Pauvre Pierrot

Pauvre Pierrot, directed by Charles-Émile Reynaud, is one of the first animated films ever made. It is made up of 500 individually painted images and originally lasted about 15 minutes. The version available to today is a 4 minute version, restored from pieces of the original.

It's a simple story of a woman with two men wooing her, one she cares for, and the other which is somewhat a nuisance to her, even if he is sincere. To achieve his effects, Reynaud invented his Théâtre-Optique system which was basically a zoetrope with a projector. The images showed successive images of moving figures in front of blackbackgrounds. These images could be adjusted in real-time to project tthe animated characters against an immobile background image which was being projected by a second projector from a painted glass plate.

At times the show was quite elaborate. Original music and songs were written for the show, played by an piano accompanyist and sung by an actor. Reynaud performed 12,800 shows from 1892 to 1900. Commercially successful for a time, the popularity of these shows were eventually overtaken by the projected camera live action films of the Lumières and others.

"Pauvre Pierrot" is apparently the first animated film and you probably want to read IMDB's trivia section on how the film was made. All I know is that the copy floating about YouTube is gorgeous and looks nothing like you'd expect a film that is 127 years old!

The story is very simple...something I'd expect from 1892 since films were just invented and complex stories were still not made for several years to come. The animation is very jerky (due to a low cel count) but speeding up the film could correct this...so if you find a copy and play it on Media Player Classic (for example), you can double the speed and it would look better.

As for the story, it's very, very simple and involves the classic Commedia dell'arte character, Pierrot, moving about on the screen with a girl. Not exactly thrilling today...but remember...it was 1892 and for that time, this is a really amazing piece of art.

Cute and strange; oh, and it's the first animated thing put to film... ever. Impressive for that alone, AND it has a story! It may not be too deep, and may be a little confusing (what's with the guy that comes out of nowhere and steals the guy's ukulele or whatever it is, is he a ghost?) But it does have a beginning, middle and sort of an end, maybe, arguably. For what this french animator was able to accomplish - and did I mention in COLOR no less - and for the simple fact that this is one of the major accomplishments of that century, to get something with images moving, albeit jerkily, I say you should check out all four minutes on YouTube or wherever silent film shorts are sold.

Pauvre Pierrot (1892)

This French film is considered one of the first animated movies ever made. From original reports it seems that the movie lasted longer than what's available in its current version but even at just four-minutes you can't help but be somewhat amazed at what great quality the film actually is. The plot is quite simple and deals with two men and a woman that they both want.

I will just leave the story at that but the main reason to watch this is for the beautiful animation. Now, it should go without saying but this movie was made in 1892 so one really shouldn't be expecting the work of Walt Disney. The film has a very fresh look to it and I must say that the colorful background is certainly the highlight.

This might be fairly basic animation compared to today's 3D computer-generated spectaculars, but it is in its own way just as remarkable. Emile Reynaud developed many marvels like this, and operated some rather tricky mechanism to screen it. Sadly, Reynaud was not only something of a perfectionist who personally hand-painted every image of every film, he also only trusted himself to operate the screenings. and therefore stretched himself a little too far. He was hugely successful before the advent of movies, but was incapable of progressing and stands as a singular warning of the fate that befalls any business that fails to adapt to a changing market. The film has historical importance, and as a bitter and impoverished Reynaud destroyed most of his films years after the film industry had made his shows obsolete, it's something of a minor miracle that it still exists today.