Mode Reville (1929)

Men Boxing

Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.

Dickson Greeting

William K.L. Dickson brings his hat from his one hand to the other and moves his head slightly, as a small nod toward the audience. This was the first film produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company to be shown to public audiences and the press.

Days of Thrills and Laughter

An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.

Man with a Movie Camera

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

Carmencita

The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster & Bial's in New York since February 1890.

Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge

A film by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, shot in late October 1888, showing pedestrians and carriages crossing Leeds Bridge.

Nanook of the North

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

Rodez

An exploration of Rodez Cathedral and its stained glass windows: praying figures and scientific imagery. A study on color, repetition and flickering consisting of 292 photographs.

Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness

Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.

Blow Job

Andy Warhol directs a single 35-minute shot of a man's face to capture his facial expressions as he receives the sexual act depicted in the title.

Moonwalk

This short documentary film captures the natural movement of the moon mixed with an experimental musical track that accompanies the rhythm of the "walk" on the stage that the protagonist occupies, the sky.

Matisse

Between 1950 and 1955, Henri Langlois tried to produce, on behalf of the Cinémathèque française, several films devoted to great artists, with their cooperation, by entrusting them with virgin film stock. Wrote Langlois on the unfinished project, epic in scope: "We had the idea of ​​asking poets, painters, scholars, writers and even repressed filmmakers [...] to make films in 16mm, with the means at hand, without taking into account any commercial concern or censorship." What precious little came of the project was eight minutes of film from Matisse and twenty-some from Marc Chagall, released at a later date.

Häxan

Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.

Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton

From Japan to America, the LV sign dominates the fashion scene. And, one man alone designs the Louis Vuitton creations the exceptional Marc Jacobs. With unprecedented access to one of the world's hottest and busiest designers, Loïc Prigent offers an intimate and revealing portrait of the reclusive Marc Jacobs and the world of haute couture. Whether in the offices and workrooms of Paris and New York, the back of his car, or backstage at a fashion show, we see a genius at work. Jacobs endures unimaginable pressure to chart new paths in fashion as he straddles the demands of the Louis Vuitton conglomerate and his own Marc Jacobs label.

Notebook on Cities and Clothes

Wim Wenders talks with Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto about the creative process and ponders the relationship between cities, identity and the cinema in the digital age.

Accordion Player

The last remaining film of Le Prince's LPCCP Type-1 MkII single-lens camera is a sequence of frames of his son, Adolphe Le Prince, playing a diatonic button accordion. It was recorded on the steps of the house of Joseph Whitley, Adolphe's grandfather.

Manhatta

Morning reveals New York harbor, the wharves, the Brooklyn Bridge. A ferry boat docks, disgorging its huddled mass. People move briskly along Wall St. or stroll more languorously through a cemetery. Ranks of skyscrapers extrude columns of smoke and steam. In plain view. Or framed, as through a balustrade. A crane promotes the city's upward progress, as an ironworker balances on a high beam. A locomotive in a railway yard prepares to depart, while an arriving ocean liner jostles with attentive tugboats. Fading sunlight is reflected in the waters of the harbor. The imagery is interspersed with quotations from Walt Whitman, who is left unnamed.

Celebration

A documentary on Yves Saint-Laurent and the legendary fashion designer's final show.

Dust of America

A dream walk through the United States of America; a meditation on the thoughts and ideals of its inhabitants, as they are exposed in their silent but eloquent home movies.

Passage of Venus

Photo sequence of the rare transit of Venus over the face of the Sun, one of the first chronophotographic sequences. In 1873, P.J.C. Janssen, or Pierre Jules César Janssen, invented the Photographic Revolver, which captured a series of images in a row. The device, automatic, produced images in a row without human intervention, being used to serve as photographic evidence of the passage of Venus before the Sun, in 1874.

The History of the Civil War

The epic story of the Russian Civil War (1918-21): the White Terror, the counterrevolutionary uprisings, the guerrilla war, the Kolchak front, the Wrangel front and the Kronstadt rebellion. Chaos and violence, devastation and death.

The Silent Enemy

In the Canadian Northwest, the Chippewa tribe struggles to find food before the onset of winter.

Glenroy Brothers (Comic Boxing)

The Glenroy Brothers perform a portion of their vaudeville act, "The Comic View of Boxing: The Tramp & the Athlete", which depicts a boxer with a classic style trying to contend with an opponent who uses a very unorthodox approach.

Feeding the Doves

A woman and a young girl each carry containers of bird feed, and they toss occasional handfuls to the chickens and doves in the farmyard. Most of the chickens stay nearby, but the doves occasionally fly off and then return to eat more.

Swimming in the Sea

Several little boys run along a pier, then jump into the ocean.

Baby's Meal

A father, a mother and a baby are sitting at a table, on a patio outside. Dad is feeding Baby her lunch, while Mum is serving tea.

Niagara Falls

A stationary camera looks west across Niagara Falls from the United States' side (the Niagara River rushes toward the falls from right to left). Virtually overlooking the falls and surrounded by the swift current not far from the camera is a small island where six or eight tourists watch the water, talk, and move about.

Rain

A lyrical portrait of Amsterdam and its changing appearance during a rain-shower.

The Blacksmiths

While his aide continuously turns the handle of the bellows, keeping hot a small furnace in front of him, a blacksmith is pounding a piece of metal on an anvil, then plunges the shaft into a tub of water, causing a cloud of vapor in the process.

Demolition of a Wall

Auguste Lumière directs four workers in the demolition of an old wall at the Lumière factory. One worker is pressing the wall inwards with a jackscrew, while another is pushing it with a pick. When the wall hits the ground, a cloud of white dust whirls up. Three workers continue the demolition of the wall with picks.

Man Walking Around a Corner

The last remaining production of Le Prince's LPCC Type-16 (16-lens camera) is part of a gelatine film shot in 32 images/second, and pictures a man walking around a corner. Le Prince, who was in Leeds (UK) at that time, sent these images to his wife in New York City in a letter dated 18 August 1887.

Mechanical Principles

Close up we see pistons move up and down or side to side. Pendulums sway, the small parts of machinery move. Gears drive larger wheels. Gears within gears spin. Shafts turn some mechanism that is out of sight. Screws revolve and move other gears; a bit rotates. More subtle mechanisms move other mechanical parts for unknown purposes. Weights rise and fall. The movements, underscored by sound, are rhythmic. Circles, squares, rods, and teeth are in constant and sometimes asymmetrical motion. These human-made mechanical bits seem benign and reassuring.

Ostriches

An ostrich pulls a cart carrying young women wearing ostrich-feather hats.

Childish Quarrel

Two babies are shown seated next to each other, in high chairs, apparently enjoying themselves. Suddenly one snatches a toy from the other and they indulge in hair-pulling.

Lion, London Zoological Gardens

A male lion, right next to bars that are about 6 or 8 inches apart, keenly watches a uniformed zoo attendant toss small morsels of food into the cage. The lion alternates between finding the food on the cage floor and reaching through the bars to swipe at the man, who stays alarmingly close to the beast. In the background are the large rocks and brick wall at the back of the lion's habitat.

Bicyclist

Francis Doublier does bicycle tricks in the street.

Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius

A film about the career and methods of the master silent comedy filmmaker.