Century Film Project

Worldcat link: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/41419014

This disc is a compilation of the very first “movies” made by the inventors of the first effective motion picture camera/projector system. Each is more or less precisely fifty seconds long and consists of a single subject. Some of them you’ve heard of – “A Train Coming into the Station,” for example, or “Workers Leaving the Factory.” Many of them are more obscure. A surprising number were taken in exotic locations around the world, including New York, Berlin, Jerusalem, Constantinople (now Istanbul) and Indochina (now Vietnam). Many of them are documentaries, in the sense of being totally unstaged, but many are at least partly arranged by the cameraman, and there are a number of comedic bits, including a famous one in which a man is sprayed by a hose after a boy stands on it for a few seconds. The DVD includes narration by Bertrand Tavernier, which sometimes adds to the movies, but just as often is distracting. Worth watching at least once with the piano score only.