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Breakers (1896)
 

BFI

Main image of Breakers (1896)
 
35mm, black and white, silent, 35 feet
 
ProducerR.W.Paul (?)
PhotographerHenry Short (?)

A handful of passers-by watch waves breaking gently onto a shore.

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One of a number of films made to exploit the filmic possibilities of flowing water in the wake of the popular appeal of Rough Sea At Dover (1895), this is believed to have been shot in 1896, possibly in Spain or Portugal, by Henry William Short, a cinematographer-inventor whose films were distributed by R.W. Paul.

A friend of both Paul and his former colleague Birt Acres, Short is credited by John Barnes in The Beginnings of the Cinema in England as being a vital catalyst in the development of the cinema, as much for introducing like-minded people to each other (including Acres and Paul) as anything else.

Michael Brooke

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Video Clips
Complete film (0:19)
GALLERY / SCRIPTS / AUDIO
SEE ALSO
Fishermen and Boat at Port Said (1897)
Sea Cave Near Lisbon, A (1896)
Women Fetching Water from the Nile (1897)
Paul, R.W. (1869-1943)