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1、 W Wales The arrival of the Edison Kinetoscope brought moving pictures to Wales where photography had flourished in the 19th century with the pioneering work of John Dilwyn Llewellyn, John Thomas, and Rev. Richard Calvert Jones. Two Kinetoscopes appeared in November 1894 at the Philharmonic Hall, Ca
2、rdiff, managed by Oswald Stoll (later to run Britains biggest film studios in the 1920s), and three machines were installed at a venue in Swansea in 1895. In April 1896, London- based Birt Acres projected the first moving pictures in Wales at a Cardiff Photographic Society private show. On May 5one
3、week before Felicien Trewey presented the Cinmatographe Lumire at Cardiffs Empire music hallAcres opened the first commercial moving picture show in Wales at the Cardiff Fine Art, Industrial and Maritime exhibition in Cathays Park. On June 27, he shot the first Welsh filma visit of the Prince of Wal
4、es to the exhibition. R.W.Paul (or his representative) also shot Cardiff street scenes in 1896. Faced with fierce religious opposition, especially in rural areas, moving pictures gained popularity relatively slowly in Wales; by 1910, however, 162 venues were screening films. Before 1911 and 1912, wh
5、en permanent cinemas became common, most residents of the industrialized south or rural mid and north Wales first experienced moving pictures in fair/fairground bioscopes or in music halls. In the heyday of itinerant exhibitors, bioscopes run by Welsh-based families of fairground showmen notably, St
6、udt, Danter, Haggar, White, Dooner, Crecraft, and Wadbrookcompeted for business at the great Welsh fairs in Neath, Portfield at Haverfordwest, and Pembroke. The flourishing bioscope era coincided with the career of eminent Welsh-based filmmaker William Haggar. In the larger townsCardiff, Newport, an
7、d Swansea moving pictures were first shown at Stolls Empire music halls. Indigenous filmmaking began in 1898, with actualits shot by Arthur Cheetham, and continued with fiction films made by Haggar and showman John Codman (c. 1905 1909). Yet despite Haggars achievements, in particular, Wales remaine
8、d largely barren of “home” filmmakers in the pre-1914 period. Popular news events or actualit films of the early 1910s featured renowned Welsh boxers Freddie Welsh, Peerless Jim Driscoll and world flyweight champion Jimmy Wilde, as well as the charismatic politician, “Welsh wizard” David Lloyd Georg
9、e (Prime Minister, 19161922). Although mining was the principal industry, early newsreels rarely hinted at the realities or turbulence of coal field or quarry life. Encyclopedia of early cinema 984 Fiction films set in Wales but made by either London film companies or units of US studios, immediatel
10、y post-Haggar, were mainly bucolic romances. Almost all are lost, including the intriguing feature directed by Henry Edwards, A Welsh Singer (1915), one of three films adapted from novels by Welsh writer Allen Raine and starring the former “Vitagraph Girl,” Florence Turner. William Haggar Jr.s featu
11、re, The Maid of Cefn Ydfa (1913) survives in truncated form, and some extant actualits make impressive use of photogenic Welsh locationse.g., British Mutascope and Biographs Phantom Train Ride to Conway Castle (1898) and Charles Urban Tradings North Wales, England: Land of Castles and Waterfalls (19
12、07). DAVE BERRY Further reading Berry, David (1994) Wales and Cinema: The First 100 Years, University of Wales Press. Curtis, Tony (ed.) (1986) Wales, The Imagined Nation, Poetry Wales Press. Walker, William b. ?; d. 1937 bookseller, optical lanternist, filmmaker, Scotland In 1896, Walker purchased
13、a set of moving pictures to augment his magic lantern shows. The following year, he hired cameramen Paul Robello and Joe Gray to film local subjects, using a Wrench camera. In 1898, Walker was called to Balmoral to present his films to Queen Victoria, the first of thirteen such presentations, earnin
14、g his company, Walkers Cinematograph, the epithet “Royal.” He produced a large number of actualits and news event films thereafter, the most ambitious being Aberdeen University Quatercentenary (1906). The business folded in 1911, whereupon Walker severed his ties with moving pictures. JANET McBAIN W
15、althall, Henry B. b. 1878; d. 1936 actor, USA One of the most popular and respected actors of the period, Walthall achieved his greatest fame as the “Little Colonel” in D.W.Griffiths The Birth of a Nation (1915). He had worked with Griffith since 1909 at the Biograph Company where he played the lead
16、 in numerous one-reelers and became skilfully adept at performing the new more Entries A-Z 985 “realistic” acting style, which was then replacing the older “theatrical” style. In 1913, he also starred as Holofernes in Griffiths first four-reel film, Judith of Bethulia. ROBERTA E.PEARSON Walturdaw Wa
17、lturdaw Company was formed out of the surnames of J.D.Walker, E.G.Turner and G.H.Dawson. Walker and Turner had toured Britain with Edison Kinetoscopes and phonographs in 1896, before graduating to cinema shows and, thereafter, to renting out their large collection of films. Joined by Dawson (a teach
