Any present-day visitor to the BFI Southbank in London, who’s killing time in the Mediatheque, browsing the bookshop or lounging on the sofas in the bar, smug about their choice of location for a date, might be very surprised to know that, 20 years ago, they were more likely to have found themselves flying over London, attending a magic lantern show, participating in a Hollywood shoot or experiencing life inside a Dalek.
That section of the current complex was constructed to house Momi, the much-loved Museum of the Moving Image, which opened in 1988 and was closed “temporarily” on 31 August 1999, never to be seen again. During those 11 years, it offered visitors an opportunity to learn about and experience the development of the moving image in a way that had never existed before – and hasn’t since.
I am a film-maker who, in the mid-1990s, developed a burning interest in the technological developments of my chosen medium. I vividly remember attending a course at Momi about Kinemacolor – the first commercially successful colour film system. The tutor was Momi’s technical manager, Stephen Herbert, who fused the sharp-end knowledge of a versatile BFI projectionist with a remarkable overview of the historical, social and psychological aspects of the moving image.
Having given us a talk about the development and principles of the system, he led us into the museum, walked up to a display cabinet, unlocked it and proceeded to casually remove a 1909 Moy & Bastie Kinemacolor camera. He laced it up with film and took us out on the South Bank, where we shot what was probably the first Kinemacolor film made in 80 years. It was a vivid lesson in the importance of doing film history, not just theorising.
Despite the success of the museum, that kind of fun came to an end when Momi was abruptly closed, for reasons that were not entirely clear. And that wasn’t all. At that time, I could walk into London’s Science Museum and wander through a gallery dedicated to film and its antecedents. A little later, all of that material was transplanted to the Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford (now the National Science and Media Museum). The vast majority of those exhibits have remained in storage ever since. In 2013, that museum was faced with possible closure. This month, dwindling staff there are striking over their low pay levels. Its existence remains in the balance.
Some would say it was ever thus. From the 1920s to the 50s, the Science Museum housed the Will Day Collection – one of the most important gatherings of artefacts, films and documentation about the development of cinema that anyone has ever compiled. But when the family insisted the loan became a purchase, it was allowed to slip away to the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, in 1959. In the last 20 years, the Cinémathèque has done much to catalogue, exhibit and restore its contents. However, in 18 months of trying, I have been unable to get a reply about carrying out research on the collection and I do not know of any other British academic who has succeeded.
This year, one of our most eminent film historians, Professor Ian Christie, has been attempting to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Robert Paul, and struggling to find support for his efforts. “Robert who?” I hear you ask. Actually, so many people have asked that he’s now had T-shirts printed with “ROBERT WHO?” emblazoned on them. Christie argues, with good reason, that Paul was the father of the British film industry, and has given him a nickname: “Daddy Paul.”
An engineer who ran one of the first commercial film shows in the UK, Paul’s contribution was not only to advance film-making at a technological level but also to push the creative boundaries of the medium and establish the first film studio in Britain. By comparison, the Lumière brothers barely contributed to the development of our film industry. And when the Lumières refused to sell their Cinématographe to Georges Méliès, he headed to London and bought equipment from Paul instead, with which he launched himself as a film-maker.
Why don’t you already know that? I guess because in Britain we don’t really care about the beginnings of our film industry.
A great deal of my research has been around the profoundly misunderstood figure of William Friese-Greene, who created one of the first movie cameras, years before Edison or the Lumières. He was the subject of one of Martin Scorsese’s favourite films, which was made for the Festival of Britain in 1951: The Magic Box. This decidedly downbeat biopic was criticised for being some kind of tub-thumping, nationalistic tract, but I challenge anyone to feel triumphant at the end of it.
Then a British researcher for Kodak, Brian Coe, wrote that Friese-Greene was a technical nincompoop who contributed nothing to the development of moving pictures. British film historians have been largely content to stick with that version for 60 years. My own research reveals that no part of his assessment is true, but nobody ever bothered to check.
There is nothing sinister about suggesting we should be interested in where our own film industry came from and to care about that heritage. In other countries, a great deal has been done to preserve the work and the stories of those who founded their film industries. Fabulous film museums have emerged in Turin, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris. But in Britain it is as if we let the roof of St Paul’s fall in, gave away or packed up the art works and left the cathedral to go to rack and ruin.
Perhaps 31 August 1999 was the last day that people who care about the UK’s film heritage had any significant public support. The modern story of the preservation of our film history is one of indifference, decline and the adoption of false narratives. Are we going to let it wither completely or, 20 years after the closure of Momi, are we going to start talking and caring about what really happened?
• Ian Christie’s exhibition about Robert Paul is at the London Metropolitan Archives from September to October. More information about Peter Domankiewicz’s research can be found on his blog William Friese-Greene and Me.
