Essential Films

Eadweard Muybridge's "Skeleton of Horse" (1881) is a striking reminder of the painstaking efforts of scientists working in motion photography in the nineteenth century. This first attempt at stop-motion animation is remarkable for its sharpnes...
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Eadweard Muybridge stripped to his bare skin in "Athlete Swinging a Pick" (1881) in order to show the full force achievable through human movement. This pose echoes the art of classical Greece, where the naked human body is celebrated for its ...
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"The Slide" (1878) can be identified as the first example of applying linear perspective in the history of moving images. Émile Reynaud depicted three boys taking turns on an ice slide before finally jumping over a vault. The setting provides ...
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Contemporary reviewers credited many of Émile Reynaud’s works as suitable for use as educational material in teaching younger audiences about many aspects of everyday life. "The Water-mill" (1878) fits these criteria particularly well by depic...
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Before film existed, Émile Reynaud’s "The Steeple-Chase" proved animation could capture history itself. By depicting “actual sporting events in motion,” it showed how moving images became “a source of entertainment.”
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In the 1870s, European proto-cinema was dominated by French pioneers. Janssen’s scientific studies and Reynaud’s moving drawings were the defining outputs of the decade. Discover the best of their works in the Essential Films canon.
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To conclude his exhibition of the Praxinoscope at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1878, Émile Reynaud selected a particularly engaging subject. "The Clowns" (1878) presents three circus performers executing somersaults around a horse. The sc...
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A young lady throws corn to chickens that eagerly feast upon it. This simple premise gives rise to one of the more complex scenes animated by Émile Reynaud. "Feeding the Chickens" (1878) combines the regular motion of the human figure with the...
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The Herculean figure at the centre of "The Strong Man" (1878) is shown holding a heavy weight in his left hand while juggling another with his right. The animation forms part of Émile Reynaud’s third series of strips for the Praxinoscope, cont...
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Émile Reynaud’s “The Lady Rider” (1878) is a precursor to his more polished work, “The Steeple-Chase” (1878). A lady in a riding habit gallops on horseback in and out of the frame within a brief loop. The specificity of the solitary rider draw...
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“The Little Waltzers” (1878) is the most crowded of the animation strips in Émile Reynaud’s early oeuvre. It features two young couples performing the waltz, moving in a circle at a three-step pace. The routine requires a specific rhythm, whic...
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French scientists and artists were at the forefront of the race to reproduce motion. Discover the best proto-cinematic works of the 1870s from France in the Essential Films canon.
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Using only two protagonists, one dressed in red and the other in blue, in “The Steeple-Chase” (1878), Émile Reynaud exploited optical illusion to create a veritable horse race. The rapid alternation of the jockeys evades the capacity of visual...
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Performance-wise, “The Equilibrist” (1878) leaves a desire for more impressive tricks. Émile Reynaud’s animated drawing for the Praxinoscope is predominantly an exercise in depicting movement, focusing attention primarily on the centre of the ...
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In “The Pit-sawyers” (1878), Émile Reynaud set the scene to demonstrate the act of sawing within a saw pit. The motion is continuous; however, it fails to generate a convincing effect. The wooden planks do not change shape, rendering the sawin...
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Of all circus acts, juggling seems best suited to loop animation. In “The Juggler” (1878), Émile Reynaud enhanced the routine by adding to the juggled knives a multicoloured rotating plate, supported on a pole balanced on the performer’s face....
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Among Émile Reynaud’s first series of animated strips, "The Roaster" (1878) appears as one of the most accomplished works of the cycle. The human movements are mainly limited to the cook bending and pouring the roasting mixture over the rotati...
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“The rosette is magic… a star folding onto itself.”
In 1878, Émile Reynaud transformed animation into abstraction with "The Magic Rosette", where science, colour, and divine geometry collide.
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1878 was a landmark year in the history of cinema. Muybridge in the USA and Reynaud in France both laid the foundations of the art of moving pictures. Discover the best works from this pivotal year in the Essential Films canon!
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Water ripples calmly around a figure partly submerged in water, performing the breaststroke. In “The Lady Swimmer” (1878), Émile Reynaud continued his experiments with colour layering to fascinate the viewer with the beauty of animation. The r...
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Sports have long provided a visual spectacle, so it is unsurprising that early motion picture experiments found them an intriguing subject matter. Given the constraints of his invention, Émile Reynaud tended to opt for minimalist reproductions...
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Games come in and out of fashion. We learn of those that have perished through archaeological remains, whether written or painted. "The Game of Graces" (1878) is a rare animation contemporary with the heyday of the eponymous game, both now rel...
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Émile Reynaud managed to reproduce unfiltered joy in his strip “The Swing” (1878). The two children are not merely subjects in an animated experiment; they come alive with each movement of the rudimentary apparatus. Their faces burst with laug...
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"The Soap-bubbles" (1878) is a study in blue. Émile Reynaud used varying shades of the same colour to differentiate between the dress of the young woman, the azure skyline and the transparent soap bubbles. The resulting visual harmony produces...
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Discover the best films by exploring the Essential Films Canon. Follow us and stay updated as we progress through the history of cinema.
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With "The Lady Charmer" (1878), Émile Reynaud pre-empted Étienne-Jules Marey’s more celebrated chronophotographic gun studies of the 1880s, later collected in Marey’s anthology "The Flight of Birds" (1890). Avian flight proved capable of deliv...
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A man is smoking his pipe whilst his dog seeks his attention. In “The Smoker” (1878), the movement is limited to the floating smoke and the animal’s barking and wagging its tail. This is another of Émile Reynaud’s animations in which ordinary ...
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Émile Reynaud’s Praxinoscope strips are not only experiments in animation but also historical artefacts that showcase forms of popular entertainment from one and a half centuries ago. “The Trapeze” (1878) may appear antiquated in its subject m...
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An artist working at a high rate will inevitably produce works that do not match their full potential. “The Baby’s Breakfast” (1878) is one such case within Émile Reynaud’s oeuvre. The baby’s depiction mildly echoes the painting style of the B...
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In “The Butterflies” (1878), Émile Reynaud breathed vivacity into a scene that his contemporaries would have chosen to give a still-life treatment. The insects play a colourful dance around a vibrating flower, thereby celebrating the wonder of...
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