The Films of Pioneer Kansas Photographer Donald C. Thompson

On March 13, media historian David Mould lectured on World War I cameraman Donald C. Thompson. His presentation Images of World  War I - The Films of Pioneer Kansas Photographer Donald C. Thompson was part of a series of presentations by Kansas University on the centennial of the First World War.

Lecture at Kansas University

David H. Mould, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Media Arts and Studies at Ohio University. Thompson has been one of his favorite research subjects ever since Mould did his master thesis on the news films of World War I in the 1980s. In this lecture at Kansas University David Mould tells about Thompson's approach to news coverage, how he projected his self-promoted image of the "photographer/adventurer", gained access to the frontlines and staged some of his war scenes. To give the audience a proper sense what it was like to watch a war film in those days David shows a selection of scenes from Thompson's movies, accompanied with contemporary music.

Opening scene from Thompson's film War As It Really Is  (USA, 1916)

These scenes are very interesting. To start with David Mould presents clips from Thompson's film With the Russians at The Front which was shot on an assignment for the Chicago Tribune in 1915. Mould has some fascinating inside information on the making of this movie, based on letters by Robert R. McCormick, the Chicago Tribune co-editor who accompanied Thompson during this trip. Next he shows parts of Thompson's film Somewhere in France (1915) and a good copy of Thompson's subsequent movie which was produced with the French army in 1916: War As It Really Is. 

The German Curse in Russia (USA, 1918)

David Mould recently edited Thompson's letters to his wife which were written during his stay in Russia while he was covering the Russian Revolution and the war against Germany on the Eastern Front. Shortly before his presentation at Kansas University David contacted us on our discovery of footage from Thompson's film The German Curse in Russia (USA, 1918). We had made a reconstruction of this remarkable film by Thompson, based on films in the Axelbank Collection, which was also in David's presentation.

For more information here is a link to David Mould's recent article "Images of War" in the Journal of Russian-American Studies (May 2017) 

A recent interview with David Mould on this subject was also published in this newsletter of the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (Fall 2017).

We have uploaded David Mould's presentation on Thompson on our YouTube channel. Thank you, David, for sharing your latest research with us!