Thomas Edison - The Universal Exposition, Paris 1900
Paris - Highlighting the Pavilions and Sites of the Universal Exposition of 1900Rummaging round my computer I found I had quite a lot more Thomas Edison footage of Paris in 1900 at the time of the Universal Exposition ...
So I thought I indulge myself - and try your patience - and put together another small video of some of the various bits I have.
Each of the titled photos below is for a section of the film ...
Eiffel Tower from the Trocadero Palace
La Place de l'Opera
L'Esplanade des Invalides
Les Champs de Mars and the Eiffel Tower 1
Les Champs de Mars and the Eiffel Tower 2
Dancing in Les Champs de Mars
Ascending the Eiffel TowerSo - again - sit back ... you know the drill by now!
Okay?
Nick,
ReplyDeleteWhat a WONDERFUL film, poignant, evocative, and it sets off so many avenues of thought. (Superb music, by the way.) Like your post below on London, I found myself wondering about the stories of the people glimpsed--what were they thinking, feeling? What would happen to them? In a few years their society was going to be pretty much destroyed, which makes these pix all the more precious. How I wish I could sit down in a cafe and talk with them. Their world was so very, very different from ours.
Thanks for these marvelous reminders about that world. So, Nick, were you -- in a past life -- the cute guy mugging for the camera?
Not just okay but great!!!!
ReplyDeleteWit
hey paul in NYC
ReplyDeletei have exactly some of the reactions as you've had to the footage
tho i think i'm probably over-using the music (Dmitri Shostakovich's Romance from The Gadfly Suite - could it have been in 3 posts to date?)! but is seems to match so well at least the mood evoked when i watch that long gone world
i lived in paris as a late teenager so i have this angle on the film too - my own nostalgia - over-layed with a more general one
and it IS so hard not to wonder about the lives of those you see there - their reactions particularly to the camera have a spontaneity that makes them more immediate and real to us now - and this provokes more speculation about their lives for me
actually i hadn't thought of the poignancy of the imminence of WW1 which swept so much of this world away - you make a very interesting point here! and one that's a bit like demise of the Old South in the States in the aftermath of the Civil War
and you recognized me! - sadly, if the truth were known, i was probably some hoary old Charles Darwin type - sour faced and with long white bearded - from birth!!!
good to hear from you again
best
nick
hey wit
ReplyDeletethanks for your lovely appreciation - i've looked over this post more times than i should and the warm smugness it engenders in me will no doubt be punished by the gods who look out for examples of the sin of pride!
LOL
best
nick
hey guys
ReplyDeletemeant debussy's 'claire de lune'!
need that coffee to get the brain to kick in!
CYA