From inventor to renter: The middleman, the production crisis and the formation of the British film industry

Abstract

The concept of the ‘second birth of cinema’ developed by André Gaudreault offers a new model for thinking about the development of early cinema. By proposing a new paradigm for the relationship between ‘pre-cinema’, early cinema and the formation of cinema as an institution, Gaudreault calls into question both our understanding of this crucial developmental period in cinema history, and our understanding of what cinema is, harking back to André Bazin’s question, ‘What is cinema?’ Gaudreault’s thesis is partly predicated on the acceptance that there is such a thing as the ‘institution of cinema’, and that the formative parts of this institution coalesced around the same time; hence the second birth of cinema. Such an idea is echoed in other theories of cinema’s development, including Noel Burch’s ‘institutional mode of representation’ and Tom Gunning’s ‘cinema of narrative integration’. Yet these are stylistic concepts, suggesting therefore that the ‘institution of cinema’ marks a moment of aesthetic development and standardization and implies that industrial developments ran concurrently with that of style. The early history of the British film industry problematizes this idea, since while the wider cinema industry grew, the production sector declined. This article explores a formative period of development for the British film industry from 1908–1911. It examines the crisis in British production and the rise of the rental and foreign sales sectors of the industry in the light of Gaudreault’s paradigm, and assess how this idea of cinema’s second birth can help our understanding of this key moment in British film history.