The first thing you notice about this 1897 Lumiere wedding party is that everyone looks like a member of a comedy troupe from a decade or two later. It's hard to realize, sometimes, that the costumes comedy performers wore for their acts were once the commonplace clothes worn by people. Groucho Marx' tailcoat, had once marked him as the teacher in the Marx brother's skit "Mayhem in the Classroom". However, I doubt that many real school teachers wore a greasepaint mustache.
The second thing is that this is the first time I have noticed people in a Lumiere film noticing the camera. The bride and groom and their immediate attendants march past the camera, grimly intent on their purpose, but the women towards the rear see it. Some seem to be frightened of it and some seem barely able to control their giggling.
This sort of behavior would crop up often in the actualities of Mitchell & Kenyon, in which people look at the camera in what seems to me to be an accusatory fashion. It would reach its peak in Vertov's CHELOVEK S KINO-APPARATOM. However, to the modern movie-goer, in which the camera is unseen and all but invisible, it is startling.
The second thing is that this is the first time I have noticed people in a Lumiere film noticing the camera. The bride and groom and their immediate attendants march past the camera, grimly intent on their purpose, but the women towards the rear see it. Some seem to be frightened of it and some seem barely able to control their giggling.
This sort of behavior would crop up often in the actualities of Mitchell & Kenyon, in which people look at the camera in what seems to me to be an accusatory fashion. It would reach its peak in Vertov's CHELOVEK S KINO-APPARATOM. However, to the modern movie-goer, in which the camera is unseen and all but invisible, it is startling.