18、er and former customer), they formed the Walturdaw Company in 1904 and effectively pioneered film distribution in Britain. Walturdaw moved into film production the following year, and in 1907 launched its Cinematophone synchronized sound film system. Yet renting remained at the heart of the companys
19、 business until the mid-1920s, when it turned to the supply of film equipment, where it was modestly successful for a number of decades. See also: distribution: Europe LUKE McKERNAN Warner brothers Harry (Hirsch): b. 1881; d. 1958 Albert: b. 1884; d. 1967 Sam: b. 1888; d. 1927 Jack (Jacob): b. 1892;
20、 d. 1978 exhibitors, distributors, producers, executives, USA In 1895, the Polish immigrant Warner family settled in Youngstown, Ohio. After brothers Harry and Sam spent months touring moving pictures in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, they opened a nickelodeon in New Castle in 1907. Soon, al
21、ong with brother Albert, they built up a circuit of theaters and opened a rental exchange, Duquesne Amusement he was replaced by G.A.Smith, whose creative trick films also were handled by Warwick. Clashes with Maguire d. 1942 exhibitor, producer, executive, US Waters entered the film business in all
22、iance with Edison Manufacturing, as founder of the Kinetograph Company, which provided an exhibition service to vaudeville houses in the Northeast and Canada. With the rise of nickelodeons, the company turned into a rental exchange. By 1910, Waters was general manager of the General Film Company, an
23、d a major stockholder. Along with J.J.Kennedy, he resigned in 1912 to form a second Kinetograph Company, which briefly competed as a distributor of Motion Picture Patents Company films. In 1914, Waters returned to General Film, but soon left to become president of the Triangle Film Corporation. RICH
24、ARD ABEL Encyclopedia of early cinema 988 wax museums: Europe Wax museums flourished throughout Europe in the 1880s and 1890s and functioned as significant presentation venues for many late 19th-century media practices, including early forms of motion pictures. The later rise of narrative cinema tur
25、ned this initial symbiotic relationship into a more competitive one. Indeed, many of the institutions founded in moderately sized European capitals in the heyday of the wax museum did not survive the competition and closed in the first decades of the 20th century. To the long and varied history of w
26、ax modeling, the 19th century contributed the establishment of public wax museums in permanent urban locations pitched at middle- class visitors. Madame Tussauds establishment in London, founded in 1835, is the most longlived and famous museum of this sort, but in the closing decades of the century,
27、 other European cities with metropolitan aspirations regarded the establishment of a wax museum as a crucial component of a well-rounded urban entertainment repertoire. The name for wax museum in the Germanic parts of Europe, Panoptikum, underscores the implicit ambition to gather in effigies, objec
28、ts, and sights from all corners of the earth. Castans Panoptikum, founded in Berlin in 1871, mixed the familiar miscellany of the curiosity cabinet and dime museum with its display of wax effigies, and became the most prominent wax museum in Germany. More direct connections with early cinema could b
29、e found at the Parisian wax museum, the Muse Grvin, founded in 1882. This museum served as an important nexus for new media in Paris, offering itself as a “living newspaper” on the one hand and hosting electricity demonstrations and telephone concerts on the other. This public profile of the Muse Gr
30、vin made it a logical location in 1892 for mile Reynaud to present his thtre optique, projected life-size painted moving images that were important forerunners to screened photographic images. Also relevant for early cinema studies is the respectable wax museums relationship to competing forms of wa
31、x displaythe wax cabinets and anatomy shows that for years had toured the marketplaces, fairs/fairgrounds, and rented halls or storefronts of Europe, and continued to do so through the turn of the century. These spectacle-oriented wax displays had much in common with the cinema of attractions, inclu
32、ding an itinerant mode of circulation, a slightly disreputable class standing, and an undisguised fascination with the mediated body. The Muse Grvins historical ties to the Paris Morgue demonstrate this common genealogy of visual sensation. But the Paris wax museum and its emulators, such as the Sca
33、ndinavian Panoptikon in Copenhagen, also prefigured many of cinemas later strategies of cultural legitimation by developing luxurious interiors, a meticulous system of mise-en-scne, and an emphasis on narrative content and the tableau series. See also: amusement parks; audiences: surveys and debates
