Roundhay Garden Scene (1888)

This should be in the film hall of fame for the technical brilliance it bought to the genre. Amazing watch from start to end.

Louis Aimé Le Prince introduces us the very first film in history (at least according to the books). What we see are just some people jogging around in a garden for a couple of seconds...And a couple of seconds were enough to make history. To inspire a young and humble future filmmaker, whose work inspired another, and another, and so on. To create a new form of art.More than the recorded pictures, this work must be appreciated by its importance for the new art that was born, and more than 125 years later became one of the most powerful vehicles to transmit messages, ideas and feelings.A landmark!

First I must say that is not oldest movie ever. Oldest movie ever is 'Man walking around the corner', directed and recorded by the same person - Louise Le Prince. Opposed to 'Man walking around the corner' movie, this movie has all frames in good condition, and you can see what is happening in the movie. I do not agree with the fact that is oldest movie ever, but I can agree that is first movie which features more than one person, and that is first movie ever which shows - woman !Louise Le Prince would be very happy if he can see what he developed.

If you are interested in the scarce filmography of Louis Le Prince it can only be for one reason. For you movies are a passion that goes beyond simple entertainment and you found out this man was the creator of moving images. Indeed, Louis Le Prince came a couple of years ahead of more famous pioneers like the Loumiere brothers and Thomas Edison so he has all the right to be considered the inventor of the seventh art. Regrettably the history of Le Prince is a sad one and worthy of a script that no one has yet made a movie: when the inventor was about to travel to the United States to patent his creation he mysteriously vanished in a french train and he was never seen again; his luggage with the complete versions of all his movies also went missing. That way we will never now all he filmed since the content of the suitcase was only known to him. Luckily it was possible to recover a few film fragments that were left inside some cameras at his studio, and those remains are the modest variety of his filmography we can appreciate today. Roundhay Garden Scene is the better known of the four films and the one that is considered by many the first movie in history: although there is no certainty about this since we don't know the order in which he filmed this scenes or if there was something older with the pictures that got lost. The two seconds of film shows us two couples of man and woman in a garden: the two younger persons at at the front and the two older are seen at the back, the camera captured them while, holding each other arm they walk around in circles, the scene finishes before they can even finish their first spin. Naturally you can't appreciate this picture based on its script, cinematography or any other sign of quality we search in modern movies; Roundhay Garden Scene is essentially a historical document, but it deserves all our admiration since this invention made possible everything that came afterward. A film is usually praised when it manages to do something new, well this one made it, never before this time had cinema been seen anywhere, and for that reason I have no doubt it deserves a rating of 10. Also this scene has something that is absent from the rest of Le Prince films and that gives it an extra meaning; the four persons on screen are relatives of the director and the garden was located at his home, obviously this people weren't just walking in circles for fun when they were captured for posterity, they were instructed by Le Prince to move like that in order to prove his invention, this means that the four persons were acting for the camera, an event that was not repeated for a few years since most of the following pictures, like the ones the Loumiere brothers created, were scenes documented from everyday life just as they happened. That means this is not only the first movie but the first acting for the screen and adding the opportunity to get a real view to XIX Century life then we have the more valuable two seconds of moving images in the whole world. If you love cinematography then don't miss the chance to watch this picture and witness how it all begun.