How cinema became a cultural industry: The big boom in France between 1905 and 1908

Film History: An International Journal

Volumn 14, Issue 3-4, 2002, Pages 418-429

  Meusy, Jean Jacques ^a  

^a CNRS   (France)

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EID: 34248525030     PISSN: 08922160     EISSN: 15533905     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2979/FIL.2002.14.3-4.418     Document Type: Review

References (29)

1. Félix Mesguich, Tours de manivelle. Souvenirs d'un chasseur d'images (Paris: Grasset, 1933), 2
2. Pathé's financial year ended on 28 February
3. In 1907 cinema represented 88 per cent of Gaumont's total business
4. The increase in the total length of negative film produced was a direct result of both a growth in the number of films and an increase in their length (Table 4). Apart from a few indications here and there, we don't know the number of positive prints released of each film, which could have been an indication of the evolution of the market of the two major French companies. It is very probable that this figure went up dramatically at Pathé in 1905, the year in which the company decisively entered the American market. See Richard Abel, The Red Rooster Scare. Making Cinema American, 1900-1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), especially page 48. Sources: for Pathé, my calculations are based on data from the Pathé catalogues published by Henri Bousquet (1993, 1994 and 1996); for Gaumont, they are based on data from the Musée Gaumont in Paris. When the length of a specific film is not known, I have attributed to it the average length of films of the year of release
5. Figures cited by Bernard Eisenschitz, Le cinéma allemand (Paris: Nathan Université, 1999), 8
6. A figure recorded by Heide Schlüpmann, Unheimlichkeit des Blicks. Das Drama des frühen deutschen Kinos (Basel & Frankfurt-am-Main: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern, 1990), 312
7. F. W. Ogden Smith, The Bioscope 27 March 1913, p. 94 and 4 June 1914, p. 1008
8. quoted by Rachael Low, The History of the British Film, 1906-1914 (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1949), 70, note 1
9. Figures based on information given by Riccardo Redi, 'Le cinéma italien 1909-1920: l'expansion et le reflux', Roland Cosandey and François Albera (eds), Cinéma sans frontières/Images Across Borders 1896-1918 (Québec: Nuit Blanche Editeur et Editions Payot, Lausanne, 1995), 222
10. Laurent Le Forestier, L'industrialisation du mode de production des films Pathé entre 1905 et 1908 (Doctoral dissertation, Université Paris III, 12 December 2000), 81-82
11. See: Jean-Jacques Meusy and André Straus, 'L'argent du Cinématographe Lumière', Une histoire économique du cinéma français (1895-1995). Regards croisés francoaméricains (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1997), 47-62
12. See: Jean-Jacques Meusy, 'La stratégie des Sociétés concessionnaires Pathé et la location des films en France', Domitor symposium 'La firme Pathé Frères (1896-1914)', Paris, AFRHC, publication forthcoming
13. See: Jacques Malthête, Méliès. Images et illusions (Paris: Exporégie, 1996), particularly p. 49 for quantitative information concerning production. The causes of the downfall of Star Film had of course various causes (the higher prices of Méliès' films, a decline of the public's interest in the 'Méliès genre', a lesser quality of the films shot by Manuel, a suspension of Georges Méliès' license in the USA coinciding with the creation of the Motion Picture Patents Company on 18 December 1908) but the refusal, in spite of it all, to transform the company into a public company was at the origin of the failure
14. In September 1907 the Banque Suisse et Française (later to become the Crédit Commercial de France), which was backing Gaumont and its President of the Board Pierre Azaria, also became involved with the Pathé company to which they granted an overdraft of a million French Francs. This was extended in September 1907 to a million and a half French Francs. (Minutes of the Board Meetings held on 7 September and 10 October, Pathé Archives)
15. Cf. Jean-Jacques Meusy, 'Qui était Edmond Benoit-Lévy?', in Thierry Lefebvre et al. (eds.): Les vingt premières années du cinéma français (Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle/AFRHC, 1995), 130-134
16. and Laurent Le Forestier, 'Un tournant du cinéma des premiers temps: le passage à la production de masse chez Pathé entre 1905 et 1908', 1895, No. 37 (July 2002)
17. Minutes of the Board: meeting of 7 September 1907. (Pathé Archives)
18. This rather surprising technique was perceived as an important innovation in the Board Meeting minutes of 30 March 1909. Apart from saving emulsion, it allowed the perforation of the support to be carried out in full daylight before coating, which prevented 'various inevitable imperfections common when working in darkness' (Pathé Archives). However, 1909 negative and positive Pathé films that I have examined at the Service des Archives du Film were emulsified on the whole surface, which leads one to doubt whether this technique was widely used
19. In compiling these figures, the co-productions in which Pathé was involved were counted as Pathé films
20. One can find detailed information about Film d'Arte Italiana, founded in March 1909, in the chapter dedicated to this company by Aldo Bernardini in: Jacques Kermabon (ed.), Pathé, premier empire du cinéma (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1994), 112-119
21. Minutes of 9 July 1907 Board Meeting (Pathé Archives). At the end of January 1908, Pathé had 18 branches abroad
22. Joseph Alois Schumpeter, Capitalisme, socialisme et démocratie (Paris: Payot, 1990), 116
23. See also by the same author: La théorie de l'évolution économique (Paris: Dalloz, 1999), 95
24. Invention of the mechanic Florimond: a patent taken out by Pathé, on 22 October 1906, No. 380.889. 'Machine à colorier mécaniquement les films (images cinématographiques).'
25. Patent No. 373.502, 14 January 1907: 'Système de découpage des patrons ou pochoirs en celluloïd ou autres matières en feuilles'. Patent no 397.629, 28 February 1908: 'Machine à colorier les bandes cinématographiques'. These patents were improved on later
26. See J. Marette, 'Les procédés de coloriage mécanique des films', Bulletin de l'AFITEC, No. 7 (1950): 3-8
27. Based on catalogues of Pathé films published by Henri Bousquet, 3.6 per cent of the films were coloured in 1903 and 12.2 per cent in 1908. But 1903 films being shorter are generally fully coloured, whereas films produced in 1908 are often only partially coloured. That is why the length of the coloured films released in 1908 only represented 10.3 per cent of the total length, against 11.9 per cent in 1903. It was only after 1908 that there was a noticeable rise in the proportion of coloured films, that went from 19.0 per cent in 1909 (16.9 per cent of the length) to 16.7 per cent in 1910 (17.1 per cent of the length). The proportion of coloured films at Gaumont seems to have been lower, but the information we have is far from exhaustive
28. Hegel proposes diverse formulations in his works, notably in Science de la logique: 'Aussi, du côté qualitatif, le pur progrès quantitatif du "peu à peu", en lui-même illimité, est-il interrompu absolument; et comme la qualité qui s'introduit, sans autre rapport à celle qui disparaît que quantitatif, est pour celle-ci un 'autre' indéterminé, indifférent, le passage est véritablement un saut; les deux qualités sont posées comme entièrement extérieures l'une à l'autre' (Hegel, La théorie de la mesure, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970, 80 - extract from the 3rd section of the 1st book of Science de la logique). Following his steps, but in a materialist perspective, Friedrich Engels gave several examples of this law, borrowed from natural and physical sciences. An elementary example is that of water which, when heated up (quantitative change), begins to boil when reaching 100 °C (a change of state, i.e. qualitative change) (Dialectique de la nature, Paris: Editions sociales, 1968, 70-74). For Marx, the duality quantity/quality corresponded to the duality evolution/revolution
29. Life is a Long Quiet River (Etienne Chatiliez, 1988)