Lumière

This was the longest in a Lumière quartet assembled by Allégret in collaboration with Marie Epstein and the Cinémathèque Française. It comprises material filmed by Louis, Auguste and their staff in Europe and N America between 1894 and 1900. There are street scenes, royal processions, travelling shots taken from train, gondola and the Eiffel Tower lift, vignettes of Warholian banality ('Card Players', 'Demolishing a Wall') and two versions of the 'watered gardener', that first tentative foray into narrative. Full marks to the informative commentary, with its wry awareness of the images' acquired poetic resonance. Print quality is excellent, doing full justice to that remarkable depth of focus.