A Brief History: Palestine - Programme biblique

Production date: circa 1904

After the 1870 war, La Maison de la Bonne Presse sees the light under the patronage of the Augustinians of the Assumption. Its goal is to assert a dynamic catholic presence through mass manifestations: pilgrimages, teachings, or through the press with newspapers such as Le Pélerin, launched in 1873, or La Croix, 10 years later.

 

In 1895, the director of La Croix, entrusts Georges-Michel Coissac, film historian to be, with the creation and responsibility of a luminous projection service.

 

Lecturers/projectionists travel from parish to parish, spreading the Good News by projecting living pictures from glass sheets illustrating the life of Christ, Saints, or martyrs; or Theodore Botrel’s edifying stories.

 

In 1905, year of the separation of the Church and the State, cinema has long since lost its scientific curiosity status to become not much more than a vulgar fair attraction. It has nevertheless begun to interest the pious minds of the Maison de la Bonne Presse.

 

During the second General Congress of catholic deeds concerning lectures and projections (19-22nd of February 1906), a lecturer defines their standpoint in the following terms:

“No one denies the appeal of the film projections and in what way the catholic deeds could put them to good use. We mustn’t look down on this new art expression in the form of luminous pictures, for fear of falling behind and of depriving ourselves of a strong element of success. Therefore, it only seems natural that the Congress wishes to study this year the means of popularizing cinema and of bringing it within as many people’s reach as possible.”

 

This report comes from Abbot Mulsant who has already put his theory into practice:

“Please allow me to introduce here the work I have undertaken with Abbot Chevalier, we would be glad if our experience can serve some purpose for the catholic deeds.
Having to search for funds for our schools in Lebanon, very threatened by the decrease in almsgiving from France, and faced with the impossibility of taking collections at this moment in our poor homeland, we have considered giving lectures as interesting as possible, and combining to the usual luminous projections the filmed views.
In order to do this, we have made a long journey to the East, a land that we already knew, and we were able to collect in Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon many documents, negatives and film, with which were composed five documentary or artistic lectures.
The first one, To the cedars of Lebanon, leads us through the very picturesque mountains of Syria.
The second and third, which follow the sacred person of Our Lord as a child, attempt to revive him, either in the Tissot way as in the documentary lecture In the Christ Child’s country, either as in The Virgin and her Son, in the way of many idealist artists who, in every era, have more or less attributed our customs and likings to the Holy Family.
The fourth lecture: Picturesque Cairo, carrying us in modern Egypt’s capital city, brings out the particularities and contrasts, producing curious documents on Muslim religion and its rites.
The fifth, Hebrews in bygone days, and Today’s Fellahs, takes the audience several centuries back and revives the customs from the time of Joseph and the Pharaohs through the study of field life and temple construction.

These five lectures follow the same pattern, in this that the luminous illustration of the text is always made of still views alternating with filmed views. A new device invented by the lecturers themselves, allows substituting instantaneously to the still negative the moving picture. This method has the advantage of giving more life and variety to the lecture, the explanations of the still views being the analysis of the film to come.
In this way, the viewer enjoys much more the filmed views already explained and isn’t tired by an uninterrupted 600-meter film projection. I can say that these lectures, thanks to the novelty of the documents and the perfection of the device were possible to be given many times and in most different environments with much success. In eighteen months, we have given over 250 lectures in theological Seminaries, catholic secondary schools, salons, geographical societies, Artistic circles, schools and convents, common halls where we have gathered over 2000 people. We intend to carry on our work and go on with our lecture campaign which, as many of our listeners, priests and bishops, have told us, truly do the souls good and make it possible to speak of Our Lord with people from all backgrounds.”

 

Admittedly, the work undertaken by Mulsant and Chevalier is not new. Since 1897, Albert Kirchner, also known as Léar, had gone with Father Bailly on his pilgrimage to the lands of Christ and had brought back the first films shot in Palestine and in Egypt; films unfortunately lost today.

 

If they indeed have been shot in 1904, as suggested by Abbot Mulsant’s statements, they present one of the oldest Christian filmed observations of Muslim country.

