The Hans Berge Collection makes up a significant part of the extant nitrate collection in the film archive of the Norwegian National Library. The oldest reels of the Collection date from the very early phase of Norwegian film history, when the medium was in its infancy. The Collection consists of shorts of informative content, actualities like newsreels, educational films, and travelogues, etc. Many films contain scenes of Norway, in locations from north to south, often depicting landscapes, industries, festivities, and other generally interesting subjects, with a wide variety of themes.
Very little has been written about Hans Berge (1877-1934) and his contribution to Norwegian film history. This is not because his contribution lacks interest; on the contrary, his collection contains unique records of events great and small, mainly in Norway. Probably the lack of traces of his work is due to very few documents having been preserved.
Hans Berge seems to have been a travelling man. He roamed around Norway with his camera, but he also went West, across the Atlantic. After living a couple of years in the U.S. early in his career, he again settled in Norway, but returned to the States on several trips, and in 1915 represented Norway with his films at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Subsequently he travelled to American states with large Norwegian communities, showing his films and lecturing. In an interview with a Norwegian film magazine, he described journeys in California, and his films represented Norway at the 1923 World’s Fair in Rio de Janeiro.
We have chosen to screen a selection of international travelogues from the Hans Berge Collection in a programme that will stretch across two years, with six shorts in 2022 and most likely another six in 2023. This year’s films will take us to Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Portugal, and Venezuela.
The collection contains films shot in all corners of the Earth, and while it would be tempting to say we will be “in Berge’s footsteps”, there are no indications that Berge himself visited and made films in all these places. So how did they end up in the Berge Collection? It’s likely he bought or bartered them for his own films from Norway during his travels in America. The travelogues in the Berge Collection contains films known to be made by familiar cameramen such as Burton Holmes, which appear to have been quite popular in Norway in the early 1920s, as testified by records from the Norwegian film censors, which in the summer months of 1920 alone list at least 15 of Burton’s travelogues on national release. They are all Paramount- Burton Holmes travel pictures, and most were distributed in Norway by Kommunernes Filmsentral. It is difficult to know for certain whether they were brought to Norway by Berge or Holmes himself on his visits to Europe, though a combination of the two scenarios is also conceivable.
The foreign films in the Berge Collection consist largely of travelogues, with a number unsurprisingly demonstrating a classic colonialist point of view.  Although the Norwegian distribution intertitles, translated from their original languages, often have an educational veneer, they still have a marked Western gaze, and convey a sense of superiority or simple astonishment at the way “the other” behaves. Colonial powers are glorified both through images and intertitles, and the exoticizing of other cultures is expressed through an openly condescending tone. Even in films whose purpose does not directly appear to be to influence attitudes, their content, setting, and structure inevitably serve to reinforce existing attitudes of the general public.
As with many countries, the wide distribution of foreign travelogues in Norway indicates an intense curiosity about the outside world; local newspapers from the late 1910s and the early 1920s are full of advertisements for travelogues. However, trying to uncover proof that would shed light on the films’ projection context in Norway is difficult for many reasons. Documents from the film censors are not complete, and before 1913 actualities were not subject to censorship in Norway. Therefore we cannot say with certainty when, or if, a pre-1913 film was shown. Later productions might be possible to look up, but in many cases the films exist as fragments, and typically the first part is missing – the essential element that could have given us the exact title and a censorship stamp. Also, these shorts may have been presented unidentified in a longer programme, though in some cases they may be found in distribution lists of Norwegian educational films.
Inspired by his experiences in the USA, Berge was an early advocate of the use of film in the classroom. It was already the sound era by the time Norwegian schools started employing films to a greater extent as didactic tools, but silents still had a life as educational supporting material. So, for many of the travelogues in the Berge Collection we can add another context: they would later appear in documents that list titles in the school collection deposited in 1953 at Lilleborg Skole [School] in Oslo. Although evidence of screenings in this later period is often lacking in existing documents, it remains possible that they continued to be shown to Norwegian audiences.
Hans Berge was not only a filmmaker. He had his own production company, Framfilm, established in 1913, which also made movies to order. Norwegian censorship records tell us that Framfilm and Berge collaborated with established distributors like Kommunernes Filmsentral. That Berge worked in many ways and many contexts is also confirmed by advertisements: just as he did in the U.S. and elsewhere, Berge travelled around Norway, lecturing and showing both film and slides.
Like so much other material from the nitrate era, we must expect that large parts of Berge’s original collection were lost over the years. It also appears that the collection was split up during the German Occupation and stored at different addresses in Oslo. Whether his son, Jan Berge, succeeded in reassembling everything after the end of the Second World War, we don’t know. It may also be the case that Jan Berge, during his reconstitution of the collection, may have included single reels belonging to other film or distribution companies, but this is hard to prove. What we do know is that in the 1950s he waged a legal battle to prove his rights to a big part of his father’s collection, which was eventually resolved in his favour. The records reveal that at this point many of the films had, unfortunately, been shortened, which corresponds to how the material is today, when we are inspecting the reels some 70 years later. Even so, the remaining collection adds up to hundreds of reels, many of which continue to generate questions that challenge us to explore new perspectives and alternate narratives.

