Three carpenters work side-by-side on different pieces of wood; some planing, some cutting and some shaping their subjects.
It's a typically elegant actuality from the Lumieres. Each carpenter is doing something different, with differing lines of rhythmic motion to keep the eyes of the audience busy as they move from one individual to the next. Although the Lumieres came from the photographic industry, and thus could reasonably be expected to have a good idea of composition, their work -- the best of it anyway -- shows off their realization that these are motion pictures, and therefore there should be motion; and the division of the screen into distinct areas in which different forms of motion are shown is what keeps their work, basic though it may seem, interesting.
It's a typically elegant actuality from the Lumieres. Each carpenter is doing something different, with differing lines of rhythmic motion to keep the eyes of the audience busy as they move from one individual to the next. Although the Lumieres came from the photographic industry, and thus could reasonably be expected to have a good idea of composition, their work -- the best of it anyway -- shows off their realization that these are motion pictures, and therefore there should be motion; and the division of the screen into distinct areas in which different forms of motion are shown is what keeps their work, basic though it may seem, interesting.
