Père Francis Aupiais – THE SILENT TIME MACHINE

January 4, 2018March 1, 2018

Gadmer, Frédéric (1878-1954)*

Frédéric Gadmer was the cameraman who shot some six-seven hours of footage for Albert Kahn’s Archives de la planète on vodoun religious ceremonies and other topics in Dahomey (Benin) when travelling with Père Francis Aupiais in 1929-30.

Gadmer began working for Kahn in 1919. Prior to that he had worked as an army cameraman and photographer. In 1917-18, he had travelled all over Cameroon taking 3000 images of the territory that the French had recently taken over from the Germans. Once he started to work for Kahn, he travelled widely, shooting material in the Middle East, in various locations from Turkey to Afghanistan, as well as in Europe.

After Dahomey, he filmed the 1931 Exposition Coloniale Internationale and also went to Tunisia. He shot his last material for Kahn in 1932 when the Archives de la planète project came to an end after Kahn lost much of his fortune in the stock market crash of 1929.

Text : Clet-Bonnet 1996.

January 4, 2018March 1, 2018

Aupiais, Père Francis (1877-1945)*

Père Francis Aupiais was a Catholic missionary priest who spent most of his career in Dahomey (now Benin) and who had a particular interest in the local vodoun religion, believing it to be of high moral worth. Having been influenced by the colonial historian-ethnographers Maurice Delafosse and Georges Hardy early in his career, he also attended the classes of Marcel Mauss and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl during a visit to Paris in 1927.

It was then that Aupiais also met the philanthropist and ethnographic film patron, the banker Albert Kahn, who agreed to pay for a cameraman, Frédéric Gadmer to spend six months travelling around Dahomey with him, starting in December 1930, to record vodoun ceremonies, as well as other aspects of Dahomeyan life, including the activities of his own Christian mission.

However, the superiors of Aupiais’ missionary order, not only prohibited him from showing this material at the 1931 Exposition coloniale internationale in Paris, but even banned him from returning to Dahomey for many years. Meanwhile, the vodoun priests who had allowed their ceremonies to be filmed were excommunicated by their peers, ostensibly for having given away the secrets associated with those ceremonies.

This material, which is of between six and seven hours’ duration, and which is accompanied by 327 colour ‘autochrome’ stills, is viewable at the Musée Albert-Kahn.

Texts : Balard 1999, Amad 2013.

January 4, 2018February 28, 2018

Clet-Bonnet, Nathalie (1996)

Des images et de leurs auteurs. In Pour une reconnaissance africaine, Dahomey 1930: Des images au service d’une idée, pp.15-16. Marseille:Musee Albert-Kahn.

January 4, 2018March 22, 2018

Vodoun ceremonies and other topics, Dahomey [Bénin] footage (1929-30) – Père Francis Aupiais and Frédéric Gadmer *

Leader of the cult to Hèbiôssô, god of Thunder dances up to the camera – Dahomey Vodoun footage (1930) – Père Francis Aupiais and Frédéric Gadmer

6-7 hours, b&w, silent.

Source : Musée Albert-Kahn

This material was shot over a period of six months through a collaboration between Frédéric Gadmer, a highly experienced cameraman funded by the ethnographic film patron Albert Kahn, and Père Francis Aupiais, a Catholic missionary priest and ethnographer, who had been living in Dahomey since 1903 and who had long taken a particular interest in the vodoun religion.

Although there are some scenes of everyday life and secular events, the great majority of the material is dedicated to religious topics, including both the activities of Aupiais’ mission and vodoun-related activities.

Since the aim was to provide documentation rather than make a documentary film – as was generally the case with the footage in Kahn’s Archives de la planète – most of this material consists of long static shots from a fixed point using a wide angle lens, though within these constraints, the technical quality of Gadmer’s work is high.

Aupiais regarded vodoun ceremonies as a form of prayer and he was disappointed that it was not possible to record sound, as he regarded music, particularly drum music, as an essential component of vodoun ‘ceremonialism’.

All this material has been carefully catalogued by the Musée Albert-Kahn and should be viewable once the museum opens again in 2018. The museum is also preparing a major exhibition on the work produced by Aupiais and Gadmer, which also includes over 300 photographs. This is due to open in 2020.

Text : Balard 1999

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