Man Walking Around the Corner

Louis Le Prince, motion picture pioneer, took 16 photos, one each from a different lens on his special made camera, of a man rounding a corner in Paris. The 16 images were combined to produce the effect of a motion picture one second in length of the man turning the corner. The following year Le Prince would develop a one lens camera that operated on a similar principle and make what is now considered the first film - "Roundhay Garden Scene".

Le Prince would disappear mysteriously on his way to America in 1890, never to be seen again. The book "The Missing Reel" deals with the mystery and what might have happened to him. The documentary "The First Film" discusses Le Prince's work in the invention of motion pictures.

This is the finest piece of art I have ever seen. The man walking around the corner has been called a "modern masterpiece" (Joel Taylor, 2015), to which I can agree. It brings the quality of all media to a new level. Any who wants to try and make a film should watch this first to get an idea of where the bar has been set. In the words of the great Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, "It is not about the length, or the camera quality of the video, but it is about the emotional drive and the attachment that the audience has with the Man Walking Around the Corner, and our star, the man walking around the corner." Excellent watch, I would recommend this to every aspiring film-maker.

Although often referred to as such, this two-second clip from 1887 by Louis le Prince is not an actual film at all. While in some ways it could be considered animation, the manner in which it was shot is important as to its qualification. Like the Eadweard Muybridge studies, "Man Walking Around the Corner" is compiled of a frame sequence of sixteen well-shot photographs to create the illusion of movement. The true first celluloid film is Le Prince's own "Roundhay Garden Scene" (1888), recorded on real motion picture filmstock, followed by "Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge" of the same year. As stated by reviewer boblipton, this film is then available as a listing on IMDb only as an early attempt to start the development of motion pictures, as an artifact of the preliminary stages of the medium.

Since I last edited/wrote this review, the problem concerning the picture quality of this frame sequence has been addressed. As other IMDb reviewers state, the two second short is "needing a restoration", etc, and rightfully so. This Louis le Prince film has been available for many years in a blurry, unwatchable format, which hardly allows us to appreciate the movement created by the photography or the details in the setting. The film is now rendered in a much crisper, nicer HD copy on YouTube--a huge improvement over the other one--and looks just as restored as "Roundhay Garden Scene" and "Traffic Crossing the Leeds Bridge". It's nice to see it looking much more cleaned up, and if you are interested this copy is the recommendable one.

The title tells us what to expect, although it remains somewhat inaccurate since the man appears to be walking across the corner, rather than around it. This is a minor thing to point out, however, and the movement is well-shot, although the identity of the man walking seems to be unknown.

It may have been 9 years since the last movie, but Louis le Prince was a good director and had a great debut film

First, I must admit that I never heard about Louise Le Prince before I went in search for a oldest movie ever recorded. I heard about many movie pioneers, but never for Le Prince.

Now, I am very happy that i saw oldest movie ever recorded and I must recommend all people who want see this movie to watch it in slow motion (you can find slow motion version on YT), and you can find a version with all 16 frames remastered there (some versions have only 13 frames - two lost, one bad quality). Also, my recommendation is to find and read on internet about this movie and Le Prince, and you will find very interesting story.