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Animating the Everyday: London on Camera circa 1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Lynda Nead
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 1: Transforming Metropolitan London, 1750–1960 , January 2004 , pp. 65 - 90
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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2004

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References

1 On the marvel of cinema for its first audiences, see Gunning, Tom's influential article, “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant Garde,” Wide Angle 8, nos. 3–4 (1989): 31–45 Google Scholar.

2 Charney, Leo, “In a Moment: Film and the Philosophy of Modernity,” in Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life, ed. Charney, Leo and Schwartz, Vanessa (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1995), p. 279 Google Scholar. For a similar approach, see Ben Singer, “Modernity, Hyperstimulus, and the Rise of Popular Sensationalism,” in Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life, p. 73.

3 Simmel, Georg, “The Metropolis and Mental Life,” in The Sociology of Georg Simmel, ed. Wolff, Kurt H. (New York, 1964), p. 410 Google Scholar. For discussions of Simmel's work, see Frisby, David and Featherstone, Mike, Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings (London, 1997)Google Scholar; Frisby, David, Fragments of Modernity: Theories of Modernity in the Work of Simmel, Kracauer and Benjamin (London, 1985)Google Scholar, and Simmel and Since: Essays on Georg Simmel's Social Theory (London, 1992)Google Scholar.

4 Bruno, Guiliana, Streetwalking on a Ruined Map: Cultural Theory and the City Films of Elvira Notari (Princeton, N.J., 1993), p. 54 Google Scholar. Simmel's essay is cited in a number of recent publications in relation to early cinema. See, e.g., Kirby, Lynne, Parallel Tracks: The Railroad and Silent Cinema (Exeter, 1997), p. 144 Google Scholar; Charney and Schwartz, eds., Cinema and the Invention of Modernity, p. 2; Arnwine, Clark and Lerner, Jesse, eds., “Cityscapes: Introduction,” Wide Angle 19, no. 4 (October 1997): 2 Google Scholar.

5 I discuss the statistical representation of London more fully in Victorian Babylon: People, Streets and Images in Nineteenth-Century London (London and New Haven, Conn., 2000), pp. 14–16 Google Scholar.

6 Mrs.Cook, E. T., Highways and Byways in London (London, 1902), pp. 54, 74Google Scholar.

7 The technical developments in photography are given in most general histories of the medium. See, e.g., Helmut Gernsheim, in collaboration with Gernsheim, Alison, The History of Photography from the Earliest Use of the Camera Obscura in the Eleventh Century up to 1914 (London, 1955)Google Scholar; and Newhall, Beaumont, The History of Photography from 1839 to the Present (Boston, 1982)Google Scholar. For a nineteenth-century account of hand cameras, see “Detective and Hand Cameras. Issued as a Supplement to Photography. Compiled and Written by Walter D. Welford,” Photography (23 May 1889), pp. 3–11.

8 As quoted in Newhall, History of Photography, p. 489. The social and legal implications of instantaneous photography are discussed in the following excellent articles: Mensel, Robert E., “‘Kodakers Lying in Wait’: Amateur Photography and the Right of Privacy in New York, 1885–1915,” American Quarterly 43, no. 1 (March 1991): 24–45 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gunning, Tom, “Embarrassing Evidence: The Detective Camera and the Documentary Impulse,” in Collecting Visible Evidence, ed. Gaines, Jane M. and Renov, Michael (Minneapolis and London, 1999), pp. 46–64 Google Scholar.

9 The emergence in the nineteenth century of forms of public behavior that assumed both a physical and emotional distance are described in Sennett, Richard, The Fall of Public Man (New York, 1976)Google Scholar.

10 See, e.g., “Vanishing London,” British Journal of Photography (hereafter BJP) (10 March 1899), p. 147.

11 The implications of the embodied viewing of stereoscopic photography are fully considered in Williams, Linda, “Corporealized Observers: Visual Pornographies and the ‘Carnal Density of Vision,’” in Fugitive Images: From Photography to Video, ed. Petro, Patrice (Bloomington, Ind., and Indianapolis, 1995), pp. 3–41 Google Scholar.

12 Welford, Walter D., The Hand Camera and How to Use It (London, 1899), p. 79 Google Scholar. See also Welford, Walter D., comp., Photographer's Indispensable Handbook: A Complete Cyclopaedia Upon the Subject of Photographic Apparatus, Material and Processes (London, 1887), p. 60 Google Scholar; and Photographic Times 26 (July 1895): 63 Google ScholarPubMed. The popularity of street scenes among hand-camera photographers is demonstrated by the appearance in photographic society exhibitions of special sections devoted to “Street and Town Life” or “Street Characters and Incidents of Street Life.” See Flukinger, Roy, Schaaf, Larry, and Meacham, Standish, Paul Martin: Victorian Photographer (London, 1978), p. 35 Google Scholar.

