The Sensation of the Century: Robert Paul and Film Exhibition in Brighton in 1896/97

This chapter developed from a paper delivered to the Visual Delights conference at the University of Sheffield in 2002, concentrating on film exhibition in Brighton and Hove in 1896-97 and, as such, represents the initial stages of research for an early film exhibition history of Brighton and Hove that Gray was to curate (output 1). This wider history begins with the arrival of the Kinetoscope in 1895 and concludes with the opening of the first purpose-built cinemas in 1909-10. It is shaped by the need to conceptualise the dynamic and holistic relationship between production and exhibition within film culture as it evolved within one particular place. Gray’s research recognises the fact that the history of film exhibition in Britain before the First World War had not previously been systematically chronicled and analysed. In 2006 at the Ninth International Domitor Conference, held at the University of Michigan, Gray presented a paper on film exhibition in Brighton from 1897 to 1900, focusing on the rise of patriotic multi-media entertainments that combined film with lantern slides, music, song and narration. It will be published as part of the conference proceedings in either 2007 or 2008. Domitor is the international early cinema society. The triennial Visual Delights conference is allied to Early Popular Visual Culture (Routledge), the peer-reviewed journal dedicated to popular visual culture before 1930. Gray is one of the journal’s associate editors.