Accordion Player

As i say in title, this is first movie where we can see musical instrument. And that musical instrument is melodeon, a kind a similar instrument to 'harmonika', very popular instrument in my country. And I am so proud that 'harmonika' is first instrument that is recorded in movie.

That is reason to me to give higher vote to this film in compare to other Le Prince movies. I wachted all four and I can divide his movies to 2 simple groups - good movies (Roundhay garden scene and Accordion player), and not so good movies (Traffic crossing Leeds bridge and Man walking around the corner).

Accordion Player (1888)

Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince is a name very few people will recognize but he's created with being the first "director" in the history of cinema thanks to early films like this one as well as TRAFFIC CROSSING LEEDS BRIDGE and ROUNDHAY GARDEN SCENE. All of these films lasts a mere bit of seconds so it's impossible to judge them as you'd judge a movie today but I must admit that no matter how many times I watch them I can't help but get chills.

You've gotta love watching these films even though they are so short and don't contain anything we'd expect from a film today. ACCORDION PLAYER shows just that. It lasts around five seconds and you just see a boy playing the instrument. Again, there's nothing special here but there's no doubt that it's historically very important. Every format has to start somewhere.

I don't know how do these people restore such videos

I know it's only 3 seconds long, but you can feel the rhythm and hear the whimsical tune of the accordion. If you put it on a loop, it looks like an early Shakira hip-shaking routine in the making. Quite special!

In all truth, this is simply one of the very earliest examples of cinema anywhere. Along with the "Roundhay Garden Scene" and the "Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge" -- you've covered the entire year of film making in a minute!

But it was a groundbreaking year, as the first motion pictures officially made their debut, and improvements have been made ever since. To me it is a remarkable feat to see so far into the past... even just a short glimpse.