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1、 O Oceania/South Pacific Moving pictures first arrived in the islands of the Pacific through film production rather than exhibition, and Hawaii, which had been annexed by the USA in 1898, was the first island group to greet filmmakers. E.Burton Holmes and Oscar Depue shot scenic views and local agri
2、culture in 1899, and they were followed by cameraman Robert K.Bonine who later established himself permanently in Hawaii as a filmmaker. By 1907, Leopold Sutto (traveling on the same boat as writer Jack London) was filming the Solomons and other islands for Path-Frres. In 1912, a local Tahiti photog
3、rapher, Maxime Bopp du Pont, began shooting films, and early in 1913 an expedition under Gaston Mlis (brother of Georges Mlis), with a company of actors and two cameramen, spent a month filming on the island. The Mlis company found film exhibition flourishing in Tahiti, with two large cinemas in the
4、 capital, Papeete, and another seven elsewhere on the island. Moving pictures had caught the publics fancy in French Polynesia, and by 1914 there were four cinemas in Papeete (largely financed by the Vicomte de Giron). Moving pictures also prospered on other islands in the Pacific, and Hawaii was ag
5、ain in the vanguard. As early as 1908 there were five nickelodeons in Honolulu, and five or six more on other islands of the group by the following year. In 1915 Photoplay reported that there were no fewer than 35 moving picture theaters in Honolulu alone. While some audience segmentation was occurr
6、ing by the end of this period, generally the audiences who attended Hawaiian shows were mixedAmerican (white), Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese. A comparable audience diversity seems to have been the case on some other Pacific islands. The British protectorate of Fiji first enjoyed film shows in 1909, an
7、d by 1910 an Australian showman, Arthur Guest, was touring films to mixed Fijian and Hindu audiences. By 1913, there were three modern cinemas on the island, running T.J.West, Cozens Spencer, and Gaumont programs respectively, with the films distributed from Sydney. In Samoa, too, film prints came f
8、rom Australia; by 1912, a local company was giving three shows a week there. All kinds of films were screened, but the island peoples evinced particular interest in nonfiction films, especially those of impressive foreign technology, such as huge locomotives and other machines. Cinemas in Tahiti wer
9、e so popular by 1913 that the authorities kept them closed three nights of the week so they would not take over island life completely. Some accounts, from Guam, for example, say that moving pictures even acted as a spur for local people to earn extra money to pay for cinema tickets. But in Encyclop
10、edia of early cinema 700 certain regions the colonial authorities considered films which showed fighting and shooting to be demoralizing for the population, and by 1914 there was talk of censorship. See also: colonialism: Europe; imperialism: USA Further reading “Hawaiian shows” (1909) Film Index, 2
11、3 January: 12. “Weekly Notes” report from Fiji (1910) Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly, 1 September: 1065. STEPHEN BOTTOMORE Olcott, Sidney (John Alcott) b. 1872; d. 1949 actor, scriptwriter, director, USA Initially an actor at Biograph, Olcott gained prominence as Kalems first filmmaker (19071912),
12、 directing the original Ben Hur (1907). He was an energetic, prolific pioneer of on-location shooting abroad, in Ireland (with popular, often political films), the European continent, and the Middle Easte.g., From the Manger to the Cross (1912). A dispute over Manger led to formation of the Gene Gau
13、ntier Feature Players (1912 1914). After releasing films independently (“Sidfilms”), he signed with Famous Players in 1915; later he worked for Goldwyn and Paramount. A recognized talent, he directed major silent stars such as Mary Pickford and Rudolph Valentino until his retirement in 1927. GRETCHE
14、N BISPLINGHOFF Oliver, David b. ?; d. ? exhibitor, distributor, producer, Germany An migr from Galicia and an exhibitor since 1905, Oliver became co-director of Nordisks German subsidiary, Nordische Films, in 1906, which he built into one of the countrys largest distribution companies before 1917. A
15、fter the outbreak of World War I, Oliver restructured Nordische into a horizontal group of production and distribution companies, including his own Oliver Films (established in April 1915), all feeding into Nordisches distribution network. At the same time, operating independently with his own capit
16、al, he pushed the companys vertical integration by acquiring the Union Theater chain from PAGU and merging it with his own theaters to form Union-Theater Ltd. Due to its Danish origins, Nordische frequently was the target of hostile nationalist rhetoric Entries A-Z 701 and, in 1918, finally was merg
