Ponente
Descripción
On May 12, 1896, Edwin Rousby, a Hungarian born travelling showman, was the first person to publicly show moving pictures in Spain, beating the Lumière brothers by two days. His moving picture show was so successful in Madrid that he was hired to perform it in Lisbon in mid-June of that same year, also becoming with it the first person to show films publicly in Portugal. During his seventh month stay in Portugal, the success of his film was even greater than what he accomplished in Madrid. After departing Portugal in mid-January 1897, Rousby will never use film projections as part of his show, developing instead another show
based on lighting effects, scale models, painted backdrops, and triunial magic lanterns that could be seen as direct competition to film.
So, why did Rousby drop film in favor of another form of representing reality that was becoming obsolete? In my presentation, I focus on three different aspects that can explain why he decided to create a type of visual show that could compete with film: first, film had no clear future as a business; secondly, film showings were very similar to each other, so there was nothing making the projections distinguishable between them, something very important within the show business/Variety worldwide circuit to be marketable and thus, profitable; lastly, because his show, between 1896 and 1915, was more realistic to the audience than movies.
