Director: Auguste and Louis Lumière
Country: France
Award: none
Movement: The Early Cinema
L'Arroseur Arrosé, also known as The Waterer Watered and The Sprinkler Sprinkled is an 1895 French short black-and-white silent comedy film directed and produced by Louis Lumière and starring François Clerc and Benoît Duval. It was first screened on June 10, 1895. Shot in Lyon in the spring of 1895, the film portrays a simple practical joke in which a gardener is tormented by a boy who steps on the hose that the gardener is using to water his plants, cutting off the water flow. When the gardener tilts the nozzle up to inspect it, the boy steps off of the hose, causing the water to spray the gardener. He is stunned, soaked and his hat is knocked off, but he soon catches on. A chase ensues, both on and off-screen (the camera never moves from its original position) until the gardener catches the boy and administers a spanking. The entire film lasts only 45 seconds, but this simple bit of slapstick may be the forerunner of all subsequent film comedy. The 1896 film version replaces the boy with a teenager and the spanking action is substituted with a kick in the rump.
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