The Miller and the Sweep
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About The Miller and the Sweep
In front of a windmill, a miller with a bag of flour bumps into a chimney sweep with a bag of soot. They fight. The miller ends covered in soot and the sweep in flour. A crowd chases both of them off.
Cast & crew
More about The Miller and the Sweep
George Albert Smith directed and photographed it, one of his first films after he got a camera in late 1896 or early 1897. BFI Screenonline dates it 1897 and gives the length as 40 feet, about 48 seconds in the BFI clip. English Wikipedia dates the film 1898. Wikidata's duration is 1 minute. The catalog year is 1897.
Themes
Making
Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline calls it one of the earliest films made with a clear sense of how the image would look when projected.
Reviews
Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline wrote that it shows Smith's cinematic imagination in an early form, before his close-ups and trick work.
Look
George Albert Smith photographed the fight in one outdoor setup, with the moving windmill behind the two men.
Preservation
One of the few of Smith's 1897 films to survive. The BFI holds a 35mm print, about 40 feet, and includes it on Early Cinema: Primitives and Pioneers.
Notes
- Smith made the contrast on purpose: white flour against black soot, knowing the print would be black and white.
- The windmill sails turn behind the fight, so the outdoor location reads on screen.
- Screenonline says Smith recorded thirty-one films in 1897 and that this is one of the few that survive.
- It is on the BFI DVD Early Cinema: Primitives and Pioneers.
- Smith's later Washing the Sweep (1898) returns to a sweep gag.
Scenes
- The bags burst and the miller is black with soot while the sweep is white with flour.
- Onlookers chase both men away from the windmill.
Influenced
- Washing the Sweep (1898), Smith's later sweep comedy
