Filming just like the pioneers of cinema

A truly unique experiment: 39 famous directors filmed under the same conditions like the brothers Lumière

Paris - The most brilliant ideas are the simple ones. In 1995, a crowd of historians tried to teach us about a hundred years of cinema. Agnes Varda made Michel Piccoli present a melancholic retrospective as the amnesiac Mr Cinema in "One and hundred nights / tales". But it was an unknown research scientist at the museum of cinema in Lyon, Philippe Poulet, who had the most thrilling idea for the anniversary of film: He wondered what would happen if he gave the very first camera of 1895 to the world´s leading directors asking them to shoot a short film with it. 

Supplied with a budget of ten million Francs [between one and two million dollars], project "Lumière et Compagnie" came to life this summer. From a number of 150 directors in question, 39 were willing to join the homage to their profession, including the Greek Theo Angelopoulos, the French Jacques Rivette, the Swedish Lasse Hallström,  the American David Lynch, the Russian Andrej Konchalowsky and the obligatory Wim Wenders.

All of the 39 agreed to keep to the strict rules which meant: no more than  52 seconds (that`s the running time of the first film of the Lumière-brothers), a single take with no inbetween pauses or cuts, no artificial lighting (the Lumières didn`t use any floodlights) and up to  3  trials max. 

Philippe Poulet travelled to Los Angeles, New York, Kairo, Johannesburg, Hiroshima and to the Great Wall of China to give the camera to the directors in person. Poulet had restored a "Cinématographe" that can expose and project film; he had even mixed the film-emulsion of silver bromid gelatine himself according to Louis Lumière`s original recipes.

"Lumière et Compagnie", that premiered in Paris yesterday shows both the directors on location and their 52 second shorts. They worked the same way directors did a hundred years ago, with their arms outstretched and a loose wrist. Two rounds per second was the norm, the Lumières`s directors of photography used to whistle a military march to keep the pace right.

The contribution of the Egypt Youssef Chahine is a rememberance of the Lumières` adventures travelling the whole world with their camera. Two cinematographers film the pyramids, when suddenly a native shows up to overturn the tripod:  Chahine adds his comment on a title: "Censorship even then!".

The one-minute piece of the most popular Arabian director is typical of this unique mosaic that combines visions of filmic past, present and future from very personal points of view.

A century after the Lumière-brothers scared their audience with the very first screening of a film showing an approaching train, Patrice Leconte ("The perfume of Yvonne") returned to the La Ciotat train station. Once again, we see an arriving train, but it won`t stop this time. The TGV simply speeds past.

Zhang Yimou ("Red Lantern") also knows how to make you forget about the hundred´s years past elegantly; he makes a young couple act 'Peking-Opera ' on the Chinese Wall for twenty seconds - to suddenly get rid of the historical costumes and start a Rolling-Stones-parody.

Of course there are homages to the masters as well. Francis Girod ("Trio Infernal") says goodbye to Fellini; two painters paint a big cross onto a giant photograph showing one of the master`s film sets. Helma Sanders places the 88-year old Louis Cochet, who worked on the lighting for the famous cinematographer Henri Alekan, on a pedestrial to make him direct the light like a conductor would conduct his musicians. In Régis Wargnier`s  ("Indochine") contribution, the elderly gentleman who walks the Champs de Mars in Paris to approach the camera while talking about his favourite movies, turns out to be François Mitterrand.

Politics, society and film have always been closely connected. The Austrian Michael Haneke ("Benny's Video") simply filmed battle ships, garbage, football (soccer) and the weather report from the daily television news of March 19th 1995  - what a strange contrast to the  Lumières` first calm takes of march 19th 1895! The English Hugh Hudson ("Die Stunde des Siegers") filmed happy children in Hiroshima`s  Park of Peace - to combine the idyll with US president Truman on the soundtrack announcing  the first nuclear bomb attack. Ismail Merchant and James Ivory ("Was vom Tage übrig blieb") just let the camera glide along the Rue Soufflot in Paris, starting at the true French original, the Panthéon, up to a MacDonald's restaurant, the symbol of cultural imperialism.

Film has always been exploring the most private spheres. Arthur Penn ("Little Big Man") condenses the relationship of a man and woman into a  dada-like minute. Spike Lee ("Malcolm X") tries to make his little daughter say "Daddy" and finally succeeds. In Abbas Kiarostami`s ("Quer durch den Olivenhain") film the sounds of frying eggs and an answering machine symbolize the end of a relationship. 

Cinema also lives upon the egos of its key figures. Peter Greenaway`s snippet rather celebrates his own contribution to film history than its entirety, David Lynch`s breathtakingly complex 52-second short is Lynch at his best, while Wim Wenders chose to shoot with his angels Otto Sander and Bruno Ganz in Berlin, Potsdamer Platz, for the third time. There`s an overwhelming fascination to cameras, today just like a hundred years ago. Costa-Gavras ("Z") and John Boorman ("Der Smaragdwald") play with this attraction. The Frenchman makes a group of boys stare curiously at the camera, whereas the British director makes the actors Liam Neeson, Aidan Quinn and Stephen Rea examine the lense.

"Lumière et Compagnie" represents all the variety film is capable of. As distinctive as the styles are the answers to the recurring question: "Is cinema mortal?" The answers range from Greenaway`s pessimism ("Possibly it`s dying on its feet right now") to director Claude Lelouch ("I don`t believe in death, and certainly not in the death of cinema") and  Arthur Penn`s realism: "If mankind survives, cinema will survive as well. I´m not so sure in either case."