Detail

Title ID 8401Collection ID1189
TitleHow it Feels to be Run Over
Date1900
CollectionEarly Films
Genre/TypeProfessionalFiction
ThemeEarly film in the South East Transport
KeywordsAccidents Motor Vehicles Cars Entertainment
Location
RegionalSurrey
NationalEngland United Kingdom
Credits
ProductionCecil Hepworth
DirectorCecil Hepworth
CastCecil Hepworth (driver)
FormatBlack & White Silent
Duration00:01:04:17
Copyright & AccessCopyright restrictions apply, contact Screen Archive South East for details

Summary

A motorcar collides with the camera in this Cecil Hepworth film.

Description

A horse and cart create a cloud of dust as they pass by. A motorcar follows. The passengers manically gesture for the camera to get out of the way but they collide. Blackness and flashing intertitles, seemingly scratched into the celluloid, read"?? Oh !! Mother will be pleased !!"

Contextual information

The first film to use intertitles, How it Feels to be Run Over introduces the viewer's subjectivity with text.

Related resources

Books

Hepworth, Cecil. Came the Dawn: Memories of a Film Pioneer n.p. London: Phoenix House

Date: 1951 Autobiography by Cecil Hepworth.

Barnes, John. The Beginnings of the Cinema in England 1894-1901. Five Volumes, n.p. University of Exeter Press

Date: 1996-1998 All five volumes of John Barnes’s archaeological study of early cinema charts its development between 1894 and 1901. Barnes founded the Barnes Museum of Cinematography with his brother William in the 1960s. The collection provided primary material for Barnes’s study of early cinema.

Low, Rachael. The History of the British Film 1906-1914. n.p. London: Allen and Unwin

Date: 1973 Volumes 1-4 contain material on Hepworth and his films.

Gifford, Denis. “Fitz: The Old Man of the Screen.” in Charles Barr (ed.) All Our Yesterdays

Date: 1986

Films

BFI National Archive, British Film Institute, London

Holds copies of many Hepworth films.

Further Information on File at Screen Archive South East

BFI National Archive copy kept on file SASE 950000.

Websites

BFI Screenonline: Cecil Hepworth

BFI resource providing biographical overview and film synopses.
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/450004/

BFI Screenonline: Lewin Fitzhamon

BFI resource providing biographical overview and film synopses.
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/470033/

BFI Screenonline: Percy Stow

BFI resource providing biographical overview and film synopses.
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/450076/

Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema: Cecil Hepworth

Provides biographical overview and further reading.
http://www.victorian-cinema.net/hepworth.htm

Hepworth Films

Website dedicated to the life and work of Cecil Hepworth, includes information on his ‘film stars’, such as Alma Taylor and Chrissie White.
http://www.hepworthfilm.org/menu.htm