DVD
is now chiefly still a commercial medium, powered by the latest
releases, and all their accompanying flash and pizzazz. But just as
Super 8 cameras served as a great equalizer and helped power a
generation of visionary directors almost four decades ago, so too will
the ready availability of deep film history on DVD help inspire and
shape another generation of aspirant filmmakers.

Rich evidence of this can be found in Electric Edwardians,
a new release from Milestone Films which collects many of the so-called
“factory gate films” of pioneering cinematic showmen Sagar Mitchell and
James Kenyon. In the earliest years of the 20th century, these two
enterprising English filmmakers — preeminent among peers — traveled
from town to small town and shot reams of footage of ordinary people
going about their everyday lives. These movies would then be shown
later at nearby fairgrounds, town halls and neighborhood theaters,
sometimes mere hours after their capturing. More often than not,
though, these shorts were advertised in local papers in the days
leading up to an event. The result: hundreds of blue-collar workers,
children, sports fans and seaside vacationers all flocked to see
themselves on the big screen.

Electric Edwardians
collects dozens of these minutes-long mini-films — the filmic
equivalent of Tutankhamen’s tomb — and presents them, plainly and
plaintively, in all their unvarnished glory, set underneath an
evocative original score by In the Nursery. While this formless
offering of cinema verité isn’t for the more casual film fan, its
unparalleled record of pre-World War I life does prove that the urge to
ogle at and mug for the camera is a timeless one, particularly amongst
children. Whether it’s workers entering Alexandria Docks in Liverpool
or an estimated 20,000 patrons surging through the turnstiles at Lord
Armstrong’s Elswick Works in Newcastle-Upon-Lyne, the sea of chapeaus and earthy, earnest faces provide an intriguing snapshot of lives and an era gone by.

Also included is an illuminating 14-minute-plus interview with Dr.
Vanessa Toulmin, of the University of Sheffield’s National Fairground
Archive, plus a rich optional voiceover commentary in which she
provides further historical context, including details about mobile
printing units and Mitchell and Kenyon’s crammed-frame shooting
technique, part of their self-styled mandate to fit as many faces on
screen as possible. A featurette on the material’s restoration (the
shorts were found in the basement of a building about to be
demolished), a downloadable DVD-ROM press kit and additional,
staged/vaudevillian shorts by the filmmakers (including Diving Lucy) are also included on this lovingly produced disc. For more information, click here to visit Milestone Films’ eponymous site. B (Movie) B+ (Disc)