The optical theater of emile reynaud: the beginning of the history of the animated film

The phenomenon of animated films finds its origins in the 13th-century toys, perhaps even earlier. Today, more and more attention is directed towards the personalities who laid the foundation for artistic phenomena, opening up new directions, genres, and artistic styles. Particularly fascinating is the history of animated films, which predates the invention of the Lumière brothers. The renowned film historian and critic Georges Sadoul, in his famous history of world cinema, referred to Emile Reynaud as a pioneer of animated films. Indeed, the name of the Frenchman Emile Reynaud is a fixture in any universal film history, especially in the history of animated films. His inventions began with the Praxinoscope (1877), which depicted cyclical movements of drawn images, followed by the Optical Theater in 1888. The premiere of the first animated projections took place on December 28, 1892, at the Grevin Museum in Paris. The audience present at this optical show viewed three pieces: The Beer Mug (700 drawings), The Clown and His Dog (300 drawings), and Poor Pierrot (500 drawings). The latter story, preserved to this day, has its roots in the fairy and pantomime performances of the era, as well as the romantic intrigues between the characters of the commedia dellʼarte- Columbina and her two rivals, Arlequin and Pierrot. With these projections, Emile Reynaud laid the groundwork for the subsequent evolution of animated films. Among his technical and artistic innovations were the use of flexible film, prototype of cinema film, slow motion and reverse motion, and the freeze frame. Of course, the movements of the film were manually coordinated. In this context, the Italian critic Giannalberto Bendazzi, referring to the method of directing animated projections, characterized Reynaud as a "cinematic puppeteer" who skillfully manipulated his drawn characters. It is worth noting that his projections were both sound and color. Reynaud used sound not merely as a background but aimed to synchronize the image with the sound. Regarding the color of the projections, each frame was individually colored. Some of his ideas would later be adopted by the Canadian McLaren, known for his films created without a camera. In 1895, Emile Reynaud prepared a second animated program comprising two stories: Around a Cabin and Dream Before the Hearth. The film Around a Cabin is considered a masterpiece, in which the inventor utilized his technical and artistic innovations to present a story. This was the beginning of an art form, a new art-animated films. In 1900, Emile Reynaud ceased his projections, but his name, as well as his inventions, remained in the history of universal art, marking the emergence of a new genre of cinematic art.

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