Tina Anckarman

 

Giappone/Japan

[JAPAN I FEST] [Giappone in festa / Japan Festivals] (JP?, c.1914-16)
regia/dir: ?. copia/copy: DCP, 16ꞌ31ꞌꞌ, col. (da/from 35mm nitr., 276 m., imbibito/tinted); did./titles: NOR. fonte/source: Nasjonalbiblioteket, Oslo/Mo i  Rana.

The Japanese footage in the Hans Berge Collection consists of extremely rare images that are not known to survive in Japan, making them an especially exciting discovery. The film here called Japan i fest captures three ceremonies held in Kyoto in the mid-1910s, during the Taishō era (1912-1926), and is particularly notable for the many scenes of the Tayū Dōchū, a traditional, rigidly formalized procession of high-ranking courtesans known as Tayū that took place in the Shimabara district of Kyoto.
The first ceremony is a joint ritual of Buddhist and Shintō priests, while the second is the Shimabara Tayū Dōchū procession, featuring the distinctive hairstyles and costumes of these celebrated women. Thanks to the presence of the famed Tayū who participated in the ritual parade between 1914 and 1916, we are able to narrow the date of shooting to these years. The third and final sequence shows the lively portable-shrine Inari Festival, the most important annual festival at the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shintō shrine.
The first ceremony appears to be a special memorial event held that year, while the Tayū Dōchū and Inari Festivals are annual spring events held around April 22nd. Recently the BFI National Archive’s footage labelled Rice Festival in Kyoto (available on YouTube) was identified as depicting the Shimabara Tayū Dōchū from the morning of 22 April 1908, followed by the Inari Festival in the afternoon of the same day, shot by the Kyoto film company Yokota Shōkai. Similarly, the film distributed in Norway as Japan i fest first included the Tayū Dōchū and then the Inari Festival chronologically, but shows a different part of the festival from the earlier BFI material.

Mika Tomita

JAPAN OF TODAY (US 1918)
Post Travel Film No. 25
regia/dir, prod: Clyde E. Elliott. prod: Post Film Company. dist: Pathé Exchange. uscita/rel: 29.12.1918 (US). copia/copy: DCP, 10’22”, col. (da/from 35mm nitr., 215 m., imbibito/tinted); did./titles: NOR. fonte/source: Nasjonalbiblioteket, Oslo/Mo i Rana.

