Kissing a child-sized mannequin in a tunnel

The Yorkshire Post announces a contest to celebrate a pioneering Pennines silent film: Kiss in the Tunnel (1899) by James Bamford (the film can be watched here)

IT failed to make Holmfirth a movie capital the first time around, but the world's first edited film is now set for an unusual - and passionate - remake.
The one-minute romantic "drama", Kiss in the Tunnel, was produced by Holmfirth's Bamforth & Co in 1899. At the time, the company was an industry pioneer, but as the movies migrated from West Yorkshire to the sunnier west coast of America, the production became largely overlooked.
Now, tourism bosses have revived the historic footage in an attempt to highlight the visitor potential of the region - and today they recreated the film's main scene, in which an aristocratic couple share a passionate embrace in a railway carriage.
The filming took place at Ingrow on the Keighley and Worth Valley preserved steam railway and was meant as a springboard to encourage visitors to come up with their own one-minute recordings of some of their favourite elements of the Pennines.
That footage will eventually be placed on the Pennine Yorkshire website and the best entries may be featured in a premier-style launch, possibly at the Picturedrome in the Bamforth's hometown of Holmfirth, or at the National Media Museum in Bradford.
Kiss in the Tunnel is now in its 110th anniversary year and is acclaimed as the first film in the world to be properly edited when it was produced.
Pennine Yorkshire is suggesting entrants to its competition use either mobile telephones or video recorders to capture their own images of the region, for the www.pennineyorkshire.com website, which will be available to be seen globally.
Liz Tattersley, Manager at West Yorkshire Tourism Partnership, responsible for the Pennine Yorkshire initiative, said: "The Bamforths, along with the Brontë sisters are synonymous with the region and represent some of the finest cultural and literary case studies, not just here but across the globe.
"The Kiss in the Tunnel is being acclaimed as the first ever edited film – preceding anything produced in Hollywood – we thought it fitting to remember the Bamforths' contribution to the film industry by asking visiting tourists to capture short clips of their favourite parts of the region.
"Pennine Yorkshire has many attractions including open moorland, traditional market towns and a rich industrial heritage. So, whether people want to showcase our finest landmarks or even recreate a scene from a Bamforth film or give us a recital from Jane Eyre, we are looking forward to watching what visitors to the region see as our finest attractions," she said.
Screen Yorkshire's emerging talent manager Tony Dixon added: "Yorkshire's connection to filmmaking can be traced to the start of the industry when James Bamforth began creating his collection of short films with regional and national significance.
"The Kiss in the Tunnel, albeit only a minute or so long, is an extremely significant part of film history and it's amazing to think that one of Yorkshire's sons was responsible for filmmaking techniques that Hollywood has since emulated."
The Pennine Yorkshire initiative is designed to promote the local authority areas of Bradford, Kirklees, Calderdale, Leeds and Wakefield as tourist centres.
The district has attractions including the World Heritage Site of Saltair, Howarth with its Bronte connections, Holmfirth which is now best known as the backdrop for Last of the Summer Wine, along with Hebden Bridge, which has been voted among the "funkiest" places in the world.
Entries to the contest can be sent as mpeg or WMV files to film@pennineyorkshire.com. (Paul Whitehouse)

We are not experts in the history of British silent cinema, but we thought Bamford's film was a remake of G.A. Smith's film of the same name. And, as a matter of fact, the film which the Yorkshire Post links to is the same that the BFI lists as G.A. Smith's. We are quite confused.

The Santa Barbara Independent talks about an upcoming exhibition at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art: Yinka Shonibare, MBE: A Flying Machine for Every Man, Woman and Child and Other Astonishing Works (March 14 – June 21): (Picture source)

The fact that Shonibare's mannequins wear 19th century-style fashions is also significant. The Victorian era was a time when strict moral standards were publicly espoused but often blatantly ignored in private. Sexual repression coexisted with prostitution, and children were both idealized and subject to hard labor in factories and mines. Witness the artist's sweet group of child-sized mannequins named for three famous Victorian-era British authors: Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, and Charles Dickens. Dressed in their historically correct outfits, they are adorable little dolls. But in reality, all three of these kids endured tough childhoods and ended up writing books containing depictions of children who were abused and neglected. Charles Dickens, who worked in a factory as a child, grew up to depict the horrors of child labor in Oliver Twist. The Bronte sisters wrote Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights under assumed male-sounding names in order to have their works published in an era when women, like children, were seen but not heard. (Lorie Porter)

Sam Wollaston reviews the BBC3 sketch show Horne & Corden in The Guardian:

It's a common misconception of actors - that they can write, too. It's why Peep Show was good and That Mitchell and Webb Look wasn't (though H&C make M&W look like the Brontë sisters, all three of them). They get a bit famous, it goes to their head and they think, wey hey, we can do it all. But, weh hey, they can't.

Incidentally, The Guardian's Quiz (How dysfunctional is your reading?) contains a Brontë-related question:

4. In Jane Eyre, what is the name of Mr Rochester’s first wife, who is locked in the attic?

1. Jean Rhys
2. Eliza Reed
3. Bessie Lee
4. Bertha Mason

The Michigan Daily describes Martha Cook, a single-sex student house in the University of Michigan like this:

As I finally followed Hahn inside to the dorm’s lobby, I was amazed by the tall ceilings, long hallways, tapestries and wood-engraved walls. It was as if we had jumped out of Ann Arbor and into a Charlotte Brontë novel. (Emma Jeszke)

American Idol's judges seem prone to Brontë-comparisons. A few days ago it was Paula Abdul and today Kara DioGuardi. We read in the Washington Post:

Sitting next to Simon, Paula and Kara [DioGuardi] have changed roles from when they showed up in costume several weeks back. This week Paula is the Merry Widow -- her shoes are absolutely spectacular -- and Kara is Jane Eyre, in some drab black silk pleated number. At some point in the season, we hope this will be explained to us. (Lisa de Moraes)

Books'N Border Collies posts about Wuthering Heights and The Siberian Tiger Blog about Jane Eyre, Leeds Daily Photo uploads a picture of 'Branwell's chair' at the Black Bull. Finally, KatrinaJaneLermontov reads Emily Brontë's Sympathy on youtube.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Haworth, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights