The past did not take place in black-and-white, but many of the technologies for documenting that past when it was present operated in that way. But in our age of never-ending marvels we can right the egregious errors of such out-moded systems. So it is that the colourisation of black-and-white actuality films and photographs hasRead More
Currently running at the Bruce Castle Museum in Haringey, north London, from April to July 2019, is a small exhibition on local film pioneer Robert Paul (1869-1943). Entitled Animatograph! How cinema was born in Haringey it traces the one small corner of the achievements of a man who, looking back on his life might haveRead More
Was this face the face That every day under his household roof Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face That like the sun did make beholders wink? … A brittle glory shineth in this face. As brittle as the glory is the face. To the cinema, and the next day to the theatre,Read More
The other day I watched Moonstruck, the 1987 film set among the Italian-American community of New York, starring Cher and Nicolas Cage. It’s a delightful production, which scarcely puts a foot wrong in any department. I had not seen it some twenty years, but something remarkable occurred. I could remember every single element of theRead More
Next in these reviews of the year is things seen on screen. Now that the boundaries between film, television and Netflix have blurred so utterly, it seems foolish to think of the various forms of screen entertainment or instruction as being separate from one another. We separate them only out of habit. Anyway, here areRead More
Few arguments can be more engrossing to take up, yet with so little hope of resolution, than the relationship between history and film. It is almost as if one of the chief functions of film is to bring history into confusion. Actuality film – newsreels, newsfilms, documentaries, home movies – appears to capture moments ofRead More
Well, perhaps I can retire now. I’ve been at the British Library for eleven years, and we have finally got round to doing that which several must have expected of my being there, which is to digitise the silent film era trade journal The Bioscope. The fact that I had nothing to do with theRead More
It was back in 1992, when an envelope turned up on my desk at the BFI. It came from the Nederlands Filmmuseum (now EYE Filmmuseum), and contained a number of frame stills of very early films that they were preserving. They wanted help in identifying them. They were marvellous, intriguing, baffling images. There were scenesRead More
There has probably been no more romantic human dream than the wish to fly. To defy gravity is to break through the bounds that tie we humans down. It is death-defying, an expression of immortality. Anyone who gets on a plane today and does not think – irrespective of what knowledge of aeronautical physics theyRead More
What a magical image this is. An audience of young people has packed a theatre, to such a degree that some are on the stage, while others sit perilously on the edge of the balcony, their legs hanging over. They are fresh-faced, eager, revelling in where they are and who they are. A man andRead More