Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF

La Library of Congress rend les films
d’Edison accessibles sur Internet
En 1888, Thomas A. Edison annonçait
officiellement à l’Office Fédéral des Patentes,
son intention d’inventer la caméra: “je fais
des expérimentations avec un appareil qui
fait pour les yeux ce que le phonographe fait
pour l’oreille”.
La M/B/RS de la Library of Congress
possède d’importantes collections témoignant
des inventions et des activités industrielles
d’Edison. La Division conserve des films, des
enregistrements sur cylindre et sur disque,
des publications, des coupures de presse sur
les sociétés de Thomas A. Edison.
Une importante sélection de ces éléments,
notamment 341 films et 81 enregistrements
sonores, sont accessibles sur Internet, dans
la section American Memory de la Library
of Congress, sous le titre “Inventory
Entertainment: the Motion Pictures and
Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies
at the Library of Congress”. Le site est le
fruit des activités développées par la Library
of Congress sous les auspices de la National
Digital Library. Le présent article est
consacré au volet cinématographique de la
présentation sur le Web.
Les premiers films expérimentaux (1894-
1897) proviennent de la Collection Gordon
Hendricks. Ils ont été digitalisés et sont
visibles sur le site Web. Les films réalisés
entre 1897 et 1905 sont documentés par la
Paper Print Collection (les “paper prints”
étant des tirages photographiques sur papier
envoyés à la Library of Congress à des fins
de protection de droits). Les productions plus
récentes (1905-1926) sont disponibles sur le
Web sous forme de films et proviennent de
deux collections: la George Kleine Collection
et la Edison Laboratory Collection.
L’article conclut en affirmant que “Edison
serait probablement heureux d’apprendre
que les produits de ses sociétés sont toujours
accessibles, dans certains cas, cent ans après
avoir été réalisés, à travers le monde sur le
World Wide Web”.
Commercial Edison film production began in 1893. That year, a motion
picture studio, later dubbed the Black Maria (slang for the studio’s
resemblance to a police paddy wagon), was opened at Edison’s West
Orange laboratory complex. Short films were produced there using
vaudeville acts of the day. These included well-known performers such
as strongman Eugene Sandow, Spanish dancer Carmencita, and acts from
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, including Annie Oakley and Native
American dancers.
The films were viewed in Kinetoscope parlors where the Kinetoscopes
were typically placed in a row. The patron would pay one sum to view
the entire row of machines. The first Kinetoscope parlor was opened by
the Holland Brothers on April 14, 1894, in New York.
The Edison laboratory conducted experiments to synchronize sound to
film, and, as a result, in 1895 the Kinetophone was introduced. To
operate the new invention, a patron looked through the peephole viewer
of a Kinetoscope while listening to a soundtrack piped through ear tubes
attached to a phonograph in the cabinet. The device did not offer exact
synchronization and ultimately failed to find a market. The film known
today as Dickson Experimental Sound Film in the Library’s collections is
one of the few examples still existing of this early foray into sound.
Edison was reluctant to develop a motion picture projector, feeling that
more profit was to be made with the peephole viewers. Competition
from other projection systems, however, persuaded Edison to market a
projector developed by Thomas Armat and Charles Francis Jenkins. It
was named the Vitascope and was presented to the world as an Edison
invention in April 1896. The Vitascope, along with other projection
systems, became a popular attraction in the variety and vaudeville
theaters in major cities across the United States. Motion pictures in short
time became starring attractions on the vaudeville bill. The Edison
Company soon developed its own projector known as the Projectoscope,
or Projecting Kinetoscope, in November 1896.
Although many of the films made for the projection system continued to
be of vaudeville-type acts, filmmaking now occasionally left the confines
of the studio to encompass scenes of New York City. Herald Square is the
first such Edison film. It was not long before the cameramen went
further afield to locations such as Niagara Falls in their search for
entertaining film subjects.
The early films produced by the Edison Company were mostly actuality
films—motion pictures taken of everyday life and events as they
occurred. The company catalog contained scenes of vaudeville
performers, notable persons, railway trains, scenic places, foreign views,
fire and police workers, military exercises, naval scenes, expositions,
parades, and sporting events. However, comic skits and films relying on
trick effects to achieve “magical” results in the style of French filmmaker
Georges Méliès were also popular.
Filmmaking activities at the Edison Company soon expanded to include
scenes from around the world, such as the American West, Europe, and
98 Journal of Film Preservation / 58/59 / 1999