In June 1918, Pathé Exchange announced a new series, Post Travel Pictures, produced by Clyde E. Elliott’s Post Film Company and cleverly marketed throughout the United States in newspapers that advertised each entry as if it were their own production, for example, “The Philadelphia Inquirer Travel Series,” “The Age-Herald Travel Series,” etc. Beginning in 1917, the intrepid Elliott, now best known for directing Bring ‘Em Back Alive (1933), crossed the globe with an unidentified cameraman shooting travelogues; in June 1918 Pathé began distributing the first series, consisting of 52 one-reelers. Further series followed, the last in 1923 when they were released through the Chadwick Pictures Corporation. His Japanese footage was presented as two consecutive entries in the series, numbers 25 and 26, both titled Japan of Today. Number 25, screened here, features the bustle of daily life in Tokyo’s Asakusa district in 1917, with some additional scenes of Nagasaki, Kamakura, and Yokohama – all cities and areas popular with travelers from Europe and the United States. The film begins in Asakusa Rokku (Theatre Street), the district where Japan’s first film theatre was built. Based on the visible advertising billboard for Gōketsu Miyabe Kumatarō, starring Matsunosuke Onoe, screened from 28 March – 6 April 1917 at Asakusa Yuraku-kan, the footage must have been shot during that week. This is further confirmed by a billboard that appears to be for “The Perilous Swing”, an episode of the Helen Gibson serial The Hazards of Helen, which was released sequentially in Asakusa beginning in January 1917; the episode on the billboard was released at that cinema on 25 March.
The children’s kendo (martial arts) scene is thought to be an introductory event to demonstrate a kind of armour for elementary school children that featured a type of headgear with a spring-loaded knob that pops up when struck. It was organized by the Association for the Promotion of Japanese Education and Martial Arts, which was located near Ueno Park, about 600 metres from Asakusa; the association began selling this armour in 1916.
Following shots of the Great Buddha, the footage introduced as “Buddhist Prayer” is probably a publicity parade for the Hoshi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., based on the text appearing on the clothes and umbrellas of the participants. It is interesting to note that at that time Hoshi Pharmaceutical started to develop vaccines and was involved in the domestic production of quinine and morphine, and is said to have been “the top pharmaceutical company in East Asia”.
Coal-loading in Nagasaki and the rickshaws of Yokohama were popular subjects for cameramen of the period, frequently reproduced on postcards and also seen in films among the Paper Print Collection at the Library of Congress. What follows are scenes of exercising and playing in Ueno Park, the Kameido Tenjin Shrine, Yokohama Park, and then shots of elementary school students, before the film returns to Asakusa and the movie theatre advertising team and then Sensōji Temple. All these images are highly valuable as they are not known to exist in Japan.

Mika Tomita

 

Marocco/Morocco

[BILLEDER FRA MAROKKO] [Immagini dal Marocco/Pictures from Morocco] (FR?, c.1910)
regia/dir: ?. copia/copy: DCP, 3’31”, col. (da/from 35mm nitr., 70 m., pochoir/stencil-colour); did./titles: NOR. fonte/source: Nasjonalbiblioteket, Oslo/Mo i Rana.

This short anonymous fragment of a film was distributed in Norway ca. 1910; its origins – production, author and even country – remain unknown. It consists of ten scenes, ranging from landscape and agriculture to studies of individuals. The last two scenes show faces of young men, with intertitles stating they are the Chleuh (“not Arabs”): the first appears to be posing for the camera, sporting a turban in the form of a braided cord around his shaved head, then a young man with full lips and kinky hair described as “primitive” in the intertitle.
These images from the early 20th century are an interesting historical and ethnographic document made during the period of colonial expansion by European states, whose travellers were discovering regions to be colonized. The film is an example of how the biased images and colonial stereotypes of the period became widespread, not necessarily through colonial authorities but with such a degree of assimilation that European travellers reproduced them almost endlessly. The intertitles define the people as the Chleuh, and the film seeks to show them through portraits, where they lived, and their way of life. It should be noted that an intertitle referring to “cattle herds” accompanies a scene featuring sheep and goats.
The long shots feature landscapes (river, fields, sheep and goats grazing, huts), while the close-ups linger on faces as a way of drawing attention to features considered exaggerated. These surviving fragments obviously carry the clichés and stereotypes in vogue at the time, the colonial or Western gaze that seizes the Other, trapping him/her in its realm of exoticism. The approach is extreme and even racist, as at the end of the film, judging by the intertitle that speaks of a “primitive type”.
While the film’s origins are unknown, it must be said that the people presented here also remain unidentified. There is nothing to confirm that they are indeed the Chleuh (or Shilha, also known as Ishelhien) of the Atlas. The Amazighs in Morocco are roughly composed of three main categories: the Chleuh, from the Anti-Atlas, and the Sous); the Imazighen of the Middle Atlas; and the Rifians of the Rif region. Also, the features presented in the intertitles as specific to these ways of life do not really have links with the Chleuh: for example, the Chleuh build houses with clay and wood, not huts. Furthermore, dromedaries (not “camels”: Africans speak of dromedaries, while camels are Central Asian) are more closely linked to nomadic people.
The opportunity for foreign travellers to reach the Atlas Mountains was minimal in the early 1900s, when the Moroccan hinterland was hard to reach (roads were not fully established, and unsafe for journeying). Rather, the film’s landscapes are plains, more inhabited by Arabic-speaking populations than Amazigh-speaking ones. Were these nomadic peoples, temporarily settled in huts on a plain that apparently offered natural resources?
The film does have a point of interest beyond its colonialist and racist gaze. We see what people were wearing at the time, both men and women; and their faces, magnified by the camera, reveal how intrigued they were by the innovative device as they stare at it. The female presence in the outdoor world – in fields, in souks, standing before a hut – deconstructs the clichés of women confined to closed harems, as anchored in the Orientalist imagination of that era.

