Voltige (1896) User Reviews

That's no Sawhorse

[boblipton · 6/10 · 6 September 2012]

This Lumiere piece from 1896 is just a series of gags as a man tries to mount a horse and keeps failing -- not high enough, leaping over the horse and so forth. It's a fairly standard bit of clowning and I'm sure it still goes on at rodeos and dude ranches. Even given the short length of Lumiere pieces, it seems to go on a bit long.

As with all the Lumiere shorts, the composition is impeccable -- although given that you've got a horse there that you wish to fit into the frame, that's not much of a challenge. The horse stands still for all these hi-jinks -- my guess is that it was a circus horse and trained to put up with this sort of nonsense.

When a Guy in 1896 Complained About Too Many Remakes of 1895 Movies

[PCC0921 · 8/10 · 17 March 2024]

The Lumiere brothers create one of the first film remakes in film history. This was actually a common practice by the Lumieres, while the years went by. It gave them a way to continue to hone their filmmaking craft. They reshot a lot of their earlier films, included their famous, Arrival of a Train (1895). That film was remade, reshot or redone, at least two or three times, between 1896-1898. They felt, if it did good the first time, why not improve upon it this time and maybe generate twice as much capital as the first time. They in essence invented the remake, during the first full year (1896), of motion pictures.

Voltige (1896), also known in English as, Aerobatics (1896), is a remake of their 1895 film, La Voltige (1895), which is also known as Horse Trick Riders (1895). The Lumieres reshot a group of acrobatics, actually soldiers, jumping onto a horse, with various forms of landing. Voltige (1896), could be considered a possible sequel too, because the acrobatic soldiers in this film, actually look like they practiced their routine and had some training, before this film was shot. The group in the original 1895 film seemed a little bit more amateurish and sloppy with their act. You could say, they got better for the sequel. This is still a pivotal moment in film history, brought to you by those film pioneers, who started it all.

PMTM Grade: 8.3 (B) = 8 IMDB.