Streets of Belfast 1901: An Animated Photo - Joan Lennon

My sister flagged up this video to me, because our grandfather came to Canada from Donaghadee (a small place not far from Belfast) about 10 years after this scene was filmed.  I looked out for him in case he was in Belfast that day (he had a pronounced limp because one leg was substantially shorter than the other, from a badly set break as a boy, so he would have been spot-able) but no luck.

This was filmed from the top of a horse-drawn tram by Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon, on a fine sunny day in May, 1901.  The end product, an "animated photo"*, was shown in the Usher Hall, Belfast and you can see perambulating billboards advertising the performance at 1:28 and 2:20.

It's riveting, isn't it?  The casual way people stroll into the street - the weight and swish of the women's skirts - I feel as if I've learned a lot, seeing the clothes in motion, instead of just in static drawings or still photographs - the different lengths of skirts for different ages - those enormous hats on those little girls!

I keep seeing more each time I watch it - 
at 0:07 - the barefoot boy 
at 1:10 - the extremely pregnant woman carrying a baby and holding the hand of a bouncy little girl in white and a big hat -
at 1:31 and 1:36 and 1:41 - the way women with more of a bustle would grab the back of their skirts with one hand
at 2:55 - the little boy in his sailor suit, standing out in the street
at 3:05 - the country woman in a shawl and apron 

I can't help noticing the sad condition of some of the animals, then, right at the end, two perky dogs trot by.  Our grandfather loved dogs.  He would have approved.


*"Film" and "movie" hadn't yet consolidated their places as the accepted terms for moving pictures.


Joan Lennon's website.
Joan Lennon's blog.
Silver Skin.

A VICTORIAN VIEW OF THE MAN IN THE MOON

by Essie Fox

A still from Le Voyage dans la Lune directed by George Melies

In 1865 Jules Verne wrote his novel From the Earth to the Moon in which a rocket was fired from America - Florida to be precise - and after safely reaching its destination the craft then returned to Earth, splashing down into the Pacific Ocean. (There's something very familiar - something rather 1960's about that, don't you think?)

In 1901 H G Wells wrote The First Men in the Moon, a romantic science fiction tale in which, by the means of an anti-gravity shield, two men are propelled to the Moon, meeting its inhabitants and having quite a thrilling time. A film was made in 1964, and another in 2010 which stars Mark Gatiss and Rory Kinnear.

Another still from Le Voyage dans La Lune

But back in 1902, over a century before and based on the novels by Verne and Wells, Georges Melies wrote and directed Le Voyage dans La Lune or A Trip to the Moon - the very first science fiction film that I happen to know about. (Admittedly, this was a year after Queen Victoria's death and therefore not strictly Victorian, but I think it's fair enough to say that the conception and preparation would have been well under way before the actual release date.)

   

Although the camera view is somewhat static and rather long with none of the character 'close-ups' exhibited in later cinema drama - indeed when watching this short film the viewer might almost be in a theatre observing some intricate pantomime - when considering the date of its genesis I think it is something extraordinary, especially from about 4 minutes in when the rocket first plunges into the Moon...with some charming animation and, in this particular version, an equally charming voice-over and musical interpretation by the Vancouver folk band Maria in the Shower.