As we celebrate the Bloomsday Centenary, we also mustn't forget that James Joyce was also an early champion of the nascent art form of the cinema. After some time abroad, Joyce and his family returned to Dublin in 1909. It was at this time that Joyce opened and ran Ireland's first cinema, The Volga Cinematograph. According to film historian Luke McKernan, Joyce's programming at the Volga was eclectic and diverse. He exhibitions ran the gamut from exotic travelogues to Louis Feuillade. These films are now being compiled as The Volta Programme by McKernan, an attempt to replicate an evening of Joyce programmed films and to maybe show the influence the very young medium had on his work.
The Volga did not succeed, and Joyce headed to Trieste and to bigger and better things. But he never lost his enthusiasm for cinema. After Ulysses was published, he asked Eisenstein to consider a cinematic adaptation of the novel. Joyce even preferred actor George Arliss to play Bloom.
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