Danse serpentine (I) (1896)

Director:

Georges Méliès

Storyline

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Plot Keywords:

lost film

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Genres:

Short

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Details

Country:

France

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

User Reviews

Fantastic!

This 49-seconds short was number 765 in the Lumière Frères catalog and shows a woman in very wide dress dancing on a wooden stage. By the flowing movements, it appears more like an abstract play with ever changing, fascinating shapes. No "story development", it's just that.. a visual experiment which has in my eyes succeeded - particular due to the psychedelically changing colors (at least in the MPEG4 file of this film I downloaded from archive.org).

Now, in 1896 there was of course no color film stock available, but it was then already possible (though not easy) to hand-colorize the positive b/w print, frame by frame. I wonder when it was done for this fantastic little piece - the changing shades of red, green and blue show no artefacts which I might expect on a film hand-colored a century ago...

So some questions remain: Was the film colored back in 1896? Were they the same colors we see in this instance? When and how was this coloring made (possibly by computer software)? In any case, I know worse ways to spend 49 seconds :^)