Underplayed Gems

Poor Pierrot (1892)

Poor Pierrot poster
Original title
Pauvre Pierrot
Directed by
Émile Reynaud
Genre
silent film, comedy film, romance film
Country
France
Runtime
15 min
Rating
6.1 of 10 from 118 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like this

How it feels

A poor clown named Pierrot tries to win the heart of a woman but is interrupted by a rival. The film uses hand-painted images to tell this early love story.

playfullightheartedhistoricsimplewhimsicalvisual-pioneeringshort

What happens

Pauvre Pierrot (or Poor Pete) is a French short animated film directed by Charles-Émile Reynaud in 1891 and released in 1892. It consists of 500 individually painted images and lasts about 15 minutes originally. It is one of the first animated films ever made, and alongside Un bon bock (directed in 1888 of which only few images survive at the Cinémathèque française) and Le Clown et ses chiens was exhibited on 28 October 1892 when Charles-Émile Reynaud opened his Théâtre Optique at the Musée Grévin. It was the first film to demonstrate the Théâtre Optique system developed by Reynaud in 1888. Pauvre Pierrot is also believed to be the first known usage of film perforations. The combined performance of all three films was known as Pantomimes Lumineuses. These were the first animated pictures publicly exhibited by means of picture bands. Reynaud gave the entire presentation himself by manipulating the images. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.