La Mer (film)
1895 film by Louis Lumière
La Mer (also known as The Sea) is an 1895 French short black-and-white silent documentary film directed and produced by Louis Lumière. Given its age, this short film is available to freely download from the Internet.
The film formed part of the first commercial presentation of the Lumière Cinématographe on 28 December 1895 at the Salon Indien, Grand Café, 14 Boulevard des Capuchins, Paris.
Production
As with all early Lumière movies, this film was made in a 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It was filmed by means of the Cinématographe, an all-in-one camera, which also serves as a film projector and developer.
Plot
This 38 second film has a very simple plot in which four boys and a plump woman (perhaps their mother) walk along a jetty and then dive into stormy water, only to then struggle to the shore and repeat the process.
“La Mer (film)” enters the record as 1895 film by Louis Lumière. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what film, Louis and Lumière can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“La Mer (film)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, film, Louis and Lumière provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 21, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1518287. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1895.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “La Mer (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.