Underplayed Gems

Serpentinen Tanz (1895)

Serpentinen Tanz poster
Original title
Die Serpentintänzerin
Directed by
Max Skladanowsky
Genre
documentary film, silent film
Country
Germany
Runtime
20 min
Rating
4.3 of 10 from 27 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.

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How it feels

This is a very short black and white silent documentary film from 1895. It shows a dancer performing a serpentine dance and was part of the first paid film projection in Europe.

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What happens

Die Serpentintänzerin (also known as Serpentinen Tanz) is an 1895 German short black-and-white silent documentary film, directed and produced by Max Skladanowsky, one of the German-born brothers responsible for inventing the Bioscop. It was one of a series of films produced to be projected by a magic lantern and formed part of the Wintergarten Performances, the first projections of film in Europe to a paying audience. The film titles for the initial program were: Italienischer Bauerntanz, Komisches Reck, Serpentinen Tanz, Der Jongleur Paul Petras, Das Boxende Känguruh, Akrobatisches Potpourri, Kamarinskaja, Ringkampf and Apotheose. Each film lasted approximately six seconds and would be repeated several times. In 1995 this film was incorporated into Die Gebrüder Skladanowsky, a drama telling the story of the Skladanowsky Brothers and the early days of German film projection. (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.