The only fiction film under the subsection "Perils of Wage Labour" on Edition Filmmuseum's two-disc set "Screening the Poor," "Tragedy in a Coal Mine," or "Down in the Coal Mines," although the original French title, "Au Pays noir," translates as something like "In the Black Country," demonstrates a problem in early cinema of adopting the sort of artificial sets and trick effects seen in Georges Méliès féeries for realist social dramas. It's hard to take seriously. Ferdinand Zecca and Pathé did much the same for their passion play, "La vie et la passion de Jésus Christ" (1903). Worse still, this one cuts documentary footage of apparently real rescue workers in the middle of the fictional film, and the footage sticks out like a sore thumb.
Non-actors returning the gaze of the camera and a jump cut here or there serving as editing on the spot, both as seen in many other actuality films of the era, amid otherwise artificially-arranged scenes of panned-over obvious backdrops, striking green and red tints, stop-substitution trick effects and a bit of overacting. It's unfortunate because coal mining is dangerous work, and while one may applaud Pathé's reported, as according to the DVD notes, desire to call attention to the problem of mining accidents, the filmmaking techniques employed here leave something to be desired even for 1905.
(From CINEMATEK restored 35mm tinted nitrate print)
Non-actors returning the gaze of the camera and a jump cut here or there serving as editing on the spot, both as seen in many other actuality films of the era, amid otherwise artificially-arranged scenes of panned-over obvious backdrops, striking green and red tints, stop-substitution trick effects and a bit of overacting. It's unfortunate because coal mining is dangerous work, and while one may applaud Pathé's reported, as according to the DVD notes, desire to call attention to the problem of mining accidents, the filmmaking techniques employed here leave something to be desired even for 1905.
(From CINEMATEK restored 35mm tinted nitrate print)
