So that's what Zecca looked like. He is the magician in this movie. Like Melies, he started out as a stage magician and wound up in the movie business, taking pleasure in new ways of fooling the audience.
This is a very simple trick film. He makes crockery reassemble, bowls fill with water and gold fish leap from nowhere to settle in the bowl. It's all accomplished, quite obviously, by having him dump the waterbowls, smash ceramics and so forth.... and then they printed the film so it runs backwards.
It's short, it's amusing and there's the bonus of seeing what one of the faceless pioneers of the cinema looked like.
This is a very simple trick film. He makes crockery reassemble, bowls fill with water and gold fish leap from nowhere to settle in the bowl. It's all accomplished, quite obviously, by having him dump the waterbowls, smash ceramics and so forth.... and then they printed the film so it runs backwards.
It's short, it's amusing and there's the bonus of seeing what one of the faceless pioneers of the cinema looked like.