34、; dioramas/panoramas; editing: tableau style; magic lantern shows; museum life exhibits; vaudeville Further reading Sandberg, Mark (2003) Living Pictures, Missing Persons: Mannequins, Museums, and Modernity, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Entries A-Z 989 Schwartz, Vanessa (1998) Spectacular
35、Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Sicle Paris, Berkeley: University of California Press. MARK B.SANDBERG Weber, Lois b. 1881; d. 1939 scriptwriter, actor, director, USA The foremost female director of the 1910s, Weber reached the peak of her career at Universal where she directed a multiple-re
36、el film adaptation of Shakespeares The Merchant of Venice in 1914, and the only screen appearance of famed Russian dancer Anna Pavlova. Believing that films of social conscience were the key to cinemas uplift, Weber also wrote and directed features on drug addiction, capital punishment, contraceptio
37、n, and wage equity for women. In 1916, she became the first woman granted membership in the Motion Picture Directors Association, a precursor to the Directors Guild of America. See also: Rex; Smalley, Phillips SHELLEY STAMP Wegener, Paul b. 1874; d. 1948 actor, director, Germany A noted character ac
38、tor under Max Reinhardt, Wegener made his screen debut as the student Balduin in Stellan Rye and Guido Seebers Autorenfilm, Der Student von Prag The Student of Prague (1913). He soon became a major force behind German cinemas obsession with fantastic and fairy tale motifs as actor-director of Der Go
39、lem The Golem (1915), Rbezahls Hochzeit (Rbezahls Wedding) (1916) and Der Golem und die Tnzerin The Golem and the Dancer (1917). In his 1916 lecture, “The Artistic Possibilities of Film,” Wegener outlined his approach to a distinctively “national” cinema, advocating a fusion of German Romantic motif
40、s and special effects cinematography. MICHAEL WEDEL Encyclopedia of early cinema 990 Weisse, Hanni b. 1892; d. 1967 actor, Germany A former stage soubrette, Weisse was discovered by Max Mack who promoted her as one of German cinemas leading film stars before World War I. After regular appearances in
41、 dramas and comedies for the Eiko company, she followed Mack to Vitascope in 1912, where she played opposite Albert Bassermann. In 19131914, she was given her own series, designed to exploit her tomboyish charm and nimble vivaciousness in burlesque comedies such as Die Berliner Range The Berlin Stre
42、et- Urchin (1913), Die Tango-Knigin The Tango Queen (1913) and Zum Paradies der Damen A Ladies Paradise (1914). MICHAEL WEDEL Weltkinematograph/ Express-Film Founded in 1906, Weltkinematograph Freiburg (also Welt-Film or WKF) started out as a cinema chain and shifted to film production in 1908. It s
43、pecialized in non-fiction, turning out actualits, industrial films, educational films, views of nature, and local films, the latter being produced on commission only. Weltkinematograph thus catered to the needs of the program format of short films prevalent at theaters of the time. In 1910, Express-
44、Film was founded as a spin-off of Weltkinematograph. Express also specialized in non-fiction and produced more or less the same kind of films as Weltkinematograph. In fact, in terms of film style and content, the two companies could hardly be distinguished from one another. Weltkinematograph was mor
45、e productive, releasing some 460 short films between 1908 and 1919. In November 1911, Express launched its short-lived newsreel enterprise, Der Tag im Film, whose objective (never accomplished) was a daily newscast for the screen. At the same time Express tended to make fewer but longer films. 4628
46、Meter Hoch auf SkiernBesteigung des Monte Rosa (1913), shot with the participation of young Arnold Fanck, was a precursor of the German mountain films of later renown. With World War I the films of both companies became decidedly patriotic. Expresss Mit der Kamera in der Schlachtfront (1913, 1160 me
47、ters), shot by Robert Schwobthaler during the Balkan war, was cited as an exceptional (anti-)war documentary. Schwobthaler, a native of the Freiburg region, was the co-founder of Raleigh scientific films: Europe Further reading Dittrich, Wolfgang (1998) “Fakten und Fragmente zur Freiburger Filmprodu
48、ktionsgeschichte 19011918,” Journal Film, 32:100109. Jung, Uli (2001) “Entdeckerfreude und Schaulust II: Die Freiburger Filmproduktion vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg,” Filmblatt, 16. ULI JUNG Werner, Michel and Eugne b. ?; d. ? exhibitors, France As early as 1893, Michel and Eugne Werner and their father
49、Alexis were distributing Edisons phonographic equipment in France. In October 1894, they created a company called “Le Kinetoscope Edison” and opened the first French Kinetoscope parlor at 20 boulevard Montmartre in Paris. Three months later, Michel Werner founded another company in order to exploit kinetoscope parlors across the country. Their businesses, however, faced severe competition as fairground showmen were able to find cheaper kinetoscopes or counterfeit machines, first from R.W.Paul in Lo