''Explosion of a Motor Car'' (AKA: ''The Delights of Automobiling'') is a 1900
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
silent comic
a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicat ...
trick film
In the early history of cinema, trick films were short silent films designed to feature innovative special effects.
History
The trick film genre was developed by Georges Méliès in some of his first cinematic experiments, and his works remain ...
, directed by
Cecil M. Hepworth, featuring an exploding automobile scattering the body parts of its driver and passenger. "One of the most memorable of early British trick films" according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "was one of the first films to play with the laws of physics for comic effect." It features one of the earliest known uses in a British film of the
stop trick
The substitution splice or stop trick is a cinematic special effect in which filmmakers achieve an appearance, disappearance, or transformation by altering one or more selected aspects of the mise-en-scène between two shots
while maintaining t ...
technique discovered by French filmmaker
Georges Méliès
Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès ( , ; 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) was a French magic (illusion), magician, toymaker, actor, and filmmaker. He led many technical and narrative developments in the early days of film, cinema, primarily in th ...
in 1896, and also includes one of the earliest film uses of comedy delay – later to be widely used as a convention in animated films – where objects take much longer to fall to the ground than they would do in reality. It is included in the BFI DVD ''Early Cinema: Primitives and Pioneers'' and a clip is featured in
Paul Merton
Paul James Martin (born 9 July 1957), known by the stage name Paul Merton, is an English comedian who is best known as one of the two regular panellists on the television show '' Have I Got News for You''.
Known for his improvisation skill, M ...
's interactive guide to early British silent comedy ''How They Laughed'' on the BFI website.
Synopsis
On a quiet suburban road, a motor car appears from around a corner in the distance. Two male pedestrians cross the road in front of the vehicle. As the car approaches it is seen to contain a male driver and three high-spirited female passengers waving handkerchiefs towards the camera. The car reaches the foreground and explodes without warning, leaving a smouldering pile of twisted wreckage.
A policeman (played by Hepworth himself) happens to be passing, takes out a telescope and looks up to the sky. After a lapse of several seconds, he has to dodge out of the way as torsos and severed limbs but no heads start to rain down around him. Unperturbed, the helpful policeman takes out his notebook and begins the task of reassembling the assorted body parts, still neatly clothed, into identifiable human beings, conscientiously making notes as he goes.
References
External links
*
''Explosion of a Motor Car'' at CultureWars
{{DEFAULTSORT:Explosion Of A Motor Car
1900s British films
British black-and-white films
Films directed by Cecil Hepworth
1900 comedy films
1900 films
1900 short films
Films about automobiles
Silent British comedy short films
Trick films