 

Shot in situ, this Life of Jesus clashes with the numerous other very theatrical versions produced by Pathé, Gaumont or Lumière.

 

Abbot Mulsant wishes to “stage, on the spot and day to day, the biblical characters, to recall these figures, to retell their words in the very country which Providence gave them as a setting to their passions, their hopes, their discipleships.”

 

The topic of the other lectures organized by Abbot Mulsant are complementary since the observation of the customs in Palestine, Egypt or Lebanon enables to “uncover the vestiges of the antique traditions, living accounts of the Scriptures shedding new light on obscures pages of the Bible or of the Gospel.”

 

Beyond their ethnographic or religious facets, Mulsant and Chevalier’s films are today the rare testimony of a practice that will oppose laymen and Catholics for a long time: that of the lecturer/projectionist.

 

The lecture texts of Mulsant and Chevalier seem to have disappeared but excerpts are nevertheless found in series of illustrated post cards, printed from 1907 on, and offered to the subscribers to the Fascinateur, a Maison de la Bonne Presse magazine devoted to projections.

 

1907 is also the consecration year for Mulsant and Chevalier. Their Annunciation to the Virgin Mary is shown to the Pope Pie X at the Vatican, in the form of still views first, and then, in filmed scenes with brief explanations of Father Chevalier himself. The film concludes a program of the most varied kind, in which scenes follow each other taken from military life, country life or maritime scenes, without forgetting portraits of His Holiness the Pope, and splendid scenes of the life of Christ, or even comic films such as Toto the Aeronaut (Pathé, 1906)!

 

Until then, Mulsant and Chevalier’s films were not found in the stores, to the regret of certain participants of the third congress of General Catholic deeds. After the showing at the Vatican, an agreement is made with Gaumont, which proudly offers in the 1821 issue of its catalog: “In Nazareth”, from Messrs Mulsant and Chevalier’s collection, screened before the Supreme Pontiff. This 70-meter film is divided in 5 parts: The workshop, Fountain of Nazareth, Return of the Fountain, The well, Evening closing in. Curiously, the film is only available for distribution: the performance rights are reserved for France and Belgium, and must be asked for directly from the authors: 14 rue Sainte-Hélène in Lyon.

 

Perhaps Gaumont doesn’t want to pose a challenge to its Life of Christ produced in 1906 and whose scenes are also inspired by the painter James Tissot’s Passion. In her memoirs, Alice Guy, who directed the film, points out that Mulsant and Chevalier were both present during the shooting and took much interest in her work. It could be concluded that Alice Guy inspired the two priests, whereas they had actually shot their Life of Jesus two years prior.

 

The cinema production of the Maison de la Bonne Presse only begins in 1909 with a 1000-meter version of the Passion directed by Honoré le Sablais who will head the production unit until the First World War, at which point Abbot Danion takes over.

 

In 1909, Mulsant and Chevalier are most likely in Turkey as might testify a series of films rediscovered at the same time as those on Egypt and Palestine. This film reveals the testimony of Christian presence in an orphanage, as well as the Adana ruins after the Armenian massacres. These films have probably not revealed all their secrets yet.

 

There is no trace of Mulsant and Chevalier to be found after a last screening in Moulins, mentioned by the Fascinateur in 1910: 

“Abbot Mulsant, the well-known lecturer, has organized this year in Moulins a whole series of religious lectures on the life of Our Lord, for ladies and young girls, aiming at developing an insight of the Gospels. Abbot Mulsant himself did the projections, with a high-precision device using an oxyetheric lamp. The projected views, a good deal of which is in color, are for most part the original and personal achievement of Mr. Mulsant. Taken directly in Holy Places or borrowed from the greatest painters of all times, these views have as their sole and steadfast purpose: historical reconstitution of facts from the Gospel, or representation as expressive as possible of sacred mysteries, in one word, they aspire to call to mind Christ’s very life, as he lived it among us, nineteen centuries ago.”

 

The investigations go on. To be continued…

 

The original music for this film was composed by Antonio Coppola in 2008.

 

 

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