He_who_lurks The Lumiere Brothers, Auguste and Louis Lumiere, reportedly made the first projected films ever. By today's standards, these films look rather crude because they mostly didn't feature any sort of plot but were mostly scenes of everyday life. Believe it or not, at this time ANYTHING would pass for entertainment--so long as it moved. "L'Arroseur Arrose" (aka "The Tables Turned on the Gardener" or "The Watered Watered" and known in some circles as "The Sprinkler Sprinkled" or "The Sprayer Sprayed") not only is a moving picture (wow, how cool, right?) but it TELLS A STORY! AND IT'S A FUNNY ONE! AND IT'S A LAUGH RIOT!! Okay, so it's not. But it was for the time. Today the gag is so old it doesn't work at all and thus the main reason to watch this short is because of the historical significance. However, I have something to say about this significance. Yes, this is considered the first comedy by many. And I'm not denying how important it is in cinematic history. But the truth is, this is not the first filmed comedy ever made. One year before, the Edison Manufacturing Company had performers Phil Doretto and Robetta star in several kinetoscope films of their comedy routine. The one surviving film of these three shorts is "Chinese Laundry Scene" which was filmed in Edison's "Black Maria" studio and while simply a filming of this routine, THAT short can be considered the first comedy. This one remains important as ONE of the first comedies, but not as THE first comedies.On a side note, this gag was copied a lot by other filmmakers. One of French Cinemagician Georges Melies's first films, called "Watering the Flowers" is believed to have been a remake (though it is now lost). There is also a Bamforth version of the film available from 1899 called "The Biter Bit" which is an elaboration on the original skit.

jwvongoethe1800 On the 28th of December 1895, history was written. In the basement of a café in Paris, about 30 people witness the worlds first film screening by the Lumière brothers with their Cinématographe. This short is one of ten shorts shown on that day.It has a 45 second running time so the plot is simple: A gardener is using his garden-hose, when a boy starts standing on the hose. While checking what happened, the boy stands of the hose, allowing the water to spry the gardener wheat. The slapstick comedy in this film is funnier that in your average Adam Sandler film, and this film is 119 years old.It is the birth of cinema and comedy in one. The starting point of the reason why this site exist.

des-47 L'arroseur arrosé was one of 10 films included in the Lumière brothers' historic first presentation of projected moving images to a paying public in Paris in December 1895, but it's radically different from the rest of the programme. Most of the films are documentary records of everyday activity, and while there's an element of staging to some of them, including some professional entertainers and party tricks, none seem to have been mounted to take specific advantage of the new medium — except this one. It's often described as the first known fictional film and the first known comedy film to be exhibited theatrically.The gag is simple and now seems well worn, but it's no doubt still capable of making children laugh when they encounter it for the first time. A gardener, played by the director's own gardener, is watering with a hose. A mischievous youth stands on the hose to block it, releasing his foot just as the gardener peers down the hose to investigate, with, as they say, hilarious consequences. As with much comedy, part of the pleasure is in observing the discomfort of others — the victim's drenching, the mischief maker's subsequent corporal punishment.Like all the early Lumière films the action is presented as a single long shot and it's interesting to compare how the scenario might be treated today — perhaps an establishing shot, a cut to the miscreant approaching, a cut back to confirm the gardener's lack of awareness, and closeups of the foot on the hose so the audience is clear what is going on, and of the gardener's face as it's hosed for maximum Schadenfreude.It's doubtful that contemporary audiences appreciated the film's distinctiveness and of course they would have had no idea how much it presaged what was to come. Given that the film appeared alongside single shot depictions of homebound factory workers, photography conference delegates disembarking from a boat trip and passers-by on a Lyon square, they might well have assumed that the camera fortuitously happened to be rolling as the incident played out spontaneously

Alice Liddel The first fully staged fiction and comedy film is of a piece with the Lumieres previous work, full of energy contained. In 'Sortie d'Usine', a calm street scene was broken by exiting workers; in 'Repas de Bebe', a model family unit was decentred by a dribbling boy; in 'Demolition d'un mur', the hierarchical order of boss and workers is disrupted by a crashing wall. In this case a rural idyll, a man, a worker at one with nature, with his work, is interrupted by an idle interloper; work and purpose vs. play and sensation; documentary vs fiction, fantasy, escapism? David Thomson claims that the film works because the audience is made complicit with the boy's antics. This is true, and the boy is subversive - he derails the work, the harmony between man and nature, man and work. He inflicts physical harm without being proximate to his victim, like a gangster shooting from a distance. He forces the man to abandon his fixed spot to apprehend him.But he IS punished,and he is slapped for his deed, brought, as critics have noted, nearer the screen so the audience can see, as if the man is punishing us for enjoying the prank. Disruption will not be tolerated - the boy is cast out of the frame; harmony is restored.All the while, as in 'Repas', nature looks on, indifferent immemorial, ignorant of the reactionary and the revolutionary alike. The Lumieres are very prescient in this film, understanding that they will be unable to hold onto the dutiful, purposeful hose for much longer; that the irresponsible pranksters are waiting to take over, to spray refreshing water over their audience's faces, an audience rather averse to the Lumieres' patronising ideals of moral elevation and 'science'.