L'Arroseur arrosé

The Sprinkler Sprinkled (1895)

*** (out of 4)

This early film from Louis Lumiere is considered by many to be the first actual comedy ever made. At just 40 seconds we see a gardner watering some plants when another man steps on the hose. For the laugh, the gardner looks straight into the hose to see what's wrong and..... Well, you know what happens. I must admit that this "comedy" actually does work and I'm going to guess it happened by accident by the timing of the two men is actually quite good and especially the gardner. His reaction to being sprayed with water was extremely funny and his chace is also quite funny. Again, there's certainly nothing ground-breaking here other than the fact that it was the first comedy and that it actually works.

On December 28, 1895, thirty-three people were witnesses of history being written as the very first audience of the Lumières' Cinématographe, an innovative device that was able to project motion pictures on a screen. Motion pictures were not new for the people gathered on at Paris's Salon Indien Du Grand Café that day, as Edison's Kinetoscope (the "Peep Show") was a popular form of entertainment; however, nobody in the room was prepared to see the images projected on the screen to move as unlike the Kinetoscope, the Cinématographe allowed the movies to be seen by an audience. 10 short films shot by August and Louis Lumière were shown that historic day, most of them depicting everyday scenes like people walking out of the Lumière factory or playing cards, but one among those 10 short films was different: "L' Arroseur Arrosé", the first comedy film.

"L' Arroseur Arrosé", literally ("The Sprinkler Sprinkled"), is basically about a practical joke committed by a mischievous boy (Benoît Duval) to annoy a Gardener (François Clerc) who is working with his plants in Lyons. The movie begins with the Gardener watering his vegetables when the boy steps on the hose he is using to water the plants. The Gardener is surprised as the water stops flowing so he inspects the nozzle to find out what's happening. As he checks it, the boy releases the hose and the water continues flowing, spraying the gardener as it comes out of the hose with strength. Surprised by this, the Gardener quickly realizes that he's been tricked, but the boy responsible escapes running away in order to avoid being caught. The Gardener decides to chase the boy in order to punish him for his actions.

When compared to the other 9 movies shown on that first screening, "L' Arroseur Arrosé" always stand out as it was remarkably different from any of the other movies in the sense that it wasn't an "actuality film", but the very first staged fictional comedy shot on film. The Lumière brothers had a preference for documentaries (actuality films) as they weren't really interested in other uses for their invention besides the scientific documentation of real life events; so it is because of this reason that the creation of "L' Arroseur Arrosé" is truly a real oddity among Lumières' movies. Anyways, not only is this movie special for those reasons, it is also one of the best looking of the 10 (and one that has survived almost intact to this date), with the brothers showing a great early use of cinematography to frame the film.

In its barely 50 seconds of duration, "L' Arroseur Arrosé", opened the way to slapstick and pantomime in film, as the movie showed that it was possible to use the new invention to make pure entertainment, and that there was an extremely high unused potential in the Cinématographe. It wouldn't be too far of a stretch to claim that comedy films were born in this movie. While the reasons behind the inclusion of this film among 9 documentaries is odd, it was quite probably that this was the film that inspired a notable member of that first audience to make fictional movies aimed to entertain: Georges Méliès, who would later become a famous filmmaker on his own (and would direct a remake of this very film too). 9/10

This short film was thought to be the first film comedy. The production was shot at Jardin des Lumière à Lyon Monplasir, and there are believed to be two versions of this film, one shot in 1895 and one in 1896.

The short narrative synopsis is of a boy stepping on a gardeners hose to stop the water flow, the gardener looks down the end of the hose to see if there is a blockage, at this point the boy steps off the hose, and the water flow is released, knocking the gardeners hat off. The gardener then spanks the boy.

This shot was filmed by Lumiere in 1895, at this point, movement of the camera had not been experimented with, so the actors in the film had to stay within the boundary of the cameras view. At one point in the film, the boy and the gardener go slightly off shot, and have to walk to the right to get back to the centre of vision. Now days, the actors never walk off shot accidentally, as movement of the camera is possible.

L'arroseur arrosé (1897)

If you go through the films that were made during the 1890s you'll notice that there was a style of comedy that several American comedies did as well as this one from France. Basically the joke is that someone will have a water hose and will be watering something. Someone else will step on the line causing the man to wonder what's going on. He then places the hose to his face, the other man releases his foot and bam. Someone is wet. This here has to be the fourth and fifth film that I've seen the same gag play out. Is it funny? Not really but at the same time it is interesting seeing so many different companies trying to the joke.

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.