Lumiere! L’aventure commence (2016)

Directed by: Thierry Fremaux | 90 minutes | documentary | Starring: Thierry Frémaux, Auguste Lumiere, Louis Lumiere, Andrée Lumiere, Mrs. Auguste Lumière, Madeleine Koehler, François Clerc, Benoît Duval, Leopoldo Fregoli, Loie Fuller, Madeleine Koehler, Martin Scorsese

Auguste and Louis Lumière were pioneers in the field of film. In 1895, the French brothers designed the cinématographe, a portable device that was a camera, optical printer, and projector in one. Other inventors, including Edison, had also been involved in film at the time, but the devices they had devised were significantly less user-friendly than the cinématographe. In the same year, Auguste, Louis and their father Antoine developed into major film producers. Their first film, ‘La sortie des usines Lumière’, was screened to a small audience on March 22, 1895; later that year they would also be the first to realize a paid public showing of a film. In the ten years that followed, Auguste and Louis made 1,422 films, the vast majority of which have been preserved. The movies are very simple; they consist of only one shot and last about a minute each. The Lumière brothers have gone down in the history books as ‘business’ filmmakers; their realistic style is closer to the documentary than to the feature film. In contrast to, for example, their compatriot Georges Méliès (‘Le voyage dans la lune’, 1902), who was known as more artistic and theatrical. In the documentary ‘Lumière: L’aventure commence’ (2016), Thierry Frémaux, the director of the Cannes Film Festival, argues for some form of rehabilitation. According to him, the films of the Lumières are real cinema, showing how they experimented with techniques and genres.

In ‘Lumière: L’aventure commence’, Frémaux shows 108 short films of Lumière, compiled by him, which he not only arranges according to history, but also according to theme. Starting with a series of films about the Lumière factory, in which the best-known work of the brothers – ‘La sortie des usines Lumière’ – should of course not be missed. The images are accompanied by clear commentary by Frémaux, who interprets everything we see in the image. Right from the start he manages to surprise us: there are several versions of ‘La sortie des usines Lumière’, so that the brothers actually have the first remake to their name. Other themes on which Frémaux hangs his anthology include the city of Lyon (home of both the director himself and the Lumières), work, sports and play, children and inventions in the Belle époque. There is also a section dedicated to humor. Frémaux, who talks everything together in an engaging and sometimes dryly comical way, has made it his goal to show that the Lumières also performed pioneering work on a technical level. He’s clearly out to dispel the myths surrounding the brothers, whose evil tongues claimed they only wanted to make money from their spectacular new device and had little else to do with it. He points out that they were indeed also working on the technical aspect – framing, mise-en-scene, camera angles, et cetera – and immediately shows us how, what and when.

Frémaux is of course a true enthusiast who never misses an opportunity to shout his profound passion for the pioneering work of the Lumières from the rooftops. Fortunately, he also leaves room for humor in his accompanying texts: he calls a shot from a hot air balloon the very first drone shot. And that’s just one example. But he also knows how to explain in great detail what we see, and why the Lumières did certain things the way they did. Even if it seems like he’s just telling you what’s in the picture, we can (eventually) extract more information from it than we think at first glance. Frémaux’s commentary is essential to make the ultra-short films of the Lumières interesting for a contemporary audience – apart from the pure cinephiles, of course – because today’s film viewer is spoiled with explosions of colour, sound and effects. His approach, based on themes, also makes the enormous amount of visual material clear. And every time when it threatens to become too much of a monotonous sequence of films, Frémaux manages to draw attention back with his observations. Film history in bite-sized chunks, accompanied by clear, charming and sometimes funny commentary, ‘Lumière: L’aventure commence’ is well worth a look for anyone who wants to dive into the history of cinema.