The Lumiere screening set the stage for other visitors with
cinematographs such as F.B.
Robert Bresson's Notes on the
Cinematograph holds a special place on the small shelf of books about filmmaking by filmmakers.
"I can quite picture them saying to themselves, 'Why, this beats old stories we used to read in the Arabian Nights of people being transported on a magic carpet to other countries and places!'" The cinema, which closed in March 1960, had been on the site since 1910 in several incarnations, including The
Cinematograph Theatre (1910-1914), The Imperial Playhouse (1918-1923) and the Oxford Cinema (1923-1931).
The British empire introduced censorship in India via the
Cinematograph Act of 1918 and the Indian
Cinematograph Committee of 1928 to control the content of films.
The building was constructed in 1929-30 for Provincial
Cinematograph Theatres and opened as the Rink Cinema - not to be confused with Rank.
If there's one quote that we know today, is utterly, completely off the mark, it's that infamous statement from the Lumiere brothers regarding their own, much-lauded, creation… "Cinema," they said -- shortly after coming up with the first '
cinematograph' in history -- "is an invention with no future."
Local councillors have the power - under the 1909
Cinematograph Act - to ban any film they deem unsuitable from being screened.
The old(e) world encounters the new at Ormskirk in 1903, when the features announced include both the crowning of the May Queen, replete with 'Court Attendants and Retainers, Morris Dancers, May Pole Dancers, Athletic and Old English Sports &c', and the presence of a '
CINEMATOGRAPH. With Up-to-date, Local and other Views' (p.
Broadcasting Entertainment
Cinematograph and Theatre Union (BECTU): telephone, 0845 850 2502, www.bectu.org.uk