Demolition of a Wall

Démolition d'un mur (1896)

This film from the Lumiere Brothers shows a couple men with picks as they try and breakdown a wall. There's also another man, I'm guessing the boss, standing over them and yelling. The wall eventually comes down and very close to hitting the boss as well. This actuality film is another very entertaining one from Lumiere and company. There's obviously nothing ground-breaking here but it's fun to watch simply because it captures a moment in time and gives you an idea of how people worked during this era. If you're a fan of these actuality movies then it's certainly worth watching.

Demolition of a Wall (1896), is also known as, Démolition d'un Mur (1896). This film in some publications or online services have this film listed as 1895. I'm fine having this listed as 1896, because it probably was shot in 1895, but was shown to a paying audience the following winter or spring. It shows the classic film technique of discovery by accident. The film was accidentally rewound, thus giving the scene the backwards appearance, of a wall reassembling itself. It is something we don't even notice today, but was a breakthrough in film effects and editing in 1896. The shot is framed nicely and the captured moment of the wall coming down (in forward speed), along with the dust in the air, creates a essence of tangibility to the film. This is another winner from Lumiere, as they continue to astonish, with each new cinematic discovery, unfolding on the screen.

8.7 (B+ MyGrade) = 8 IMDB.

this can be considered the first great film. Whereas 'Sortie d'Usine' and 'Repas de Bebe' are interesting theoretically, for the ideas they provoke, and nostalgically, as the first films, for unwittingly embodying a period, a century, a sensibility long vanished, 'Demolition d'un mur' stands up on its own, offering genuine excitement.

A group of workers, instructed by a foreman, hack away at a wall until it falls down. This film is brilliant for a number of reasons. First of all, it is possibly the first act of self-reflexivity in the cinema, the foreman barking orders to his workers mirroring the director(s) organising his crew.

But this dream of order is thrillingly destroyed, and hierarchies abolished by a supreme act of violence. As the wall finally collapses, lumbering as Boris Karloff, a whirling storm of dust and chips swallows the scene, and the screen. The foreman, once the centre of power and order, is marginalised, pushed to the edge of the screen or off it entirely. The workers, at first mere servants, hands of the capitalist machine, become demented, and start hacking away at the wall's stump. This, a single, conservative, static set-up, overspills with energy, destruction, violence.

That the Lumieres were a little afraid of what they had done can be seen in the trick they used at screenings of projecting the finished film backwards, so that the wall would be restored, and the old order reasserted. This is a good trick - it is a visual, special-effect; it shows cinema's triumph over mortality and the fixed; it shows that cinema, for all its claims to realism and documentary objectivity, is essentially a fantastic medium.

But it also reassures the audience, negating the impact and implications of the scene, showing that destruction is not final, can be reversed. The revolution can be quelled. Cinema, once again, is used for conservative ends, but this time we can sense the hysteria, the sense of a medium going beyond the intentions of its makers. That irrepressible scene of whirling, all-consuming smoke was unexpected by the directors; it is a brief glimpse of the power of a cinema that is not controlled, a power rarely utilised; indeed rarely desired.

The film also works as a compelling ghost story, the image of that single bare wall, the ruins of a former construction, a building, a room; what happened to it? What is being destroyed to feed our taste for sensation?

I watched this film on a DVD that was rammed with short films from the period. I didn't watch all of them as the main problem with these type of things that their value is more in their historical novelty value rather than entertainment. So to watch them you do need to be put in the correct context so that you can keep this in mind and not watch it with modern eyes. With the Primitives & Pioneers DVD collection though you get nothing to help you out, literally the films are played one after the other (the main menu option is "play all") for several hours. With this it is hard to understand their relevance and as an educational tool it falls down as it leaves the viewer to fend for themselves, which I'm sure is fine for some viewers but certainly not the majority. What it means is that the DVD saves you searching the web for the films individually by putting them all in one place – but that's about it.

Anyway onto this film which is an early action scene wherein, as you may already know if you have some basic French – a wall is demolished. I do like early silent films that have these descriptive titles and it would be useful to have it today – for example Transformers could have been "big CGI things hitting one another for reasons you'll not care about" and so on. So this is what it does and it is interesting to see the absence of EHS here as the wall is essentially just pushed over. Once it has fallen the film plays backwards to show the wall being recreated. It is a simple effect that offers little to the modern viewer but I imagine that it made a bit of a stir when it happened to audiences in the day.

Otherwise though, it is so-so film to watch because walls falling down are not that interesting, if they were we would have summer blockbusters about such events (well I suppose we do but it is all about scale). Historically interesting in regards the developmental work of Lumière but that's about the lot.

One of the classics of the earliest years of cinema, this footage of the "Demolition of a Wall" shows the resourcefulness of the Lumière brothers in several ways. It's also still interesting to watch, especially with the popular trick shot added to it.

The Lumières resourcefully took advantage of some work going on in their own factory, by filming this actual removal of an unused wall on the grounds. As with so many of his features, Louis Lumière shows his knack for sensing material that will be interesting to watch, and that will also demonstrate the capabilities of his invention. Seeing a structure being methodically dismantled can often have an unaccountable but definite hold on one's attention, and indeed it is surprisingly interesting to see how the job is done here.

To add to that, Lumière had the imaginative idea for the projection trick that is usually shown after the straightforward footage. It works quite well, and it is one of many examples of the kind of creativity and resourcefulness that Lumière and other cinema pioneers possessed.