Bassin des Tuileries

This is a familiar scene of a metropolitan childhood. At a local pond or fountain, youngsters are playing with toy boats in the water while people walk back and forth. There are contemporary movies of boys in Central Park and almost certainly elsewhere and it's certainly a familiar image in Hollywood movies through the 1930s.

It's a standard composition, well chosen, and with little interesting beyond the obvious in this Lumiere picture. It's an image of everyday life. Of course, a good deal of thought went into this little picture: where to put the camera, which subjects to focus on, time of day for lighting and for foot traffic. However, given some of the obvious and important advances offered by the Lumieres in their movies, this is just standard.

Bassin des Tuileries (1896)

This actuality film from the Lumiere Brothers is fairly entertaining as it gives you a chance to see a form of entertainment that kids at the time were doing. We see a group of children standing by a body of water where they are playing with their toy boats. A couple of the boys are carrying large sticks to make sure that the boats don't get too far out in the water. Obviously there's nothing ground-breaking here but if you're a fan of these movies then I'm sure you'll get a kick out of this one. It gives you a clear view of the water, the boats, the children and in the background there's a large fountain as well. Fans of this type of film will have a lot to look at and that makes it worth watching.