Accordion Player (1888) User Reviews

Dancing and playing... spectacular

[david-2829 · 5/10 · 14 January 2011]

I know it's only 3 seconds long, but you can feel the rhythm and hear the whimsical tune of the accordion. If you put it on a loop, it looks like an early Shakira hip-shaking routine in the making. Quite special!

In all truth, this is simply one of the very earliest examples of cinema anywhere. Along with the "Roundhay Garden Scene" and the "Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge" -- you've covered the entire year of film making in a minute!

But it was a groundbreaking year, as the first motion pictures officially made their debut, and improvements have been made ever since. To me it is a remarkable feat to see so far into the past... even just a short glimpse.

The joy is contagious

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 4 September 2013]

Although the quality of this 3-second long short film is exactly what you would expect for a work from 1888, this is quite an enjoyable piece of art. Even if you can't see any details and also not the musicians face, which on my assumption 100% was smiling or laughing, the joy he radiates is simply contagious.

This is the third and penultimate project by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince from 1888 and also from his career. Sadly he disappeared under mysterious circumstances about two years later and was never seen again. However, this shouldn't keep us from watching and enjoying the legacy he left us.

Historically Important

[Michael_Elliott · 14 August 2015]

Accordion Player (1888)

Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince is a name very few people will recognize but he's created with being the first "director" in the history of cinema thanks to early films like this one as well as TRAFFIC CROSSING LEEDS BRIDGE and ROUNDHAY GARDEN SCENE. All of these films lasts a mere bit of seconds so it's impossible to judge them as you'd judge a movie today but I must admit that no matter how many times I watch them I can't help but get chills.

You've gotta love watching these films even though they are so short and don't contain anything we'd expect from a film today. ACCORDION PLAYER shows just that. It lasts around five seconds and you just see a boy playing the instrument. Again, there's nothing special here but there's no doubt that it's historically very important. Every format has to start somewhere.

First musical instrument in movie is - melodeon

[vukelic-stjepan · 7/10 · 15 January 2016]

As i say in title, this is first movie where we can see musical instrument. And that musical instrument is melodeon, a kind a similar instrument to 'harmonika', very popular instrument in my country. And I am so proud that 'harmonika' is first instrument that is recorded in movie.

That is reason to me to give higher vote to this film in compare to other Le Prince movies. I wachted all four and I can divide his movies to 2 simple groups - good movies (Roundhay garden scene and Accordion player), and not so good movies (Traffic crossing Leeds bridge and Man walking around the corner).

First protagonist in movie history

[Pencho15 · 8/10 · 30 August 2012]

I've written in other reviews about the enormous meaning of Le Prince's films since he was the first movie maker ever, also I have mentioned that his mysterious disappearance caused that most of his work went missing and therefore we only know small fragments of his movies, after mentioning this there is little left to say about Accordion Player. This is the third of the four surviving Le Prince films, and as the other, due to the fact that we are watching the first steps of cinematography, it also means we have things that had never happened before, in this case the first leading role in a movie.

The few seconds of film shows us Le Prince's son, Adolphe, playing an accordion at the entry of his house (the same we can see in Roundhay Garden Scene?), that means this single character occupies all the screen time and so he plays the leading role that no one in Roundhay Garden Scene can claim. The young man looks happy while playing and he dances to the sound of a melody we will regretfully never hear. As the other Le Prince films, this is not spectacular and will only interest those of us that really love cinema and its history. But as the inventor of film I think all Le Prince work deserves to be watched and enjoyed, it is always great to see how everything started.

Adolphe Le Prince Playing the Accordion

[Tornado_Sam · 11 October 2017]

This film is the last surviving film experiment by Louis Aime Augustin le Prince and it is not as restored beautifully as the directer's previous films, "Roundhay Garden Scene" and "Traffic Crossing the Leeds Bridge". But, despite the poor restoration, we still do know who the person playing the accordion is: Adolphe le Prince, the director's son. The film lasts two seconds so don't expect a plot but, considering the time, this film deserves an 7 at least.

As some people have been saying, Adolphe le Prince, while playing, appears to be joyful and happy. He walks while he plays, in front of a house that appears to be quite old-fashioned and fancy looking, so there is more to look at than just the player himself. Other than the fact that this is one of the first true films, there is nothing ground-breaking about this short, except maybe the fact that it is the first film showing a musical instrument.

Magnificent

[MusaShinwari · 8/10 · 24 April 2020]

I don't know how do these people restore such videos