Fadma Ait Mous

 

Nuova Zelanda/New Zealand

AMONG THE MĀORI OF NEW ZEALAND (Maorierne paa Ny Zeland)
(?, 1915-1917)
regia/dir, photog: Burton Holmes. prod: Burton Holmes, per/for Paramount.
copia/copy: DCP, 8’47”, col. (da/from 35mm nitr., 141 m., pochoir/stencil-colour); did./titles: NOR. fonte/source: Nasjonalbiblioteket, Oslo/Mo i Rana.

This remarkable travelogue taonga (treasure) produced by Burton Holmes for Paramount was preserved from the original tinted nitrate by the National Library of Norway. Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, the audiovisual archive of Aotearoa/New Zealand, was delighted to learn of its existence, as it represents a very rare early depiction of Māori life, of great significance to the uri and kaitiaki (descendants and traditional knowledge owners) of those people and places which appear.
The first part is shot around Rotorua circa 1917, and includes some waka paddling on what we believe is Lake Rotorua. On an ancient sacred precinct on the banks of this lake, famed for geysers, the beautiful St. Faith’s Anglican Church at Ohinemutu still stands, and is connected to the Ngāti Whakaue people. Whakarewarewa is the home of the Tūhourangi Ngāti Wāhiao people, and remains an iconic living Māori village and well-known tourist attraction. We see twin guides and concert performers at Whakarewarewa, Georgina Te Rauoriwa (c.1880-1953) and her sister Eileen (c.1880-1968). Later scenes include staged cultural performances including powhiri (welcome), haka (posture dance), and poi (songs performed, usually by women, in which the poi is swung in various movements to accompany the singing).
The second part of the footage was probably filmed earlier, in 1915 by William Hopkins, at the Ngaruawahia Regatta, the second-oldest regatta in the country, first held in 1896. The people performing in this section likely belong to the local Waikato-Tainui iwi (tribe). Far from the original colonial/ethnographic representation of Maōri here, for the descendants and kaitiaki today this is a living taonga (treasure) and ancestral record of that time. He taonga tuku iho – “a treasure to be passed down”. – <mc>Sarah Davy, Paul Meredith</mc>
We acknowledge that this film depicts Māori tupuna, or ancestors, who have living uri, or descendants. We are working with Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision, the audiovisual archive of Aotearoa New Zealand, to repatriate copies of this film to them.

Tina Anckarman

 

Portogallo/Portugal

LA FORÊT DE BUSSACO (Bussaco’s Park, Portugal) (US: On the Trail of the Iron Duke – The Forest of Bussaco-Portugal; GB: The National Estate of Bussaco, Portugal) (FR 1919)
FR: Pathé-Programme no. 19; US: Pathé Review No. 37; GB: Pathé Pictorial No. 89.
regia/dir: ?. prod: Pathé. uscita/rel: 09.05.1919 (Paris). copia/copy: DCP, 7’08”, col. (da/from 35mm nitr., 136 m., pochoir/stencil-colour); senza did./no titles. fonte/source: Nasjonalbiblioteket, Oslo/Mo i Rana.

