At Christmas 1895, something magical happened, something unprecedented for humanity and its entertainment: around 200 people paid a ticket to see what was to be the world's first movie!
The diary was written on December 28, 1895 when the factory owners, photographers, chemists and inventors August and Louis Limier rented a room at the Grand Cafe in Paris for the first public screening of the film, the first essentially paid screening of their new invention, which they called "cinema."
His two pioneers cinema They had revealed the camera for taking and displaying moving images since March, but now it was time to check the commercial impact of their device, charging for the first time a price for the spectacle.
In all respects, the historical screening included 10 films, including the first ever shot, "Workers Leaving the Limier Factory."
We are talking about a 17-meter film, lasting only 50 seconds. In that monumental screening, Limier also starred in the film they had made especially for the maiden screening, "The arrival of the train at the station", which, as the legend wants, terrorized the audience and everyone ran in panic to escape the passing train!
All this made someone on the other side of the Atlantic blow it and not get cold. THE Thomas Edison He had patented his own animation system, the "motorcycle", a few years earlier (in 1894 he presented it in Paris), but that was not exactly cinema, as only a spectator could enjoy the spectacle each time. Which was necessarily private and not public.
Despite the fact that Auguste Limier was not exactly impressed by his moving images, saying the monumental "cinema is an invention without a future", Louis continued to produce films with French everyday life, reaching 1.500 in the end. And he had to open the first cinemas in France.
Just a few months after the unforgettable start of the new human entertainment, something magical also happened: pornography discovered it!
The production of erotic films therefore begins almost simultaneously with the advent of animation. Both are the early names here, the French Eugene Pirou and Albert Kirchner. The latter even signed under a pseudonym, as he was known for other things and did not want his name to be associated with pornography. But the first one was well known and praised, but it didn't have a problem with the erotic industry.
Kirchner (nicknamed "Léar") directed a 7-minute film on behalf of Pirou in 1896, entitled "Dream Course for the Bride" (Le Coucher de la Mariée). The protagonist was a well-known Frenchwoman cabaret, Louise Willy, who would then make a decent career in traditional cinema, in those early days of silent cinema. Here he performs a striptease, something terribly scandalous about the customs of the time!
In fact, the film was one of the first to be shot in a studio, as the open space was extremely prohibitive for such masquerades. What are we watching? A newlywed couple at the bridal party. He starts the cute ones, she responds with Nazis and finally asks him to leave to undress, removing one by one the many layers of her clothes.
Only 3 of the 7 minutes of historical porn are preserved today, as it was dumped in the basement of the National Cinema Center of France for a century, as the "Observer" tells us, and when it was finally found in 1996 its condition was bad. Film historians even tell us that the film was a film adaptation of a popular Parisian burlesque show, in which Willy performed it again. striptease.
At the French capital's Olympia Theater, however, Willy was not completely undressed, as in the film. Some excerpts from our time tell us that the film also contained more "peppery" preliminary cases of the couple, which, however, cannot be verified.
But what is being verified is the unprecedented commercial impact of the film! The two creators made a small fortune from its release in Paris in November 1896, and a new genre of cinema was born, where mainstream cinema had not been born.
A long line of French filmmakers, including top names such as George Melies and Charles Pate, have now put women undressed in front of the Limier camera. And it may not be a big deal today to be a little naked on the canvas, 120 years ago it was such a colossal scandal that it brought a few times church and persecution authorities behind the creators.
People would have to wait another 14 years to see the first sexual act on the sail.
Louise Willy now holds the historic title as the first actress to appear naked in a movie. And despite the fact that she started with the Parisian cabaret and the burlesque, after the film she continued her career in the mainstream silent cinema of France.
The last film to make a name for itself was in 1913. Her partner, both in the film and in the actual show, is never mentioned. However, the two creators are of greater interest, as they were both big names in their time.
Louis Eugene Pirou was a famous Frenchman photographer and then a filmmaker, best known for his blood-stained frames from the Paris Commune in 1871. Born in 1841, Pirou became at some point the portraitist of French celebrities, such as General and Minister of the Army George Boulanger, and for his work. with the gold medal at the International Exhibition of Paris in 1889. As a "photographer of kings" he became somewhat boastfully known.
The pioneer of the image was the owner of several photography studios in Paris, so famous that some people stole his name and opened their own company with his name, sparking a long legal dispute. At the 1889 International Fair, Pirou saw a presentation by Etienne-Jules Marey and his own "chronograph", a moving image projection method.
He was already stuck in the cinema germ, that is, when he watched those Limier movies and now he knew what to do. She bought the equipment she needed in 1896 and with her employee Albert Kirchner began filming scenes from the summer. Parisian everyday life, but also various social events, such as the visit of Tsar Nicholas II to Paris in October 1896.
He then rented a basement of a well-known cafeteria in the city's main square, turned it into an Eugene Pirou Cinema, and in April 1896 charged a ticket for his own films. Within a few months, he turned to pornography, as he saw that nothing filled his room as much as the adult audience.
His thirst for even better viewing quality led him at the end of the same year to contact Eastman Kodak and Edison himself, asking for better systems. Edison had not made much progress with his "Vitascope", so Pirou turned to the other pioneer of cinema, Henri Joly, asking him for an improved image without flickering.
Two of the three patents that inventor Joly received in 1896 for the cinema (camera, projector with an illusion of depth and a technique for eliminating flicker) had a lot of Pirou inside them!
All this turned him into the first serious competitor of the Limiers in France. And when we say everything, we mean the pornography of the film. You see, the first film striptease made such an impression on the French public that Pirou opened two more theaters in Paris, especially for his "pink" films, at the same time that they were shown at midnight in the famous Nice casino.
Within a few months, his erotic films had crossed the French border, but were not shown without reaction. One was withdrawn from London cinema in January 1897, following a storm of protests by citizens.
As for his main collaborator, Léar, he was also a well-known photographer, filmmaker and director. And it went down in history for both the first erotic film and the first religious film! Yes, the man who gave humanity the first bag also made his first film about the Divine Passions. Jesus. Next year!
Albert Kirchner also owned three patents for an improved display machine (Biographe Français Léar), famous in its day, which he built through a company he had set up with two financiers. As Léar signed Pirou's "pink" films, as Kirchner he collaborated with the distinguished historian (and later cinema historian) Michel Coissac on the first "Passions of Christ."
Twelve scenes in all, 5 minutes long, but it was the first film with a biblical theme. Which also made a lot of sense, sparking the interest of audiences and creators for religious films from a very early age. In February 1898, the film was made in the United States and presented in churches by the Rev. Thomas Dixon, author of "The Clansman," on which Griffith would base his "Birth of a Nation."
Do you want the best? That at a time when the French Catholic Church had declared a crusade against the scandalous Léar, he was the main sponsor of Kirchner's "Passion du Christ"! Worse still, the director collaborated with a Father (Father Bazile) in 1897, delivering a series of light educational and propaganda films in his favor. Christianity.
In fact, in order to disconnect his serious name from the subversive of moral users Léar, in 1901 he moved his pornographic activities to Cairo, where he founded the adult production company Lear and Co.
He would be the target of Egyptian prosecutors within a few months for exporting pornographic content to Europe.