Cinematheque Francaise - Etienne-Jules Marey - 400 Films Chronophotographiques (1890-1904)

Marey started his career as an assistant surgeon in 1855, and specialised in human and animal physiology. In 1867 he became Professor of Natural History.

He was the inventor of the “chronophotograph” (1887) from which modern cinematography was developed. Some in fact see Marey, rather than the Lumiere brothers, as the true father of cine photography.

Whereas Muybridge (with whom Marey was frequently in contact) had used a number of cameras to study movement, Marey used only one, the movements being recorded on one photographic plate. Characteristic of his pictures were his studies of the human in motion, where the subjects wore black suits with metal strips or white lines, as they passed in front of the black backdrops.

For those who think slow motion photography is relatively new, Marey also invented a slow motion camera in 1894, which took pictures at the rate of 700 per second.

His work was significant in the development of cardiology, physical instrumentation, aviation, cinematography and the science of laboratory photography.

To aid his studies he developed many instruments for precise measurements. For example, he was successful in selling an instrument called Sphygmographe to measure the pulse.

In 1869 Marey constructed a very delicate artificial insect to show how an insect flies and to demonstrate the figure-8 shape it produced during movement of its wings.

Then he became fascinated by movements of air and started to study bigger flying animals, like birds.

He adopted and further developed animated photography into a separate field of chronophotography in the 1880s.

His revolutionary idea was to record several phases of movement on one photographic surface.In 1890 he published a substantial volume entitled Le Vol des Oiseaux (The Flight of Birds), richly illustrated with photographs, drawings, and diagrams.

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