"Vertical panorama City Hall and surroundings," a
short documentary depicting the aftermath of the
1906 San Francisco earthquake in the Sulphur
Springs Collection of Pre-Nickelodeon Films. Image
courtesy of Southern Methodist University.
By Thomas Gladysz
SF Silent Film Examiner
We have all seen still photographs of the destruction caused by the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. They are horrendous images. But imagine being able to see sweeping panoramic moving pictures of the wreck and ruin taken in the aftermath of the disaster. It’s almost like being there.
Seven such films are among a group recently put on-line by Southern Methodist University in Texas. They offer contemporary viewers rare moving images of the citywide destruction caused by the catastrophe.
In their day, each of these silent movies was termed an actuality. (Today, they would be considered a documentary.) Each was shot in 1906 for the Edison Film Company by cameraman Robert K. Bonine. Remarkably, some depict near 180 degree views of ruined buildings and mounds of brick and rubble. In their sweep, the scale of destruction is striking.
In a few of the films, lone individuals stand in the distance – offering both visual and psychological perspective. In others, groups of ladies and gentlemen dressed in the attire of the day pass down streets and sidewalks seemingly leading nowhere.
These short films carry descriptive titles like Ruins of Chinatown (1906) and Earthquake ruins new Majestic Theater and City Hall (1906). Other slightly less matter-of-fact titles suggest the destruction drew no social distinctions: contrast Panorama Nob Hill and ruins of millionaire residences (1906) with Panorama notorious 'Barbary Coast' (1906). Each of the Edison films depicting the aftermath of the Earthquake run between 35 and 65 seconds.
Vertical panorama City Hall and surroundings (1906) contains unusual camerawork accomplished for its time, a horizontal and vertical pan taken in one continuous shot. In this 52 second film, the Edison camera slowly sweeps leftward across the destruction of the Civic Center until reaching City Hall while in one uninterrupted flowing shot the camera tilts upward toward the remaining dome taking in the entirety of the ruined building before panning downward until reaching street level and continuing its slow sweep leftward across wreck and ruin.
The seven films depicting the aftermath of the 1906 Earthquake belong to a larger group of works which together form the Sulphur Springs Collection of Pre-Nickelodeon Films. Each of the 29 works in the collection was digitized and can now be viewed online at http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/ssm
The Sulphur Springs collection, which spans 1898 through 1906, includes single-shot actualities, vaudeville acts, comedies, and five multi-shot story films of the 1904-1905 period. The films in the collection were produced by companies like Edison, Lubin, Selig, and Pathe Freres.
Each are interesting and amusing examples of the earliest cinema. One trick film produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co., for example, depicts a scene inside a barbershop and the unconscious fears of every customer.
In The Maniac Barber (1899), a gentleman customer is seated, and his face lathered. The barber wields his blade – and then removes the man’s head to a nearby sink. There, the maniac barber is able to angle an even closer shave. The gentlemen’s head is then as non-chalantly replaced as it had been removed. The gentleman gets up to thank the barber, and is on his way!
The story behind the discovery of these little seen films is almost as noteworthy as the films themselves. Sixteen years ago, staff members of the Southwest Film-Video Archive (SWFVA) at Southern Methodist University were contacted by an individual in the small east Texas town of Sulphur Springs. The individual reported to be in possession of nitrate stock moldering in a closet. When reels of the 35mm stock were acquired, cleaned, and inspected – they revealed a rich find of both documentary and dramatic films dating back to the turn of the last century.
The films, uncovered in 1983 and digitized in 2008, have now been put online as part of the Southern Methodist University / Central University Libraries (CUL) Digital Collections.
Comments