L'Arroseur arrosé

Louis Lumiere concentrated mostly on making slice-of-life movies during his 1895 filming with his newly invented camera, This is one of the few staged comedy skits that he produced and was made outdoors with his highly-mobile Cinematograph. A loose translation of the title would be "The Gardiner is Hosed." As scripted: a boy steps on a hose stopping a flow of water. The gardener looks at the hose end as the boy lifts his foot allowing the water to flow full force into the gardiner's face. The gardiner chases, catches and drags the boy before the camera to give him half-hearted, almost-comical spanking. Boy leaves and gardiner continues his watering chores. Strangley enough this simple comedy was re-filmed, during the next year, by other filmmakers in England. For another of Lumiere's comedy skits see "The Transformation of Hats" which starred Felcien Trewey, an English vaudeville actor and friend of the Lumieres, who appears in at least three of Louis' movies.

In the earliest motion picture experiments, such as those by Louis Le Prince, William K.L. Dickson and others, the novelty of reproduced motion was of satisfactory interest. From the beginning of commercial exhibition, however, filmmakers staged scenes, events, or stories, to create further interest and entertainment. Although even in the earliest experiments, the filmmaker usually staged events for the camera, the intent wasn't intrinsically for entertainment. Magic lantern slides and other precursors to motion pictures already included elaborate stories in their programs, and Emil Reynaud projected animation stories to audiences near the end of the 19th Century. To point to a precise film as the beginning of stories in the art form is a futile task.

Even slightly before this film, "The Sprayer Sprayed", the Edison Company's "Blacksmith Scene", for example, was a fictional, staged recreation. "The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots" or "Chinese Laundry Scene" weren't actualities or mere examples of reproduced motion, either. The latter was even comedic. Nonetheless, "The Sprayer Sprayed" does standout for its explicit fictional staging for the purpose of amusing spectators. In a limited sense, the film consists of a story. It was also based on a newspaper cartoon or several.

It's a simple, one shot scene with a fixed camera position, where the prank is a boy stepping on a hose while the gardener is watering his garden. The gardener looks into the hose to see what's amiss, whereupon the boy releases the pressure of his foot from the hose and thus spraying the gardener in the face. The gardener chases after the boy--away from the camera--and brings the boy back to the forefront of the frame to lightly punish him. This last part, of bringing the boy back to the forefront of the camera's view, primitively and probably unintentionally emphasizes the staging of the scene. Camera movement hadn't been invented yet, but soon would be with these new lightweight cameras. The Lumière cameraman Alexander Promio may've introduced camera movement with "Panorama du Grand Canal vu d'un bateau" (1896).

Furthermore, an elaborate story of multiple shots and scenes was technically impossible at the time, as the Latham Loop had just been invented and had not yet become a standard part of cameras and projectors. Without it, too much celluloid created tension that threatened to break the film. Editing was also a risky affair because of this. Soon, Robert W. Paul, George Albert Smith, James Williamson and others would cement the multi-shot story film. The first multiple-shot films may have originated in the actuality films, such as "Return of Lifeboat" (1897), though.

Even with technological and narrative advancements in film-making, the non-narrative films, such as the actualitiés, continued to coexist with narrative cinema and were dominant for longer than the aforementioned handicaps demanded. "The Sprayer Sprayed" is an important step, however, in the direction of story films. It includes an outdoor, actuality type setting in addition to its brief and amusing staged plot. Other early Lumiere films, and films by others, were directed and staged, but not explicitly; the direction of the actuality films were disguised in a sense. This film was different. Furthermore, its purpose as entertainment is evident in the famous poster illustrated by Marcellin Auzolle where an audience is marveling and laughing at the scene of the gardener sprayed in the face.

The immense popularity of this film is evident in its numerous remakes. The Lumiere Company remade it a couple times, and the Edison Company, Alice Guy, Georges Méliès, G.A. Smith and probably just about every other early filmmaker remade it. Bamforth Films remade it as late as 1900 as "The Biter Bit".

(Note: This is the sixth in series of my comments on 10 "firsts" in film history. The other films covered are Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge (1888), Blacksmith Scene (1893), Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895), The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895), La Sortie des usines Lumiere (1895), L' Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat (1896), Panorama du Grand Canal vu d'un bateau (1896), Return of Lifeboat (1897) and Panorama of Eiffel Tower (1900).)

This Lumière classic would always be worth seeing simply for its significance as a pioneering effort in using motion pictures to tell a fictional story. It also retains its interest as a brief but amusing story in itself, which sticks in your mind despite its simplicity.

The old practical joke with the hose, which forms the premise of "L'arroseur arrosé", is one familiar to almost everyone, since we've all either played it on someone or had it played on us. Maybe that's one reason why, as light as it is, this works pretty well despite the relatively simple technique. Another reason is that the opening situation is set up well, establishing a peaceful scene of a man watering his garden, before the main action begins.

For such an early effort, it's carried off quite well. Once the action gets going, you can see that the actors are a bit self-conscious of the camera's location, and there are a couple of brief awkward moments as a result. The man playing the gardener, though, is very believable in his responses to the situation. And anyway, this little movie is almost beyond a critique, in view of its good-natured energy, not to mention all of the later ideas that grew out of this simple footage.

The Lumiere Brothers, Auguste and Louis Lumiere, reportedly made the first projected films ever. By today's standards, these films look rather crude because they mostly didn't feature any sort of plot but were mostly scenes of everyday life. Believe it or not, at this time ANYTHING would pass for entertainment--so long as it moved. "L'Arroseur Arrose" (aka "The Tables Turned on the Gardener" or "The Watered Watered" and known in some circles as "The Sprinkler Sprinkled" or "The Sprayer Sprayed") not only is a moving picture (wow, how cool, right?) but it TELLS A STORY! AND IT'S A FUNNY ONE! AND IT'S A LAUGH RIOT!! Okay, so it's not. But it was for the time. Today the gag is so old it doesn't work at all and thus the main reason to watch this short is because of the historical significance. However, I have something to say about this significance. Yes, this is considered the first comedy by many. And I'm not denying how important it is in cinematic history. But the truth is, this is not the first filmed comedy ever made. One year before, the Edison Manufacturing Company had performers Phil Doretto and Robetta star in several kinetoscope films of their comedy routine. The one surviving film of these three shorts is "Chinese Laundry Scene" which was filmed in Edison's "Black Maria" studio and while simply a filming of this routine, THAT short can be considered the first comedy. This one remains important as ONE of the first comedies, but not as THE first comedies.

On a side note, this gag was copied a lot by other filmmakers. One of French Cinemagician Georges Melies's first films, called "Watering the Flowers" is believed to have been a remake (though it is now lost). There is also a Bamforth version of the film available from 1899 called "The Biter Bit" which is an elaboration on the original skit.

L'Arroseur Arrosé is a cry from the depths of the proletariat for social emancipation, whereby the disenfranchised masses represented in a life-justifying performance as the Boy can only find justice through subversion and revolution. Indeed, the conclusion of this epic drama can been seen as a confirmation of the inherent violence in a Hegelian dialectic of class conflict; the chilling figure of the Gardener (a possible reference to ecclesiastical authority?) viciously suppresses the rights of the Boy to self-expression. The perennial nature of this conflict is undermined when both parties rush out of the "garden"; no resolution is possible except mutual annihilation.

Or, it could be a piece of light-hearted fun, as Lumiere recognised that the novelty of seeing pictures of factory workers and trains moving was wearing thin, and needed to be backed up with plot. It'll raise a smile for a few seconds, as a memento of an age with less demanding audiences.