13 On the limitations of studio and earlier outdoor photography in the context of instantaneous photography, see “Hints on Portraiture. Expression. By Joseph Mahlstick,” Amateur Photographer (17 July 1885), p. 234; Benjamin Wyles, “Outdoor Portraiture and Groups,” Amateur Photographer (2 October 1885), pp. 406–7; “Portraiture and Pose,” Photography (8 August 1889), p. 458.

14 Advertisement in the British Journal Photographic Almanac and Photographer's Daily Companion (London, 1889), p. 763 Google Scholar.

15 Women were targeted in terms of instantaneous photography's technical simplicity; its portability made it ideal for tourists on cycling tours. See Jay, Bill, Cyanide and Spirits: An Inside-Out View of Early Photography (Munich, 1991), pp. 219–58Google Scholar.

16 Welford, Walter D., The Hand Camera Manual: A Beginner's Guide to Photography in Its Connection with the Hand Camera (London, 1893), p. 6 Google Scholar.

17 Ibid., pp. 74–75.

18 Welford, Hand Camera and How to Use It, p. 86.

19 See Stallybrass, Peter and White, Allon, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (Ithaca, N.Y., 1986), pp. 2–3 Google Scholar.

20 On the low status of commercial photography in the period, see McCauley, Elizabeth Anne, Industrial Madness: Commercial Photography in Paris, 1848–1871 (New Haven, Conn., and London, 1994)Google Scholar.

21 On technology as prosthesis, see Armstrong, Tim, Modernism, Technology and the Body: A Cultural Study (Cambridge, 1998)Google Scholar.

22 “Spirit of the Times,” Photography (30 July 1891), p. 480.

23 “The Obtrusive Amateur,” Amateur Photographer (25 September 1885), p. 397.

24 “A Point of Law,” Photographic Times 26 (1895): 375 Google Scholar.

25 “Hand Cameras. I,” Photography (16 April 1891), p. 242.

26 “A New Terror,” Photographic News (11 August 1899), p. 498.

27 “The Protection of the Public,” BJP (14 July 1899), p. 438, which appeals to decorum. Correspondence in the Daily News and the Daily Telegraph in 1895 called for a new law. See Jay, Cyanide, pp. 230–31. The debate in America and, specifically, the ground-breaking academic article on privacy by Warren and Brandeis in 1890 are discussed in illuminating detail in Mensel, “Kodakers,” pp. 24–25.

28 The situation in relation to copyright and photography following the Fine Arts Copyright Act, 1862, is discussed in Copinger, Walter Arthur, The Law of Copyright in Works of Literature and Art: Including That of the Drama, Music, Engraving, Sculpture, Painting, Photography, and Designs, 4th ed., ed. Easton, J. M. (London, 1904)Google Scholar. An important action for libel by an individual against a camera club for taking an instantaneous photograph without consent while in a public thoroughfare is reported and discussed in BJP (16 December 1898), p. 809; (23 December 1898), p. 818; (3 February 1899), p. 75; (10 March 1899), p. 154; (14 April 1899), pp. 225–26.

29 The English common law has continued to treat images as a question of property rather than privacy, although the Human Rights Act of 1998 has begun to shift this principle. My thanks to Costas Douzinas for discussion on this subject.

30 “Persecuted by Photography,” BJP (14 July 1899), p. 435; see also (21 July 1899), pp. 450–51.

31 For biographical accounts of Martin, see, e.g., Gernsheim, History of Photography, p. 342; and Flukinger et al., Paul Martin, passim.

32 Martin, Paul, Victorian Snapshots: Illustrated from Contemporary Photographs (London, 1939), p. 19 Google Scholar.

33 Ibid., p. 22.

34 Editorial, BJP (23 December 1898), p. 818.

35 Paul Martin, “Blocked-Out Lantern Slides,” Amateur Photographer (6 November 1896), p. 374.

36 Ibid., p. 375.

37 Hepworth, T. C., The Camera and the Pen (London, 1897), p. 29 Google Scholar. T. C. Hepworth was the father of Cecil Hepworth, a leading figure in British early silent cinema.

38 Sims, George R., ed., Living London: Its Work and Its Play, Its Humour and Its Pathos, Its Sights and Its Scenes, vol. 1 (London, 1901), p. 3 Google Scholar. For a concise account of Sims's work and of his urban motifs in particular, see http://www.chriswillis.freeserve.co.uk/georgesims.htm.

39 Briggs, Asa, Mass Entertainment: The Origins of a Modern Industry (Adelaide, 1960), p. 9 Google Scholar.

40 For an indication of the early popularity of film for all classes of society, see “Notes and News,” Amateur Photographer (10 April 1896), p. 314, on the cinematograph at the Empire Theatre.

