Barque sortant du port

Back in 1895, most films being released were mere experiments, recordings of daily life, one minute documentaries serving mainly as a device used to kickstart cinematic history. This particular film is among the more fascinating works of this era mainly due to its beautiful ocean imagery. It is made up of only one take that only clocks in at about fifty seconds, and yet it s more complicated than many of the other Lumiere films. There are many moving parts (the men, their boat, the wavy sea), the camera stays steady, but the visuals do not. The waves rock fearlessly, and the film ends before your conscious that it has begun. This is an interesting visual experiment crafted during the dawn of film, and should be judged as such. In comparison to many other Lumiere films, this is certainly a treat for the eyes and is a treasure of early cinema.

This Lumiere film is not one of their very well known efforts, but it's included on the "Movies Begin" set. The commentator on the soundtrack of the set explains that when the Lumiere's shot their first subjects they used 50-ft lengths, thus the films would "end" very suddenly. This explains why we actually never see the boat disappear from the screen. Instead we are left in suspense when a large wave tosses it.

This is fairly bland to watch but as some other reviewers have pointed out the photography is great and the movement of the waves is effective looking. If you saw this on a large movie screen you very well might feel as though you are right there watching. It helps also that the footage survives wonderfully and the picture is extremely sharp. If you're new to the Bros then this is a nice place to start because of the photography. It's pretty bland all-in-all but looks great anyway.

This is a pleasing little feature from the earliest years of cinema, with a nicely planned camera field that catches action both in and out of the water. The motion of the waves, and to a lesser extent the strokes of the oarsmen, result in action that is lyrical, almost rhythmic.

As with so many of the pioneering Lumière features, it displays a very nice choice of material, whether by careful design, by a good intuitive feel. or by a combination of both. The motion of the boat on the water is balanced very nicely by the movements of the small group of women and children at the water's edge. As, again, with a good number of these very early features, it bears watching a couple of times. The boat is what grabs all of the attention at first, but the other half of the scene is also worth noticing.

The artistic-looking setting would have made a worthwhile subject for one of the great French Impressionist painters of the era. It is also the kind of nicely photographed little scene that would not have seemed out of place if it were used as footage in the middle of a feature made in a much later era, since it holds up very well. The very brief footage also leaves you with a little curiosity, since it has shown you a small, simple, but far from dull piece of the lives of these persons. It accomplishes its aim, and is pleasing to watch.

Barque sortant du port (1895)

This Lumiere Brothers film is quite interesting o watch today thanks in large part to some terrific images and some fine camera-work. Three men are in a rowboat heading out into some violent and crashing waves while a group of women watch on a pier. Yeah, there's obviously nothing ground-breaking here but I must say that I was highly impressed with the camera-work. I'm not sure where the camera was placed but it really captured some beautiful images and especially the waves and the boat being thrown around. Another major plus is that the camera stays still and gives us a perfect look at the events.

I watched this film on a DVD that was rammed with short films from the period. I didn't watch all of them as the main problem with these type of things that their value is more in their historical novelty value rather than entertainment. So to watch them you do need to be put in the correct context so that you can keep this in mind and not watch it with modern eyes. With the Primitives & Pioneers DVD collection though you get nothing to help you out, literally the films are played one after the other (the main menu option is "play all") for several hours. With this it is hard to understand their relevance and as an educational tool it falls down as it leaves the viewer to fend for themselves, which I'm sure is fine for some viewers but certainly not the majority. What it means is that the DVD saves you searching the web for the films individually by putting them all in one place – but that's about it.

At once this film is interesting but yet frustrating in seeing things being worked on that are now commonplace. The interesting aspect is the framing of the shot, which is reminiscent of a painting in the way it sets the foreground (the jetty) and a background (the sloping hill on the horizon). However as a film it has the boat moving through one towards the other, which is an interesting development that provides plenty to look at. The women on the pier are worth watching as is the boat, so the viewer is held by both.

However it was here that the film annoyed me by just "ending". I had expected the planned film to see the boat move out of shot around the jetty, which would be a logical end, leaving the viewer wit only the static fore and back grounds to contemplate. It did annoy that the film just stopped instead of ending. That said though, it is yet again interesting to watch as part of Lumière's development.