17、ed into uFA, whose theater and distribution division Oliver then managed. After serving as a board member of Decla-Bioscop, he began working as a real estate agent and became involved in financing and supervising some of the most prestigious cinema construction projects in 1920s Germany. MICHAEL WED
18、EL Olsen, Ole b. 1863; d. 1943 producer, Denmark Olsen, who came from a very poor rural background, became a successful fair/fairground showman in the late 1880s. In 1905, he opened a moving picture theater in Copenhagen; the following year, he founded the production company Nordisk and quickly led
19、it to international prominence. He became famous as Denmarks only real film tycoon and pulled off various Barnum-like publicity stunts, as when he turned the shooting of the shipwreck scenes for August Bloms Atlantis (1913) into a major media event. He sold his Nordisk stock in 1914, but remained he
20、ad of the company until 1922, when stockholders, concerned by Nordisks financial difficulties, finally pushed him aside. CASPAR TYBJERG Omegna, Roberto b. 1876; d. 1948 cameraman, director, Italy A cousin of Guido Gozzano, one of Italys major poets and a part-time scriptwriter, Omegna was a successf
21、ul film exhibitor in Turin by 1901. Three years later, he was making actualits with Arturo Ambrosio and soon was made the head technician and nonfiction filmmaker at Ambrosio Film, where he worked until 1923. The director and technical supervisor for more than sixty fiction films, Omegna gained real
22、 fame for his ethnographic films of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (often completed with Giovanni Vitrotti) and his scientific films about insects, plants, and minerals. GIORGIO BERTELLINI Encyclopedia of early cinema 702 Onoe Matsunosuke b. 1875; d. 1926 actor, Japan After joining a touring theatr
23、ical troupe in 1889, Onoe became acquainted with Makino Shozo and played on the stage of the Senbonza theater in Kyoto, where Makino directed. Together with Makino, he entered Yokota Shokai in 1909. As a star of the old- school drama, he appeared on average in one film per week. His acting style and
24、 his patented facial expressions often were imitated in childrens plays. Because of their status as childrens entertainment, Onoes films were always regarded as a form of lowbrow spectacle by the cultural elite. HIROSHI KOMATSU opera Opera and moving pictures quickly established a fruitful relations
25、hip that, by 1915, had produced several hundred films of opera subjects. The moving picture had the same ability to paint dynamically in broad brush strokes on a grand canvas as did opera: the essentially “semaphore” nature of operatic acting of the period adapted easily to the “pantomimic” acting r
26、equired of early film performers. These similarities were quickly recognized by a number of filmmakers worldwide, and the early industry adopted both operatic plots as subject matter and operatic stars as performers to add the desired respectability and legitimacy to a form still viewed by many as n
27、ovelty light entertainment. Early subjects shared with opera included Goethes Faust (Lumire, 1898; Mlis, 1898, 1903, 1904; Edison, 1900), Beaumarchais The Barber of Seville (Mlis, 1904), Dumas La Dame aux Camelias (Nordisk, 1908), Schillers Louisa Miller (Itala, 1910) and Prevosts Manon (Path-Frres,
28、 1910). During the especially rich period of 1907 1911, and in conjunction with productions of films dart, specific opera adaptations included Aubers Fra Diavolo (Walturdaw, 1907), Mascagnis Cavalleria Rusticana (clair, 1909), Strausss Elektra (Vitagraph, 1910), Verdis Il Trovatore (Lubin, 1909; Pat
29、h-Frres, 1911), and Lehars The Merry Widow (Nordisk, 1907, Kalem, 1907). In Russia, Shuvalovs Boris Godunov (1907), featuring scenes from the play on which Mussorgskys opera is based, was one of the earliest Russian fiction subjects; in 1911, Vasili Goncharov filmed scenes from Glinkas opera, A Life
30、 for the Tsar and directed the first film based on a Tchaikovsky opera, Eugene Onegin. No less than five versions of Sardous Tosca, the source of Puccinis opera, appeared prior to 1915, including two versions for Film dArt, the less successful of which (1908) starred Sarah Bernhardt. Edwin S.Porter
31、first brought Wagners great sacred music drama Parsifal to the screen, serialized in twelve parts, for Edison in 1904, scarcely a year after the works American premiere. Entries A-Z 703 Opera films were often accompanied by musical scores arranged from the original works and sometimes featured live
32、singers performing either next to or behind the screen. Subjects shared with opera also provided ideal material for experiments in synchronized sound film, for which a gramophone record often featuring a distinguished operatic singer supplied the soundtrack. Clment-Maurice exhibited a selection of t
33、hese at the 1900 Paris Exposition, including a scene from Gounods Romeo et Juliette. Leading exponents included Oskar Messter who produced his first Tonbild in 1903, and later released abridged versions of Lehars The Count of Luxemburg (1909) and Strausss Die Fledermaus. In France, Georges Mendel pr
