19th century silent film that first captured a robot attack

I worked on a massive audio (78s) digitization project for the LOC and it was a blast to see the process of how these archivists and their outsourced crews (like us) worked to maintain the human arts. It was an odd feeling, I never had a client prior to that make me feel like our work was so important.

Well, to be pedantic, if it's 19th century it would have to be an automaton. The word robot wasn't coined until 1923.

Oh boy, this takes me down memory lane.

George Meliese's silent films and automatons were at the core of the beautifully illustrated and written YA novel from the mid-2000s named The Invention of Hugo Cabret [0].

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_Hugo_Cabret

"[...] attacks a human clown with a stick."

Why does NPR call Gugusse "a human clown" ? He is not wearing clown clothes.

Gugusse looks more to me like the "mad inventor" of the robot, with a comedic bald head.

Oh boy, this takes me down memory lane.

George Meliese's silent films and automatons were at the core of the beautifully illustrated and written YA novel from the mid-2000s named The Invention of Hugo Cabret [0].

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_Hugo_Cabret

Well, to be pedantic, if it's 19th century it would have to be an automaton. The word robot wasn't coined until 1923.

From the article

> (The word "robot" didn't appear until 1921, when Czech dramatist Karel Čapek coined it in his science fiction play R.U.R..)

The actual title of the short uses the word "automate", French for "automaton"; I suspect NPR simply used the more familiar word in their headline for clarity.

You didn't read the link, did you? This is addressed in the article.

"[...] attacks a human clown with a stick."

Why does NPR call Gugusse "a human clown" ? He is not wearing clown clothes.

Gugusse looks more to me like the "mad inventor" of the robot, with a comedic bald head.

Well, the Library of Congress entry notes him as "Gugusse the clown" and the Wikipedia entry[2] has a few citations (to books, I can't verify) that support it, but more to the point, "Pierrot" is a classic[3] stock character in e.g. commedia dell'arte. It says clown but I think our modern meaning of that word is a bit removed, and perhaps "harlequin" (another character[4]) is more what we'd say these days.

1: <https://www.loc.gov/item/2026125501/?loclr=blogloc>

2: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gugusse_and_the_Automaton>

3: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot>

4: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin>

> Why does NPR call Gugusse "a human clown" ? He is not wearing clown clothes.

Strange of you to criticize NPR for that bit seeing as they didn't come up with that description for Gugusse. From the LoC page for the video:

>> Gugusse the clown appears to control the actions of Pierrot Automate, a child-sized automaton standing on a pedestal. By turning a crank, Gugusse makes him march and wave a stick. As Gugusse turns the crank, the automaton gets bigger until it is the size of a grown man. Suddenly the automaton is controlling his own limbs. He hits Gugusse on the head with his stick. Gugusse pulls the automaton off the pedestal and picks up a large hammer. As Gugusse pounds the automaton on the head, he gets smaller and smaller. At the final stroke of the hammer, he disappears.

So they're using the supplied description of Gugusse. If you have an issue with it, take it up with the Library of Congress.

the llm editing the llm writing it missed it?

Agreed 100%. That's a mad scientist. I'll bet the coat with exaggerated tails was comically out of fashion as well.

The actual title of the short uses the word "automate", French for "automaton"; I suspect NPR simply used the more familiar word in their headline for clarity.

From the article

> (The word "robot" didn't appear until 1921, when Czech dramatist Karel Čapek coined it in his science fiction play R.U.R..)

1: <https://www.loc.gov/item/2026125501/?loclr=blogloc>

2: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gugusse_and_the_Automaton>

3: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot>

4: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin>

> Why does NPR call Gugusse "a human clown" ? He is not wearing clown clothes.

Strange of you to criticize NPR for that bit seeing as they didn't come up with that description for Gugusse. From the LoC page for the video:

So they're using the supplied description of Gugusse. If you have an issue with it, take it up with the Library of Congress.

the llm editing the llm writing it missed it?

You didn't read the link, did you? This is addressed in the article.

Agreed 100%. That's a mad scientist. I'll bet the coat with exaggerated tails was comically out of fashion as well.

The jacket just looks like a variant of “morning dress”. It’s the equivalent of a tuxedo for the daytime (wearing either at the wrong time of day used to be considered incorrect; see the selectively-sartorially-fastidious Jack in 30 Rock reacting to Liz’s surprise at his wearing a dinner jacket without some special event planned with, “it’s after 6:00, Liz, what am I, a farmer?”)

