1909 was a watershed year for the British film industry, with two events that
would change cinema forever: the passing of the first ever Cinematograph Act and
a great gathering at the International Congress of Film Manufacturers held in
Paris, attended by nearly every international filmmaker of note (pictured here).
Like much legislation, the Act was merely catching up with reality, but it
was constructive in giving clear guidelines on safety, particularly on the risks
of nitrate fire, in the cinema-building spree that followed on the heels of the
skating rink craze. We can also be grateful that the application of the Act left
us a good deal of information about these early film theatres in the form of
plans submitted to local authorities. It also had a long term impact on film
censorship.
February's Paris Congress - there was a second in April - was a concerted
effort by the film producers to institute some kind of regulation over an
industry that was no longer favouring them against the competition or against
the renters (more or less what we now call distributors). The slashing of prices
to 4d a foot by Charles Pathé sliced in to the producers' profit margins, just
as exhibitors and renters were making money hand over fist by sharing prints
among a number of venues now committed solely to showing films.
Thomas Edison's cartel, the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), had
blocked off the large American market to British and European films. In
response, the British producers tried to form their own cartel, and met with
their European counterparts in Paris hoping to force the renters to lease prints
and return them within 4 months, so that tatty secondhand prints were not
endlessly circulated, to the detriment of the business as a whole. The
spectacular failure of this effort was significant. It marked the shift in power
to the distributors, who were well organised and reacted by inviting a
consortium of US producers to supply films - a guaranteed 90,000ft a week,
quality no issue.
From this we can see that the British cinema business was hungry for product,
with demand outstripping supply despite an increase in production - at least 650
films were produced in Britain in 1909. The cinema boom began as a phase, but
quickly established itself as something more permanent - a relatively classless
place, with no set entrance times and no need to dress up, warm, comfortable (up
to a point), private yet sociable, with cheap entertainment and music - a joy
and a refuge for stressed workers, children, nursing mothers and courting
youngsters. From this year onwards we say goodbye to the pioneer period and
instead of 'film' we talk about the 'cinema'.
The films of 1909 were produced very much along the lines of the previous two
or three years and in similar proportions. Non-fiction dominated, with
production values increasing for the interest film and actualities as can be
seen by Manufacture of a Railway Engine, North Sea Fisheries and Great Naval
Review at Spithead. Fiction films saw a modest growth in sophistication of
comedy, and dramas tended to increase in length and ambition. Airship Destroyer,
for all its cheap effects, is structurally ambitious. Several topical obsessions
of the year 1909 are reflected in the films in this selection. The race for the
Poles, aviation and a series of invasion scares.
The heroic era of polar exploration coincided neatly with the early years of
cinema. From the 1890s, explorers took moving picture cameras to both the Arctic
and the Antarctic. 1909 saw polar fever grip the world's press - with Frederick
Cook and Robert Peary arguing about who had discovered the North Pole and
Shackleton failing to quite make the South pole (although he made 88 degrees 23
minutes south and found the magnetic pole). His film of 1909 does not seem to
survive but was hugely popular. To cash in on this success, Charles Urban released
Anthony Fiala's film of his 1903-05 expedition as A Dash for the North Pole.
On 25 July 1909, the pioneer aeronaut Louis Blériot made history by becoming
the first pilot to cross the English Channel by aeroplane. The 37-minute flight
won a £1,000 prize offered by Lord Northcliffe, the owner of the London Daily
Mail, who recognised the aviator's achievement with the prophetic words,
"England is no longer an island." One side effect of this realisation was to
instill or exacerbate a public paranoia about foreign invasion. Sightings of
phantom airships on the east coast were reported regularly in the summer of that
year and the paranoia was reflected in the establishment of the Secret Service
by the Navy and the War Office - what we now know as MI5 and MI6. The rounding
up of real German spies commenced. The reaction of the German high command to
Britain's new Dreadnought battleships and fast torpedo boats was to step up
production of its own fighting ships - and, of course, the terrifying Zeppelins
which symbolised a direct challenge to the primacy of the British Navy. The
Airship Destroyer and Peril of the Fleet can be seen as direct visualisations of
these anxieties.
Bryony Dixon
The photograph (above) shows the delegates attending the Congrès
International des Editeurs du Film, held in Paris in February 1909. Charles
Urban is seated in the front row, second from the right. To his left are Léon
Gaumont, Georges Meliès, George Eastman, Charles Pathé and George Rogers
(manager of Urban's French company Eclipse). Others in the rows behind include Will Barker, Cecil Hepworth, A.C. Bromhead, Robert Paul, George Cricks and James
Williamson).
|
