Liverpool in film: J.A.L. Promio’s cinematic urban space

Abstract

As far as it is possible to determine from Michelle Aubert’s and Jean‐Claude Seguin’s La Production cinématographique des frères Lumière (1996) and other sources, Jean Alexandre Louis Promio, film operator of the Lumière Brothers, produced in 1897 the first record of the city of Liverpool in the form of moving images. Six of his films are from a cinematic and urban context particularly noteworthy and are currently subject of further investigations: Church Street, Lime Street and four parts of Panorama Pris du Chemin de Fer Électrique – all of which are either shot in the city centre or from Liverpool’s famous Overhead Railway. This article will present an analysis of these films from a filmic as well as architectural perspective. Framed by the theoretical work by Andreas Kessler, André Gaudreault, Vanessa Toulmin, Tom Gunning and others, and by contrasting the work of the Lumière Brothers with, for instance, that of the Mitchell and Kenyon film company, this article will explore questions with regard to Promio’s particular choice of location, the cinematographic quality and the architectural significance of his work. In particular, issues of movement and absence with regard to the camera, objects/subjects within the frame and urban architectural space are addressed. Applying a methodology derived from architectural practice and by making use of digital Ordinance Survey (OS) maps and other digital tools, this interdisciplinary research would like to highlight two essential problems with regard to the spatial continuity of this Lumière material and the way it is currently presented: one has to do with the numbering of the rolls of film, and the second with the film footage itself.