On the centenary of his death, admirers hope to win recognition for the Bristol photographer’s motion picture camera
It’s a strange fact, but British inventor William Friese-Greene is as well-known among serious film buffs for not having invented cinema as he is for inventing it. Now, on the centenary of his sudden death at 65, mid-flow at a meeting of film distributors, admirers of this controversial pioneer from Bristol are at the centre of a new drive to establish his international legacy once again.
Film director and historian Peter Domankiewicz believes Friese-Greene will soon be reinstated as one of the great figures in the development of the moving image: the one who got there before Thomas Edison, the Lumière brothers and George Méliès, the Frenchman whose story was told by Martin Scorsese in the hit 2011 film Hugo.
It’s a strange fact, but British inventor William Friese-Greene is as well-known among serious film buffs for not having invented cinema as he is for inventing it. Now, on the centenary of his sudden death at 65, mid-flow at a meeting of film distributors, admirers of this controversial pioneer from Bristol are at the centre of a new drive to establish his international legacy once again.
Film director and historian Peter Domankiewicz believes Friese-Greene will soon be reinstated as one of the great figures in the development of the moving image: the one who got there before Thomas Edison, the Lumière brothers and George Méliès, the Frenchman whose story was told by Martin Scorsese in the hit 2011 film Hugo.
- 5/2/2021
- by Vanessa Thorpe
- The Guardian - Film News
Louis le Prince made the world’s first film, claims David Nicholas Wilkinson, who makes a convincing documentary argument that Leeds is the cradle of cinema
David Nicholas Wilkinson is a man on a mission. He is the Leeds-born film distributor who, for years, has been struggling to convince the world that the first ever film was made in Leeds. Never mind Thomas Edison; never mind the Lumière brothers and their train arriving in La Ciotat; never mind William Friese-Greene. The real pioneer was Frenchman Louis le Prince, who filmed a scene on Leeds bridge and in a Leeds garden, where some Victorians skittishly frolicked – in 1888. But Le Prince did not have the Lumières’ showmanship or Edison’s legal, patent-enforcing muscle; he died before he could develop a projection technique, and so faded from history. There was something else. In 1890, he boarded a train at Dijon and disappeared; his body was never found.
David Nicholas Wilkinson is a man on a mission. He is the Leeds-born film distributor who, for years, has been struggling to convince the world that the first ever film was made in Leeds. Never mind Thomas Edison; never mind the Lumière brothers and their train arriving in La Ciotat; never mind William Friese-Greene. The real pioneer was Frenchman Louis le Prince, who filmed a scene on Leeds bridge and in a Leeds garden, where some Victorians skittishly frolicked – in 1888. But Le Prince did not have the Lumières’ showmanship or Edison’s legal, patent-enforcing muscle; he died before he could develop a projection technique, and so faded from history. There was something else. In 1890, he boarded a train at Dijon and disappeared; his body was never found.
- 7/2/2015
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
'Henry V' Movie Actress Renée Asherson dead at 99: Laurence Olivier leading lady in acclaimed 1944 film (image: Renée Asherson and Laurence Olivier in 'Henry V') Renée Asherson, a British stage actress featured in London productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and Three Sisters, but best known internationally as Laurence Olivier's leading lady in the 1944 film version of Henry V, died on October 30, 2014. Asherson was 99 years old. The exact cause of death hasn't been specified. She was born Dorothy Renée Ascherson (she would drop the "c" some time after becoming an actress) on May 19, 1915, in Kensington, London, to Jewish parents: businessman Charles Ascherson and his second wife, Dorothy Wiseman -- both of whom narrowly escaped spending their honeymoon aboard the Titanic. (Ascherson cancelled the voyage after suffering an attack of appendicitis.) According to Michael Coveney's The Guardian obit for the actress, Renée Asherson was "scantly...
- 11/5/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Martin Scorsese knows a thing or two about taking risks—there aren't many 71-year-old directors who stake their reputation on 3-hour depictions of orgiastic financial crime, or on similarly lengthy children's films about the earliest days of cinema and the internal politics of large train stations. But Marty does, so he seems a good person to ask about risk-taking in cinema, which is exactly what he does in this series of videos, dissecting briefly seven of his favourite risky directing decisions, from the very well-known—the risks Orson Welles took making “Citizen Kane”—and Scorsese's own well-established favourites, including the startling brilliance of Powell and Pressburger's “The Red Shoes,” a film whose directors Scorsese has spent much of his career boosting. But Scorsese also takes in lesser-known names. William Friese-Greene, for one, is not a name on many people's lips, but Scorsese as the consummate cinema historian knows all...
