An Ozu a Day...: Top Ten Films of 1880-1894

1 | Sallie Gardner at a Gallop | Eadweard Muybridge | 1880 | ★★★★

Using 24 cameras spaced 27 inches apart, each triggered by a discrete trip wire, Muybridge’s pre-cinema experiment with moving photography – commissioned by horse-fancying politician Leland Stanford to determine equine running patterns – captures, with almost hypnotic beauty, a few seconds flight of a race horse and its jockey. The result – strangely delightful – was screened at the California School of Fine Arts in 1880, and was, perhaps, the first exhibition of its kind.

2 | The Pickaninnies | W.K-L. Dickson | 1894 | ★★★½

Shot for The Edison Manufacturing Company by W.K-L. Dickson and William Heise, this delightful twenty-odd second short film shows three young men (Lucy Daly's Pickaninnies) joyfully – and with great vigour and verve – dance, clap, and tumble about the screen, whilst one of their number plays the mouthorgan.

3 | Fire Rescue Scene | W.K-L. Dickson | 1894 | ★★★½

Against a smoke-filled backdrop, a fire-fighter stands on the middle rungs of a ladder and helps two small children to escape from an unseen burning building. Beautifully crafted, the scenario proves believable and dynamic.

4 | Blacksmith Scene | W.K-L. Dickson | 1893 | ★★★½

Three blacksmiths take it in turn to hammer at a hot iron, pausing halfway through to share a bottle of beer. The sight of these light figures moving rhythmically against the dark background proves hypnotic.

5 | Caicedo (with Pole) | W.K-L. Dickson | 1894 | ★★★½

To strangely mesmerising effect, the Venezuelan circus performer Juan Caicedo, holding a pole for stability, acrobatically somersaults and maintains balance whilst bouncing up and down on his backside on a slack wire.

6 | Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge | Louis Le Prince | 1888 | ★★★½

From an elevated vantage point, with the action strikingly dissecting the frame from bottom left corner to top right, Louis Le Prince’s ground-breaking film beautifully captures the progress of traffic and pedestrians alike crossing the eponymous bridge in October 1888.

7 | Falling Cat | Étienne-Jules Marey | 1890 | ★★★½

Using highly unusual portrait framing, Marey’s unique film captures the progress of a striking white cat as it plummets (against a stark black background) to the padded floor below.

8 | Dickson Greeting | W.K-L. Dickson | 1891 | ★★★½

Spotlighted against a stark black background, a moustachioed, handsomely attired man (Dickson, himself) passes a striking white hat from one hand to the other.

9 | Pauvre Pierrot | Émile Reynaud | 1892 | ★★★

Restored by Julien Pappé in 1993 with a score by Gaston Paulin, Émile Reynaud’s fascinating animated short film sees the eponymous poor soul attempting to serenade his dearest love, Columbine, only to be scared away by another suitor, the nefarious Harlequin. The film originally debuted in 1892 at Le Musée Grévin, Paris, using the director’s patented Théâtre Optique system, which projected its hand-painted images onto a screen using a series of mirrors.

10 | Dickson Experimental Sound Film | W.K-L. Dickson | 1894 | ★★★

Against a stark black background, a violinist (Dickson, himself) plays music into a large recording cylinder, whilst two other men dance with each other nearby, in this the first known example a film to use synchronised sound (though it was most likely never exhibited as such – at least not until its 1998 restoration).

Other films seen: