Concours de boules (1896) User Reviews

Looks Like Bocce

[boblipton · 7/10 · 15 August 2012]

This looks like a match at bocce to me, but I have little doubt that it is not the variety of bowling played by elderly Italians in New York, but some variety that would make aficionados sneer, like playing tennis on the wrong surface .... whatever rules you grew up with being the only proper way to play the game.

The Lumieres start with good camera placement to produce a motion picture composed of hundreds of impeccable individual photographs, unlike many of Edison's cameramen who were much more interested in... well, showing you everything, including the boring parts, because that's part of reality. The Lumieres keep thing moving, including by having some guy hobble across the field. It holds your attention for the entire movie.

Men playing boules

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 20 July 2015]

That is basically everything that happens in this 45-second short film from almost 120 years ago. It is black-and-white and silent obviously still. The filmmakers behind this documentary were the Lumière brothers who belongs to France's finest from the very early days of cinema. There are some interesting aspects to it in terms of society. First of all, women are not seen here. It 's a man's world still at this point and certainly a man's sport. Also hats and mustaches seemed to be very recommended for everybody who wanted to be regarded as well-respected in society at that point. So yeah, even if it's a pretty short film, there are some aspects to it that make it a decent watch. Still, nothing extraordinary really. Just men playing boules.

Concours de boules (1896)

[Michael_Elliott · 22 December 2016]

Concours de boules (1896)

This film here is a rather interesting one if you enjoy watching these old actuality films. There's a large group of people standing in the street and in the middle of the frame there's a game going on. People are rolling either large rocks or some sort of balls and after rolling it the person will then go down to where the ball landed. When watching these types of movies it's always fascinating just being able to see what people were doing or wearing during the era that the film was shot. This one here gives you some great footage of all these people gathered for the event and we get to see the type of clothing as well. You also get a chance to see one man walking on crutches and there's a lot of fun stuff here.

Bowling Game

[Tornado_Sam · 13 January 2018]

I'm not sure why the Lumière Brothers filmed bowling games as a topic several times (see "Partie de Boules" from the same year, I believe) but they are still quite entertaining in some ways. This short looked like it documented a major event--I mean, there's like, thirty or forty men in this crowd (NO women at ALL!) I've bowled a bit myself but the game these men play looks a bit different, no pins to knock over so I think it's a completely different game. Contrary to the previous reviewer's (boblipton) comments, I'm sure this is entirely documentary. The Lumière Brothers barely ever staged their films. That's fine with me because it shows you something that was happening a long time ago. Go right on, Lumière, continue to show us the past.