Couronnement du Czar: Les Souverains et les Invités se rendant au sacre (escalier rouge) (1896) Online

Couronnement du Czar: Les Souverains et les Invités se rendant au sacre (escalier rouge) (1896)

Nikolai II Romanov, a Russian zsar, is seen in this film slowly walking down a flight of stairs with what appears to be hundreds around him. Obviously this film is going to appeal to history buffs who would want to see what the zsar looked like. Thankfully the cinematography is excellent and really captures the scene quite well. The camera is placed pretty far back from the steps but it gives you a fuller feel of the overall scene as many people are surrounding the zsar and they're all carfully walking down the stairs. If you're a fan of these older movies then you'll want to check this out as well.

Nikolai II Romanov, Tsar of all the Russias and twenty years later, last of his dynasty, walks down some stairs at his coronation, accompanied by a bunch of people dressed in very fancy outfits.

If distance lends enchantment, then what does immediacy do? The Little Father might be a beloved ruler if you never saw him, or a voluptuous monster, depending on whether you were a loyal serf or a bomb-throwing nihilist. In either case, he is superhuman, dread in both senses of the word. Yet, what if he is nothing more than a man walking down stairs, captured in a piece of nitrate, who appears on a bed sheet tacked to the wall for a couple of kopecks? Then he is merely a man and revolution depends on who has more guns.