Century Film Project

This is not really a movie, but a group of photographic projects shot by Eadweard Muybridge and presented sequentially on the “Movies Begin” DVD set put out by Kino. It does give some insight into how nineteenth-century photographers were thinking about using the new art form to capture movement.

What we see is a series of very short sequences showing nude young women in a variety of activities, such as pouring from a jug or walking downstairs. Each still image is held on the screen for a few seconds before the next one appears, which does produce a slight illusion of movement, especially when the photos were shot quickly enough to produce only slight changes in position. Many of the images have a sort of grid in the background, which apparently Muybridge used to measure precise movements.

From what I’ve read of Muybridge (not a lot), it seems that the inclusion only of female nudes in this selection might be a bit of a misrepresentation. He is more known for studying animal movement, most famously running horses and also took nude male images among his human studies. As presented, it looked as if he was really only interested in the naked female body, which would have been common enough among artists at the time, but this does not seem to have been the case. The liner notes don’t make it very clear whether these images were intended to be seen animated on his “Zoopraxiscope,” but that seems likely, therefore these images can almost be considered “motion pictures,” although they are certainly very simple compared to what would come soon afterward.

Director: Eadweard Muybridge

Camera: Eadweard Muybridge

Run Time: 2 min (as presented)

You can see some examples of Muybridge’s work for free: here.