''Partie de cartes'' (also known as ''Card Game'' and ''The Messers. Lumière at Cards'' (USA), or ''A Quiet Game of
Écarté
Écarté () is an old French casino game for two players that is still played today. It is a trick-taking game, similar to whist, but with a special and eponymous discarding phase; the word ''écarté'' means "discarded". Écarté was popular in ...
'') is an
1895
Events January
* January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island (off French Guiana) on what is much later admitted to be a false charge of tr ...
French
French may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France
** French people, a nation and ethnic group
** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices
Arts and media
* The French (band), ...
black-and-white
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...
, silent
short film
A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...
directed and produced by
Louis Lumière
Louis Jean Lumi̬re (; 5 October 1864 Р6 June 1948) was a French engineer and industrialist who played a key role in the development of photography and cinema.
Early life and education
Lumière was one of four children of Claude-Antoine ...
and starring Antoine Féraud.
Plot
Three older men, wearing hats and smoking cigars, are sitting at a patio. Two of the men are playing cards (
Écarté
Écarté () is an old French casino game for two players that is still played today. It is a trick-taking game, similar to whist, but with a special and eponymous discarding phase; the word ''écarté'' means "discarded". Écarté was popular in ...
) at a table while the third man sits watching. As the game continues a (younger) waiter walks across carrying a tray with a bottle of wine and glasses on it. The man sitting at the table then proceeds to pour the drinks while the waiter observes the card game.
Production
It was filmed by means of the
Cinématographe
Cinematograph or kinematograph is an early term for several types of motion picture film mechanisms. The name was used for movie cameras as well as movie projector, film projectors, or for complete systems that also provided means to release pri ...
, an all-in-one camera, which also serves as a film projector and developer. As with all early Lumière films, this film was made in a
35 mm format
file:135film.jpg, 135 film. The film is wide. Each image is 24×36 mm in the most common "small film" format (sometimes called "double-frame" for its relationship to the "single-frame" 35 mm movie format or full frame after the introduc ...
with an
aspect ratio
The aspect ratio of a geometry, geometric shape is the ratio of its sizes in different dimensions. For example, the aspect ratio of a rectangle is the ratio of its longer side to its shorter side—the ratio of width to height, when the rectangl ...
of 1.33:1.
The production was shot at Villa du Clos des Plages in
La Ciotat
La Ciotat (; ; in Mistralian spelling ''La Ciéutat''; 'the City') is a Communes of France, commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region in Southern France. It ...
, France.
Cast
*Antoine Féraud (waiter?)
*
Antoine Lumière as Man playing cards (uncredited)
*
Félicien Trewey
Félicien Trewey, born Félicien-François Trevey (23 May 1848 – 2 December 1920), was a French magic (illusion), magician, mime artist, mime, comedian, vaudeville, vaudevillian, tightrope walking, tightrope walker, balance artist, dancer, music ...
as Man playing cards to the right (uncredited)
*Alphonse Winckler as Man playing cards (uncredited)
Current status
Given its age, this short film is available to freely download from the Internet. It has also featured in a number of film collections including ''Landmarks of Early Film volume 1'' and ''The Movies Begin – A Treasury of Early Cinema, 1894–1913''.
See also
*
''Playing Cards'', a film and possible remake made the same year
References
External links
*