Subject
KINtop no. 6: Aktualitäten / Topical Films Topical films and newsreels are an important part of cinema shows until the 60’s. However, from the early years of cinematography actualités and staged news films presented an amazing variety of public events: politics, war, crime – and also the love affairs of princesses. KINtop 6: Aktualitäten presents various aspects of this complex field. This issue deals with the way actual events were represented on the screen and offers theoretical reflection on this fascinating problematic. Roland Cosandey presents and comments upon a short story published in 1900 and dealing with a tragic episode from the Boer Wars, when a young woman witnesses on the screen that her loved one is apparently shot in battle. Frank Gray analyses James Williamson’s ATTACK ON A CHINA MISSION as a filmic condensation of the way the Boxer War was presented in the Western press. The way actuality films function as images of time is discussed by William Uricchio. Sabine Lenk retraces the history of actualités in France before the First World War. Charles Musser reflects on the cultural status of Edison’s kinetoscope films. The remarkable episode of a princesse’s elopement with her children’s teacher is presented by Guido Convents. In his analysis of the panoramic views in Edison’s Execution of Czolgosz, Michael Punt argues that this documentary footage serves an important ideological purpose. Thierry Lefebvre discusses the scandal provoked by a film about the separation of the Siamese twins Dodica and Radica by the French surgeon Dr. Doyen. In her essay on the films about the British criminal Charles Peace Ine van Dooren presents the paradoxical case of a news film about an event which occurred about twenty years earlier. Jeannine Baj describes how Gaumont produced a film about the death of a famous French gangster. Youen Bernard reconstructs how the small French company “Le Lion” made their topical films. The films about Leo Tolstoj made in Russia are discussed by Natalia Nussinova. Russell Merritt discusses how the “Ludlow Massacre” was used in American films before the First World War. Outside the main section contributions by Jeanpaul Goergen and Deac Rossell present recent research on the earliest days of cinema in Berlin. In an English language essay Brigitte Schulze discusses the making of India’s first feature film RAJA HARISCHANDRA. Stroemfeld Verlag: Basel, Frankfurt am Main 1997 ISBN 3-87877-786-8
