Les forgerons

Les Forgerons (1895)

This film is also known as BLACKSMITH SCENE and it clocks in at just under a minute. In that time we see a blacksmith doing his job and hammering out a piece of steel before placing it into some water. If you're expecting some sort of story then you're obviously not familiar with the movies from this era. There weren't any stories yet and instead filmmakers were basically just setting up their cameras to catch regular jobs and acts. This film here is okay for what it is as there's certainly nothing here that changed film history but at the same time it was entertaining just seeing someone work back in the day. I do wonder what this man would think about someone watching this footage a hundred and twenty-three years after it was shot?

After witnessing Edison's Kinetoscope peepshow viewer, Charles Antoine Lumière was so impressed that he encouraged his sons to invent a system for projecting films. This Lumière film, "Les Forgerons", makes it apparent that one of the films that the Lumières viewed from Edison was "Blacksmith Scene" (1893). "Blacksmith Scene" was the first motion picture shown to the public (on 9 May 1893); it was part of the first program at the first Kinetoscope parlor; and it remained a widely distributed film as the medium continued in popularity. "Les Forgerons" is a remake of "Blacksmith Scene": both films are staged scenes of blacksmiths at work, with them interrupting their work briefly to pass around a bottle of beer. "Les Forgerons" was one of the original ten films the Lumière brothers screened to the public on 28 December 1895. This has to be the most appropriately timed remake in motion picture history.

Factually, the Lumière brothers weren't the first to introduce cinema (not even commercially), nor was "Les Forgerons" the first remake, as the Edison Company had already remade Annabelle's dance films a few times due to the prints wearing out. Nevertheless, "Les Forgerons" remains an interesting first in film history. Unlike the Annabelle dance films, which were essentially duplicates, this remake was by different filmmakers who introduced some subtle variations upon the original. Additionally, the Lumière brothers' screenings remain significant for their system's superiority to previous inventions and its immense success.

The Edison film is rather awkwardly filmed, with one of the filmmakers standing within camera's view at its beginning before moving aside. Moreover, the Black Maria studio was a confining and undecorated shack. The Lumière remake has a somewhat more intimate framing and a more polished mise-en-scène. One surviving print of "Les Forgerons" is even hand colored, which does add to the picture's vivacity. It seems that the Lumière Company added color to several films in an attempt to lend realism. In addition to this film, hand-colored prints for "Partie de cartes" (1895), "Mort de Marat" (1897) and "Exécution de Jeanne d'Arc" (1898) have survived. In imitation of the Annabelle dance films, they also hand colored their version of "Danse serpentine" (1897).

The beer break, however, has been cut out of the surviving colorized print of "Les Forgerons". This subtracts from, as Charles Musser has argued for "Blacksmith Scene", the nostalgia of the scenario. These films recall a bygone era of blacksmithing practices and of when drinking while working was commonplace--when work and leisure mixed more commonly.

Remaking films became a common practice in the early days of film-making and was an issue of a few lawsuits. If a company could get away with it, they wouldn't even bother imitating another's film and would just steal a print instead. Remakes have been a common practice in the film industry since.

This film, along with nine other films, was shown at a Paris, mini-film festival, by pioneering filmmakers, the Lumiere brothers, in December of 1895. The sixth movie ever shown to a paying audience, probably had more questions than answers, but it stimulated conversation in the audience, especially in 1895. What are these guys doing? What are they making? The steam rising, as the man dunks the metal into the barrel of water, gives some temperature to the scene, thus making it more tangible. I was wondering how people in 1895 were feeling when they saw the steam rise from the barrels of water. Did they subconsciously feel the heat, while sitting in the theater. This is probably the first time they ever saw images up on a screen or wall. Who knows what they thought. They may have even thought of it, as being a parlor trick. That is the tangibility this film emits. If you put yourself into a 1895 frame of mind, you might feel the steam too.

8.7 (B+ MyGrade) = 8 IMDB.

Two blacksmiths work while the vapors rise in the air. Later, an another man offers a drink as deserved prize after the work. With the Lumière' s realism it is possible outline the professions and tools of the past.