One of the most fascinating and historically significant cinematic finds of recent years was the discovery of a cache of films made between 1900-1913 by Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon, who worked mostly in the urban areas of the northern and western British Isles, documenting scenes that would be shown in local venues where people could effectively see themselves in the “flickers.” Since 2000 the British Film Institute has been restoring the negatives, and Electric Edwardians offers a selection of these films, divided into five sections (“Youth and Education,” “The Anglo-Boer War,” “Workers,” “High Days and Holidays” and “People and Places”). The films don't focus on people engaged in their occupations—one sees crowds of workers leaving factories rather than laboring in them, for instance, and students doing calisthenics in outside assemblies rather than at their desks. But those sequences, as well as films of public ceremonies, sports matches (cricket and rugby), people promenading at fairs and coastal resorts, and bustling carts and trams on city streets, are deeply evocative, opening a moving window onto a world previously only seen in still photographs or through the printed word. The effect is haunting, even in the so-called “travel” films, in which a camera situated on a train or bus simply records the passing urban landscape. Remarkable as historical records, many of the films in Electric Edwardians are also powerfully human portraits. DVD extras include excellent optional voiceover commentary by Dr. Vanessa Toulmin, interviews with Toulmin and scholar Tom Gunning, a featurette on the BFI restoration work, and five additional Mitchell and Kenyon films. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (F. Swietek)
Electric Edwardians: The Lost Films of Mitchell and Kenyon
New Yorker, 85 min., not rated, DVD: $29.95 Volume 21, Issue 5
Electric Edwardians: The Lost Films of Mitchell and Kenyon
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