Вылaвливание красных рыбок (1895) Online

This is a pleasantly set-up Lumiere subject in which a toddler pothers around a bowl filled with goldfish. Its composition will please the viewer.

That sounds like the sort of thing you might read in a catalogue of Lumiere films issued about the time, hoping to make the exhibitors buy copies and show them often enough to wear them out and buy new copies. However, while it certainly has good composition, the lack of motion makes this a bad motion picture. Motion pictures were too new to have their own aesthetics and the Lumieres, coming out of photography, were learning them as they went along. Sometimes they nailed that combination of a frame in which things moved around constantly while remaining in composition. Sometimes, as here, they wound up with little more than a pleasant photograph.

La Peche aux poissons (1895)

This early film from the Lumiere Brothers has a little girl standing over a fish bowl where she's fishing for goldfish (which is also the American title). If you're a fan of these early actuality movies then you'll probably enjoy this one. The child is certainly cute and charming enough to keep your interest through the one minute running time. It's also fairly fascinating getting to see what her clothing looked like. Those 1895 styles were certainly something! Obviously you're either a fan of these films or not. I personally really enjoy watching them and this was an entertaining one.

We see a person, maybe the parent, hold a small child next to a goldfish bowl and the child watches what's going on in there. It puts its hand in the bowl and tries to touch or even catch a fish, but comes up short. The baby wears a nice white dress which is in terms of style and shape even not too uncommon these days and a white baby hat. The aquarium reminded me more of a vase and that's something you don't see too often these days anymore. In any case, I found this short film rather uninteresting, so only one to watch really for the biggest silent film enthusiasts and there's better work from Lumière, also from 1895. Maybe the baby used this early experience and became a fisherman in the first half of the 20th century. Here, however, the goldfish were still too slippery, smart and speedy.

In this short film, similar to "Baby's Dinner" in some regards, a young child wearing a white dress, held by her father, pokes around inside a goldfish bowl while occasionally glancing up at the camera proudly. It's kind of interesting but I wonder if there wasn't some staging in here. It really must have been quite funny when first made and audiences must have really gotten a kick outta it. If you like the Lumiere Brother's work then this is a good one as for the time it was probably more entertaining than watching cabs on a busy street. It also has some value for being one of the earlier uses of a close-up shot.