In the Spring of 1897 one of the Société A. Lumière et ses fils’ first cameramen, Alexandre Promio, set off to film Egypt and what at the time was known as the Turkey of the East. He returned from that journey with about sixty views. The two programmes presented here, which come from the CNC collection, constitute a significant portion of these views. Their interest lies above all in the editing by Paul Génard and the printing carried out in Jean-Paul Boyer’s laboratory in the 1960s. Paul Génard, a doctor by trade, had put together an exceptional collection of over four hundred pre-cinema items. It is thanks to him that documents and unique objects belonging to the Lumière family, including Louis’ first Cinématographe, were recovered and conserved. We do not know exactly how Génard came up with the idea for this montage, but it is important to note that this is not a simple collage of animated views, but rather a true artistic composition. It mixes views from the catalogue with others ‘out of catalogue’ to successfully convey both the cameraman’s keen eye and the aesthetic and poetic dimension of his images, which comes through clearly thanks to the beautiful printing carried out by the Boyer laboratory. Boyer had also undertaken the printing of Lumière negatives for Henri Langlois and the Cinémathèque française. These are widely considered to be of great quality, thanks to a technique particularly suited to that type of film: the positive copy is printed through direct contact with the original negative in order to avoid the possible distortions from the original image which would have resulted from any optical system.

Dominique Moustacchi