In 1903 Robert Paul visited Norway and very probably shot the eleven films he made there personally. It seems not to have been his first visit, since the series was titled ‘Norway Revisited with the Animatograph’. Most of the subjects were scenic, with waterfalls and rapids a focus. But there are panoramas of Bergen and Hammerfest – this latter the only one of the set known to survive. What it shows is the port consisting entirely of wooden buildings – now an historic record, as the town that had been rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1990 was destroyed again by the retreating German army in 1945.
Paul seems to have had a special feeling for Norway, not only indicated by this series of films, but also by a sighting in the late 1930s, when his car was being unloaded from a Fred Olsen line ship on the quayside, presumably at Bergen. He was recognised by a Norwegian filmmaker, who struck up a conversation and photographed him. Paul asked for a copy of the photograph, and said he would send a film of HMS Victory in Portsmouth. The film never arrived, and unfortunately is now among the 90% of Paul’s lost films. A few recent discoveries, however, have turned up in Norway and Sweden.
Everything about Paul’s visits to Norway is probably undiscoverable – how he travelled around the country at this time; how often he went; who he met and knew? But I’m finally following in his footsteps tomorrow, setting off for a post-boat cruise around Norway’s coast up into the Arctic Circle this Saturday. I’m armed with a list of Paul’s original subjects, wondering if I’ll be able to re-make or update some of them. Perhaps returning with a set of ‘Norway Visited with Digital Camera’. I’m sure Paul would have approved.
Paul's Animatograph Works 