Before Paillard - Text 2
At the Exposition nationale suisse de la photographie in May 1923 Boolsky, the founder of the Compagnie Bol S.A. in Geneva that year,[1] presented an initial model of camera and cinema camera. Called the Cinégraphe Bol, this device was simple, solid and lightweight, the criteria which made it attractive in the eyes of amateurs. Reversible like the Lumière Cinématographe, it condensed several machines in one – one might even say it was a studio on its own, serving as camera, projector and to make film prints. In this compact box the Swiss film critic Jean Choux glimpsed nothing less than the rise of a new industry and an extension of Swiss know-how in mechanical precision: “Factories will rise up, machines will hum, and soon, the world over, for the joy of all and the prestige of Geneva, the marvel will spread.”[2] Aware of the importance of publicity, Boolsky gave a Cinégraphe Bol to Jackie Coogan, the star of the Charlie Chaplin film The Kid (1921), when he visited Geneva in 1924. Posing with one hand on the device, the American actor, who was still a child, reinforced the idea that film technology was now available to anyone.
