William Friese-Greene & Me

The last time I spoke about William-Friese Greene in public was 20 years ago, but next week that silence will be broken. Me and Willie have had our on and off periods, but lately we’ve been spending more time together than ever and I’ve been finding out a bunch of new things about him.

The occasion will be on Friday 20^th April at 9.30am in King’s College London as part of The British Silent Film Festival Symposium 2018. The title of my contribution is “William Friese-Greene and The Art of Collaboration” which I aim to be an engaging romp through his intense efforts to make moving picture cameras – years before Edison or the Lumiere Brothers – including a few surprises.

Tickets are here: https://estore.kcl.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/academic-faculties/faculty-of-arts-humanities/department-of-film-studies/british-silent-film-festival-symposium-2018

Speaking immediately before me will be none other than His Filmic Eminence Prof. Ian Christie who has published key works about some of my favourite film-makers: Powell & Pressburger, Martin Scorsese and Terry Gilliam. He is also an authority on the very beginnings of cinema, authoring the TV series and book The Last Machine some years back.

He is about to publish a comprehensive work on Robert Paul, who some call “Father of British of the British Film Industry” and I’m happy to say that my own researches have made a small contribution to it. This was regarding how the story of Friese-Greene showing his first film to a policeman became attached to him after his death, despite appearing to have been originally told about Paul. It was then immortalised in film in “The Magic Box”. Ian Christie will be aiming to explain the strange history and set the record straight. He also has a blog about Robert Paul: https://paulsanimatographworks.wordpress.com/

Then, he has very kindly invited me to speak at greater length, in tandem with him, to his students at Birbeck, University of London, in May. It’s a pleasure to be talking about William Friese-Greene again, particularly as I still regularly see old myths recycled in publications and on the Internet. As is often the case, the truth is far more interesting.