Leaving the church

Those at prayer during midday mass had no way of knowing that immortality awaited them outside. They might not even have noticed as they left, but Eduardo Jimeno Peromarta and son, proprietors of a waxworks museum, had set up their kinetofonógrafo on a balcony across the street from the church and were busy making the first Spanish motion picture. Solida de la misa de doce del Pilar (Leaving the Midday Mass at the Church of Pilar in Zaragoza, 1896 ¹ ) still exists, having been restored by the Zaragoza Filmoteca in 1996; and in it, scrubbed and sinless in their Sunday best, the faithful can still be seen blinking their way into the midday sun, good-humouredly jostling each other down the steps, towards the camera, celebrity and perpetual life. Indeed the film was so popular that the first Spanish film-makers went back the following week to shoot its remake-cum-sequel, Salidas y saludos (Leavings and Greetings); only this time the faithful and not so pious alike were wise to their new roles as film stars and crammed the steps to wave. This enthusiastic welcome for the camera might have seemed an auspicious beginning for Spanish cinema but, in truth, Spain’s pre-Civil War film industry was a spluttering non-starter, bedevilled by foreign competition, an indifferent government, a meddling Church and a lack of investment that was symptomatic of the lack of progress in the country as a whole. Consequently the tale of early Spanish cinema is not one of industry but of visionaries, pioneers, craftsmen and rebels.