Émile Reynaud: the forgotten pioneer of animation
The rise of a genius: from the workshop to the total spectacle
In December 1935, while sound cinema was triumphing in an industrial frenzy, the writer and filmmaker Jacques Brunius published a scathing text in the avant-garde journal La Bête Noire : "The Obscure and the Enlightenment." His ambition? To rescue Émile Reynaud from oblivion and denounce an official history that swore only by photography.
Heading of the avant-garde magazine La Bête Noire
The spirit of the article: A counter-history of cinema
For Brunius, cinema was not born from a simple technical feat of capturing reality (like that of the Lumière brothers), but from a desire to create wonder. He denounces the "stupidity" of a cinema that had become purely industrial by 1935 and calls for a rediscovery of Reynaud's handcrafted poetry.
"Everything was already there, in the silence of the optical box, before industry seized it." Jacques Brunius, La Bête Noire , Dec. 1935
Brunius points out that while the Lumière brothers filmed trains entering stations, Reynaud painted his own dreams on strips of gelatin.
The Emergence: The Perfect Movement (1876 – 1879)
At the end of the 19th century, animation was confined to the slits of the Zoetrope , offering a dark and choppy image. Émile Reynaud, a science professor and visionary, sought enlightenment.
1876 : In his workshop in Le Puy-en-Velay, he invented the Praxinoscope . He replaced the slits with a cage of mirrors in the center of a drum.
1877 (December): Patent application filed. Brunius admires this step because it is the result of pure craftsmanship: "An invention that owed nothing to chance, but everything to the geometry of a dream."
1879 : He created the Praxinoscope-Théâtre, where the animated character was integrated into a fixed background. This was the invention of the "layer" well before Photoshop.
The Invention of "Total" Cinema (1880 – 1888)
Reynaud no longer wants to be satisfied with loops of 12 images. He wants to tell stories.
1880 : Release of La Toupie Fantoche. Reynaud begins to paint increasingly complex sequences.
1888 (October) : Filing of the patent for the Théâtre Optique. It is a monumental and revolutionary machine. Reynaud introduces an innovation without which modern cinema would not exist: perforation. By piercing the cardboard frames that connect his gelatin plates, he allows for a precise and fluid movement of strips that can reach several hundred images.
Original poster for the Pantomimes Lumineuses by Émile Reynaud at the Musée Grévin (1892).
1892 – 1900: The Triumph of "Luminous Pantomimes"
This is where Brunius places the heart of his rehabilitation. On October 28, 1892, at the Musée Grévin, Reynaud launched his public screenings. It was a live performance: Reynaud operated the reels by hand, adapted the rhythm to the laughter of the audience, and rewound.
“Reynaud’s spectacle had a fluidity that the Lumière brothers’ automatic crank would kill.” — Jacques Brunius
His masterpieces, such as Poor Pierrot (500 hand-painted images), are the first true animated cartoons in history.
The confrontation with "Reality" (1895 – 1910)
1895 : The Lumière brothers present the Cinematograph. It is the moving photograph. The public abandons the poetic drawing for the realism of "Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory".
1900 : End of the contract at the Musée Grévin. Reynaud attempts to adapt by creating "Stereo-cinema," but he refuses to embrace mass industrialization.
Stereo-cinema (1902), by Émile Reynaud.
The Tragedy of 1910: The Sacrifice of the Asnières Bridge
The year 1895 marked the beginning of the end. The Lumière brothers' Cinématographe introduced "moving photographs." Faced with the industrial realism of Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory , the public turned away from Reynaud's painted poetry.
Ruined, depressed, and convinced that his work had become obsolete, Émile Reynaud committed the irreparable in 1910. He transported his machines and his unique tapes to the Pont d'Asnières and threw his life's work into the Seine. Only two tapes, miraculously salvaged, bear witness to his genius today.
The Vision of 1935: The Testament of Brunius
Twenty-five years after this tragic act, Jacques Brunius uses the columns of La Bête Noire to shout to the world that we have gone down the wrong path.
For Brunius, the reader of 1935 must understand that the "talking" cinema of his time had become a simple, boring theatrical recording.
He cites Reynaud as the example of the complete artist: "We preferred copying the world to inventing a world." (Jacques Brunius, La Bête Noire , Dec. 1935)
Why read Brunius today?
In 1935 , Jacques Brunius reminded us that art should not be a slave to technology:
"We have confused the progress of tools with the progress of the mind." Jacques Brunius, La Bête Noire , Dec. 1935
To celebrate Reynaud through Brunius's eyes is to restore the nobility of imagination. It is to remember that cinema was born from a paintbrush before it was born from a lens.
Source of quotes and facts: Jacques Brunius, La Bête Noire, no. 8, Dec. 1935.
To go further
Émile Reynaud's Praxinoscope: Secrets of Movement and Light