Prinsengracht

In a single shot of about a minute, the film Prinsengracht gives an impression of Amsterdam in the year 1899. A boat slowly turns onto the Prinsengracht from the Bloemgracht. The camera on the forward deck slowly pans from left to right. The boat then sails under the bridge on the Leliegracht, where boats are moored on either side of the canal. In the distance, near the Haarlemmerdijk and the railway bridge of the Amsterdam-Haarlem line, we can see the sluices. A boy in a rowboat sees the filming boat just in time, and hastily rows out of the way.nnExactly when the film was shot is unknown, but the filmmaker was most likely the British cameraman Emil Lauste, who came to the Netherlands in June and September of 1899 to film for the Nederlandsche Biograaf- en Mutoscope Maatschappij. During those visits, he filmed a number of news subjects as well as seven short scenes for the theatrical revue ‘De nieuwe prikkel’. nnEYE Film Institute Netherlands holds a large number of films produced by the American Mutoscope Company (1895-1909) on 68mm film stock. In 1899 the company changed its name to American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. In december 1898 the Nederlandsche Biograaf en Mutoscope-maatschappij (NB&MM) was established as a subsidiary of the American company. Next to exhibiting the American films in the variété-theaters such as Circus O. Carré in Amsterdam, the NB&MM also produced a small number of films related to Dutch actualities. The NB&MM was declared bankrupt on June 27, 1902. From 1995 on, in collaboration with the BFI, EYE (then Nederlands Filmmuseum) undertook the restoration work to restore and reproduce these films, duplicating the original 68mm film stock onto 35mm safety film.

Publicatiedatum: 12/03/2014