Austria, Volkslesehalle Filmabteilung, 1930, DCP, 50 minutes

France, Pathé, 1913, 10 minites

Austria, Wiener Kunstfilm, year unknown, 3 minutes

France, Pathé, 1912 (?), 12 minutes

Austria, Volkslesehalle Filmabteilung, 1930, DCP, 50 minutes

Material shot in 1908-16.

France, Pathé, 1913, 10 min

Newsreel. Procession dedicated to the birthday of Emperor Franz Joseph at the summer residence of the royal family.

Austria, Wiener Kunstfilm, year unknown, 3 minutes

Newsreel. A scene from private life.

France, Pathé, 1912 (?), 12 minutes

Newsreel. A festive procession in Vienna with representatives of the Austro-Hungarian lands.

Austrian fiction cinema sought to resurrect a great era but built Vienna among studio sets. By the time of the heyday of Austrian cinema (1933-38), Vienna as the capital of the empire was already a “suburb of Europe”.
Cinema managed to "document" the last decade of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Shots of countless celebrations and processions have come down to us, creating the image of the most opulent of empires. The love of ceremonialism was an anachronism and demonstrated the monarchy’s reluctance to leave the gallant 19th century and enter the 20th.
The shooting process was not a primitive fixation of events but was a continuation of the ceremony. It was dictated by the subject being filmed, whether it was the everyday life of the ruling family or an official ritual. The crowded parade processions seemed endless in their uniformity.
Newsreel cameramen were looking for a way to provide monotonous events with a spirit of living presence: for example, they chose a shooting point from inside the crowd. A series of horse-drawn carriages and ranks of the military, marching in unison, now and then were relieved by feathers on hats and flags in the hands of spectators who obscured the camera’s view.
In the newsreel "The Arrival of the Papal Nuncio," a delegation of representatives of the peoples of the entire Empire passed in front of the camera, becoming a kind of "census" of the nations under the monarchy’s jurisdiction. Under the pretext of showing celebrations upon the arrival of the great guest from Italy, the cameraman conducted a tour of Vienna. The procession was "thinned" by postcard shots depicting the sights of the capital.
The newsreel pursued, in part, a propaganda goal: to convey the image of the Empire and its ruler as a symbol of unity and prosperity all the way to the outskirts of the country. The imperial newsreels attracted all the subjects of the two-pronged Monarchy, wherever they lived, on the Ringstrasse or in one of the shtetls of Galicia. The screen empire gathered around itself the geographic one.
Emperor and King Franz Joseph first appeared on the screen in 1903; his last newsreel was the funeral of the ruler in 1916. The film "Emperor Franz Joseph As a Ruler and As a Man", compiled in 1930 from silent newsreels of different years, serves as a kind of epitaph.
Franz Joseph was considered the guarantor of the Empire’s integrity. “...Mariahilfer Strasse. The old emperor drove along this street twice a day, from the Schönbrunn Palace to the city on state affairs in the morning, and back in the evening. Onlookers always crowded along the road; they greeted the sovereign or gawked at him as a tourist attraction" (Khamann B. Gitler v Vene. Portret diktatora v iunosti [Hitler’s Vienna. A Dictator’s Apprenticeship]. M.: Ad Marginem Press, 2016. S. 143). Austria-Hungary was a large country. Most of its subjects had never been to Vienna, and cinema was the only opportunity for them to see the monarch and the capital.
The authorities realized the importance of self-presentation. Franz Joseph often appeared on the screen as an ordinary person. The newsreel "On the birthday of Emperor Franz Joseph in Bad Ischl, 1913" shows him not as a birthday man, but as a guest at a celebration in his own honor. It is easy to overlook him among the members of the imperial family leaving the carriages. Films with scenes from the private life of the Habsburgs were also popular. The monarch, who loved hunting, appeared in front of the camera in a Tyrolean hunting suit, and Archduke Leopold demonstrated his favorite horse in the film "His Highness the Archduke Leopold Salvator With His Favorite Horse".
All the newsreels in the program “Film Capital. Vienna” will be shown on 35mm film from the Gosfilmofond collection.

Viktoria Elizarova

November 28, Sunday