''After the Ball'' (French: ''Après le bal'') is an 1897 French short

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...

made by

Georges Méliès Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès (; ; 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) was a French illusionist, actor, and film director. He led many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. Méliès was well known for the use o ...

. It was sold by Méliès's Star Film Company and numbered 128 in its catalogues.

Plot

A maidservant helps her lady get undressed (with nudity simulated by a

bodystocking A bodystocking or body stocking is a one-piece skin-tight garment that covers the torso, legs and sometimes the arms of the wearer. It is a foundation garment or an article of lingerie usually made from a sheer fabric similar to that used for st ...

). The maid helps the woman bathe, pouring water over her, and finally covers and dries her with a robe.

Production

Méliès was not the first filmmaker to include simulated nudity in a film;

Eugène Pirou Louis Eugène Pirou (26 September 1841 – 30 September 1909) was a French photographer and filmmaker, known primarily for his portraits of celebrities and scenes from the Paris Commune. He was awarded a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle ...

had already made a film along the same lines in late 1896, ''Le Bain de la Parisienne''. (Méliès's film is sometimes also known by this title.)

Henri Joly Henri Joly (1866–1945) was a French inventor and businessman. He developed early versions of motion picture film, cameras, and projectors. Biography Joly was born in Viomenil, Vosges in 1866. By 1889 he was a gymnastics instructor at the school o ...

, who made films for

Charles Pathé Charles Morand Pathé (; 26 December 1863 – 25 December 1957) was a pioneer of the French film and recording industries. As the founder of Pathé Frères, its roots lie in 1896 Paris, France, when Pathé and his brothers pioneered the dev ...

, is believed to have filmed similarly racy subjects as early as 1895. In Méliès's version, Jehanne d'Alcy is the bather, with Jane Brady, a music hall actress, as the chambermaid. Méliès, d'Alcy, and Brady made ''After the Ball'' outdoors, with the backdrop spread on a peach-garden wall (a '' mur à pêches'') on the Méliès family property. Méliès's first glass studio had already been built, but was not quite ready to use as the walls were still being reinforced. According to d'Alcy's recollections, as reported to her granddaughter Madeleine Malthête-Méliès, dark sand stood in for the "water" because d'Alcy was cold in her body stocking.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:After the Ball 1897 films French black-and-white films Films directed by Georges Méliès French silent short films 1897 short films