La petite fille et son chat

A little girl sits at a table, holding a container of what appears to be some sort of food. Suddenly there's a flash of movement: a tortoiseshell cat, with long hair and a very furry tail, has leapt onto the table. The girl and the cat are clearly friends: she cheerfully feeds the cat little bits of whatever's in that container.

I couldn't get a good look at the food: it really looks more like tea leaves than anything else. Some of the Lumiere films are of vital historic significance, serving as visual records of the clothes, buildings and human activities of their time. 'The Little Girl and Her Cat' serves no great purpose except to establish that (shock surprise!) cats of the late 19th century look and behave the same as cats of our own period. And are just as hungry, I'll be bound. Nothing especially interesting here, folks ... although this probably fascinated audiences back in 1899.

Beautifully framed, a little girl wearing a hat with a large brim and a wide sash around her waist feeds her kitty from a high chair out in the garden for 50 seconds. While it is a big kitty, it is very active; at one point jumps down from the high chair, then jumps back up for more, trying to pull the girl's hand back as she takes the treat out a bit too far.

A totally innocent "everyday scene" from the Lumières, and an especially charming one; the spirit of Auguste Renoir is not far from its visual language and the kitty is a good actor. The full film runs 50 seconds, but there is a version circulating on the web that runs only 35 seconds as it is projected a little too quickly.

This Lumiere documentary is again nothing special or ground-breaking from anything else we've seen but it's entertaining because it shows a moment in time. There's a little girl (somebody named Madeleine Koehler, a friend of the Lumiere family, maybe?) who is in her highchair, with a cat perched on the tray, diving for the food she holds in her hand. The film ends just as the cat dives for the girl's hand. I have to say the composition is excellent and the well-placed camera captures the activity decently. There is plenty of action within the frame as well. For what it is it's nothing special, and I'm not sure if this was staged. Maybe so. While not something overly special or interesting, it's a Lumiere actuality just capturing what happened between 'the little girl and her cat' so you can't criticize it for what it was trying to do. Since I'm a big fan of these Lumiere actualities I of course liked it. Even today's audiences might find this to be a cute little film.

La petite fille et son chat (1899)

Louis Lumiere directed this picture which shows a little girl sitting in her chair trying to feed a cat. At first the cat appears willing but he then jumps off only to be thrown back on the girl. These early films sometimes just had directors turning the camera on hoping to catch something special. This is a pretty fun film to watch because the cat eventually gets more interested in what's going on and at one point the girl takes the food away only to have the cat use its paws to try and get it back. There's certainly nothing ground-breaking here but it's an entertaining film that even today's audiences would enjoy.