Bicycliste

Bicycliste (1896)

This actuality film from the Lumiere Brothers features the camera on a street where we see a man on a bicycle who begins doing tricks on it. In all reality, there aren't any special "tricks" that he's doing so it's more like he's just riding it around. As with all of these actuality movies, there's certainly no plot here but what makes this one and so many others worth watching is that it gives you an actual look back to 1896. We get to see the bicycle from this era, the style of the clothing from this era and even seeing the type of street back then in the middle of this town was interesting. If you enjoy these types of movies then this one here is certainly worth watching.

I'm not sure if the film I just watched was really made in 1896 due to its incredible preservation, I mean, one distracted viewer could think that this was shot in the 1940's or even 1960's, the quality is very impressive. Not just that but there's something there that makes of "Bicycliste" a recent film that wasn't released in the 19th Century.

Here, Lumière brothers capture a man performing some acts with his bicycle, like climbing upon it, walking backwards, sometimes riding it in a very clumsy way observed by a small crowd.

Nowadays, his tricks with the bike might not be so appealing to anyone but the way it is filmed and just observe a distant period of time makes this short film very interesting, so nice to see. And considering that most film works of that period usually aren't so well preserved, so grainy and all, this was quite different, the filmmakers by the time seem to have dominated the new available film techniques in order to make this film.

It's there on YouTube, just search for it and watch it. But if you have proof that this isn't the film, that the original is missing or was totally lost let me know or show me the real thing. Until then, the film I watched was remarkably well made. 10/10