Georges Méliès and Gaston Velle stopped making films in 1913; Victorin Jasset died that same year, and the Great War put an end to many lives and careers. We take it somehow for granted that early cinema and the 1920s productions are divided, separate worlds and only rarely wonder what the protagonists of prewar cinema did later in life.

When a name of one of our beloved film directors from around 1910 such as Mario Caserini, Albert Capellani or Alfred Machin pops up in a database while researching the A Hundred Years Ago section, it is a bit like meeting old friends. Serpentin fait de la peinture by Alfred Machin is a splendid comedy, well-flavoured with a lot of eroticism: a school professor flees reality by painting nudes. Although his model is only a bronze statue, his wife becomes jealous. She does not allow him to continue his ‘filthy’ hobby. So he decides to change his subject. His new models are cows. But this retreat is only brief and it triggers an extravagant series of funny and ambiguous situations.

Karl Wratschko