- 4/8/2014
- by Ben Brock
- The Playlist
You could do a hell of a lot worse than having esteemed director Martin Scorsese deliver your annual lecture, which is exactly what the filmmaker did at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. His talk, titled Persistence of Vision: Reading the Language of Cinema, runs a little over an hour, but it's an engaging and informative lecture that proves why Scorsese is a master at what he does. The clip opens with a scene from The Magic Box, a biopic about William Friese-Greene, who designed and patented the first movie camera. We're treated to the scene in which the photographer and inventor finally projects a moving image and excitedly shares his discovery. It illustrates the magic of movies, but also Scorsese's passion for cinema, which he...
Read More...
Read More...
- 8/12/2013
- by Alison Nastasi
- Movies.com
In the 1940s and 50s, the Boulting brothers won over filmgoers and critics with a series of classics – from Brighton Rock to Private's Progress. As the BFI begins a retrospective, Michael Newton explores their version of Britain
The history of the Boulting brothers is the history of British cinema in miniature. The brilliance, the comforts and the disappointments are all there. In the 1940s, they take off from documentary realism to reach the heights of noir extravagance, before falling back into a gently unexciting worthiness. At the start of the 1950s they produce two fascinating oddities, characteristic of the oddity of the times. Later that decade, they turn to cosily satirical farce, the products of an exasperated, grump. The 1960s see them trying to get with it and making a middle-aged effort to "swing", but also creating one work that finds a vulnerable, extraordinary beauty in ordinary lives. And after that comes a petering out,...
The history of the Boulting brothers is the history of British cinema in miniature. The brilliance, the comforts and the disappointments are all there. In the 1940s, they take off from documentary realism to reach the heights of noir extravagance, before falling back into a gently unexciting worthiness. At the start of the 1950s they produce two fascinating oddities, characteristic of the oddity of the times. Later that decade, they turn to cosily satirical farce, the products of an exasperated, grump. The 1960s see them trying to get with it and making a middle-aged effort to "swing", but also creating one work that finds a vulnerable, extraordinary beauty in ordinary lives. And after that comes a petering out,...
- 7/26/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
Hollywood was quick to jump on the 3D bandwagon, but ticket sales are falling. Film buffs Francine Stock and Danny Leigh discuss whether or not the format has a future
The number of films being made in 3D is falling – and so are ticket sales, it emerged this week. Broadcasters Francine Stock, presenter of Radio 4's The Film Programme, and Danny Leigh, critic and co-host of BBC1's Film 2012, discuss whether the 3D bubble has burst. Emine Saner listens in.
Danny Leigh: The death knell has been sounding for a while. It's impossible to talk about 3D without a slightly funereal bearing, because it has not worked. When Avatar came out, it seemed like the dawning of a new era, but if I was financially invested in 3D, I would be feeling a bit glum because there hasn't been a follow-up to Avatar, either a film or a general groundswell of enthusiasm.
The number of films being made in 3D is falling – and so are ticket sales, it emerged this week. Broadcasters Francine Stock, presenter of Radio 4's The Film Programme, and Danny Leigh, critic and co-host of BBC1's Film 2012, discuss whether the 3D bubble has burst. Emine Saner listens in.
Danny Leigh: The death knell has been sounding for a while. It's impossible to talk about 3D without a slightly funereal bearing, because it has not worked. When Avatar came out, it seemed like the dawning of a new era, but if I was financially invested in 3D, I would be feeling a bit glum because there hasn't been a follow-up to Avatar, either a film or a general groundswell of enthusiasm.
- 3/10/2012
- by Emine Saner
- The Guardian - Film News
On September 8, 1886, British portrait photographer and inventor William Friese-Greene created an enhanced magic lantern called a Biophantascope. This was one of the earliest motion picture cameras and projectors to project photographic plates in rapid succession. While capable of taking up to ten photographs per second using perforated celluloid film, his camera met with limited success. While it is often Thomas Edison who is credited as the father of cinematography, Friese-Greene was the first man to ever witness moving pictures on a screen.
