User Reviews

This panorama is not of Calcutta; it is of the ghats in Varanasi (Benares). It is unusally credited to the cinematographer J. M. Bennet Stanford, an army officer turned war correspondent who was one of he team working or Charles Urban at Warwick Trading filming the Boer War. It seems however most improbable that Stanford would have travelled to India to make this one film.

It sems altogether more likely that it was made by someone in India and bought in by Warwick. There are two known film-makers working in Calcutta at this time, "Professor" T. Stevenson and Hirilal Sen. Sevenson had been exhibiting film s in India since 1897 (originally in Madras and touring South India) using a Warwick Bioscope camera. In Calcutta he teamed up with Sen to make two films that were exhibited at the Star Theatre in Calcutta. Subsequently Sen also bought a Bioscope and established, with his brother Motilal, the Rotal Bioscope Company in 1899. Both Stevenson and Sen seemed to have imported Warwick shorts for their exhibitions so alreayd had an established connection with Warwick. The fact that it was a bought-in film would also help to explain why it is misidentified especially if the film-makers were actually based in Calcutta.

If this is correct, then this is the first known film to survive by a film-maker -- whether Stevenson or Sen - working in India.

Panorama of Calcutta (1899)

This is a historically important film because it was one of the first to be shot in India. It might have very well been the first but I'm guessing that would be hard to tell since I'm sure a lot of the early pictures shot there are no longer around. What we see here really isn't all that different from what was being shot in American and French cinema at the time. The camera is set up on a boat and as it goes down river it captures some events going on the shore.

Yes, there's nothing ground-breaking about any of what we see but it's still fascinating to watch because it gives you a true and authentic glimpse of India during this period. It's interesting to see what people were doing down by the river as well as the outfits that they were wearing.