The Bolex System - Text 1
Universality
In the early 1920s, the young Swiss company Bol S.A. set out to share in the success of the new economy of home movie projection. Following in the footsteps of the French firm Pathé, it formulated the tantalizing promise of “cinema at home.” The device it began to market in 1923, the Cinégraphe Bol, claimed to “bring together” several machines in one, being sold as both camera and projector. According to its inventor, with this reversibility came the greatest simplicity: “Mr. Boolsky told us that operating the device was extremely simple and that an eight-year-old child … could obtain perfectly sharp pictures with the Bol.”[1]
Once the business was taken over by Paillard in 1930, the name Bolex would also gain a reputation for the flexibility of its equipment. In promoting a projector adaptable to two substandard film formats (16 mm and 9.5 mm), Paillard was betting its innovation would clearly stand out in the amateur cinema market. A La Nature columnist waxed enthusiastic about this innovation, a step in the direction of “universal” devices broadening the repertoire of accessible films at the same time as they satisfied “privileged amateurs.”[2] The tri-film projector which the company began to market in 1936, presenting it as “three projectors in one,” confirmed this trend.[3]
