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Patineur Grotesque
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Patineur Grotesque

It is believed to have been made in Melbourne, Victoria, in October 1896, however, Patineur Grotesque has never screened in Australia. Yet it is Australia’s earliest surviving film.


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When frères Lumière representative to Australia, Marius Sestier arrived in Melbourne from Sydney in late October to appear in the J.C. Williamson pantomime 'Djin-Djin' the Japanese Bogeyman he also intended to make films. In the weeks prior to arriving in Melbourne Sestier, with his Australian concessionaire, Henry Walter Barnett, made Australia’s first film Passengers leaving ss Brighton at Manly in Sydney. The first screening of that film at the Salon Lumière on 27 October was a success and Sestier announced more local films were to come. Sestier added to his Australian produced films with fifteen films of the Melbourne Cup Carnival. 

Until recently only 19 Australian films are believed to have been made by Sestier, 4 in Sydney and 15 in Melbourne. Patineur Grotesque, aka the Humourous Rollerskater or the Burlesque Roller Skater, is believed to have been made in late October 1896 by Sestier just prior to the filming of the Melbourne Cup Carnival. Despite this, the film’s first screening was in Lyon on 28 February 1897 not Australia.  It is believed that the film has never been screened in Australia until now. View an excerpt from Patineur Grotesque on australianscreen»

Patineur Grotesque was found and restored by the Magyar Nemzeti Filmarchivum (the Hungarian National Film Archive) in 1966 but not identified as an Australian produced film. In some texts Patineur Grotesque is listed as an Austrian film. It was during the production of the 1996 BIFI publication 'La Production cinematographe des Frères Lumière' that the film was listed as part of Sestier’s work in Australia.

The film is one minute long and the action takes place in the centre of the frame. A man in costume and on roller skates performs for a gathering crowd. As part of the act the skater trips and falls, then drops his hat. As he attempts to retrieve the hat he continues to fall about. When finally the hat is restored to his head the act is completed.

Burlesque rollerskating had been included on the stage since the 1880s in Australia and around the world. Quite often around skating rinks, circuses, aquariums or other places of amusement, a burlesque roller skater was hired to perform in the area outside the venue.
 
Now recognised as Australia’s first comedy film it is interesting to note that French film historian, Georges Sadoul, in his 1973 rewrite of L’invention du Cinema, refers to Patineur Grotesque as the forerunner to the work of Charlie Chaplin and Max Linder.