The new within the old, the old within the new: transmediality and the introduction of the kinematograph in the case of Aladinou la lampemerveilleuse (1898)
The new within the old, the old within the new: transmediality and the introduction of the kinematograph in the case of Aladinou la lampemerveilleuse (1898)

Summary/Abstract: Accordin g to the Provinciale Geldersche en Nijmeegsche Courant’s coverage of Grünkorn’s exhibition in October 1859, the scenes from Aladdin and his wonder lamp were the most popular aspect of his show and “caught [ the audience’s ] special attention, which they deserved.” :These scenes were even more appreciated by the audience than the nationalistic scenes from royal festivities (an observation that could indicate that the late nineteenth -century audiences who went to the early kinematography shows were not necessarily as much aroused by the radically new, as with the ‘new within the old’). The audience might have liked the scenes from Aladin ou le lampe merveilluese in particular because of the double logic discussed above: on the one hand, the reels anticipated in a familiar transmedial imagination themes that were already in people’s minds, while at the same time these scenes also highlighted the specific attraction of the newly introduced device for projecting moving images. The intersection between the new and the old remains a fascinating field for study because new knowledge of the nineteenth -century popular imagination could still shed new light on the earliest encounters with the kinematograph.

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