Nature on Film: Early 20th Century Documentaries with Live Soundtracks 21/02/2024

The sound version of The Seahorse was released in 1934 in a boom period for diving, with vast improvements being made to equipment, enabling divers to move freely and breathe underwater. It was one of the first films ever to use underwater footage, and Painlevé – who shot first in the Bay of Arcachon, then in the gigantic seawater aquaniums of a Parisian basement flat – used a special camera device placed in a waterproof box with a glass plate for the camera’s lens. The diving equipment he used was quite rudimentary and the camera could shoot only a few seconds at a time.

There is something magical and ethereal about the seahorse’s movements in the sea. Gently defying gravity, drifting its way through the waves and hanging upside down, its movement seems almost human (it is the only vertebrate sea creature that swims standing up) and the round shape of the eye seems to express permanent sadness. The male, accomplishing a kind of placentation, will fertilise the hundred eggs passed to him by the female seahorse. The cinematic effect is mesmerising, and the inversion of sex roles gave Painlevé a way to address the balance between the genders. His exploration of the birthing of seahorses concludes with a graceful ballet. At the end of the film, with a last touch of fantasy, seahorse tails link up to create the word ‘fin’ (‘the end’).

Percy Smith’s films of insects juggling tiny objects caused a huge furore when they were first shown to the public in 1908. They were unlike anything cinemagoers had seen before and there was much debate as to how Smith had ‘taught’ the little creatures to twirl matchsticks, manipulate corks and waggle tiny dumbbells. The filmmaker was forced to justify his methods in the press, guaranteeing that no trickery was involved – and certainly no cruelty.

Still images from the film were featured in newspapers and magazines and the subject inspired poetry and political cartoons; this obviously pleased Smith greatly. He was humble in print, however, stating that his intention in making the film was of course to entertain the public, but also to demonstrate the strength and agility of those insects we might unthinkingly squash or swat when they settle on our lunch.

There were several different versions of this film. The version featured here includes a scorpion grasping a matchbox, an ant holding a match, and flies and fleas juggling various small objects. Alas, the much debated footage of a fly dressed as a nurse holding a small model baby is missing from this version. Shame!

Jenny Hammerton

The Birth of a Flower was the film that brought Percy Smith fully into the public eye. Mesmerising timelapse photography captures the poetry of flowers opening their petals to the light. This was something entirely new and exciting for cinemagoers of the time, and it is reported that the film received riotous applause and requests for immediate repeat screenings.

We see a spectacular variety of plants bloom before our very eyes: hyacinths, crocuses, snowdrops, neapolitan onion flowers, narcissi, Japanese lilies, garden anemones and roses. Smith modified his cinematography set-up with candle wicks, pieces of Meccano, door handles and gramophone needles to film these flowers in motion. He set up a system whereby growth could be filmed even while he slept, a large bell being set to ring and wake him if any part of the process malfunctioned.

The film received a remarkable amount of press coverage, with newspaper reporters as well as the film trade being entranced by this beautiful display of nature in action. A newspaper clipping in Smith’s personal scrapbook declares that the film ‘may be regarded as the highest achievement yet obtained in the combined efforts of science, art and enterprise’.

What type of strange creatures are Hyas and Stenorhynchus, presented in this 1929 short documentary? They look like algae and mingle into their environment with a seaweed camouflage or cover themselves with miniscule animals, to either hide from their predators or catch their prey. Cohabitating with these uncanny marine crustaceans is the spirograph, similar to a sea anemone. It is a worm that lives hidden in a protective tube, and the beauty of its spiral-like fans can be shown by an intimate close up from the indiscreet eye of the film director.

Pollen flowers are shown in natural co-operation to secure their reproduction; from the petals or ‘advertisers’ of the female pollen grains, carried by insects such as bees, to the male fertilising cells or workers’.