''A Sea Cave Near Lisbon'' is an

1896 Events January–March * January 2 – The Jameson Raid comes to an end, as Jameson surrenders to the Boers. * January 4 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state. * January 5 – An Austrian newspaper reports that Wil ...

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

short Short may refer to: Places * Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon * Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place People * Short (surname) * List of people known as ...

silent

actuality film The actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that, like the documentary film, uses footage of real events, places, and things. Unlike the documentaries, actuality films are not structured into a larger argument, picture of the phenomenon or coh ...

, directed by Henry Short, featuring a view looking out to sea through the

Boca do Inferno Boca do Inferno (Portuguese for Hell's Mouth) is a chasm located in the seaside cliffs close to the Portuguese city of Cascais, in the District of Lisbon. The seawater has access to the deep bottom of the chasm and vigorously strikes its rocky wa ...

(Hell's Mouth) cave near

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

, with waves breaking in. The film was popular with audiences and received positive reviews.

Synopsis

''A Sea Cave Near Lisbon'' consists of a single shot, looking out through the entrance of the

(Hell's Mouth) cave near

. Waves enter the cave, breaking on the rocks at the cave's mouth. The film lasts 13 seconds.

Production

In 1896, film pioneer

R. W. Paul Robert William Paul (3 October 1869 – 28 March 1943) was an English pioneer of film and scientific instrument maker. He made narrative films as early as April 1895. Those films were shown first in Edison Kinetoscope knockoffs. In 1896 he s ...

sent his associate Henry Short on a film-making trip to the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...

, with a new lightweight portable camera he had developed. Paul, who had earlier in the year developed a projection system known as the "Theatrograph", was at the time in commercial competition with the

Lumière brothers Lumière is French for 'light'. Lumiere, Lumière or Lumieres may refer to: *Lumières, the philosophical movement in the Age of Enlightenment People *Auguste and Louis Lumière, French pioneers in film-making Film and TV * Institut Lumière, a ...

, who themselves had demonstrated a projection system in London on the same day, 20 February. The

Alhambra Theatre The Alhambra was a popular theatre and music hall located on the east side of Leicester Square, in the West End of London. It was built originally as the Royal Panopticon of Science and Arts opening on 18 March 1854. It was closed after two yea ...

Leicester Square Leicester Square ( ) is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leicester House, itself named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester ...

, London, were impressed by Paul's system and offered him a contract to supply equipment and staff. Paul was thus keen to acquire footage to make a positive impact on audiences at the Alhambra.Soto Vázquez, "Lo que de real tiene el mar", p. 206. During the five-week trip in August and September, Short created 18

s, mostly in the cities of

Cádiz Cádiz (, , ) is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cádiz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia. Cádiz, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, ...

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

and

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

. Most of these were either urban views, including the

Puerto del Sol ''Puerto del Sol'' is a non-profit literary magazine run by faculty and graduate students from the MFA program in Creative Writing Triana, Seville Triana is a neighbourhood and administrative district on the west bank of the Guadalquivir River in the city of Seville, Spain. Like other neighborhoods that were historically separated from the main city, it was known as an ''arrabal''. Triana ...

, or cultural scenes, such as an Andalusian dance and

Fado Fado (; "destiny, fate") is a music genre that can be traced to the 1820s in Lisbon, Portugal, but probably has much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar Rui Vieira Nery states that "the only reliable information on the history of fado was ...

performers.Soto Vázquez, "Lo que de real tiene el mar", p. 209. Films documenting waves had become popular with audiences, as exemplified by the April 1896 film ''

Rough Sea at Dover ''Rough Sea at Dover'' (also known as ''Gale at Dover and Sea Waves at Dover'' ) is an 1895 British short black-and-white silent film, shot by Birt Acres. Acres shot the film in mid-1895, with a camera designed with and built by Robert W. Paul ...

'', and many others were produced in the years up to 1912. ''A Sea Cave Near Lisbon'' was, however, the first cinematic depiction of a cave. Short travelled to the Boca do Inferno for filming on 13 September. It was filmed using a camera mounted on a boat inside the cave.

Release and reception

The film was shown for the first time at the Alhambra Theatre on 22 October 1896, as the thirteenth part of a fourteen-part programme of Short's films, entitled "A Tour in Spain and Portugal". Paul included it in his film catalogue for wider exhibition, where it was described as "a very striking and artistic photograph of a large cave near the Atlantic coast, into which waves dash with great violence". The film was immediately popular with audiences and received very positive reviews. A reviewer in ''The Era'' described it as "one of the most beautiful realisations of the sea that we have ever witnessed...the grandeur of the scenes are remarkable". The ''Daily Telegraph'' described it as "a picture of real beauty". In the ''Morning Post'', a reviewer described it as "one of the most remarkable effects produced by any of the 'graphies' yet put forward". The film was the most popular of the 14 films, and one of the most successful films in early British cinema. Its popularity continued in subsequent years, and it still appeared in Paul's sales catalogue in 1903, with the statement: "This film has never been equalled as a portrayal of fine wave effects".

Legacy

Film historian Michael Brooke has described the film as "a very impressive achievement", and "one of the first instances in early cinema of a creative approach towards framing a shot". He has also pointed to the importance of ''A Sea Cave Near Lisbon'' and the other films shown in ''A Tour of Spain and Portugal'' in terms of its contribution to the history of the British documentary movement, of which he describes R. W. Paul as "was one of its most important precursors." Where previously, factual films generally consisted of stand-alone actualities intended for individual show, the programme put together by Paul from Henry Short's sequences was his first attempt to gather short actualities into a longer collective work. Paul sent Short on a similar trip to Egypt in 1897. From this time Paul continued to experiment with multi-shot actualities, leading to longer works such as ''

Army Life An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

'' (1900) and ''

Whaling Afloat and Ashore Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as Whale meat, meat and blubber, which can be turned into Whale oil, a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution. It was practiced as a ...

'' (1908). Unlike most of the other films from Short's trip, ''A Sea Cave Near Lisbon'' has survived in its entirety, and has been made available on the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

DVD collection ''RW Paul: The Collected Films 1895-1908'', with music by silent film accompanist Stephen Horne.

References

;Notes ;References ;Bibliography *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sea Cave Near Lisbon, A 1890s British films British black-and-white films British silent short films 1896 short films Films shot in Lisbon