Entertainment | August 17, 2008 | 31 comments

100 years ago today: Emile Cohl's "Fantasmagorie" first animation!

source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbETWEYxAhY

huntre
This YouTube posting of "Fantasmagorie" (or, "Magic Lantern") is receiving lots of hits today, exactly one hundred years after its creation. Happy 100th anniversary, Emile Cohl. And, thanks for kicking off one of our most creative artforms.
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31 comments // 100 years ago today: Emile Cohl's "Fantasmagorie" first animation! // Video

  • celestialceiling
    • 0
      celestialceiling  
    • Image

    • Then there's Lotte Reiniger, a German woman born in 1899.

      She is often credited with the first feature (Full-Length) animated film. It's called "Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed" (The Adventures of Prince Achmed) released in 1926.

      The story is an adaptation of "The Arabian Nights" stories including the story of Aladdin.

      Lotte Reineger's films utilize meticulously hand crafted cardboard silhouettes with wire or string joints, animated via stop-motion animation (like claymation) on illuminated glass in front of hand painted backgrounds.

      No portion of the film can be found on youtube, but the DVD is available on Amazon and Netflix.

      However, to more precise, Her film is actually the oldest *surviving* fully-animated, feature-length film. The first and oldest are the Argentinian films, El Apóstol (1917) and Sin dejar rastros (1918) by Quirino Cristiani, but both were reportedly lost in a fire in 1926.

      Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) is often mistakenly credited as the first animated feature. The film is in fact the first *American* animated feature.

    • 3 years ago
  • celestialceiling
  • jubal
  • celestialceiling
    • 0
      celestialceiling  

    • Great post about first FULLY animated film. It's often difficult to target "firsts" in film history as the majority of films from the earliest era have been lost (many to fire), forgotten, or otherwise miscredited.

      GEORGES MÉLIÈS built his own camera, created the world's first movie studio (in 1896 near Paris), made over 500 films in under a decade, *discovered* stop-motion photography, and most basic editing techniques and special effects, including the disolve, the superimposition (or double exposure), the stop-edit, time-lapse photography, and stop-motion animation.

      His 1902 masterwork "Voyage dans la Lune" (A Trip to The Moon) features a segment of Animation near the end of the film, which is the earliest known film animation.

      Méliès' genius however did not bring him wealth and fame during his life because the notorious Thomas Edison stole a print of "A Trip to The Moon" and made a fortune showing the film to American audiences while Méliès went broke.

      Méliès' is known as "the father of the special effect" and the "Cinemagian." as most of his films play like magic shows or spectacles.

      The Lumière Brothers invented motion picture technology
      Georges Méliès invented the technique.

      ~

      Méliès' 1899 film, "Cendrillon" (Cinderella) is credited as the first film to utilize "pre-arranged scenes." Meaning that it was the first film to have multiple scripted scenes in various locations, This essentially created a new branch of thought about film as a narrative, storytelling medium, rather than mere spectacle or documentation.

      Basically he's the father of film language as we know it today.

    • 3 years ago
  • celestialceiling
  • huntre
    • 0
      huntre  

    • An additional Thanks to CBS's Sunday Morning show for bringing this news to my attention in the first place.
      This is just one great example of why that show has been on for so many, many years.

    • 3 years ago
  • IndieArtist
  • malathion
  • badthing
    • 0
      badthing  

    • I really needed to see this today Huntre as I am feeling rather depressed about so many things.

      Art in all of its forms fascinates me and we can talk about as well as educate on any issue through this amazing medium.

      Thank you :)

    • 3 years ago
  • huntre
    • 0
      huntre  
    • badthing:

      Without going into details, depression is nasty business.
      When I first saw this on CBS's Sunday Morning show, it lifted my very heavy spirits, if only for a short while.
      Hang tough.

    • 3 years ago
  • Mafioso
  • EclecticBadger
    • 0
      EclecticBadger  

    • A lesson for all of us in Emile Cohl's ... The Hasher's Delirium (1910).

      Not sure if this would make me take up the bottle rather than shy away from it.

    • 3 years ago
  • EclecticBadger
    • 0
      EclecticBadger  

    • Such an interesting timeline...

      1824 John Ayrton Paris - Thaumatrope
      1834 William Horner - Zoetrope
      1868 John Barnes Linnet - Kineograph (flick book)
      1894 Herman Casler's "What the Butler Saw" - Mutoscope
      1908 Emile Cohl's animated Fatasmagorie
      1914 Winsor McCay's animated Gertie the Dinosaur

      And similar such stop motion animated humour can clearly be seen being mimiced by Felix the Cat (1919)

    • 3 years ago
  • Bren589
  • katielanae
  • rightbrain
  • phillyharper
  • emmahill
  • PaliNadia
  • Vierotchka
  • huntre
  • PlatoTacius
    • 0
      PlatoTacius  

    • This is a good post, to let us know that from simple beginnings can emerge wonderfully complex concepts and ideas...it doesn't seem that long ago, but look how far we've come...where do we go from here..?

      Thanks, huntre...and Vierotchka...

    • 3 years ago
  • Vierotchka
  • huntre
  • jahbini
    • 0
      jahbini  

    • This must have been a real cultural shocker a hundred years ago: The fast shifts from image to image, The stream of bizarre imaginings, The childish nature of the drawings. The lack of 'plot', character development or things perceived (at that time ) as 'artistic'.....

      We are pretty comfortable with all those things in our modern media, but I'm thinking that in the early days of the 1900's, people found those things especially shocking: That the more up-tight folks took this as a product of a deranged mind, and possibly even added fuel to the prohibition and anti-drug movements that we are still dealing with.

    • 3 years ago
  • emmahill
    • 0
      emmahill  

    • Beautiful stuff.

      What do we reckon ... how good is animation today? And has it lost any of its charm from it's genesis under Cohl?

    • 3 years ago
  • regularrf
  • citizenkate
  • mischabarrett
  • Vierotchka
  • huntre
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