Wednesday, 8 April 2020

La Charcuterie Mécanique and Sausage-Making in Silent Film

Ostensibly the world's first Science Fiction film, La Charcuterie mécanique (1895) by the  Lumière Brothers is a relatively simple trick film with a humourous little twist at the end... An inauspicious beginning for one of the great cinematic genres. It would be up to Georges Méliès to really develop it into something. That said, mechanical apparatus for making a variety of unpalatable sausages would become a sub-genre of its own in succeeding years. Making Sausages (aka: The End of All Things, 1897), The Sausage Machine (1897), Fun in a Butcher Shop (1901), and Dog Factory (1904) all followed suit.   

La Charcuterie mécanique (1895) by the Lumière Brothers.

Making Sausages (1897).

Fun in a Butcher Shop (1901) by Edison Studios.

Dog Factory (1904) by Edison Studios.

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