BBC - Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood (1995)

"Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood" commemorates the birth of an art that would transform the 20th century. This six-hour series is narrated by critically acclaimed actor/director Kenneth Branagh with music composition by Carl Davis, Philip Appleby and Nic Raine.
It was produced by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, respected names in silent film scholarship, their previous made for television works include the 13-episode 1980 epic "Hollywood: A Celebration of American Silent Film," "Unknown Chaplin," "Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow," "Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius" and "D.W. Griffith: Father of Film", they had won Emmys and Peabodys and left both audiences and critics thinking they'd never seen anything quite like it. Dogged researchers, and intent on finding the best prints, Brownlow and Gill ransacked the world's great archives and private collections. Besides discovering fragments of films thought totally lost, like the Pola Negri-starring "The Yellow Ticket" and Ivor Novello in "The Constant Nymph," they brought to light so much that about 90% of the films were not seen in 70 years.
This stylish and historical documentary focuses on the early days of the movie industry and the enormous contribution made by Europe. Included is rarely seen footage from early movies, from the very earliest efforts in the 1890's to the introduction of sound in the 1930's and interviews with some of the film industry's pioneers.
In six parts, Cinema Europe: the Other Hollywood shows the emergence of the first great stars and directors and the development of a cinematic language - all in Europe. Hollywood cinema might have conquered the world, but it was in Europe that it was born.

Part 1: Where It All Began
This first programme traces the birth of the industry in Europe from the first moving pictures screened in 1895 through to the First World War. It contains glimpses of the hand-coloured fantasies of George Melies, the sly comedy of Max Linder, the epic vision of Abel Gance, warfilms from Italy, early action films from Denmark and propaganda films from Britain and Germany.
Going to the cinema in the last years of the 19th century wasn't much fun. You would probably be treated to such gripping titles as Leaving the Factory at Lyon or The Baby's Meal in a damp overcrowded tent that was likely to burn down (film being highly flammable). Things soon picked up, though, as this meticulous history of European cinema shows: by 1910, audiences were enjoying comedy, epics, romances and fantasies, some of them hand coloured, some of them even with sound.

Part 2: Art's Promised Land
A look at the the period of Swedish cinema known as the Golden Age which began in 1910 and lasted until the mid-1920s. Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller were the greatest talents in Swedish film, with pictures such as Ingeborg Holm, a scathing examination of poverty, and Gosta Berling's Saga (which brought Greta Garbo to fame). Today historians acknowledge the debt that the critcially acclaimed French cinema industry owed to the Scandinavians

Part 3: The Unchained Camera
During the period between the wars, German film makers flourished in an extraordinary period of artistic and technical creativity. Exciting techniques, such as the "unchained camera", were developed, changing the look of movies forever. This programme looks at the work of Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, G.W. Pabst and Leni Riefenstahl, and the American actress Louise Brooks, who starred in Pabst's erotic film Pandora's Box.

Part 4: The Music of Light
During the 1920s, France had a cinema industry which was potentially capable of rivalling Hollywood's. It discovered the value of mini-series, docu-dramas and historical films, and in 1927 it reached its creative peak with Abel Gance 's Napoleon. Nevertheless, the country's studio system remained virtually ignored outside Europe.

Part 5: Opportunity Lost
This episode looks at the British film industry and examines why British cinema failed to keep up with that of Germany and France. Many new film techniques had been pioneered in this country before the First World War but the industry never had the funding to help it capitalise on these early successes.

Part 6: End of an Era
The final episode looks at the impact of the arrival of sound on the European film industry. Despite European technical innovation, the industry lacked investors to promote its discoveries. However, it was not sound that doomed the golden age of European film-making. With the rise to power of the Nazi party at the beginning of the 1930s, a new era dawned in film-making history; international co-productions began to fade and nationalistic propaganda films started asserting their authority.