Sun

26/06

Cinema Lumiere - Sala Officinema/Mastroianni > 12:15

Animation, Automation / Mouvements, Dimensions

Introduced by

Mariann Lewinsky

Piano accompaniment by

Gabriel Thibaudeau

Animation, Automation

We are visual animals, and moving objects arrest and delight us to no end – the natural elements to begin with, waves, clouds, fire. We ourselves are restless and watching animals, dancers, fountains, following and losing ourselves in the rhythm, variations and patterns of their movements, soothes and distracts us. Mechanical devices and machines may have been created initially for practical uses, but as soon as they move they become fascinating visual displays, wonderfully entertaining. Many forms of art and entertainment are based on movement, be it dances, jugglers, fountains, pageants and the like. Until 1895 they defied all forms of representation. Sculpture, painting, photography can try to suggest movement, but only the Cinématographe succeeds in reproducing it in a convincing albeit illusory way. The projected photographs appear to be moving. In 1896 cinematography was all about the spectacle of movement, flaunting this unique capacity. No interest in still-life, then; we want the lion in the zoo to be animated, not asleep.

Mariann Lewinsky

Mouvements, Dimensions

The power of these films comes from their beauty and one of the aspects of their beauty is the creation – a masterly, essential creation – of dimensionality through movements create the perception of center, depth, vertical, horizontal.
On September 21, 1896 the operator Constant Girel got into a boat and filmed the city of Cologne, located on the banks of the Rhine. It’s the image itself that moves for the first time. This kind of shot, called a ‘panorama’, created the sensation of immediate participation and implicated spectators even more vividly than movements inside the image.

Mariann Lewinsky

Projection
Info

Sunday 26/06/2016
12:15

Subtitle

Original version with simultaneous translation through headphones

[FILM LITHOGRAPHIQUE] Da Une séance de prestidigitation di Georges Méliès

Film Notes

The production of ‘animated cartoons’ began properly in 1897 in Germany, and more precisely in Nuremberg where the principal toy factories were located. The first model of a ‘cinematographic magic lantern’ still ran horizontally, but the film (loops of 35mm) was projected intermittently thanks to a five-slot Maltese cross. It is a device that had a dual function, as it could also project traditional glass plates. And so cinema had already entered into the home. Sometimes the subjects of these early forms of animation are rather surprising, because some of the illustrations replicate, in certain cases down to the tinniest details, the images of films produced by Edison, the Lumières or Méliès. In 2014 a ‘lithographic film’ depicting a magic tick performed by the illusionist Georges Méliès, edited into a loop and in colour, was rediscovered. The images recycle a Méliès film from 1896 of which no copies were known to survive at the time. In 2015 there was a second discovery: the same film, edited into a loop, was found in an old box containing a German magic lantern. But this time it was in black-and-white, and not animated: the original film seems to have been transferred onto a filmstrip suitable for use in toy cinema devices. Compared to the original, which lasted 20m, a few images were missing. Presumably the German manufacturers offered both lithographic films and “true films” utilising photography but of reduced length. This black-and-white film was identified by Jacques Malthête in July 2015. It is probably Méliès’ second film, Une séance de prestidigitation, which is number 2 in Méliès catalogue published in 1896. Although it was still incomplete and printed on an unidentified format through a process that it is not entirely clear, the rediscovery of this short Méliès film edited into a loop has great symbolic importance: it is here that Méliès introduced magic into the nascent cinema for the first time.

Laurent Mannoni

Cast and Credits

DCP. D. 1’. Col.

AQUARIUM

Director: Louis Lumière
Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

BALANÇOIRES

Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

LANCEMENT D’UN NAVIRE

Director: [Louis Lumière]
Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

ANES

Director: Alexandre Promio
Year: 1896
Country: Algeria
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

EMBARQUEMENT D’UN CHEVAL

Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

DÉFOURNAGE DU COKE

Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

DANSEUSES DES RUES

Year: 1896-1898
Country: Francia
Running time: 1'
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

ARRIVÉE D’UN TRAIN À PERRACHE

Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

LION

Director: [Alexandre Promio]
Year: 1896
Country: GB
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

ASSIETTES TOURNANTES

Director: [Louis Lumière]
Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

UNE SÉANCE DE PRESTIDIGITATION

International Title
Conjuring
Director: Georges Méliès
Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Running time: 1'
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

CUIRASSIERS: EN FOURRAGEURS (CHARGE)

Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

PONT DE LA TOUR

Director: [Alexandre Promio]
Year: 1896
Country: GB
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

CHAUDIÈRE

Director: [Lumière]
Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

DRAGONS TRAVERSANT LA SAÔNE À LA NAGE

Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

COMMERCIAL STREET

Director: Alexandre Promio
Year: 1896
Country: USA
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

PANORAMA PRIS D’UN BATEAU

Director: Constant Girel
Year: 1896
Country: Germania
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

PANORAMA DU GRAND CANAL PRIS D’UN BATEAU

Director: Alexandre Promio
Year: 1896
Country: Italia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

PATINEUR GROTESQUE

Director: Marius Sestier
Year: 1896
Country: Australia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

PANORAMA DE LA PLACE SAINT-MARC PRIS D’UN BATEAU

Director: Alexandre Promio
Year: 1896
Country: Italia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

PANORAMA DE L’ARRIVÉE EN GARE DE PERRACHE PRIS DU TRAIN

Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016

ROCHERS DE LA VIERGE (BIARRITZ)

Year: 1896
Country: Francia
Sound
Mute
Edition
2016