Down in the Coal Mines
About Down in the Coal Mines
A father and his son are at work in a coal mine. An explosion kills the son. The French title is Au pays noir.
Cast & crew
More about Down in the Coal Mines
Lucien Nonguet and Ferdinand Zecca directed the 1905 Pathé short. Wikidata lists Émile Zola as the literary source and the length as 13 minutes. The French release title is Au pays noir.
Themes
Background
Mine explosions were newspaper stories in 1905, and Pathé turned that subject into a short acted film the same year Zola's mining novel was still the best-known fictional account of a pit.
Making
Pathé staged the mine and the blast as a short fiction, with Zecca and Nonguet directing.
Notes
- The English title on this record is Down in the Coal Mines.
- The disaster is an underground explosion, and the son is the one killed.
- Zecca was Pathé's main director of staged subjects in these years. Nonguet shared this credit.
- Zola is the name Wikidata attaches as writer, pointing at his mining fiction rather than an original script credit in the usual sense.
- The picture is a one-reel disaster story, not a documentary of a pit.
Scenes
- Father and son work the coal face.
- The explosion kills the son.
Influenced by
- Émile Zola's mining fiction
