ABSTRACT

The ‘invention’ of the long feature film was the key tool used by production and distribution companies to try to solve the overproduction crisis of short films in Europe at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century. Neither cinema owners nor their patrons had clamoured for the shift from entertaining short film programmes to challenging long feature films that absorbed the viewer’s attention and required qualifications in creating meaning while watching moving pictures. Thus, it was the local cinema manager who had to succeed in attracting paying audiences to multiple-reel feature films that ran for one hour or longer – in some cases more than two hours. This essay presents a local study of the cinema programme in Trieste before the First World War that examines the selling points put forward in newspaper ads published in Il Piccolo, the most read daily newspaper at the time, with the aim of promoting long feature films. The evaluation of a sample of over 350 cinema advertisements shows that stars and divas like Asta Nielsen and Lyda Borelli were but one among other, some stronger, selling propositions to attract local audiences for long feature films. These other selling points were Danish dramas produced by Nordisk, Italian peplum films and programmes of short film comedies by Max Linder. This diversity in selling points for the long feature film testifies to the fact that though the star system was emerging, it had not yet been fully established as a means of marketing multiple-reel feature films by the end of the 1913–14 season, at least not in Trieste.

摘要

长片的“发明”是制作和发行公司在二十世纪头十年末试图解决欧洲短片生产过剩危机的关键工具。电影院所有者和他们的顾客都没有要求从娱乐性的短片节目转变为具有挑战性的长片，这些长片吸引了观众的注意力，并且需要在观看电影时创造意义的资格。因此，当地的电影院经理必须成功地吸引付费观众观看时长一小时或更长时间——在某些情况下超过两小时的多卷轴故事片。本文介绍了对第一次世界大战前的里雅斯特电影节目的当地研究，该研究检查了在 2018 年出版的报纸广告中提出的卖点Il Piccolo是当时阅读量最大的日报，旨在宣传长篇故事片。对 350 多个电影广告样本的评估表明，像阿斯塔尼尔森和莉达博雷利这样的明星和女主角只是其中之一，一些更强大的销售主张可以吸引当地观众拍摄长片。这些其他卖点是由 Nordisk 制作的丹麦戏剧、意大利 peplum 电影和 Max Linder 的短片喜剧节目。长篇故事片卖点的多样性证明了这样一个事实：虽然明星系统正在兴起，但到 1913-14 赛季结束时，它还没有完全确立为营销多卷故事片的手段，在至少不在的里雅斯特。