Aren’t film stars essential for cinema? Apparently not. Cinema became an amazing success with anonymous performers and they stayed anonymous for a long time. Only production companies would be credited in 1905; audiences had no clue (and probably little interest) in the names of performers and directors. Occasionally, stage artists would be identified in sales catalogues by name, as is the case with Mlle Consoli, danseuse etoile (hence star) of the Theatre du Chatelet and principal dancer in La Ruche merveilleuse. But if you try to identify a performer in early cinema you will despair. It took 15 years to discover the name of a strikingly versatile and talented actress who appears in some 60 Pathe films from 1903 to 1910: Renee Doux. Do look out for her in Great Steeple-Chase and Cache-toi dans la malle! and don’t miss La Confession and Les trois phases de la lune, two great films with Doux as leading actress. It is fascinating to observe how filmmakers in these years are constantly experimenting, so as to make the production attractive for the spectators and to astonish them with new inventions and combinations. Tricks and brilliant colours are used for surprise and variety, facial close-ups and insidious body empathy (Cache-toi dans la malle!) bring audiences into an ever-closer relationship with the characters on screen. A non-fictional filmed horse race (Great Steeple-Chase) might risk becoming boring but not when edited with fiction scenes of Pathe performers watching it. No star is yet born, but the point-of-view shot has arrived. There were stars in early cinema, natural stars: children. Children moreover formed an important part of the audience, and cinema producers fulfilled their secret dreams. In the comedies catering to them, naughty boys such as Toto take gleeful revenge against adult oppression and go unpunished.

Mariann Lewinsky