Robert Paul and the Origins of British Cinema

355 Pages·2019·9.981 MB·English

by  Ian Christie

Robert Paul and the
Origins of British Cinema
Cinema and Modernity
Edited by Tom Gunning
Robert Paul
and the Origins of
British Cinema
Ian Christie
The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2019 by Ian Christie
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical
articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University
of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.
Published 2019
Printed in the United States of America
28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19  1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 10562- 8 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 10563- 5 (paper)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 61011- 5 (e- book)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226610115.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Christie, Ian, 1945– author.
Title: Robert Paul and the origins of British cinema /
Ian Christie.
Other titles: Cinema and modernity.
Description: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2019. |
Series: Cinema and modernity | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019032253 | ISBN 9780226105628 (cloth) |
ISBN 9780226105635 (paperback) | ISBN 9780226610115 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Paul, Robert, 1869-1943. | Cinematographers—
England—Biography. | Electrical engineers—England—
Biography. | Cinematography—England—History. |
Motion picture projectors—England—History. | Motion
picture industry—England—History.
Classification: LCC TR849.P38 C47 2019 |
DDC 777/.8092 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032253
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48- 1992
(Permanence of Paper).
This book is dedicated to the memory of John Barnes (1920–2008),
the pioneer historian of early British cinema, who inspired and
encouraged me, although sadly did not live to see it completed

Contents
Acknowledgments * ix
Prelude 1
*
chapter 1
Getting into the Picture Business 7
*
chapter 2
Flashback: An Engineer’s Education 35
*
chapter 3
“Adding Interest to Wonder”: The First Year in Film 63
*
chapter 4
Time Travel: Film, the Past, and Posterity 83
*
chapter 5
“True Till Death!” Family Business 105
*
chapter 6
Home and Away: Networks of Nonfiction 119
*
chapter 7
Distant Wars: South Africa and Beyond 145
*
chapter 8
Telling Tales: Studio- Based Production 167
*
chapter 9
“Daddy Paul”: The Cultural Economy of Cinema in Britain 189
*
chapter 10
“My Original Business”: Paul’s Technical and Scientific Work 201
*
chapter 11
Paul and Early Film History 217
*
Epilogue 247
*
Appendix A
“A Novel Form of Exhibition or Entertainment,
Means for Presenting the Same”:
Paul’s “Time Machine” Patent Application, 1895 * 261
Appendix b
Flotation advertisement, 1897 * 265
Robert Paul Productions 1895–1909 * 271
Notes * 289 Index * 331
Acknowledgments
Any book that has been under way for so long will accumulate more debts
that can properly be acknowledged. The starting point for this one was
The Last Machine, a book and television series commissioned by BBC
Television for the centenary of cinema, which appeared in 1994. In this,
after Colin MacCabe opened the door, John Wyver and Richard Cur-
son Smith first guided me toward making early film history accessible.
Later, David Thompson included me discussing Robert Paul in his BBC
film Silent Britain; Tom Gunning welcomed the book for his series at the
University of Chicago Press; and a senior fellowship from the Paul Mel-
lon Centre for British Art released me from teaching at Birkbeck and
helped research get started. At the British Film Institute, Heather Stew-
art ensured that a DVD was produced of Paul’s surviving films, several of
which were reconstituted from Filoscope copies held by what is now the
Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at Exeter University and what has since
become the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford. Other
material came from what are now the George Eastman Museum (Paolo
Cherchi Usai, Caroline Yeager) and Ngi Taonga New Zealand Archive of
Film, Television and Sound (Bronwyn Taylor, Cushla Vula), as well as the
Scot tish Screen Archive (Janet McBain) and the National Fair ground
and Circus Archive, University of Sheffield (Vanessa Toulmin). Archi-
vists Camille Blot- Wellens at the Swedish Film Institute and Bryony
Dixon at the BFI National Archive have continued to add to the stock of
known Paul films during the time of my writing.
Over the years, I have enjoyed generous support from many within
the early film archival and research community and beyond. The bian-
nual Domitor Conferences and British Silents conferences and symposia
have heard portions of my research as papers, some published in their
proceedings. Paul Hammond readily gave me access to his research on
Walter Booth; Stephen Bottomore and Simon Popple both provided me