The First Film

Maybe there was a day and age that film classes were overly stressing the importance of Edison and the Lumière Brothers. I myself have witnessed classes at the Dutch Film Academy were the legend of the frightened public fleeing the first performance of the Cinématographe were told. But that is a long long time ago.

Already for another long time the work of Louis le Prince is recognised as an important part of the 19th century saga of many inventors trying to analyse an synthesize still images into moving images.There are many of them, mostly indeed unknown by the general public but the experts know them for sure.

In 1996 the book "Who's Who of Victorian Cinema" by Luke McKernan an Stephen Herbert, two eminent film historians, was published and credit was certainly given to Louis le Prince.

In 1997 Christopher Rawlence wrote the book "The Missing Reel" and made a film of the same title about Louis le Prince. You can find the info about that film here on the IMDb. So "The Missing Reel" was there before "The First Film"'

This is in no way meant to put down "The First Film" in any sort of way. I was also astonished when I read and later saw "The Missing Reel". Le Prince deserves very rightly a place in the history of the development of the cinema as a whole. No doubt about that! Any extra attention to him is very welcome, like so many other contructors/inventors. The 19th century is teeming with them.

But let's not forget the impact the Cinématographe-type of the Lumière Brothers had on the general public and the gulf of innovation that followed. I am not going into any discussions here who invented what, e.g. what was the role of the excellent constructor monsieur Carpentier, but I would like to say that the Cinématographe-type is an amazing compact, very portable machine, very well constructed and very wel designed. It seems simplicity itself. Of course I am an extremely lucky guy who has the opportunity to study the Cinématographe-type no. 311 and no. 88* in real life. That's an absolute joy! * With a great and warm thanks to mr. Michael Rogge (Look him up on YouTube!) for allowing me acces to his Cinématographe-type to study and even partly deconstruct it.