French director Jean Durand, while writing and overseeing his series based on his character Onesime, who is a bit of an idiot but more cunning than most, noticed some of his actors were getting hurt performing stunts he called for. Because these actions he dictated were extraordinary feats of athleticism, Durand decided he should hired people for cinema who were capable of doing maneuvers that the actors were incapable of doing safely. This was the first instance that stunt people were paid for performing in cinema.
One of his best Onesime movies, April 1912's "Onesime The Clockmaker" (also known as "Onesime Hologer" or ""Batty Bill's Bustle Makes Everyone Hustle"), Durand exhibits what's labeled as surreal destruction. He wrote his character, Onesime, played by Ernest Bourbon, a former music hall comic, to portray an idiot who ends up becoming more cunning than the people surrounding him.
In "The Clockmaker," onesime inherits a fortune, except he's got to wait 20 years to collect. He discovers a central observatory clock that dictates time for the entire world. He rigs the clock to fast forward a day every 15 minutes. What makes this such a true fantasy (and surreal at that) is Onesime is engaged in a desire that is ordinarily prohibited, in this instance wishing time would go warp speed so he could become rich.
The series, which Durand directed almost 80 Onesime films, became highly influential to movie actors. The Marx Brothers and Mack Sennett of the Keystone Cops adopted his wackiness to produce hilarious, sometimes slapstick comedy. The viewer can see the widespread influence Durand had on Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy in the opening minute of "The Clockmaker" when Onesime scratches his head in confusion--a trademark of Laurel's throughout his career.