Photography, Early Cinema and Colonial Modernity: Frank Hurley's Synchronized Lecture Entertainments

Description

‘Photography, Early Cinema and Colonial Modernity’ is not a biography of Frank Hurley the man; it is instead an examination of the social life of the many marvellous and meaningful things he made as a professional photographer and film maker. The focus of this volume surrounds the media events that encompassed these various creations – what Hurley called his ‘synchronized lecture entertainments’. These media events were at once national and international; they involved Hurley in an entire culture industry that was constantly in movement along global lines of travel and communication. This raises complex questions both about the authorship of Hurley’s photographic and filmic texts – which were often produced and presented by other people – and about their ontology, as they were often in a state of reassemblage in response to changing market opportunities. This unique study re-imagines, from inside the quiet and stillness of the archive, the prior social life enjoyed by Hurley’s creations amidst the complicated topography of the early twentieth century’s rapidly internationalizing mass-media landscape. As a way to conceive of that space, and of the social life of the people and things within it, this study uses the concept of ‘colonial modernity’. Photography, Early Cinema and Colonial Modernity Title Copyright CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Introduction AUSTRALIA’S EMBRACE OF COLONIAL MODERNITY Sydney, 26 December 1909: The Lang–Fitzsimmons Fight Australia and International Modernity Biography and the Social Life of Things From Modernity to Colonial Modernity The Transnational Turn Alternative Conceptual Geographies: Imperial Networks, Webs of Empire The Industrial Landscape of Colonial Modernity Chapter One THE HOME OF THE BLIZZARD: DOUGLAS MAWSON’S SYNCHRONIZED LECTURE ENTERTAINMENT The Travelogue Herbert G. Ponting’s With Captain Scott in the Antarctic Douglas Mawson and The Home of the Blizzard The First Australian Screenings The First London Season of 1914 The North American Tour of 1915 The Second London Season of 1915 Chapter Two GUIDED SPECTATORSHIP: EXHIBITING THE GREAT WAR Exhibiting Nation and Empire The British and Canadian Exhibitions of War Photographs in London The Australian Exhibition at the Grafton Galleries Hurley’s Photographs at the Grafton Galleries Hurley’s Sydney Exhibition at the Kodak Salon The Melbourne Relics and Records Exhibition The Making of the Photographic Record of the War Spotting the Fake: The Social Life of Hurley’s Composite Photographs ‘Death’s Highway’ ‘Death the Reaper’ ‘Ruins of the Cloth Hall, Ypres’ ‘The Morning of Passchendaele’ ‘A Hop Over’ or ‘Over the Top’ Chapter Three TOURING THE NATION: SHACKLETON’S ‘MARVELLOUS MOVING PICTURES’ AND THE AUSTRALIAN SEASON OF IN THE GRIP OF THE POLAR PACK-ICE Exploiting Polar Exploration ‘Shackleton and Marvellous Moving Pictures’: The London Season of 1919–20 Hurley’s Australian Tour of 1919–20 Hurley’s In the Grip of the Polar Pack-Ice The Cinema of Attractions Chapter Four ENTR’ACTE: SIR ROSS SMITH’S FLIGHT, AERIAL VISION AND COLONIAL MODERNITY War and Aerial Vision The England–Australia Air Race and Prosthetic Modernity Frank Hurley’s Sir Ross Smith’s Flight Chapter Five COLONIAL MODERNITY AND ITS OTHERS: PEARLS AND SAVAGES AS A MULTIMEDIA PROJECT Popular Cinema and Ethnographic Representation What was Pearls and Savages? The Travelogue as Multimedia Project Pearls and Savages: The First Australian Season of 1921–22 The Serialization of Travel Writing Pearls and Savages Premiers at the Globe With the Headhunters of Unknown Papua: The Second Australian Season of 1922–23 With the Headhunters of Unknown Papua: The Film Urban Entertainment and Colonial Governance Touring the United States with The Lost Tribe: 1923–24 Elaborating the Narrative of The Lost Tribe Hurley Strikes Criticism at Carnegie Hall, New York Touring Great Britain with Pearls and Savages: 1924–25 CONCLUSION NOTES Introduction. Australia’s Embrace of Colonial Modernity Chapter One. The Home of the Blizzard: Douglas Mawson’s Synchronized Lecture Entertainment Chapter Two. Guided Spectatorship: Exhibiting the Great War Chapter Three. Touring the Nation: Shackleton’s ‘Marvellous Moving Pictures’ and the Australian Season of In the Grip of the Polar Pack-Ice Chapter Four. Entr’acte: Sir Ross Smith’s Flight, Aerial Vision and Colonial Modernity Chapter Five. Colonial Modernity and Its Others: Pearls and Savages as a Multimedia Project Conclusion BIBLIOGRAPHY Unpublished Material Bean, C. E. W. Hurley, Frank Jury, Sir William Mawson, Douglas Published Material INDEX