34、oduced a series of films chantants (singing films) which, by 1906, included scenes from La Boheme, Rigoletto, Mignon, Lakme, Herodiade, and Guillaume Tell. One of the earliest women directors, Alice Guy, made numerous phonoscnes for Gaumont between 1905 and 1907, featuring artists from the Paris Ope
35、ra; she even attempted, unsuccessfully, to film the most well known opera star of the time, Enrico Caruso. Mendel used Carusos recording of the “Sextet” from Donizettis Lucia Di Lammermoor as the soundtrack for his 1908 film version of the scene. The American pioneer George R.Webb first demonstrated
36、 his “singing pictures” in 1914, and three years later screened scenes from Pagliacci and Rigoletto that also used Carusos recorded voice. Caruso himself, who initially had a poor opinion of the cinema and screen acting, eventually would make two features for Famous Players-Lasky: My Cousin (1918) a
37、nd A Splendid Romance (1918). Early film appearances by stars from the opera stage included Emmy Destinn in Die Macht des Gesanges (1913), Berta Kalich in Marta of the Lowlands (1914), based on DAlberts opera Tiefland, and Fritzi Scheff in Pretty Mrs. Smith (1915). The Italian soprano, Lina Cavalier
38、i, renowned as “The Most Beautiful Woman in the World,” appeared in Playgoers Film Companys Manon Lescaut (1914), accompanied by the French tenor Lucien Muratore. The following year Cavalieri made Sposa Nella Morte The Bride of Death for Tiber Film in Rome, and appeared in a further six features. In
39、 Russia, the tenor Dmitri Smirnov starred in the Drankovs detective film, The Secret of Box Letter A (1915), and the phenomenal bass, Feodor Chaliapin, repeated his stage role as Tsar Ivan from Rimsky-Korsakovs opera The Maid of Pskov, in a screen version of Sharezs Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich Groznyi Iva
40、n The Terrible (1915). Cecil B.DeMille, whose early theatrical experiences included working for a touring opera company, appreciated the operatic scope and potential of the moving picture. Amongst his earliest successes, in 1915, was a screen version, for the Jesse Lasky Feature Play Company, of Dav
41、id Belascos play The Girl of the Golden West, upon which Puccini had based his opera, which had premiered at New Yorks Metropolitan in 1910. DeMille also directed one of Americas most widely-loved opera stars, Geraldine Farrar, in her debut features, Carmen, Maria Rosa, and Temptation, all made for
42、Lasky in 1915. Farrar, who would make fourteen silent films in all, scored a notable personal success repeating her popular stage characterization of Bizets heroine, although DeMille engaged his brother William to provide a scenario in order to avoid paying royalties to the estate of the original au
43、thor, Prosper Merime. Opera stories were also selected as vehicles for established non-operatic stars: Pauline Frederick appeared in Famous Players Zaza (1915) based on Belascos adaptation of a popular French play, set by Leoncavallo for an operatic version the following year. Even Encyclopedia of e
44、arly cinema 704 Mary Pickford appeared in the title role of another Puccini opera subject, Madam Butterfly (1915), opposite Marshall Neilan as Pinkerton. See also: acting styles; law and the cinema Further reading Citron, Marcia J. (2000) Opera on Screen, New Haven: Yale University Press. Fawkes, Ri
45、chard (2000) Opera on Film, London: Duckworth. Franklin, Peter (1994) “Movies as Opera,” in Jeremy Tambling (ed.) A Night in at the Opera, 77 110, London: John Libbey. Wlaschin, Ken (1997) Opera on Screen, Los Angeles: Beachwood Press. PAUL FRYER optical intermittent projectors Technically, projecti
46、on using moving mirrors, prisms or lenses and continuously running film was superior to intermittently moving the celluloid itself, which invariably damaged expensive prints. Such apparatuses were designed by John Nevil Maskelyne (1896), Paul Mortier (1897), and many others: over 200 optical project
47、ion patents were granted between 1896 and 1910. But the expense of their engineering, especially given the reliable magic lantern equipment that was easily adapted for films, inhibited commercial success apart from the Mechau projector of 1912 (called Arcadia in Great Britain), with over 500 manufac
48、tured through 1934. The principle was revived for the Imax system in 1967. DEAC ROSSELL Orientaliska teatern Founded in 1907, Orientaliska teatern was the principal cinema in N.P.Nilssons chain of Stockholm cinemas. Frequently criticized for the sensational nature of the Danish and French films whic
49、h the cinema exhibited, Nilsson established a modest production unit headed by Anna Hofmann-Uddgren that produced six films between 1911 and 1912. Capitalizing on local promotions or topical events such as the visit of William Booth to Stockholm in 1911, Orientaliska teatern also produced screen adaptations of August Strindberg: Frken Julie Miss Julie (1912) and Fadren The Father (1912), neither of which were well received. JOHN FULLERTON Entries A-Z 705 Ors, Eugeni d b. 1881; d. 1954