41 An Empire Theatre program is reproduced in Barnes, John's classic study, The Beginnings of the Cinema in England, 1894–1901, Volume One: 1894–1896 (Exeter, 1998), p. 101 Google Scholar. The Museum of London also has an excellent collection of London music hall and theater programs from the period.

42 See, e.g., advertisements for Paul's Theatrograph and Animatograph in the Era (30 May 1896), and (13 June 1896), referred to in Sorensen, Colin, London on Film: 100 Years of Filmmaking in London (London, 1996), p. 14 Google Scholar. Paul's marketing techniques in this year are discussed in Gray, Frank, “Robert Paul in 1896: Innovation, Success and Wonder,” in Le cinéma au tournant du siècle (Cinema at the turn of the century), ed. Dupré la Tour, Claire, Gaudreault, André, and Pearson, Roberta (Québec, 1999), pp. 337–45Google Scholar.

43 On the attraction for audiences of local actuality films, see Allen, Robert C., “Contra the Chaser Theory,” in Film before Griffith, ed. Fell, John L. (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1983), p. 109 Google Scholar.

44 The literature on the Lumière cinema is now extensive. For discussion of Lumière actuality cinema, see, e.g., Allen, Robert C., “Vitascope/Cinèmatographe: Initial Patterns of American Film Industrial Practice,” in Film before Griffith, pp. 144–52Google Scholar; Barnes, The Beginnings of the Cinema in England, 1894–1901, pp. 87–107, 267–72; Barnes, John, “Filming Scenes in the United Kingdom for the Cinèmatographe Lumière,” in Cinema: The Beginnings and the Future: Essays Marking the Centenary of the First Film Show Projected to a Paying Audience in Britain, ed. Williams, Christopher (London, 1996), pp. 60–62 Google Scholar; Barnouw, Erik, Documentary: A History of the Non-fiction Film (New York, 1974)Google Scholar; Barsam, Richard M., Non-fiction Film: A Critical History (Bloomington, Ind., and Indianapolis, 1992)Google Scholar; Burch, Noël, Life to Those Shadows, trans. and ed. Brewster, Ben (London, 1990)Google Scholar. On the question of narrative and Lumière actuality films, see Marshall Deutelbaum, “Structural Patterning in the Lumière Films,” in Film before Griffith, pp. 299–310; Gaudreault, André, “Film, Narrative, Narration: The Cinema of the Lumière Brothers,” trans. Howe, Rosamund, in Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative, ed. Elsaesser, Thomas with Barker, Adam (London, 1990), pp. 68–75 Google Scholar; Dai Vaughan, “Let There Be Lumière,” in Elsaesser and Barker, eds., Early Cinema, pp. 63–67; Alan Williams, “The Lumière Organization and ‘Documentary Realism,”’ in Film before Griffith, pp. 153–61.

45 There is limited information on the complex questions of film distribution in its early years. Some general material on the Lumière company is given in Barnouw, Erik, Documentary: A History of the Non-fiction Film (New York and Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar. My thanks to Luke McKernan of the British Universities Film and Video Council for sharing his outstanding knowledge of the early film industry with me.

46 Robert C. Allen, “Vitascope/Cinématographe: Initial Patterns of American Film Industrial Practice,” p. 151. For discussion of the relationships between the Lumière Cinématographe and their earlier experiments with instantaneous photography, see Gunning, Tom, “New Thresholds of Vision: Instantaneous Photography and the Early Cinema of Lumière,” in Impossible Presence: Surface and Screen in the Photogenic Era, ed. Smith, Terry (Chicago, 2001), pp. 71–99 Google Scholar.

47 A list of Lumière films photographed in the United Kingdom between 1896 and 1897 is given in app. 2 of Barnes, Beginnings. The choice of London subjects from the Warwick Trading Company, a British film company of the period, can be seen in Barnes's app. 3.

48 For tourist itineraries of London in the late 1890s, see editions of Cook's Handbook for London (London and New York); and Baedecker, K., London and Its Environs: Handbook for Travellers (Leipsig and London)Google Scholar.

49 Era (1 August 1896), p. 16. John Barnes discusses the Lumière local actuality films including this one in “Filming Scenes in the United Kingdom,” pp. 60–62.

50 The interior space of the Empire Theatre was the subject of intense fantasy and social debate in precisely this period. Mrs. Ormiston Chant, a leading figure in the women's social purity movement, led an attack on the moral behavior of individuals in the promenade at the Empire and forced its closure for a period. See Ledger, Sally and Luckhurst, Roger, eds., The Fin de Siècle: A Reader in Cultural History, c. 1880–1900 (Oxford and New York, 2000), pp. 69–72 Google Scholar.

51 Barthes, Roland, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Howard, Richard (London, 1984), p. 26 and passimGoogle Scholar; originally published as La Chambre claire (Paris, 1980)Google Scholar.

