Carmaux, défournage du coke

In the twenty-first century, 'coke' has a number of meanings and most have been the subject of films. I had to go to Webster's Dictionary to find out that the coke filmed in this movie is the product of coal that is "heated in ovens to remove gasses thus transforming it into coke which burns with intense heat and little smoke and is used as an industrial fuel". Carmeiux is close to Lyon, so Lumiere did not have to go far to document this process.

'Carmaux, Défournage du Coke' is another early single shot created by Lumière. It shows, as we learn from the title of course, a large block of coke drawn out of a mine or something like that. One worker seems to cool the hot coke with some water from a hose while others tear the block to spread the separated pieces.

Like all these early little films it is interesting to watch. They are too short to become boring and realizing that you are watching an event that happened over hundred years ago makes it interesting anyway. With this one it is also fun to spot other little things that happen on-screen.

This short 'documentary' can be found on the Landmarks of Early Film DVD. I was surprised at the title. And even more surprised when I saw this short movie. That stuff looked like... well, it couldn't be. I found out that 'coke' in France actually meant something else, something to do with fuel or something, but anyway, I was important. The camera, high up, films the process of drawing out a large white block from a cave or mine of some sort. Then they hose it down and some chunks fall off. I just loved these little shorts. Sure, years later they arent as revolutionary as they were then. But even the boring ones arent boring because they only last a few seconds. And they're so fascinating to watch, the people around them, the whole strange process. It makes you start thinking about how lucky these people were to be captured on film like that. They are long dead, but as long as this film exists, they will never die. Nor will that strange white.. fuel.. coke... stuff.

My grade: 7/10

Carmaux: Drawing Out the Coke (1896)

The Lumiere Brothers are behind this actuality film that captures a day on the job as some workers are pushing coke out of a smelter and into the yard where water is poured on it. I've always enjoyed watching films from this era because it gives you a view of what life (and in this case, work) were like back in the day. We get to see how things were done, what people were wearing and so forth. If you want an acurate look at this job in 1896 then here you go. There's nothing ground-breaking here but it's still fascinating to watch today.

This approximately 35-second long Lumiere Brothers short (Lumiere No. 122) shows a handful of workers attending to a block of coke (a processed form of bituminous coal designed to produce fewer sulfur and other fumes when burned, making it ideal for uses such as stoves and furnaces) as it emerges from an oven at the open coal mine in Carmaux, France, a town near the Tarn River in the south of the country.

While this Lumiere Brothers actuality surely has less staging than most of their other documentary shorts, it is also far less interesting aesthetically. The primary attraction here is historical. We get to witness a historical coal mining process, which appears surprisingly "messy", first-hand, at an important, historical French mine. It's interesting to note that carts full of coal are being walked across the top of the oven while it's surely still hot (the coke is just emerging and is steaming). Bituminous coal must be burned at a very high temperature to produce coke.

One aspect that captivated me for its mystery was just how the coke is moved through the furnace door to the waiting workers. Also note how even though the workers have long, forked "poles" to help break up the block of coke, they approach it very cautiously and try to quickly move away. There must have been a chance that pieces from the crumbling block would ricochet off the ground back towards the workers; maybe there was also a tendency for some "shattering" from the drastic, sudden change in temperature. No one ever said that coal mining was easy.