Very busy London, in 1900 era. A still.
My husband and I watched Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes last night and after watching Coco Before Chanel a couple of times, this popular film was a bit of a shock. This is a guy movie, or a younger person movie, Sherlock Holmes as action hero, with two male leads with woman appeal, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. Robert Downey Jr. has to be my favourite actor after Colin Firth, but this movie was a bit ‘busy’ for me. I found myself thinking, afterwards, not about the plot of Sherlock Holmes, but about the cutaway crowd scenes. In this film they were very elaborate, overhead shots of an entire square and such.
They were beautifully done, although I can’t tell where the reality ends and the digitalization starts.
There were women in their dresses with the enormous skirts walking in the scenes, I believe, and I wonder if that is correct.
From the images of 1900 London that exist the streets were chaotic, and few women seem to be in them. There are plenty of men and boys, darting in between the trams and carriages and later in the decade motorcars, but few women.
I imagine this was much the same in London, although there probably were ‘promenades’ where women went with consorts to be seen, married women mostly.
Marketplaces of that era might have had woman servants around them. There’s a photograph of Bonsecours Market in the 1860′s at McCord. I should take a closer look.
I wonder if any paintings exist of Covent Garden or Picadilly. Or the Crystal Palace Exposition in 1950 something or other. Then again, it wasn’t until the impressionists emerged that painters started using ordinary scenes and average people as subjects, am I right.
I do recall back in University persuing some microfilms of 1850′s London newspapers and being amazed at all the ‘accident’s and traffic deaths reported. Chaotic, indeed!
Must investigate. I’ll think I’ll start by reading about Jack the Ripper. His victims were prostitutes, and, yes, they were out and about.
This all ties well into my story Flo in the City, based on the letters of http://www.tighsolas.ca/ because it’s about women’s freedom and urbanization.
Coco Chanel caught the wave, and then created the wave, by making simpler clothing for the new woman out there, the young working woman of the middle class.
Now I’ve been watching a lot of old movies on Turner and many famous movies have cut aways of bustling city streets in New York. The scenes from the 40′s and 50′s movies are expecially fun. That Touch of Mink comes to mind.
