The right movie, I mean, not the right Pope. The IMDb shows two movies with about the same title, and from a British Mutoscope. There's this one, and there's Pope Leo XIII in Carriage No. 1. I assume that's another version of this movie, although it might refer to a multiplicity of papal carriages.
The title tells you pretty much what you see. The Pope waves at the camera before the carriage before it goes on. I believe this was intended as a trial, to bring access to the Pope to the masses. Leo XIII appeared in more than thirty films between 1896 and 1903. I think that putting the Pope on the movie screen ultimately had the effect of reducing him to the level of everyone else on the screen: English Kings and Mark Twain and actors and comic bumbles. They all wander across the movie screen for our pleasure and education, and after a while, the differences between them seem arbitrary.sometimes it's better to let a mystery remain a mystery, and not show him as an old man smiling and waving.
The title tells you pretty much what you see. The Pope waves at the camera before the carriage before it goes on. I believe this was intended as a trial, to bring access to the Pope to the masses. Leo XIII appeared in more than thirty films between 1896 and 1903. I think that putting the Pope on the movie screen ultimately had the effect of reducing him to the level of everyone else on the screen: English Kings and Mark Twain and actors and comic bumbles. They all wander across the movie screen for our pleasure and education, and after a while, the differences between them seem arbitrary.sometimes it's better to let a mystery remain a mystery, and not show him as an old man smiling and waving.
