Absolutely fascinating to see Britain in colour 100 years ago. Probably of little interest to non-brits. But as a Brit, to see some of these places look so similar to how they remain today but with 100 year old people walking through them is fascinating. It is edited extremely well. Very fast paced and engaging. I think this is credit to the BFI who edited the 65 minute version which is available today from dozens of shorts that were produced at the time. It is available for free on the BFI website and also on Youtube. It doesn't feature as many people as I would have liked to have seen. I find it most fascinating to learn about how people lived. The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon is really good at this for instance. But all round brilliant and totally one of a kind.
4 Reviews
The Open Road
richardchatten10 April 2024
One of the many satisfactions that continue to compensate for the frequent frustrations that plague students of silent film are survivals such as 'The Open Road', whose promotion from a brief mention in Rachel Low's book on twenties British cinema concerning Claude Friese-Greene to its promotion to a TV series of its own was a consummation devoutly to be wished.
But 'The Open Road' suffers from the bugbear that afflicts most amateur photography in concentrating on the picturesque at the expense of what appears at the time to be mundane but gains in interest with the passage of time.
The Yorkshire Dales, for example, continue to look pretty much today as they did a century ago, so it's the fleeting glimpses in colour of what at the time seemed banal events like the Test at Lords in 1926 or what at the time seemed a thoroughly ordinary shot of Whitehall as it looked at the same time that today gives 'The Open Road' its most lasting value.
But 'The Open Road' suffers from the bugbear that afflicts most amateur photography in concentrating on the picturesque at the expense of what appears at the time to be mundane but gains in interest with the passage of time.
The Yorkshire Dales, for example, continue to look pretty much today as they did a century ago, so it's the fleeting glimpses in colour of what at the time seemed banal events like the Test at Lords in 1926 or what at the time seemed a thoroughly ordinary shot of Whitehall as it looked at the same time that today gives 'The Open Road' its most lasting value.
Tempus Fugit
tieman6430 June 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Claude Friese-Greene directs "The Open Road", a collection of splendid short films. Today Greene's largely been forgotten, but he was a pioneer in colour cinematography, and was the son of William Friese-Greene, who began the development of an additive colour film process called Biocolor. After William's death in 1921, Claude created something called "Friese-Greene Natural Colour", which he applied to his "The Open Road" series, which, shot in the 1920s, attempted to record local life in Great Britain.
Travelling across Britain in an open-top Vauxall D, with a camera, cup of coffee and a couple of friends, Claude creates a remarkable travelogue. Today it plays like a time capsule, providing glimpses of rural towns, early 20th century London, coastal ports, countrysides, parks, craftsmen, relaxing and hardworking folk, farmers, commuters and Romany Gypsies. Across idyllic countrysides, beaches and urban centres we go, Claude's journey taking him thousands of miles across London, Wales and Northern Scotland. It's a sleepy, picturesque journey, lovingly rendered in gorgeous, eye popping colours. At the same time, the film has a haunting, ghostly quality. It reminds heavily of Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon", its characters frozen in lost time, the silent beauty of each shot tinged with a strong sense of death. When Claude focuses on the faces of little boys, girls and babies, what was once pastoral becomes almost melancholic. Behind their shaggy red hair and baffled, wide eyes, you can almost feel the asphyxiating embrace of time. These people are all dead, their world long gone, though London seems resistant to change. Claude's journey ends there, his new-fandangled motorcar driving down streets which remain largely the same today. Hauntingly, the film takes place between the First World War and the double whammy of The Great Depression and the Second World War; the idyllic calm before the storm.
Claude's film was originally displayed in twenty six ten minute episodes, which were shown before the "main feature" at English cinemas, or at travelling road shows. Today they've been restored, cleaned up and packaged together as a "feature" by the BBC.
10/10 - Overly idyllic (this is not how "things were" at all), but there are sights here more interesting than most zillion dollar blockbusters. See 1906's "A Trip Down Market Street Before the Fire".
Travelling across Britain in an open-top Vauxall D, with a camera, cup of coffee and a couple of friends, Claude creates a remarkable travelogue. Today it plays like a time capsule, providing glimpses of rural towns, early 20th century London, coastal ports, countrysides, parks, craftsmen, relaxing and hardworking folk, farmers, commuters and Romany Gypsies. Across idyllic countrysides, beaches and urban centres we go, Claude's journey taking him thousands of miles across London, Wales and Northern Scotland. It's a sleepy, picturesque journey, lovingly rendered in gorgeous, eye popping colours. At the same time, the film has a haunting, ghostly quality. It reminds heavily of Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon", its characters frozen in lost time, the silent beauty of each shot tinged with a strong sense of death. When Claude focuses on the faces of little boys, girls and babies, what was once pastoral becomes almost melancholic. Behind their shaggy red hair and baffled, wide eyes, you can almost feel the asphyxiating embrace of time. These people are all dead, their world long gone, though London seems resistant to change. Claude's journey ends there, his new-fandangled motorcar driving down streets which remain largely the same today. Hauntingly, the film takes place between the First World War and the double whammy of The Great Depression and the Second World War; the idyllic calm before the storm.
Claude's film was originally displayed in twenty six ten minute episodes, which were shown before the "main feature" at English cinemas, or at travelling road shows. Today they've been restored, cleaned up and packaged together as a "feature" by the BBC.
10/10 - Overly idyllic (this is not how "things were" at all), but there are sights here more interesting than most zillion dollar blockbusters. See 1906's "A Trip Down Market Street Before the Fire".
A Jolly Good Time All Round
JoeytheBrit2 March 2010
"I say Claude old boy, why don't we take the old charabanc on a jolly old jaunt from Lands End to John O'Groats? Cover the country from top to tail, as it were, eh? What a wizard wheeze that would be! And, dash it all, wasn't your old man a pioneering cinema-whatchamacallit?! We could take a camera along with us and film all that pretty scenery on the way! Lots of cherub-faced little tykes playing sandcastles by the sea, that sort of thing. The countryside will soon never be the same, what with all this new-fangled technology, you know. Shame, sound hasn't been invented yet, but we could try filming in that new colour process you've been working on. What's that? Colour-fringing? Good Lord, old boy, it's colour! Like the real world! Don't you see? The colour could blur all over the place and the hoi-polloi paying their tuppence-ha'penny won't give a deuce. Anyway, the picture looks rather spiffing if everybody would just stand still while we're filming. And it will be a topping excuse to chat to giggling young lovelies in their bathing suits. What's that? Cardiff and Glasgow? Well, I suppose so, but I was thinking more of the likes of Weston-Super-Mare and Blackers, don't you know. And afterwards, we could cut the film up into segments and show it as a weekly travelogue in picture houses. Might even make a bob or two. Another sherry, old chap?"
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