An 1897 Snowball Fight

It may be hard to believe, but these people put on this snowball fight 128 years ago while being filmed in Lyon, France. The action was captured by the Lumière brothers, pioneers in the new art of motion pictures. It looks as if Hollywood made a period movie and the latest technology captured it as if we were right there with them. But don't be fooled. While the snowball fight was in 1897, the one-minute film titled Bataille de neige shot by the Lumière brothers didn't look like this at all. It was in black-and-white, with high contrast, with the quick stuttering movements typical of the time. Of course, it didn't have music, either. You can see the original here, although there has surely been some deterioration from what audiences in France saw in 1897.

The footage from the Lumière brothers was reprocessed by "a Russian amateur film restorer" in 2020 using artificial intelligence to make it seem more modern. The motion was smoothed out, gaps were filled in, and color was added. Yet it's still people from 1897 throwing those snowballs. These were actors putting on a show for the movies. We can imagine that people in the Victorian era might have had fun like this, but they would have been suspicious of a motion picture camera. (via Mental Floss)