[…] by shooting the fish in a globular bowl, the Lumières effectively use a fisheye lens, which offers distortions. The history of cinema has witnessed a struggle between the objective and subjective camera and the optically distorting lenses like the fisheye lens has been a powerful tool for the subjective camera. Here it is at the start.
Three military men, seen inside a fortification, are firing on an unseen enemy force. The call for reinforcements but ladders appear signalling the enemy is about to overrun this position.
Three people playing cards.
A group of four children, circle dancing.
From Maguire & Baucus catalogue: A most amusing and life-like scene, in which a number of young ladies clad in their night robes, are seen engaged in a midnight frolic.
Late 1800s cigarette advertisement produced by Thomas Edison Manufacturing.
Along the seashore near San Francisco, a boat belonging to the Pacific Coast Life Saving Service can just be seen as it returns to shore. Several men are at the oars. As the boat approaches land, it must make its way through rough waves and surging water.
Johan Carl Joensen, a Danish colonial manager in Greenland, drives his dog sled in Copenhagen’s Fælledparken. (stumfilm.dk)
Porters carry baskets full of fish, while others carry bundles, on their shoulders, in Yokohama harbor.
"A well-known oriental dancer in a dance du ventre to the music of a Turkish band."
Short film by Lumière of people disembarking from a boat at the port of nice.
The Flicker Alley DVD "Georges Méliès: Encore New Discoveries (1896-1911)" misidentified a partial hand-colored print of the 1906 film "Alchimiste Parafaragaramus ou La cornue infernale" (The Mysterious Retort) as this film, "L'hallucination de l'alchimiste" (An Hallucinated Alchemist) from 1897, which continues to be considered a lost film.
A man comes in for a shave in this film of a popular stage act.
"The famous parade ground of Metropolitan fashion. Exquisitely gowned women, club men, actresses, millionaires pass by on their afternoon stroll." - from the Edison Catalog
This legendary fight was filmed on March 17, 1897, using 63mm film that produced an aspect ratio of about 1.75:1. Using three adjacent cameras, Enoch Rector recorded the entire fight, simultaneously creating the world's first known feature film, as the resulting footage lasted over 90 minutes in length. About a quarter of the film survives today.
A robber forces a luckless stroller in the park to remove his hat, coat, waistcoat and trousers.
Short clip of a football match, filmed on the Lumière cinematograph, 33 years before FIFA's 1st World Cup.
