Chamber of Forgetfullness - 1912
ABOUT THE FILM : Chamber of Forgetfullness
EYE Film Instituut NederlandYear: 1912
Frans Prins thinks he has discovered his wife being unfaithful when he finds letters from a stranger accompanied by a photo negative. Consumed with anger and jealousy he attempts to squeeze information out of his wife who, victim of a heart attack dies in front of his very eyes and that of their young son. Alone and depressed, Frans Prins sends his child to live in the United States of America, in the Far West.
Fifteen years later father and son meet again, full of regret and remorse and discover the truth about the secret Mary took with her to her deathbed.
Nationality: American
Actors: Alec B. Francis, Barbara Tennant, William R. Dunn
Length: 12' 34"
Genre: drama
Sound: silent with soundtrack
Original elements: tinted
Composer: Martin de Ruiter (2009)
Original language: Dutch
A BRIEF HISTORY : Chamber of Forgetfullness
The family drama of Chamber of Forgetfulness joins two British-born actors, Alec B. Francis (1867-1934) and Barbara Tennant (1892-1982) under the direction of the French director Etienne Arnaud, in 1912, for the American branch of the French company Éclair. Between 1912 and 1914, Tennant and Francis were Éclair’s biggest stars.
It is highly likely that the original copy of Chamber Of Forgetfulness was bought in 1913 by Jean Desmet, one of the greatest Dutch distributors of the time.
Desmet was a travelling showman since 1907 with his famous Imperial Bio Grand Cinematograph thanks to which he genuinely entered into competition with such big names as the Mullens Brothers and Alex Benner. This same year cinema experienced a genuine boom throughout Europe and in the Netherlands where the country's first sedentary cinema saw the day in Amsterdam.
In 1909 he settled down in a theatre in Rotterdam. This is when Le Cinéma Parisien opened its doors, marking the beginning of Desmet's long career as owner. Later on he owned nine cinemas throughout the country.
By 1910 Desmet also became involved in film distribution. During the first period, he bought his films at the second-hand market in Germany; mostly ready-made programmes. Later on, he started buying directly from the production companies or their agents. One of them was the Brussels based distributor F. Guillaume, who represented Éclair and Vitagraph in Belgium and the Netherlands. Desmet probably bought the copy of Chamber of Forgetfulness in the spring of 1913. The film appears in a programme which was screened in July 1913 in Desmet's Cinema Palace theatre in Bussum (most of the films screened in this programme can still be found within the Filmmuseum–Desmet Collection).
The film collection of Jean Desmet was obtained by the Filmmuseum in 1957, shortly after his death. Apart from the films, the collection also consists of posters, leaflets and his business administration. In its entirety this collection gives a unique insight into the practice of film trade in the early teens.
The original music for this film was composed by Martin de Ruiter in 2009.
More information: Jean Desmet and The Early Dutch Film Trade, Ivo Blom, 2003, Amsterdam University Press, Netherlands.
