Edwardian films
Friday, January 14, 2005
The BBC tonight have the first of three programmes on the restored Edwardian films discovered in Blackburn. The films were made by a couple of pioneer fim makers and the 800 or so reels of film were moment away from being tossed in a skip when workmen were clearing out an old building. The NFT have spent a long time restoring them and the clips I've seen are amazingly light and they don;t have the jerkiness sometimes associated with old films.
The notion that film is somehow a modern medium sits strangely with these pictures of people, places, and events that look so far away in time. The clothes, the smoking chimneys of the factories, the horses in the empty streets. This was not far removed from the world of Dickens and yet we can watch it happen. This is better than time travel.
The notion that film is somehow a modern medium sits strangely with these pictures of people, places, and events that look so far away in time. The clothes, the smoking chimneys of the factories, the horses in the empty streets. This was not far removed from the world of Dickens and yet we can watch it happen. This is better than time travel.
