Frédéric Gadmer – 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, 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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