From Mexico to Indochina: the circumnavigation of a traveller at the turn of the century

“The project of cataloguing and identifying the films from the Lumière production deposited at CNC-Archives du Film had as its aim the reconstruction of the filmography consisting of 1422 titles which have been reviewed, starting from various sales catalogues edited by the Lyonese studio between 1897 and 1907. There have been 1,403 titles rediscovered.

Apart from this result which exceeded our best expectations, the inventory of more than 3,500 original prints has revealed the existence of hundreds of films under the Lumière auspices which are not included in the just mentioned filmography, and which for the most part have yet to be restored.

These groups of films may be divided into four distinct categories:

1-Vues, filmed at the same time as the films from the catalogue, but which are supplementary to these, like shots which are slightly different to topical issues or “rushes” in the case in which the same scene has been filmed several times. There are at least nine versions of n. 91 Sortie d’Usine (whereof no negative has been refound), three versions of n. 653 Arivée d’un train à la Ciotat, two versions of n. 109 Course en Sac, etc. One can also see that the wish to remake a successful film is present within the same catalogues, for n. 120 Un preté pour un rendu is duplicated in n. 833 Un preté pour un rendu (n. 2), or that the same subject like a struggle between women is repeated in n. 100, 660 and 681 with the same plot and with only a few actors added.

2-Various films, whose sources and whose press reports, at the time of the projection, confirm that they belong to the Lumière production but that they had never been included in a catalogue.

3- Remakes shot afterwards, sometimes in the same places, in order to renew the success of a film, or because the state of a negative did not permit the printing of the distributable copies. The first Lumière film catalogue was not published until 1897, and films which had already been presented in 1896 had already been shot a second time in an identical manner so as to make their recommercialization possible.

4- In short, some films were not owned by the Lumière productions, but had been shot by private operators or by old concessionaires who had bought their Camera Lumière at the end of the concession. Since May 1897 the Cinématographe has been marketed to the general public.

 The inventory has also revealed the presence of duplication negative, which demonstrate that the remakes were not systematic when a negative was no longer of use. On the other hand, Edison perforated positives have been found upon which the round perforation of the negative had been photographed – this detail confirms the fact that the Vues specified in the catalogues were available not only with the Lumière perforations, but also with the ‘American’ perforations so as not to lose potential clients because they did not own a Lumière machine.

It has been possible to reveal the characteristics of the Lumière stand. In approximately 10 years of production, the round perforation and the length of about 17 mts remain unvaried. The Lumière machine does not undergo any particular development. The exception is the Vues fantasmagoriques series, which the Lumière Company tried using in 1904 in an attempt to follow its competitors in the production of longer films which the public preferred. These Vues are made up of various planes and bobbins of 17 m joined together. In some of these Vues, a second cine camera modified so as to be compatible with the Edison gauge, was placed next to the Lumière machine, in order to film the action simultaneously.

Regarding these films, it is no longer the stand which reveals the trademark, but the label with Lumière written on it to be found in a corner of a scene. It is possible that the Company, well aware of the standardisation of the stands, believed they could enlarge their number of clients by following the American example by equipping themselves with a second production line. It can be presumed that this was not immediately successful because it remained an isolated case, and no new vues were added thereafter in the catalogues. In fact those dated 1905 and 1907 were more or less identical”. (Anne Gautier and Jean-Marc Lamotte).