Born Today February 22: P. J. C. Janssen

1824-1907

French astronomer and motion picture pioneer P. J. C. Janssen was born in Paris on this day in 1824.  His birth name was Pierre Jules César; he was variously known as Pierre Janssen or Jules Janssen during his lifetime.  Due to a childhood accident, he walked with a severe limp.  As a young man he went to work as a bank clerk; but science was his passion, so he enrolled in university to study physics and math, eventually graduating and becoming a professor of physics at an architectural university in Paris.  During his lifetime he discovered and invented a great number of important milestones in physics, astronomy and chemistry--and, inadvertently, moving pictures.  Though the British scientist Lockyer was independently on to many of the same observations at the same time, Janssen is credited with figuring out how to observe "Solar prominences" with a spectroscope without the aide of an eclipse.  Through being an enthusiastic observer of eclipses, he also was the first to observe a gaseous vapor that later proved to be a new element:  helium.  And he invented a device called a "photographic revolver;" the device allowed for 180 photographs to run for one frame per second.  This is technically the first moving picture devise (precursor of the projector).  He used this device to run photography of the transition of Venus in 1874 taken in Japan--this is basically the very first movie.  This makes Janssen the very first film director and cinematographer.  The documentary short is listed in film catalog as Passage de Venus (1874).  Janssen would also appear in two documentary shorts from the 1890's by The Lumiere Brothers.  The Photographical Congress Arrives At Lyon (1895), is one of the early shorts that remains quite well known to this day.  Additionally, Janssen appeared in Discussion de Monsieur Janssen et Monsieur Lagrange (1895).  In 1903 Janssen published the famous work Atlas de photographies solaries, which contained more than 6,000 photographs of the sun.  Janssen died on 23 December 1907 at the age of 83 in Meudon, Hauts-de-Seine, France.  He is buried in the historical Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris.  His grave is simply marked "J. Janssen."

For More:

Britannica

Film showing the Photographic Revolver

Wikipedia

IMDb

Born Today January 30: (François) Félix Faure (Slightly Sorted Edition!)

1841-1899

France's future president Faure was born Félix François on this date in Paris.  He was the son of a furniture maker. He worked as a tanner and later as a merchant at France's second largest port in Le Havre (where he was also initiated into Freemasonry); managing to acquire a significant amount wealth along the way.  He entered politics, and in August of 1881 he was elected to the National Assembly.  From this seat, he worked his way up the political ranks, until reaching the office of President in 1895.  He would remain President until his untimely death in 1899. For the purposes of silent film, Faure was the subject of numerous short documentaries (or early newsreels) detailing some his presidential activities starting in 1896--most of them were produced by Lumiere. The first was Fêtes franco-russes: Cherbourg, Entrée des Souverains russes et du président de la Republique sous le hall (with a title like that, who needs to watch the 1 minute film??).  The last film featuring his appearance as President of France came posthumously in a German reel entitled Leichenbergräbnis des verstorbenen französischen Präsidenten Félix Faure, and was released in April 1899 following his death in February of the same year.  Faure died under a cloud of scandal on the 16th of February while engaging in some type of sexual activity with his 30 year old mistress, Marguerite Steinhall; he is reported to have had a "bout of apoplexy" which caused his death several hours later--his was 58 years old.  Famed French trickster filmmaker Meliese was reported to have filmed his funeral, but it doesn't seem to have survived.  During his presidency the infamous and shameful Dreyfus Affair came to a head; it remains a stain on his reputation to this day. Faure is buried (like so many other famous Frenchmen) in the huge Parisian burial ground of Pére Lachaise Cemetery in very melodramatic sculpted tomb.

Wikipedia

IMDb

Born Today October 3: Alphonse Winckler

1839-1925

Winckler was born on this date in Champanole France. He appears, along with 3 other men in one of the early Lumiére Brothers shorts from the 1890's.  Partie d'écarté or The Messers. Lumiére at Cards (or Men Playing Cards as an alternative English title) was produced in 1896 and lasts for less that 1 minutes.  Most of the cast is made up of members of the Lumiére family.  The film appears as No. 73 in the Lumiére catalog.  The still above is from the film.  Winckler appears to be the man who is standing.  Additionally, the Lumiére catalog lists him as appearing in the title number 48 Embarquement pour la promenade, but he is not currently credited with that on IMDb. Winckler died at the age of 82 on 21 April 1925 in Lyon, the home town of the Lumiére production facility.  

