Beijing - Coal Hill Street Scenes and the Forbidden City

From the collection of

Screen Archive South East at the University of Brighton collects, preserves, catalogues and provides public access to its collection of films and magic lantern slides. The collection charts the rise of screen culture in the region and the nation and captures many aspects of life, work and creativity in the South East from the late 19th century to the present day. It is available for research, screenings, creative re-use and commercial access.

Beijing - Coal Hill Street Scenes and the Forbidden City

Screen Archive South East at the University of Brighton
Beijing
1 Oct 1938
Silent
15m

This delightful colour film features Beijing's Forbidden City, the Summer and Winter palaces as well as parks, processions, a drama school and a Chinese picnic.

Many of Beijing's architectural treasures feature in this film. We start at Coal Hill and the artificial mound, Jingshan. Next we see various processions on Beijing's streets, where traffic consists of rickshaws, bicycles and the occasional motorcar. There are also extensive views of the Forbidden City, followed by the Summer and Winter Palaces before moving to a drama school where children practice martial arts and dance routines. The film ends with a Chinese picnic.

S. Howard Hansford was an archaeologist and jade expert based at London University. He published a number of authoritative books on the subject of jade, as well as contributing several academic papers and contributions to journals on Chinese decorative art. During the Second World War, Professor Hansford worked on code-breaking at Bletchley Park. The few visitors to the Forbidden City, as seen in this film, contrasts sharply with the experience today - when it's estimated that 7 million people will visit the Imperial Palace complex each year.

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From the collection

Beijing - Northern Capital

Beijing's ancient streets and palaces come alive in a collection of fascinating and often beautiful travelogues and home movies shot between 1908 and 1939.

Beijing has been at the heart of China's political and cultural life for almost a thousand years. Though much of its ancient fabric is preserved, swathes of the city were lost in decades of urban regeneration projects. So these films from the first half of the 20th century open a window on to the city's lost past. Chinese filmmakers weren't active when the earliest films of Beijing (then known as Peking) were made, so these British and European films are among the only moving images of that time.

Thanks to these pioneering cameramen, we can witness everyday life in the last years of the Qing dynasty, make our way from the European quarter of the city to the magnificent Forbidden Palace and the bustling Grand Canal, or roam the streets around the Qianmen gate. These often amateur cinematographers offer us a fresh look at a majestic and complex city, from the palaces and pagodas of Beihai Park, a trek around the Great Wall with intrepid honeymooners, to a cruise down the Grand Canal to Shanghai. This may be a Beijing seen through western eyes, but they are the eyes of a rapt enthusiast, not a jaded tour guide.