106 | Mass Media and Historical Change
example, showed sundry cities from New York to Rome focusing on crowds
gathered at intersections and famous places. Likewise, they showed festivals
and uniformed parades. By frequently showing street cars and trains, urban
traffic, factories, ship christenings and world fairs, early film recordings pre-
sented a staging of modernity. In this manner, film fashioned the new era of
technology and that of the ‘masses’ both on screen and in the auditorium.
Although films often had local or national frames of reference, they were also
meant for international distribution and therefore helped to shape regional
and national identities as well as global awareness.
Part of this modernity was also the oft-quoted ‘invention of tradition’ – the
cementing of supposedly ancient traditions, to which film contributed. Films
depicting the coronation ceremony of Tsar Nicholas II (1896), the grandiose
processions of Queen Victoria’s ‘Diamond Jubilee’ (1897), and the baroque
self-aggrandisement of the German Emperor Wilhelm II, recorded in 1895 by
the British film pioneer Birt Acres at the ‘Opening of the Kiel Canal’, circu-
lated worldwide. His pompous public appearances and extensive travels made
Wilhelm II the most frequently filmed German of his time, with thirty-four
films in 1895–96, and he was even called the ‘first German film star’ (Loiper-
dinger 1997). John Thompson spoke of a ‘mediazation of tradition’ (Thomp-
son 1995: 180) – that is, a shaping of media-oriented tradition.
Of no less relevance was the subject of war in ‘visual news reporting’. Now-
adays, numerous early war films are accessible online and free of charge. They
portray troops marching off amidst the cheers of spectators, military equip-
ment and the traversing of enemy territory, but hardly any actual battles. In
light of the cameras’ weight and their unsatisfactory lenses, such filming was
near to impossible. Ostensible battle scenes were virtually always re-enact-
ments aimed at discrediting the enemy and glorifying the prowess of the home
troops. Overall the boundaries between fictional re-enactment and documen-
tation were fluid. Naval disasters and current events in the neighbourhood
were staged in the same way as the film clips showing deceased public figures
such as Bismarck.
In recent years, screening locations and viewer behaviour have also been
studied (cf. for instance with literary examples: Paech and Paech 2000). The
screening locations of the ‘Early Cinema’ differed considerably from those of
today, as movie theatres built especially for viewing purposes were not wide-
spread in Europe until the 1910s. Early films were shown at market places,
festivals or club meetings, in marquees, halls or the open air, as well as in fixed
public places such as pubs. There tended to be at least some national differ-
ences: in Germany films were often shown in music halls and cheap cellar
pubs; the French used cafés; in England music halls were common; Shanghai
used tea houses; and in Japan, traditional theatres served as viewing locations.
Audience conduct varied accordingly: while formal applause was customary