This volume originates from the work of The Newsreel Network (TNN), a group of scholars brought together by Mats Jönsson. After conducting a comparative research project about newsreels in Scandinavia,1 he initiated regular meetings between international scholars to discuss, compare and analyse newsreel research. The inaugural meeting of TNN was held at Lund University in Sweden in October 2012 and the first international conference took place at the same venue in May 2013; the following two were held in the Danish Film Institute. Today, more than thirty scholars from ten different countries are linked to TNN and the network continues to encourage individual and collaborative research projects focusing on the underrepresented area of newsreel studies within broader historical media studies. TNN’s existence would not have been possible without support from the Swedish Foundation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, the European Regional Development Fund Interreg IVA, Lund University, the Crafoord Foundation, the Danish Film Institute, and Einar Hansen’s Research Fund.
What are newsreels? As Luke McKernan points out, the name is ‘too often used as a catch-all term for any sort of news or actuality film’ but actually applies to a ‘specific form, namely a selection of news stories with a shared topicality, held on a single reel of film, and issued regularly (usually once or twice weekly in cinemas)’.2
News or actuality films are as old as cinema itself. To attract audiences in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, ambulant exhibitors combined fictional shorts with actualities, preferably shot in or near the region in which they were to be projected. Such actualities were occasionally filmed by the exhibitors themselves. This was relatively easy since apparatuses such as the cinématographe were not just projectors: they could be used to record an event as well as to develop the film. Apart from actualities, exhibitors also included ‘newsfilms’ in their programmes. Such items were individual short reports on newsworthy subjects: disasters, sporting fixtures or war reports. In the early days of moving-image production, travel was time-consuming, leading the newsfilms of the day to be full of the ‘aftermath’ of events. Because it was often impossible to get a cameraman to the scene on time to capture the unfolding action, it was sometimes tempting to use staged footage to enhance a film’s appeal. In 1897, for example, Georges Méliès staged a naval battle and sold it as footage documenting the Greco-Turkish War. Producers often used shots of one location to stand in for another and, sometimes, faked footage proved more popular with the general public than authentic material. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the Biograph company constructed a miniature set of the city, set fire to it and captured the model burning on camera. The resulting film was so successful that even the city’s mayor was fooled. As Raymond Fielding explains, ‘ironically, but not untypically, an authentic motion picture record of the disaster which had been filmed by the early San Francisco film-exchange operator Harry Miles was said to have failed at the box office because it was released after the fake Biograph production’.3
Early news films proved popular with audiences, but it was only when the French production company Pathé started experimenting with the regular production of compilations of topical events—spliced together on one reel of film—that the concept of the newsreel was born. It is no coincidence that this news format appeared in various countries between 1908–1910, because this was the time when the rise of cinemas (purpose-built or established in converted older buildings) turned film-going from an occasional experience into an easily accessible and regularly-repeated recreational activity. This shift in movie-going practices created a demand for a more regular output of newsfilms, which inspired Pathé Frères to introduce Pathé -faits-divers (1908, Pathé News Items), initially only distributed in Paris. From early 1909 onwards, renamed Pathé Journal, the newsreel was distributed throughout the whole of France and abroad. As the very first of its kind, Pathé’s newsreel defined the main characteristics of the genre. A number of short (inter)national topics of general interest was crammed into one reel and distributed in a serial (usually weekly or bi-weekly) fashion. Pathé, an international firm with an aggressive expansionist policy, valorized this novelty in the following years on a global scale. The company adopted a twofold approach: on the one hand, it exported its newsreel to smaller foreign territories; on the other, it created similar indigenously produced newsreels in bigger markets. The Pathé newsreel only briefly enjoyed its pioneer position. In the early 1910s competitors in France and abroad copied the concept and launched rival newsreels.4
The rise of the newsreel more or less coincided with the international acceptance of the multiple-reel film, which came to be called the feature. Newsreels competed for the audience ’s attention with other shorts, cartoons and information films screened alongside the main feature(s) in the standard cinema programme. Against this background, it is important to note that the internationally active newsreel-producing companies were actually primarily occupied with the production of feature films for the global market. For them, the production and distribution of newsreels was more about gaining indirect publicity and adding prestige to their trademark than about making direct profit (from newsreel rental) or providing news. The international dimensions of their activities allowed such large-scale companies to undersell domestic businessmen, thereby inhibiting many locals from setting up their own newsreel company. It was only in relatively large countries like Great Britain, Germany and the United States that local companies were able to withstand strong international competition and produce indigenous newsreels. As the American film industry boomed internationally and eventually seized pole position from its French competitors, American newsreels asserted their dominance in the market.
The First World War played an important role in this economic process. By shutting down the European film market for several years, the war had allowed the American film industry not only to conquer the US market completely, but also to strengthen its international position. This trend naturally influenced the newsreel sector and it was intensified by the advent of talkies (1927) and the following demand for sound newsreels. The American Fox company jumped at the opportunity to release sound versions of its newsreel (the conversion was made clear by the change in title from Fox News to Fox Movietone News—renaming sound-newsreels would become a trend) in France (Actualités Fox-Movietone , 1929) and Great Britain (British Movietone News, 1929) before Gaumont, Pathé or other local competitors made the leap. Fox , which had built up an international network of cameramen over the previous decade, began to set up overseas branches to produce local sound versions of its newsreels. The company soon saw its example followed by other American tycoons such as Paramount. Like silent newsreels, sound newsreels offered a combination of current affairs, sport and ‘lighter’ items (which focused on celebrities, quirky inventions or fashion). However, sound brought a new dimension to newsreel stories, which were now accompanied by ‘a noisy musical score and a high-speed, invisible narrator’.5 Commentators were often employed for their ability to speak quickly and audiences soon found themselves bombarded with voice-overs and sound effects that could be very persuasive.
As the newsreels were exhibited in a place of entertainment, it was important for cinema owners that their patrons were not upset or offended during their visit to the cinema. This, combined with a need to capitalize on the relaxed censorship of newsreels in some countries outside wartime, contributed to the newsreels’ desire to avoid controversy. For the most part, they endorsed the national status quo, supporting the regime in command and reflecting contemporary social norms. As Penelope Houston suggests, the newsreels spoke ‘with the authority not of impartiality but of public relations’.6
The 1930s saw the rise of ‘cinemagazines’. These were: newsreel-like, periodically (often monthly) released short productions that journalistically dealt with one or more topical events in greater depth than the average newsreel. This genre was popularized by The March of Time (1935–1951), an extremely influential product of the American publishing firm Time Inc ., which anticipated docu-drama’s combination of re-enactments with authentic footage. The March of Time , which was distributed across the industrialized world, had many followers and occasional brushes with authorities over its dogmatic portrayals of politicians (played by actors).7
Nicholas Pronay argues that newsreels...