Truly Dreadful Film

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

This short feature is included in Kino's "The Movies Begin" set in the second volume. It is the only Birt Acres feature included in that volume, and I'm presuming all the others don't include any other films by the director. Besides the sea being rough in the film, the print condition is also. I can't guess why this was included in Kino's set because there isn't really much point to it. There are plenty other films showing stuff like this with rough seas. However, this was made in 1896 and back then it would have been well appreciated I'm sure. This short is 30 seconds or a bit more than that and it's interesting...while it lasts.

This film, if you'll pardon the pun, created quite a storm upon its release in the first days of the cinema, and given the turbulent thrashings of the waves here it's hardly surprising. Workers leaving a factory and men pretending to be blacksmiths against a black background tend to pale in comparison. This also succeeds in the same way that the Lumiere's films succeeded: in the way that it captures motion, something a conventional camera was incapable of doing. It was a major advantage for the motion picture, and it's perhaps not surprising that it took filmmakers so long to see beyond this to the other potential uses of cinema.

Okay, since the film was made all the way back in 1895 (when films were in their infancy), I'll cut the film some slack. After all, ALL the movies were dull and short pieces about the most mundane activities. And so, compared to contemporary pieces, it's not too bad. The subject matter--waves crashing--isn't too interesting, but the film has an artistic composition that make it rather like an Ansel Adams print come to life. Not great, certainly, but for 1895 not bad.If you LOVE this film, then be sure to watch THE ROUGH SEA (1900). It must be once of the cinema's first sequels! Yay!!! MORE Surf footage!!!!

The footage in "Rough Sea At Dover" is rather unrefined, at least in its present condition, but it features some memorable views. The main footage is now rather blurry and unclear, and it's hard to tell just how realistic it may have looked originally. Again as it now stands, the movie consists of two different scenes that may have been edited together after the fact - once again, it's probably impossible to tell with certainty. But in any event, this short movie is one of the more effective examples of the type of early 'actuality' that features water in motion.The scene at Dover catches the wall of a pier as heavy waves crash against it, and the slightly diagonal camera angle adds to the power of the sea as it comes towards the viewer. If the picture were less blurry, it might be an excellent shot. The second scene must come from an entirely different, inland location, but it too shows a good view of water in motion, from a different perspective.The early cinema team of Birt Acres and R.W. Paul did not stick together very long, but this feature shows what they were capable of doing.