Victorian Cinema

Modern British Society IVictorian England

Lecture 14.1

Győri ZsoltDebreceni EgyetemBrit Kultúra Tanszék

1. Film history (cameras, projectors and motion picture equipment)

2. Film narration/cinematic language3. Victorian figureheads4. Queen Victoria5. The Empire6. Technology7. Heritage Cinema8. Victorian Society

Multitude of approaches

Film history

• Cinéorama: Ten synchronised cameras arranged in a circlefilmed a balloon ascent from the balloon basket. The intention wasthat ten projectors would recreate the experience on a circular screen

• Kinetoscope:  Electrically-driven peepshow machine for filmsproduced with Kinetograph camera from 1894

• Filoscope: A flip-book, patented in 1898, encased in a metal cove and operated by applying thumb pressure on a lever. Featuringlithographed images, mostly from films made by R.W. Paul

Film narration/cinematic language

• In a famous essay published in 1944, the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein argued that 'only very thoughtless and presumptuous people' believed in 'some incredible virgin birth' of cinema, and that the film pioneer DW Griffith found many of his storytelling tricks, including close-ups, dissolves and cutting between parallel narratives, in novels such as Oliver Twist

• One of his first films was a 14-minute version of Dickens's The Cricket on the Hearth (1909) that featured some early experiments with montage, and when he was criticised by his cameraman for employing the technique in a later film ('How can you tell a story jumping about like that?'), he is said to have replied: 'Well, doesn't Dickens write that way?' Like many origin myths, this all sounds a little too neat to be true, but Dickens was undoubtedly a key figure in the emergence of new ways of looking at the world.„

• Around 400 films and TV series have been made so far• Since 1946 the year 2014 is the first when no Dickens adaptation has

been made• David Lean adaptations (late 1940s)• Oliver! (Carol Reed, 1968)

Victorian figures• Actors and performers• Audience members • Filmmakers• Businessmen• Doctors and medical researchers• Scientists• Exhibitors and showmen, fairground exhibitors• Inventors• Magicians• Politicians • Sportsmen• War reporters• Writers, artists and adventurers

Queen Victoria• Rose Tapley in the silent short The Victoria Cross (1912)• Louie Henri in the silent film Disraeli (1916)• Hanna Waag in the German film Walzerkrieg (1933)• Anna Neagle in the biopics Victoria the Great (1937) and Sixty Glorious Years (1938)• Fay Compton in The Prime Minister (1941), about Benjamin Disraeli, and Journey to

Midnight (1968)• Helena Pickard in The Lady with the Lamp (1951), based on the play by Reginald Berkeley about

Florence Nightingale• Muriel Aked in The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (1953)• Romy Schneider in the West German biopic Mädchenjahre einer Königin (1954), which features a

highly fictionalised story about Queen Victoria's ascension to the throne and marriage to Prince Albert

• Mollie Maureen in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)• Susan Field in the spoof The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975)• Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown (1997), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best

Actress• Tress MacNeille (voice) in the animated short Van Helsing: The London Assignment (2004)• Kathy Bates in Around the World in 80 Days (2004), based on the novel by Jules Verne• Emily Blunt in The Young Victoria (2009), with Michaela Brooks playing Victoria as a girl

The Empire• Colonial wars

• The Four Feathers• Khartoum • Zulu!• The Charge of the Light Brigade• The Opium War

• Colonial rule• Sanders of the River• Storm Over Bengal• The Drum• A Passage to India

Technology

• Inventions of the revolution• Fetishization of modern technology• Technologization of society (machines, automata,

device, apparatus, gadgets)• The Prestige• The Time Machine• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 

• Steam Punk• 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea• Hellboy

Heritage Cinema• Nostalgia/longing/literary heritage• Conservative/spectacle• A Passage to India (1985) - E. M. Forster (1924)• A Room with a View (1985) - E. M. Forster (1908)• Maurice (1987) – E. M. Foster (1913–1914)• Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991) - E.M. Forster (1905)• Howards End (1992) - E.M. Forster (1910)• A Portrait of a Lady (1996) - Henry James (1881)• The Wings of Dove (1997) Henry James (1902)

• Postmodern heritage cinema• The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)

Victorian Society

• No definitive depiction of Victorian society in cinema

• Apart from Dickens, the most authentic portrayal are to be found in women’s novels (Jane Austen’s and the Brontë sisters’ adaptations)

• The Elephant Man (David Lynch 1980)• The story of John Merrick