Je vous aime (1891)

 

Release Date: January 1, 1891

Director: Georges Demenÿ

Cast: Georges Demenÿ

Country of Origin: France

Medium close-up of a man saying "Je vous aime".

This project was designed to teach deaf children to talk and lip read using recorded speech, at the request of Hector Marichelle, a professor and head of the National Deaf-Mute Institute in France. Georges Demencé did a fantastic job using this idea.

The 1891 film Je vous aime (translated as "I Love You") is a pioneering work of early cinema created by the French inventor and photographer Georges Demenÿ.

 

The film is notable for several key reasons:

Purpose and Origin

Educational Tool for the Deaf: The film was commissioned by Hector Marichelle, director of the National Deaf-Mute Institute in Paris. Its primary purpose was to serve as a visual aid to help teach deaf students how to read lips and speak.

Historical Context: This initiative followed the 1880 Congress of Milan, which had banned the use of sign language in European schools in favor of oralism. 

Content and Technique

Visual Representation: It features a medium close-up of a man—the director, Georges Demenÿ—as he exaggeratedly mouths the phrase "Je vous aime".

Brevity: The film is extremely short, lasting approximately one second in its original projection.

Innovation: It is considered one of the first uses of the close-up shot in motion picture history. To capture the necessary detail for lip reading, Demenÿ had to keep his face immobile and used mirrors to reflect bright sunlight onto his features, causing him to grimace with closed eyes.

Technology: It was produced using chronophotography and was originally intended for projection through a device called the phonoscope, which Demenÿ invented to animate sequence of photographs.

 

Impact on Film History

Commercial Shift: While created for scientific and educational reasons, this experiment led Demenÿ to see the commercial potential of moving images. This eventually caused a professional rift between him and his mentor, Étienne-Jules Marey, who preferred using chronophotography strictly for scientific research.

Foundational Role: Demenÿ’s work with the phonoscope helped bridge the gap between early scientific motion studies and the birth of narrative cinema. 

The pioneering achievement of the 1891 film Je vous Aime, directed by Georges Demenÿ, is its status as one of the first cinematic instances of a close-up shot of a human face. 

Technical Innovation: To capture the necessary detail for lip-reading, Demenÿ used a medium close-up of his own chest and face as he spoke the phrase "Je vous aime" (French for "I love you").

The Phonoscope: To display these moving images, Demenÿ developed the Phonoscope, a device that projected chronophotographic pictures from a rotating glass disc in sequence for the first time.

Projection Milestone: The device and film were first presented to the Académie des Sciences in July 1891 and later shown to a public audience of over 1,000 people in December 1891, predating the commercial rise of the Lumière brothers.