As Cineplex celebrates 100 years of movie memories over the next twelve months, we’ll take a look back at some key moments, classic stars and technological milestones from each week in cinematic history, ones that helped shape and define the modern film industry into the memory-making marvel we view it as today.
So dig in with our second look back! This week's edition looks at Pixar, Shirley Temple,...
As Cineplex celebrates 100 years of movie memories over the next twelve months, we’ll take a look back at some key moments, classic stars and technological milestones from each week in cinematic history, ones that helped shape and define the modern film industry into the memory-making marvel we view it as today.
So dig in with our second look back! This week's edition looks at Pixar, Shirley Temple,...
- 1/27/2012
- by Rob Lazar
- Cineplex
Martin Scorsese's family friendly fantasy is a cinephile's delight: a beautifully designed homage to the power of the first film-makers
"I would recognise the sound of a movie projector anywhere!" says one of cinema's greatest pioneers, hearing that mechanical, sprockety whirr. It's a climactic moment in Martin Scorsese's new film: a family fantasy adventure in 3D which turns out to be a hi-tech magic lantern presentation on the wonder of early cinema, and its origins in the world of clockwork craftsmanship: toys, games, illusions.
Hugo is pitched as much to cinephile adults as children, and insists, in a fervent if rather pedagogic way, on that magical quality of cinema which children and grownups generally feel without needing to be told. This is a spectacular and gorgeously created film, with allusions to Harold Lloyd and Fritz Lang, and it's an almost overwhelming assault on the senses from the very...
"I would recognise the sound of a movie projector anywhere!" says one of cinema's greatest pioneers, hearing that mechanical, sprockety whirr. It's a climactic moment in Martin Scorsese's new film: a family fantasy adventure in 3D which turns out to be a hi-tech magic lantern presentation on the wonder of early cinema, and its origins in the world of clockwork craftsmanship: toys, games, illusions.
Hugo is pitched as much to cinephile adults as children, and insists, in a fervent if rather pedagogic way, on that magical quality of cinema which children and grownups generally feel without needing to be told. This is a spectacular and gorgeously created film, with allusions to Harold Lloyd and Fritz Lang, and it's an almost overwhelming assault on the senses from the very...
- 12/2/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Experiments in the British seaside town were among the most significant early attempts to bring colour to the film industry
The first thing you see on entering Capturing Colour is Loïe Fuller, or one of her imitators, performing the "Serpentine Dance" on the earliest kind of colour film, hand-tinted frame by frame. Fuller's act, which involved her whirling her silky costume about the stage of the Folies-Bergère with arms and sticks, while bathed in multi-coloured light, transfixed the poets, painters, and sculptors of fin-de-siècle Europe, who saw in the dance a return to the primitive and intuitive, a manifestation of "Art, nameless, radiant", as one of them had it.
Though the film is, conventionally speaking, a relic, the very unnaturalness of the colourist's splotchy handiwork is, speaking otherwise, true to Fuller's literary reputation, taking us a shade closer towards understanding what Mallarmé, intoxicated by her "limelit phantasmagoria", meant by "the...
The first thing you see on entering Capturing Colour is Loïe Fuller, or one of her imitators, performing the "Serpentine Dance" on the earliest kind of colour film, hand-tinted frame by frame. Fuller's act, which involved her whirling her silky costume about the stage of the Folies-Bergère with arms and sticks, while bathed in multi-coloured light, transfixed the poets, painters, and sculptors of fin-de-siècle Europe, who saw in the dance a return to the primitive and intuitive, a manifestation of "Art, nameless, radiant", as one of them had it.
Though the film is, conventionally speaking, a relic, the very unnaturalness of the colourist's splotchy handiwork is, speaking otherwise, true to Fuller's literary reputation, taking us a shade closer towards understanding what Mallarmé, intoxicated by her "limelit phantasmagoria", meant by "the...
- 3/2/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
One cannot help but wonder what British film pioneer William Friese-Greene would think if he knew that one day moviegoers would pay a premium to watch grown men vomit, urinate and evacuate their bowels on the big screen in 3D.Granted, those are the milder activities Johnny Knoxville and friends engage in with "Jackass 3D." The movie is obnoxious, nauseating and all around obscene but it entertains like nothing else in the industry. And while the 3D does not work as well as one might hope, that is probably a good thing considering some things just should not extend beyond the...
- 10/19/2010
- by Joseph Airdo, Phoenix Movie Examiner
- Examiner Movies Channel
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.