''Automaboulisme et Autorité (scène comique clownesque)'', released in the United States as ''The Clown and Automobile'' and in the United Kingdom as ''The Clown and Motor Car'', is an 1899 French

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) ...

directed by Georges Méliès. It was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 194–195 in its catalogues. The film was presumed

lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland * Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

until 2011, when a hand-colored fragment on

nitrate film Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and ...

was found among a collection donated to the

Cinémathèque Française The Cinémathèque Française (), founded in 1936, is a French non-profit film organization that holds one of the largest archives of film documents and film-related objects in the world. Based in Paris's 12th arrondissement, the archive offers ...

Summary

Though the print rediscovered in 2011 only comprises fragments of the original, Méliès's film catalogues provide a summary of the complete film:

Legacy

When writing about his childhood, the filmmaker Jean Renoir described a short silent film he saw as a child in 1902, featuring a clown called "Automaboul." The film made a vivid impression on Renoir, who said in 1938 that he "would give almost anything to see that program again. That was real cinema, much more than the adaptation of a novel by

Georges Ohnet Georges Ohnet (3 April 1848, in Paris – 5 May 1918) was a French novelist. Life and career Ohnet was educated at the Collège Sainte-Barbe and the Lycée Napoléon. After the Franco-Prussian War he became editor of the magazines ''Pays'' an ...

or a play by

Victorien Sardou Victorien Sardou ( , ; 5 September 18318 November 1908) was a French dramatist. He is best remembered today for his development, along with Eugène Scribe, of the well-made play. He also wrote several plays that were made into popular 19th-centur ...

can ever be." The film scholar Alexander Sesonske has suggested that the film Renoir remembered was Méliès's ''Automaboulisme et Autorité''.

References

Films directed by Georges Méliès French comedy short films French black-and-white films 1899 films 1890s rediscovered films French silent short films Comedy films about clowns Rediscovered French films 1899 short films Silent French comedy films 1890s French films {{1890s-France-film-stub