The Shadow Century: 'Films of 1907'

 Archives-Navy Mem'l 

ANNUALLY SINCE 2003, Randy Haberkamp, the Director of Educational Programs at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, has turned back the calendar 100 years. On Thursday, the National Archives welcomes his latest evening of shorts, "A Century Ago: The Films of 1907."

As expected when silents are screened, there will be music, on this occasion provided by performer/composer Michael Mortilla. But the medium itself has undergone such drastic change that a tour guide is now required. Haberkamp will be on hand to provide some context.

Pathé Frères' "The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ" will be offered only in selected scenes — just as exhibitors were invited to do when the film was a box-office smash.

"You could buy individual shots," Haberkamp explains. "So if you thought, 'Well, I'm gonna save a little money,' or, 'I don't need the middle story — I'm just gonna do the Nativity and the Crucifixion and skip all the rest of it,'" that option was open. "It was very free-form, and the exhibitors had a lot of control over content."

Trick photography was all the rage. Pathé's "Les Kiriki, Acrobates Japonais" packs many impossible stunts into a brisk three minutes. "Basically, they were lying on a black floor that had been designed to look like a proscenium," Haberkamp says. "They timed it all out and worked it all out. I think it's just an amazing film." In addition to being outfitted with superhuman strength and agility, the performers are attired in hand-tinted finery.

Perhaps the most shocking offering is "The 'Teddy' Bears." A charming and innovative interlude of stop-motion animation breaks the narrative of Edison's melding of myth and history, which combines the Goldilocks story with a defining moment from the biography of Teddy Roosevelt. But the film's ending raised hackles even among those familiar with the president's taste for rugged outdoorsmanship.

"We're so inundated with images that going back and thinking about what it would be like to see shadows moving on a screen for the first time — it's just amazing," says Haberkamp. "It's impossible for us to really grasp, I think, how incredible that is."

» National Archives, 700 Pennsylvania Ave. NW; Thu., 7 p.m., free; 202-357-5000. (Archives-Navy Memorial)

Written by Express contributor Glenn Dixon
Photo courtesy National Archives