| Excerpt from Vienna Tramway Ride (Original title: Eine Fahrt durch Wien) 1906, 4 minutes From the DVD Vienna 1900: Pictures of a Metropolis Shot by the local bureau of the Pathé company (France), Vienna Tramway Ride points towards cinema's origins in fairgrounds and variety theatres. The camera is mounted on a tramway, thus offering the viewers a first person point-of-view of bustling street life. These so-called Phantom Rides were a popular genre of the first two decades of cinema, and their traces can still be found in contemporary IMAX and 3-D amusement rides. For today's viewers the lack of visible traffic regulations and the variety of fashion on display in the streets is striking. Piano Accompaniment: Elaine Brennan | Loebenstein www.elainemusic.com DVD available from the Austrian Film Museum, Vienna www.filmmuseum.at and from the Neue Galerie, New York www.neuegalerie.org |