''Partie de cartes'' (also known as ''Card Game'' and ''The Messers. Lumière at Cards'' (USA), or ''A Quiet Game of
Écarté
Écarté is an old French casino game for two players that is still played today. It is a trick-taking game, similar to whist, but with a special and eponymous discarding phase; the word ''écarté'' meaning "discarded". Écarté was popular in the ...
'') is an
1895 French black-and-white
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...
short film
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
directed and produced by
Louis Lumière
Louis Jean Lumière (5 October 1864 Besançon – 6 June 1948, Bandol) was a French engineer and industrialist who played a key role in the development of photography and cinema.
Early life and education
Lumière was one of four children of ...
and starring ''Antoine Féraud''.
Plot
Three older men, wearing hats and smoking cigars, are sitting at a patio. Two of the men are playing cards (
Écarté
Écarté is an old French casino game for two players that is still played today. It is a trick-taking game, similar to whist, but with a special and eponymous discarding phase; the word ''écarté'' meaning "discarded". Écarté was popular in the ...
) at a table while the third man sits watching. As the game continues a (younger) waiter walks across carrying a tray with a bottle of wine and glasses on it. The man sitting at the table then proceeds to pour the drinks while the waiter observes the card game.
Production
It was filmed by means of the
Cinématographe
Cinematograph or kinematograph is an early term for several types of motion picture film mechanisms. The name was used for movie cameras as well as film projectors, or for complete systems that also provided means to print films (such as the Cin ...
, an all-in-one camera, which also serves as a film projector and developer. As with all early Lumière films, this film was made in a
35 mm format
135 film, more popularly referred to as 35 mm film or 35 mm, is a format of photographic film used for still photography. It is a film with a film gauge of loaded into a standardized type of magazine – also referred to as a casse ...
with an
aspect ratio of 1.33:1.
The production was shot at Villa du Clos des Plages in
La Ciotat
La Ciotat (; oc, label= Provençal Occitan, La Ciutat ; in Mistralian spelling ''La Ciéutat''; 'the City') is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southern France. It is the southeasternmo ...
, France.
Cast
*Antoine Féraud (waiter?)
*
Antoine Lumière as Man playing cards (uncredited)
*
Félicien Trewey
Félicien Trewey, born Félicien-François Trevey (23 May 1848 – 2 December 1920), was a French magician, mime, comedian, vaudevillian, tightrope walker, balance artist, dancer, musician, chapeaugraphist and shadowgraphist. The principal of Tr ...
as Man playing cards to the right (uncredited)
*Alphonse Winckler as Man playing cards (uncredited)
Current status
Given its age, this short film is available to freely download from the Internet. It has also featured in a number of film collections including ''Landmarks of Early Film volume 1'' and ''The Movies Begin – A Treasury of Early Cinema, 1894–1913''.
See also
*
''Playing Cards'', a film and possible remake made the same year
References
External links
*