You still occasionally see them at state functions (Trump wore an infamously poor-looking one when visiting Queen Elizabeth in his first term, iirc, and you can find photos of people like Reagan in it looking a bit less uncomfortable). I think they were standard/required clothing for arguing in front of the Supreme Court through the 1970s or something.

It’s the kind of jacket one might imagine a stereotypical cartoon mayor of a town wearing for a daytime ribbon cutting… because, not that long ago, that’s exactly what they would have worn.

It’s an almost, but not quite, dead piece of clothing, but it was still quite familiar when this was made.

It’s the kind of jacket one might imagine a stereotypical cartoon mayor of a town wearing for a daytime ribbon cutting… because, not that long ago, that’s exactly what they would have worn.

It’s an almost, but not quite, dead piece of clothing, but it was still quite familiar when this was made.

A screenshot from George Méliès's Gugusse et l'Automate. The pioneering French filmmaker's 1897 short, which likely features the first known depiction of a robot on film, was thought lost until it was found among a box of old reels that had belonged to a family in Michigan and restored by the Library of Congress.

A screenshot from George Méliès's Gugusse et l'Automate. The pioneering French filmmaker's 1897 short, which likely features the first known depiction of a robot on film, was thought lost until it was found among a box of old reels that had belonged to a family in Michigan and restored by the Library of Congress. The Frisbee Collection/Library of Congress hide caption

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The Frisbee Collection/Library of Congress

The Library of Congress has found and restored a long-lost silent film by Georges Méliès.

The famed 19th century French filmmaker is best known for his groundbreaking 1902 science fiction adventure masterpiece Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon).

The 45-second-long, one-reel short Gugusse et l'Automate – Gugusse and the Automaton – was made nearly 130 years ago. But the subject matter still feels timely. The film, which can be viewed on the Library of Congress' website, depicts a child-sized robot clown who grows to the size of an adult and then attacks a human clown with a stick. The human then decimates the machine with a hammer.

In an Instagram post, Library of Congress moving image curator Jason Evans Groth said the film represents, "probably the first instance of a robot ever captured in a moving image." (The word "robot" didn't appear until 1921, when Czech dramatist Karel Čapek coined it in his science fiction play R.U.R..)

"Today, many of us are worried about AI and robots," said archivist and filmmaker Rick Prelinger, in an email to NPR. "Well, people were thinking about robots in 1897. Very little is new."

A long journey

Groth said the film arrived in a box last September from a donor in Michigan, Bill McFarland. "Bill's great grandfather, William Frisbee, was a person who loved technology," Groth said. "And in the late 19th century, must have bought a projector and a bunch of films and decided to drive them around in his buggy to share them with folks in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York."

McFarland didn't know what was on the 10 rusty reels he dropped off at the Library of Congress' National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Va. A Library article about the discovery describes the battered, pre-World War I artifacts as having been, "shuttled around from basements to barns to garages," and that they, "could no longer be safely run through a projector," owing to their delicate condition. "The nitrate film stock had crumbled to bits on some; other strips were stuck together," the article said. It was a lab technician in Michigan who suggested McFarland contact the Library of Congress.

"The moment we set our eyes on this box of film, we knew it was something special," said George Willeman, who heads up the Library's nitrate film vault, in the article.

Willeman's team carefully inspected the trove of footage, which also contained another well-known Méliès film, Nouvelles Luttes extravagantes (The Fat and Lean Wrestling Match) and parts of The Burning Stable, an early Thomas Edison work. With the help of an external expert, they identified the reel as having been created by Méliès because it features a star painted on a pedestal in the center of the screen – the logo for Méliès Star Film Company.

A pioneering filmmaker

Méliès was one of the great pioneers of cinema. The scene in which a rocket lands playfully in the eye of Méliès' anthropomorphic moon in Le Voyage dans la Lune is one of the most famous moments in cinematic history. And he helped to popularize such special effects as multiple exposures and time-lapse photography.

This moment from George Méliès' Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) is considered to be one of the most famous in cinematic history.

This moment from George Méliès' Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) is considered to be one of the most famous in cinematic history.
George Méliès/Public Domain hide caption

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George Méliès/Public Domain

Presumed lost until the Library of Congress's discovery, Gugusse et L'Automate loomed large in the imaginations of science fiction and early cinema buffs for more than a century. In their 1977 book Things to Come: An Illustrated History of the Science Fiction Film, authors Douglas Menville and R. Reginald described Gugusse as possibly being, "the first true SF [science fiction] film."

"While it may seem that no more discoveries remain to be made, that's not the case," said Prelinger of the work's reappearance. "Here's a genuine discovery from the early days of film that no one anticipated."

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19th century silent film that first captured a robot attack

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A long journey

A pioneering filmmaker