ABSTRACT
When Belgian agent Camille Cerf introduced the novelty invented by the Lumière Brothers as “De Cinematograaf” (The Cinematograph) to the Netherlands on March 12, 1896, 1 Adriënne Solser was not present; she was not even in Europe. She was living halfway around the world, in Pretoria, South Africa, with her children then-husband. 2 Prior to her return by 1900, so-called “levende photographie” (living photography) had become the permanent closing act of variété programs, but the initial curiosity for it was waning. 3 Two years later, however, the brief dip in popularity of cinema had been overcome. A greater assortment of genres, such as comedies and trick films, more spectacular actualities and the addition of recorded or live music to the exhibition, had revived the public’s interest. 4 In this manner, film programs were subordinated to the rules of variété, which required, as we have seen, variety first and foremost, awe-inspiring displays of technical and artistic skill, and a capacity to entertain. Within the scope of variété programs, films used to be announced not individually but in packages, with the filmnummer (the film act) bearing labels such as “The Royal Bioscope” (at the Flora), “The American Bio-tableaux” (at the Carré), “Nieuwe Bioscope Tafereelen” (at the Casino Variété), or “Royal Circus Bioscope” (at the Circus Variété). Such labeling was still common in 1909 and the Flora even continued with this labeling until 1914. 5 Thus, the habit of screening films as a variété act in popular stage programs persisted alongside the practice of exhibiting films alone, which had arisen in the meantime and became increasingly prevalent. Between 1903 and 1907, full-length film programs had been hosted by mobile film exhibitors at fairs and festivities and had subsequently found shelter in permanent cinemas. However, the cinemas that opened in the few years after 1907 were initially unsuccessful. 6 They offered continuous film screenings and allowed audiences to enter at any time, 7 which presumably made the staging of live acts undesirable. They also established the habit of advertising films individually and, a little later, of identifying them with their given or translated title and an indication of their genre, such as “komisch” (comic) or “natuuropname” (a nature view). While the exhibition of films was struggling around 1910, the variété was enjoying enormous popularity. As I argued in the previous section, its attractiveness as a form of mass entertainment was largely based upon variété’s overarching function of introducing and housing new popular stage genres and upon the continuous improvement and refinement of those genres in which Dutch comic performers won important positions. Adriënne Solser, indeed, frequently delivered her acts and verses in programs that included a film act. 8 Thus, considering the prevalence of film programming within Dutch variété, it is clear that the variété has had a more longstanding influence upon the acceptance of cinema in the Netherlands than has often been acknowledged. 9 The variété also left its mark on how film was perceived during the 1910s: not merely as an autonomous form of art or entertainment, 10 but also as an inextricable ingredient of popular stage culture.
