'Have you seen the Gaekwar Bob?': Filming the 1911 Delhi Durbar

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television

Volumn 17, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 309-345

  Bottomore, Stephen ^a  

^a NONE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0346944410     PISSN: 01439685     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01439689700260761     Document Type: Article

References (35)

1. Kintop, no. 4 (1995)
2. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 15 (1995)
3. Jean Antoine Dubois, Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies (Oxford, 1897; from French of 1815), Preface
4. Quoted in Modern Asian Studies, 24/3 (1990), pp. 533, 576-577
5. Joanne Waghorne notes that British officials were fascinated by Indian princely traditions, genealogical tables and traditional regalia. She points to the almost obsessive detail in British organisation of the durbars and other ceremonial events. See: Joanne Punzo Waghorne, The Raja's Magic Clothes: re-visioning kingship and divinity in England's India (University Park, PA, 1994) pp. 33-36, 83. Ceremonies were meticulously ordered, with printed programmes many pages long, detailing what was to happen when, and who was to be in each formation in a procession
6. Historical Record of the Imperial Visit to India, 1911 (London 1914) pp. 176-177
7. University of London MS 817/3: A.C. Bromhead Russian Diaries, 1916-17 (ed. John Bromhead, 1972), entry for 16 Nov 1916
8. Hardinge, My Indian Years, 1910-1916 (London, 1948)
9. J.A. Spender, The Indian Scene (London, 1912) pp. 32-34
10. R.N. Dutt, History of the Royal Visit to India (Calcutta, 1912), p. 102
11. Antonio Maria da Cunha, A India Antiga e Moderna e o 'Darbar' de Coroaçâo de 1911 (Nova Goa, 1935)
12. On Brooks see: Journal of the Photographic Society of India, January 1912
13. and The King Emperor and his Dominions (Burroughs Wellcome and Co, 1911), pp. 306-307
14. The Historical Record of the Imperial Visit to India (London, 1914) pp. 111, 300-301
15. Much of this information comes from Probhat Mukherjee, Hiralal Sen: India's First Film-Maker (Calcutta, c. 1960s), pp. 49-54: this source is rarely cited, but, despite its gushing tone, is one of the key works on early Indian cinema, and includes several valuable references to press reports of films and filmmaking. Thanks to Brigitte Schulze for bringing it to my attention
16. See also Paul Willemen and Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema (London, 1995), which cites the title of Bourne and Shepherd's film as Their Imperial Majesties in Delhi
17. Colonel Bromhead, Proceedings of the BKS, no. 21, 1933, pp. 18-19
18. Cambridge University, Hardinge Papers 109, Letters and Telegrams re Coronation Durbar, 1911, vol. 4, pp. 1075, 1086
19. Ken Gordon in Cine Technician, March 1955, p. 36. Gordon also noted, however that in some places 'special stands were erected for the cameramen'
20. Spelled thus by Ken Gordon in Cine Technician, Mar-April 1951, p. 48
21. British Film Institute: Anthony Slide Collection: 'Yesterday's Witness' transcripts, p. 11/1
22. A. Slide, Memoirs of Alice Guy Blaché (Scarecrow, 1986) p. 38
23. Cine Technician, Mar-April 1951, p. 47
24. Mukherjee and J. Chakrabartty, 'Bengal's claim to Pioneership', Dipali 28.04.1939:25
25. The Cinema, Feb 1912, p. 11
26. have found one instance of Durbar films shown as late as May 1912: see J. Barker et al., The Cinemas of Portsmouth (Horndean, 1981), p. 49
27. Kultura (Manila) 3/2, 1990, p. 20
28. Motography March 1912, p. 121
29. Colonel Bromhead, Proceedings, op cit., p. 19
30. See R. Brown's essay in C. Harding, S. Popple, In the Kingdom of the Shadows (London; 1996)
31. both quoted in 'The Durbar Incident', Modern Asian Studies, 1990, v.24, pp. 543-545
32. I discussed this in my paper, 'She's just like my granny! Where's her crown?' Monarchs and Movies, 1896-1916', delivered at Bradford cinema centenary conference, June 1995
33. The Durbar from the Crowd, Blackwood's Magazine, v.191 (Feb 1912):296
34. Daan Hertogs and Nico de Klerk, eds, Nonfiction from the Teens (Amsterdam, 1994) pp. 32-35
35. Australian historian Chris Long has written some of the most important recent work on non-fiction film. See his ongoing series of articles in Cinema Papers and also "World's first government film production?' in Ken Berryman, ed., Screening the Past: aspects of early Australian film (Canberra, 01995)