Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Hulkeasexo it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Patience Watson One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

Cineanalyst In the earliest motion picture experiments, such as those by Louis Le Prince, William K.L. Dickson and others, the novelty of reproduced motion was of satisfactory interest. From the beginning of commercial exhibition, however, filmmakers staged scenes, events, or stories, to create further interest and entertainment. Although even in the earliest experiments, the filmmaker usually staged events for the camera, the intent wasn't intrinsically for entertainment. Magic lantern slides and other precursors to motion pictures already included elaborate stories in their programs, and Emil Reynaud projected animation stories to audiences near the end of the 19th Century. To point to a precise film as the beginning of stories in the art form is a futile task.Even slightly before this film, "The Sprayer Sprayed", the Edison Company's "Blacksmith Scene", for example, was a fictional, staged recreation. "The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots" or "Chinese Laundry Scene" weren't actualities or mere examples of reproduced motion, either. The latter was even comedic. Nonetheless, "The Sprayer Sprayed" does standout for its explicit fictional staging for the purpose of amusing spectators. In a limited sense, the film consists of a story. It was also based on a newspaper cartoon.It's a simple, one shot scene with a fixed camera position, where the prank is a boy stepping on a hose while the gardener is watering his garden. The gardener looks into the hose to see what's amiss, whereupon the boy releases the pressure of his foot from the hose and thus spraying the gardener in the face. The gardener chases after the boy--away from the camera--and brings the boy back to the forefront of the frame to lightly punish him. This last part, of bringing the boy back to the forefront of the camera's view, primitively and probably unintentionally emphasizes the staging of the scene. Camera movement hadn't been invented yet, but soon would be with these new lightweight cameras. The Lumière cameraman Alexander Promio introduced camera movement with "Panorama du Grand Canal vu d'un bateau" (1896).Furthermore, an elaborate story of multiple shots and scenes was technically impossible at the time, as the Latham Loop had just been invented and had not yet become a standard part of cameras and projectors. Without it, too much film created tension that threatened to break the film. Editing was also a risky affair because of this. Soon, Robert W. Paul, George Albert Smith, James Williamson and others would cement the multi-shot story film. The first multiple shot films may have originated in the actuality films, such as "Return of Lifeboat" (1897), though.Even with technological and narrative advancements in film-making, the non-narrative films, such as the actualitiés, continued to coexist with narrative films and were dominant for longer than the aforementioned handicaps demanded. "The Sprayer Sprayed" is an important step, however, in the direction of story films. It includes an outdoor, actuality type setting in addition to its brief and amusing staged plot. Other early Lumiere films, and films by others, were directed and staged, but not explicitly; the direction of the actuality films were disguised in a sense. This film was different. Furthermore, its purpose as entertainment is evident in the famous poster illustrated by Marcellin Auzolle where an audience is marveling and laughing at the scene of the gardener sprayed in the face.The immense popularity of this film is evident in its numerous remakes. The Lumiere Company remade it a couple times, and the Edison Company, Alice Guy, Georges Méliès, G.A. Smith and probably just about every other early filmmaker remade it. Bamforth Films remade it as late as 1900 as "The Biter Bit".(Note: This is the sixth in series of my comments on 10 "firsts" in film history. The other films covered are Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge (1888), Blacksmith Scene (1893), Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895), The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895), La Sortie des usines Lumiere (1895), L' Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat (1896), Panorama du Grand Canal vu d'un bateau (1896), Return of Lifeboat (1897) and Panorama of Eiffel Tower (1900).)

chriscollins405 This short film was thought to be the first film comedy. The production was shot at Jardin des Lumière à Lyon Monplasir, and there are believed to be two versions of this film, one shot in 1895 and one in 1896.The short narrative synopsis is of a boy stepping on a gardeners hose to stop the water flow, the gardener looks down the end of the hose to see if there is a blockage, at this point the boy steps off the hose, and the water flow is released, knocking the gardeners hat off. The gardener then spanks the boy.This shot was filmed by Lumiere in 1895, at this point, movement of the camera had not been experimented with, so the actors in the film had to stay within the boundary of the cameras view. At one point in the film, the boy and the gardener go slightly off shot, and have to walk to the right to get back to the centre of vision. Now days, the actors never walk off shot accidentally, as movement of the camera is possible.

Alice Liddel The first fully staged fiction and comedy film is of a piece with the Lumieres previous work, full of energy contained. In 'Sortie d'Usine', a calm street scene was broken by exiting workers; in 'Repas de Bebe', a model family unit was decentred by a dribbling boy; in 'Demolition d'un mur', the hierarchical order of boss and workers is disrupted by a crashing wall. In this case a rural idyll, a man, a worker at one with nature, with his work, is interrupted by an idle interloper; work and purpose vs. play and sensation; documentary vs fiction, fantasy, escapism? David Thomson claims that the film works because the audience is made complicit with the boy's antics. This is true, and the boy is subversive - he derails the work, the harmony between man and nature, man and work. He inflicts physical harm without being proximate to his victim, like a gangster shooting from a distance. He forces the man to abandon his fixed spot to apprehend him.But he IS punished,and he is slapped for his deed, brought, as critics have noted, nearer the screen so the audience can see, as if the man is punishing us for enjoying the prank. Disruption will not be tolerated - the boy is cast out of the frame; harmony is restored.All the while, as in 'Repas', nature looks on, indifferent immemorial, ignorant of the reactionary and the revolutionary alike. The Lumieres are very prescient in this film, understanding that they will be unable to hold onto the dutiful, purposeful hose for much longer; that the irresponsible pranksters are waiting to take over, to spray refreshing water over their audience's faces, an audience rather averse to the Lumieres' patronising ideals of moral elevation and 'science'.

praemius L'Arroseur Arrosé is a cry from the depths of the proletariat for social emancipation, whereby the disenfranchised masses represented in a life-justifying performance as the Boy can only find justice through subversion and revolution. Indeed, the conclusion of this epic drama can been seen as a confirmation of the inherent violence in a Hegelian dialectic of class conflict; the chilling figure of the Gardener (a possible reference to ecclesiastical authority?) viciously suppresses the rights of the Boy to self-expression. The perennial nature of this conflict is undermined when both parties rush out of the "garden"; no resolution is possible except mutual annihilation.Or, it could be a piece of light-hearted fun, as Lumiere recognised that the novelty of seeing pictures of factory workers and trains moving was wearing thin, and needed to be backed up with plot. It'll raise a smile for a few seconds, as a memento of an age with less demanding audiences.