Traffic in King's Road, Chelsea

Starring: N/A
Directed by: William Friese-Greene
Rating: Not rated
Genre: Documentary, Short
Length: 11 seconds
1890

Times Seen:
Tim: 5

Summary: Traffic moves down King's Road, captured by a revolutionary camera.

Review:

Tim: One complaint I have about the early days of cinema is how difficult it is to find enough information about it online. Take William Friese-Greene's Traffic in King's Road, Chelsea. As I did some research online, I found many articles about how it was a lost film. Then, I saw a few comments that it had been found and a few seconds reconstructed. I watched the film (or what I assume is the film), but it was so difficult to find a definitive explanation. How was it found? How much of the total film is this snippet? Perhaps I could have gone deeper in my research, but it was frustrating nevertheless. Still, with so much of the early films being lost, I'd grab onto anything from these early days.

Best I can figure, the first motion pictures ever captured were done by Louis Le Prince in 1888. So, two years later, Friese-Greene made his own breakthrough. Traffic in King's Road, Chelsea feels similar to many of these early films. We see a stationary camera, set up on the sidewalk, filming traffic. There's two men, either curious onlookers, or part of the Friese-Greene's team who are off to the right side, staring at the camera. A third man walks in front of the camera and joins them. We see horses-and-carriages moving down the street, the titular traffic. There's not too much to see in this 11 second film, but it's amazing that it exists at all. It represents another innovator working on perfecting his technology to capture movement. That is what makes this amazing. It also represents a rare chance for us to see moving images from 1890- most of the past is lost to us forever. I loved that this small glimpse was captured.

Where does this film rank among the earliest films? It's obviously not first, so Le Prince's films take precedence in that regard. As for 1890, this film ranks among the best. London's Trafalgar Square is interesting, but the quality is far beneath this. Mosquinha is fascinating in its own sense, but mostly a curiosity. Monkeyshines, No. 2 just shows how far behind the Americans were. This film offers decent quality and it's a reminder that Friese-Greene should never have been relegated to cinema history obscurity. He was a pioneer and his work should be more celebrated.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: N/A



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge, London's Trafalgar Square