The Buçaco [Bussaco] National Forest is located in the northeast corner of the Serra do Buçaco, halfway between Lisbon and Porto, and was the site of a key battle in the Peninsular War, when the Duke of Wellington, leading an Anglo-Portuguese army, defeated Napoleon’s troops under Marshal Masséna in September 1810.  It’s an especially rich area famed for its biodiversity: the south-facing slopes are covered in evergreen trees typical of a Mediterranean climate, whereas the northern slopes are more temperate and carpeted with deciduous forests.
Historically the area belonged to the Order of Discalced Carmelites, a religious community originally from Ávila in Spain who entered Portugal in 1581 and in the following century built the Convent of Santa Cruz. In 1834 following the dissolution of religious orders, the convent was suppressed and the area became royal property, shortly after which over 250 new species of flora as well as lakes, gardens, and fountains were introduced. In 1888 the future King Carlos I (son of Queen Maria Pia, youngest daughter of King Vittorio Emanuele II of Italy) commissioned the construction of a summer residence and hunting lodge in the neo-Manueline style, using the former convent’s stones as building material, but one year after its completion in 1907 the King was assassinated. The only time a member of the Portuguese royal family was in residence was in the summer of 1910, when King Manuel II brought his mistress, French actress Gaby Deslys, for a romantic idyll. Shortly thereafter, following the dynasty’s exile, the royal chef Paul Bergamin got the concession to turn the property into a hotel, which it remains to this day. The site, consisting of the Buçaco Palace Hotel, the remains of the Convent, and over one hundred buildings spread throughout the forest, was classified as a National Monument in 2018. A recent Magnum ice cream ad was filmed there.

Sofia Lavrador, Jay Weissberg

 

Venezuela

LA GUAIRA TO CARACAS / FROM LA GUAIRA TO CARACAS (Fra La Guaira til Caracas) [Da La Guaira a Caracas] (US 1918)
Post Travel Film No. 9
regia/dir, prod: Clyde E. Elliott. prod: Post Film Company. dist: Pathé Exchange. uscita/rel: 11.08.1918 (US). copia/copy: DCP, 9’18”, col. (da/from 35mm nitr., 165 m. [orig. l: 270 m.], imbibito/tinted); did./titles: NOR. fonte/source: Nasjonalbiblioteket, Oslo/Mo i  Rana.

Clyde E. Elliott’s Post Travel Pictures series, discussed in the Japan of Today note, began in the West Indies and South America. When the films first appeared during the summer of 1918, they were accompanied by weekly newspaper articles on Sundays, ostensibly written by Elliott, designed to coincide with the release of that week’s short. “Caracas Railroad Built by Yankee,” in the Philadelphia Inquirer (11.08.1918), contains a detailed description of the locations filmed, though his account of La Guaira would put off any visitor (it is however less offensive than his article the previous Sunday, “Venezuela Indians Backward and Lazy,” 04.08.1918). Shooting would have been done in 1917, and includes famous spots and attractions in Venezuela along the La Guaira and Caracas Railway and on the coast between Macuto and Maiquetía. We are shown boats in the harbour of La Guaira; the early-18th-century three-floor Casa Guipuzcoana, which had been turned into a customs office for the port; Macuto beach with the slopes of the Andes and the casino in the background; the squares of Lourdes and Jerusalén in Maiquetía; the railway stations of Maiquetía, El Rincón, and Zig-Zag; and the view from what appears to be the Boquerón overlooking the Caribbean. We also get a glimpse of the city of Caracas with Monte Ávila in the distance. Most shots focus on rails, wagons, locomotives, or stations, in addition to tourist attractions. However, the short film also includes many ordinary people and workers (stevedores, muleteers, street vendors, railway employees), both men and women, some occupied in daily chores, and others marveling at the presence of the camera. The film provides rare insights into the clothing, work life, and even living conditions on the Venezuelan coast at the beginning of the 20th century.

Steinar Sæther