1900 Anno Cinque: Sieurin's French Collection: Sieurin's franska bilder (2008 prints from Svenska Filminstitutet / Filmarkivet)

Chapellerie et charcuterie mécaniques (1900).

Emil Sieurin Collection: Sieurins franska bilder
    FR 1899–1900. Prod.: Société des Établissements Gaumont SA. 35 mm. Total: 392 m / 18 fps / 19 min.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato: Century of Cinema: 1900
    Prints from Svenska Filminstitutet / Filmarkivet. Toned and tinted.
    Prints struck in 2008, from a colour duplicate negative made in 1985, from a reel of nitrate prints without titles. The film titles have been added to the restored version.
    Introduced by Mariann Lewinsky.
    Musical interpretation (grand piano etc.): John Sweeney. Alla batteria: Frank Bockius.
    Viewed at Teatro Comunale di Bologna, 26 Aug 2020

SIEURINS FRANSKA BILDER

Jon Wengström, Camille Blot-Wellens (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "Emil Sieurin was a reputed Swedish engineer, employed by the famous Höganäs manufacturer of ceramics and bricks in the South of Sweden (he even invented a new method for the extraction of iron) and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (Kungl. Ingenjörsvetenskapsakademien). During a visit to Paris at the turn of the last century, he acquired 19 films from Gaumont. The films included fiction as well as non-fiction titles, of which many depicted the Paris World Expo in 1900. He also bought a Gaumont camera, and in 1901 he shot images of work and leisure in his hometown of Höganäs, as well as some public events in the bigger, cities of Helsingborg and Malmö nearby. With his images of factories and both workers’ and the bourgeoisie’s everyday life, he became a pioneer in Swedish filmmaking, creating some of the first moving images of non-celebrities. His nitrate reels and equipment seem to have been deposited with the Museum of Science and Technology (of which Sieurin was a member) in the late 1920s – that is before the museum began housing the collections of Svenska Filmsamfundet (the origins of the collections of the Swedish Film Institute), which was founded in 1933. Investigations by historians so far indicate that neither the Gaumont reel nor the Swedish footage were screened in public. It is a well-known fact that scientific figures took an interest in modernity and the new media. One can for instance think of Antonino Sagarmínaga, an industrialist who acquired films to screen in a cultural society in Bilbao, and whose collection is held at Filmoteca Española. Films screened in private or in closed societies, and not acquired for public screening, constitute an interesting and relevant part of early cinema history, and Sieurin is a fascinating figure in this context, as he also shot films himself." Jon Wengström, Camille Blot-Wellens (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

Entrée et sortie de la mine (1899)

Paris: Exposition Universelle – Panorama de la Seine (1900)

Danse des saisons: L’Hiver, danse de la neige (1900).

Au cabaret (1899)

Paris: Exposition universelle (1900). AA: A 360° pan.

Chez le maréchal-ferrand (1899).

Avenue de l’Opéra (1900). AA: backwards motion.

La bonne absinthe (1900).

L’Aveugle fin de siècle (1898) D: Gaston Breteau.

Panorama circulaire sur le Pont d’Iéna (1900)

Chapellerie et charcuterie mécaniques (1900).

La Fée aux choux (1900).

Pédiluve (1899)

La Concierge (1900).

Chez le photographe (1900). D: Henri Vallouy.

Expo 1900: le vieux Paris (1900)

Charge à la baïonette d’un régiment de ligne (1899)

Dans les mines: entrée des bennes dans la mine (1899)

Danse serpentine (1900). AA: From a stencil coloured source. The other prints are from sepia toned sources. Beautiful.

AA: It is always a delight to revisit Sieurin's French Views, the Swedish Film Institute's brilliant collection of early Gaumont films. I have blogged about its previous screening in Bologna's Alice Guy retrospective in 2011 and our Helsinki screening of the Emil Sieurin collection in 2014.

Many titles in this programme have previously been credited to Alice Guy. But in 2011 there was already this remark in the Bologna catalog:

"The “Sieurin French pictures” reel consists of a wide range of genres representative of the early Gaumont production and includes works previously attributed to Guy. The single shot La Fée aux choux [The Cabbage Fairy] (1900) which features Guy’s secretary and friend, Yvonne Mugnier-Serand, as a fairy pulling babies from a cabbage patch was previously considered Guy’s first film. Recent research by Maurice Gianati has revealed she directed her first film in 1902 (the two-shot Sage-femme de première classe) and before that possibly provided scenarios.""

The beautiful prints of this beautiful collection convey a memorable Belle Époque experience.