Snowball fight, 1897: 52 seconds of joyful carnage
December 25, 2020 2:04 PM   Subscribe

 
I believe this video used the “deoldify” program module listed in the post below this! There’s a cool video there explaining this process a little. Synergy! Fascinating video.
posted by infinite intimation at 2:18 PM on December 25, 2020 [3 favorites]


Dude the guy on the bike was an innocent bystander and was just trying to go along minding his business and suddenly everyone turns on him with snowballs and knocks him over and a dude even tries to steal his bike and he ends up in such a hurry to get out of there he abandons his hat, that's not cool

JUSTICE FOR THE GUY ON THE BIKE
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:20 PM on December 25, 2020 [30 favorites]


Do you think that guy’s hat is still there?
posted by ActingTheGoat at 2:25 PM on December 25, 2020 [8 favorites]


I believe this video used the “deoldify” program module listed in the post below this!

It’s neat, and definitely one of least objectionable colorized films I’ve seen. I did think the speed was just a wee tick slow. Everyone moves in a kind of dream-like pace.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:43 PM on December 25, 2020


Non-colorized version

Seriously have to wonder what that Bicyclist was thinking. He should have seen the fight from well away.
posted by happyroach at 2:53 PM on December 25, 2020 [3 favorites]


I'm assuming that the bicyclist was thinking that everyone would treat him as Not Part Of The Proceedings and leave him alone.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:02 PM on December 25, 2020 [10 favorites]


Hmm. I wonder if the cyclist was part of the whole performance.

Anyway. Every time I see one of these altered videos I’m amazed by the mental process that makes me decide “oh, this is current” just because the medium now looks current, even though the content itself is so clearly not. Brains are neat.
posted by obfuscation at 3:06 PM on December 25, 2020 [11 favorites]


Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and Snowball Fights.
posted by mundo at 3:13 PM on December 25, 2020 [2 favorites]


I guess it’s true when they say Il vaut mieux passer dans la rue que ramasser dans la pue!


No one actually says this.
posted by darkstar at 3:24 PM on December 25, 2020 [1 favorite]


Seriously have to wonder what that Bicyclist was thinking. He should have seen the fight from well away.

This seems more like the earlier Lumiere film Joueurs de cartes arrosés than one of the recording scenes of life as they happen films. There are a number of the former mixed in with the latter throughout their work, L’arroseur arrosé being the best known I guess. This has some of the same qualities as the others and the bicyclist looks like he stops near where he started, by the two gentleman in the background watching the proceedings, which were clearly planned for the camera, bicyclist aside.
posted by gusottertrout at 3:25 PM on December 25, 2020 [3 favorites]


On an intellectual level, we all understand that historical people were basically just like us.

Except that our Jacob Marley chains are heavier, because we know what they did, and know that we will do the same. Or perhaps not even as much—they seemed, at least at Christmas and international summits, to speak of Une Paix Mondiale more earnestly.

Sorry to go against the mood but I guess the phrase “joyful carnage” rubs me slightly the wrong way, no fault of the OP—this is the middle of the Dreyfus Affair, the Scramble for Africa, winding the clockworks for WWI, etc.: those are other ways these Lyonnais are being like us, and is what they're participating in. People should take joy in snowball fights but I'm having trouble with it this Christmas.
posted by XMLicious at 3:26 PM on December 25, 2020 [5 favorites]


Seriously have to wonder what that Bicyclist was thinking. He should have seen the fight from well away.

He clearly said, Gangway for foot-cycle!
posted by ActingTheGoat at 3:32 PM on December 25, 2020 [2 favorites]


I also thought there was something dreamlike about the movements (though I didn't think of any description as apt as that). But watching the version that happyroach linked, it looks like that actually has to do with people slipping and sliding on the snow - all their steps get drawn out a bit, and they sway a little more, apparently for balance.
posted by trig at 3:34 PM on December 25, 2020 [1 favorite]


Probably no rubber soled shoes yet? It would have been technically possible but looks like they weren’t widely available yet (though maybe in France?). So they’re tip-tapping around on increasingly damp leather, maybe with hobnails but probably not.

I love the huge aprons, but am surprised they’re so not-white.
posted by clew at 3:47 PM on December 25, 2020


There are two kinds of people: Those who will watch this video and think that old-timey folks were fun-loving goofballs, just like us, and those who will watch this video and think that old-timey folks were violent, amoral monsters, just like us.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:50 PM on December 25, 2020 [31 favorites]


Regardless, both of them love KFC™
posted by glonous keming at 5:07 PM on December 25, 2020 [7 favorites]


The lackadaisical approach of the bicyclist in this film wouldn't seem now to merit the pedestrians' reaction, but even a safety bicycle could be much faster than walking, and I wonder if there's some lingering class-based animosity between them (whether the bicycling is scripted or not) that we don't pick up on after the motor-vehicle takeover, based on my reading Roads Were Not Built for Cars, i.e., bicyclists could afford the speediest (personal) mechanical contraption yet and weren't pleased to share roads and neighborhood streets with slower users who might in turn just as easily resent the intrusion on their peaceful enjoyment of the path.
posted by channaher at 6:42 PM on December 25, 2020 [1 favorite]


I believe this video used the “deoldify” program module listed in the post below this!

If you look in Fanfare, you will see a lot of criticism of the de-oldification of Mark Hamill in The Mandalorian.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:50 PM on December 25, 2020 [1 favorite]


An analysis of the snow fight. It's probably staged using workers from the Lumiere factory, but the snow fight is pretty likely to be a great deal of fun.
posted by blob at 7:48 PM on December 25, 2020 [3 favorites]


There are two kinds of people: Those who will watch this video and think that old-timey folks were fun-loving goofballs, just like us, and those who will watch this video and think that old-timey folks were violent, amoral monsters, just like us.

I’m firmly in the goofy amoral monsters camp.
posted by vorpal bunny at 8:06 PM on December 25, 2020 [1 favorite]


One of those women in the back has an arm on her! She sends a couple of shot sailing right up to the front.
posted by madajb at 9:19 PM on December 25, 2020 [1 favorite]


Loved the video, but they REALLY needed to use something else for the soundtrack (dare I say some "old-timey" music?).
posted by gtrwolf at 9:42 PM on December 25, 2020


The first Tour de France bicycle race was held in 1903, no doubt as a response to the Snowball Attack of 1897.
posted by mundo at 9:55 AM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]


Mod note: Couple comments deleted. It's fine to point out context but let's do that without reproducing racist historic texts here, and without insisting that other people must have the same reaction to this clip or else they're either no-fun-sters or somehow uncaring about historical evils. People can have different reactions, that's normal and okay.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 12:13 PM on December 26, 2020


Loved the video, but they REALLY needed to use something else for the soundtrack (dare I say some "old-timey" music?).

The whole channel is like that. Lovely visuals with nails-on-a-chalkboard music and foley, at least, to me. I suppose they can't just upload muted video.

Also, this video has convinced me to sport a proper mustache for my next snowball fight.
posted by michaelh at 2:43 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]


Yeah, the bicyclist looks staged. If you want to experience how it might have felt to the contemporary audience (and maybe a future AI will blandly update it this way), just imagine this with a guy on a Segway instead, riding straight into the middle of the fight and being instantly destroyed.
posted by chortly at 6:35 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]


this is the middle of the Dreyfus Affair, the Scramble for Africa, winding the clockworks for WWI, etc.: those are other ways these Lyonnais are being like us

You’ll be pleased to know that’s the stuff that made it into the history books - that’s why it’s a novelty to see the snowball fights.
posted by atoxyl at 12:24 AM on December 27, 2020 [7 favorites]


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