52 Meyer, Mark-Paul, “Moments of Poignancy: The Aesthetics of the Accidental and the Casual in Early Nonfiction Film,” in Uncharted Territory: Essays on Early Nonfiction Film, ed. Hertogs, Daan and de Klerk, Nico (Amsterdam, 1997), pp. 51–60 Google Scholar. My thanks to Stephen Herbert for his helpful comments on the significance of the punctum in early silent film.

53 As cited in Humphries, Steve, Victorian Britain through the Magic Lantern: Illustrated by Lear's Magic Lantern Slides (London, 1989), p. 170 Google Scholar.

54 See Burch, Life to Those Shadows, p. 17: “these images carry inscribed in them the need to be seen and reseen.”

55 Tarkovsky, Andrei, Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema, trans. Hunter-Blair, K. (London, 1986), pp. 63, 113, 117Google Scholar.

56 Tom Gunning describes the relationship between the stability of the frame and the contingencies of the events depicted as mesmerizing. See Gunning, Tom, “From the Kaleidoscope to the X-Ray: Urban Spectatorship, Poe, Benjamin and Traffic in Souls (1913),” Wide Angle 19, no. 4 (October 1997): 35 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also his excellent discussion of framing and viewpoint in “Before Documentary: Early Nonfiction Films and the ‘View’ Aesthetic,” in Hertogs and de Klerk, eds., Uncharted Territory, pp. 9–24.

57 See Barnes, “Filming Scenes in the United Kingdom,” p. 60.

58 Cook, Highways, p. 285.

59 For Bergson, Henri's work on time as continuity, see Creative Evolution, trans. Mitchell, Arthur (London, 1911)Google Scholar; originally published as L'évolution créatrice (Paris, 1907)Google Scholar; and Matter and Memory, trans. Paul, Nancy Margaret and Palmer, W. Scott (London, 1911)Google ScholarPubMed; originally published as Matière et mémoire (Paris, 1896)Google Scholar. For discussion of Bergson in relation to moving photography, see Braun, Marta, Picturing Time: The Work of Etienne-Jules Marey (1830–1904) (Chicago and London, 1992), pp. 278–81Google Scholar.

60 Bachelard, Gaston, The Dialectic of Duration, trans. and annotated by Jones, Mary McAllester, introduction by Cristina Chimisso (Manchester, 2000), pp. 19–20 Google Scholar (originally published as La Dialectique de la durée [Paris, 1950]Google Scholar). For different workings of the notion of rhythmanalysis, see Lefebvre, Henri and Régulier, Catherine, “Le projet rythmanalytique,” Communications 41, no. 2 (1985): 191–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lefebvre, Henri, The Production of Space, trans. Nicholson-Smith, Donald (Oxford, 1991)Google Scholar (first published as La production de l'espace [Paris, 1974]Google Scholar), and Syllepse 1992); Lefebvre, Henri, Eléments de rythmanalyse: Introduction à la connaissance des rythmes (Paris, 1992)Google Scholar. A selection of essays from the last publication is translated in Writings on Cities: Henri Lefebvre, trans. and introduction by Kofman, Eleonore and Lebas, Elizabeth (Oxford, 1996)Google Scholar. See also de Certeau, Michel, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Rendall, Steven (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1984)Google Scholar.

61 See, e.g., “Through the Fire,” Answers (31 December 1898), p. 143, in which a film of a fire rescue enables the reconciliation of a son and father. My thanks to Dr. Chris Willis for this reference. On the exposure of adultery through the cinematograph, see “The ‘Indiscretions’ of a Cinematograph,” Photographic News (7 July 1899), p. 418.

62 The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Translated from the German under the General Editorship of James Strachey, in Collaboration with Anna Freud, Assisted by Alix Strachey and Alan Tyson, vol. 6, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901) (London, 1960), p. 176 Google Scholar.

63 Contemporary responses to the lifelike qualities of actuality films are discussed in Crangle, Richard, “‘Astounding Actuality and Life’: Early Film and the Illustrated Magazine in Britain,” in Dupré la Tour, Claire, Gaudreault, André, and Pearson, Roberta, eds., Le cinéma, pp. 93–102 Google Scholar. The deathly aspect of the photographic image is famously described in Barthes, Camera Lucida. Laura Mulvey considers Barthes's work in relation to the uncanny in “The Index and the Uncanny,” in Time and the Image, ed. Gill, Carolyn Bailey (Manchester and New York, 2000), pp. 139–48Google ScholarPubMed.

64 Maxim Gorky, review of the Lumière program at the Nizhni-Nobgorod Fair, originally published in Nizhegorodski listok (4 July 1896), trans. Swan, Leda and Leyda, Jay, in Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film, 3d ed., ed. Leyda, Jay (Princeton, N.J., 1983), pp. 407–8Google Scholar.