Monday, August 17, 2009

Thomas Edison - The Universal Exposition, Paris 1900

Paris - Highlighting the Pavilions and Sites of the Universal Exposition of 1900

Rummaging 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 Tower

So - again - sit back ... you know the drill by now!



Okay?

5 comments:

  1. Nick,

    What 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?

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  2. Not just okay but great!!!!
    Wit

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  3. hey paul in NYC

    i 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

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  4. hey wit

    thanks 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

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  5. hey guys

    meant debussy's 'claire de lune'!

    need that coffee to get the brain to kick in!

    CYA

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