STOLICA
Festival opening

presented with: The Crazy Ray

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