The Silent Image In Modern Film: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

There is a fine tribute to the earliest projected films in this plushly shot horror epic of the early 1990's.  It comes in as a scene in a cinema parlor in the heart of 1890's London.  As Mina (Winona Ryder) and The Count (Gary Oldman) enter the room, the projection that is just ending is normal; then as other films start up, the images on the screens eventually morph into silent images that behave like good old fashioned Stop Motion Animation obviously being projected straight through the devices from the vampire himself--echoing similar "silent looking" images from the beginning of the film.  (Watch also for the morphing of the woman in an upright casket into skeleton like figure, just before "vampire projection" starts.) After the wolf clears the cinema, the projections then seem to return to normal.  I believe one of the images at this point are of the ultra short film entitled The Ghost Train, which would bit funny since it wasn't shot until 1903--but I can't be sure.

"No Limits To Science"

 The device in question is the Cinematograph, a device invented by Léon Bouly that was patented by him in 1892, but most closely associated with, and seriously perfected by The Lumiére Brothers.  It was invented to be both a motion picture camera and a projector.  It was designed to trump Edison's Kinetoscope, which was an all together different sort of machine that certainly lacked a projection device of any sort.  The cinematograph became wildly popular, and widely know throughout the world, including remote parts of Asia.  The most important cultural impact of the cinematograph was that it was available to the poorest of people, hence Mina's snobbish quip "how can you call this science?"  It is the sort of place that a young woman of her station should not be frequenting.  Of course, it doesn't help that what is playing when they walk in are the earliest forms of "blue movies"--an early form of pornographic film.  Still "The Count" is right, science it was!  

In fact, throughout the film other images invoke the silent era of cinema, and even employ parlor and stage tricks found in earlier 18th phantasmagoria.  For example, during the beginning of Jonathan Harker's (Keanu Reeves) stay in Dracula's Transylvania castle we see a shadow play that was a common parlor and stage trick from the late 18th and early 19th century.  According to Coppola he used what he termed as a "shadow wrangler" to complete the effect--literally a shadow mime off camera to cast an alternate movement behind Oldman as the scene was shot.  This can clearly be seen in the two clips below. 

Another easily spotted trick employed in the film that references silent "trick films" (most produced in the 1890's and very early 20the century) found in earliest staged film is the use of reverse motion--or the simple use of film in reverse.  This was employed in the case of Lucy The Vampire (Sadie Frost) returning to her casket after being confronted by by Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) and his rather over sized cross.

More Images:

Image obviously an homage to Nosferatu (1922)

Echoing The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari

Vampire about town at dusk.  From a part of the film that is shot to mimic old hand turned motion picture cameras.

  For More:

Director Francis Ford Coppola talks Old Hollywood Magic in the film in an article from this past August over at Entertainment Weekly.

A Short Bit About Muybridge And The Horse Photography

The very earliest "movies" can be seen in the rise of something of a in-between technological advance in photography and true motion picture cameras:  it's called series photography and it's inventor was one Eadweard Muybridge (who was actually born in UK [Kingston-upon-Thames, England] as Edward Muggeridge.) 

Muybridge after the invention of series photography.

The first, and most famous of these, is the series of horse photographs dating from 1877 (see plate above).  Though photography had been around since the 1820's, the amount of exposure time needed to produce these images was rather encumbering in terms of portability (actually an understatement).  As the the 19th century advanced, so did technologies within the photographic world.  The reduction of exposure time from a full 15 minutes to 1/100 of a second by the 1870's, made photography a more portable and out door affair; however, it was really the change in photographic plates that made what Muybridge would conceive of as possible.  The introduction of gelatin dry plates made outdoor photography a much portable and cheaper affair (the plates before these had been wet silver plates, which didn't travel nearly as well and were much more expensive).  The new advances also improved the quality of outdoor photography especially.  

Another plate showing a series of horse photographs by Muybridge is states of motion, and one stationary photo, with measurements.

Still it took Muybridge some 5 years to work out how to achieve this (not that he was devoting his time during this period to just this venture--he traveled as a hired a photographer, amongst other things during the stretch).  It all started when he was hired in 1872 as a well known photographer by one Leland Stanford (tycoon and, yes, the namesake of the university) to prove that at some point in the stride, or gallop, of a horse, all four hoofs were off the ground at once.  It took until the summer of 1877 to pull this off.  He did so by setting up a string of electrically powered cameras at a racetrack in Sacramento California, pulling wires across the track at each camera so that when the animal ran through the string, the shutter would be tripped.  What he captured more than proved that horses do indeed have all four legs off the ground at times in full gallop; but it also sparked an idea.  By finding a way to arrange the photographs in an electrically controlled flip type machine (a perfection that he would later call a zoopraxiscope), he could actually show the animal and rider in motion.  Well hey presto, the motion picture industry was born.  Inventors like Edison, the Lumiére Brothers and others got their cogs turning independently from each other.  Taking photography to the next level of creating a moving picture which could be viewed without the use of a visible mechanism was the next stop.  Here come the movies.  Below is an embed that shows some of this horse photography in animated action.