Avenue de l'Opéra

1900 Documentary 1 minute Directed by Alice Guy-Blaché

About Avenue de l'Opéra

Alice Guy films the Avenue de l’Opéra in Paris, a busy street of carriages and walkers, and the reel is projected backwards so the traffic runs in reverse. It lasts about one minute.

Cast & crew

More about Avenue de l'Opéra

Guy directed it for Gaumont in 1900. The French filmography calls it a humorous documentary: a real view, printed or projected in reverse for the joke. It is in the public domain. Kino included it on Alice Guy Blaché Vol. 1: The Gaumont Years.

Themes

Making

Guy uses one camera position and one trick. Reverse motion is the whole film.

Look

A single view down the Avenue de l’Opéra, run in reverse.

Music

Silent in 1900.

Preservation

A one-minute print survives and is in the public domain.

Notes

  • The comedy is the direction of the traffic, not a staged gag in the street.
  • The same Gaumont year includes Guy’s Chapellerie et charcuterie mécaniques and Chez le photographe.
  • It appears in the 2018 documentary Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché.
  • Later viewers tend to watch it as a record of the avenue. The 1900 point was the backward run.

Scenes

  • Carriages and pedestrians on the avenue move backward for the length of the reel.

Also available

  • Kino: Alice Guy Blaché Vol. 1: The Gaumont Years

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