1906

Congo Belge [The Belgian Congo]

Cartoon by Henry Somm in “Echos du rire” from Le Rire (23 June 1906): 10.

This caustic cartoon shows a brutal colonialist on the screen, whip in hand, kicking the African toward a couple of crocodiles. The caption states, “Belgian Congo: intensive exploitation augmented by direct action”. The words and image were scarcely exaggerating what was actually happening at this time, for the Congo Free State, in effect owned by Leopold II, King of the Belgians, was subject to ruthless exploitation leading to the deaths of millions of Africans from war, starvation and disease. The year before this cartoon was published, the atrocities were brought to the world’s attention by an international commission of inquiry, and Leopold’s rule was finally brought to an end in 1908. The spectator on the left who is calmly watching the brutality is probably intended to be Leopold himself, with his characteristic long beard and sharp nose. It is not clear whether the image on screen is meant to be from lantern or cinematograph pictures, but both were used to publicise the Congo events.³⁶ The cartoonist, Henry Somm (1844–1907), a friend of Toulouse-Lautrec, was a celebrated painter and a prolific contributor to the French comic press.³⁷

Emoción Cinematográfica [Cinematographic emotion]

Cartoon strip fromBlanco y Negro [Madrid] (29 December 1906): 17.

One of the most persistent yarns about the early cinema was of naïve spectators running away from a projected film of an approaching train. The cartoon below tells a similar story: a crowd gathers outside a cinematógrafo show, including two country bumpkin types with wide-brimmed hats. Then during the show itself a title appears on screen, “El toro escapado” (The escaped bull) followed by a moving image of the charging bull. The bumpkins, fearing that the dangerous animal might be real, run for their lives, scattering chairs and other spectators in their panic. While such naïve reactions might be apocryphal, the cartoon is reasonably accurate in its depiction of the cinematógrafo show. Permanent film venues came surprisingly early to Spain, springing up in Madrid and other towns between 1900 and the time of this image, either in specially-constructed structures or “pavilions”, or in existing buildings.³⁸ The one in this cartoon seems to be quite a substantial place, although the seats are mere chairs and the music comes from a lone pianist. The weekly journal in which this appeared, Blanco y Negro, was renowned for its lavish illustrations and elegant style; it began publication in 1891 and was still running in the early twenty-first century. I cannot make out the name of the artist written at the foot of the cartoon.

My Bioscope

Anonymous poem from Cinematography and Bioscope Magazine (May 1906): 29

While we have tried to choose poems for this issue of Film History with some regard to quality, perhaps one example of advertising doggerel shall not be out of place. This poem, “My Bioscope”, appeared in a trade journal published by and for the Warwick Trading Company, a leading early British film company. The journal was purely self-promotional, and reviewed the company’s own films (e.g. Dick Turpin’s Last Ride to York with Fred Ginnett) as well as promoting their own equipment, such as the “Bioscope” projector, lauded here. Actually, the very word “Bioscope” and the right to use it had been the subject of a frenzied legal dispute between Warwick and Charles Urban three years earlier, and this poem had a cheeky note appended, “without Apologies to the Others”, which is probably a reference to this dispute and a dig at Warwick’s chief rival.³⁹

I trouble not, nor fret, But have unbounded hope, With me there’s no regret, Whilst I’ve my Bioscope.

Whatever comes or goes, There’s nothing makes me mope;

I feel I have no foes, When I’ve a Bioscope.

What cares may come, through Fate, I with them all will cope...