Melbourne Cup 1896
Clip 3: Melbourne Cup race
0 min 59 sec (
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Taken from the historical footage Melbourne Cup 1896 (1896)
Original title classification not known – this clip chosen to be PG
Availability of the complete title
Please note: this clip is silent
Curator’s clip description
This clip shows the end of the 1896 Melbourne Cup horse race through the onlooking crowd. New Haven wins.
Curator’s notes
Never short of a good idea to entertain his audiences, Walter Barnett, the producer of this film, encourages the crowd to wave their hats as the horses come down the straight to the finish line.
The camera remains static and with this the 1896 Melbourne Cup is recorded in history.
Teachers’ notes
provided by The Le@rning Federation
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This silent, black-and-white clip shows a crowd of well-dressed men and women watching the final leg of the 1896 Melbourne Cup. As the horses approach the finish line, the producer, Walter Barnett, enters the frame, excitedly waving his hat and encouraging the crowd to do the same in an effort to create a sense of spectacle for the camera. New Haven wins and the crowd disperses.
Educational value points
- This is a scene from what is believed to be Australia’s oldest surviving film. It was shot by Marius Sestier on a Lumière Cinématographe camera with a tripod to achieve a still frame, and was produced by Australian society photographer Walter Barnett. This clip is one of about ten films to record the event. The revolutionary Cinématographe, a camera, projector and printer combined, was invented by film pioneers, Auguste and Louis Lumière in 1895. Sestier’s Melbourne Cup films were later sent to France for distribution and it was not until 1969 that the six surviving films were returned to Australia by the Cinématèque Française.
- The clip presents a valuable historical record of one of Australia’s most famous sporting events. The Melbourne Cup began in 1861 and has been run every year since. The race was so popular that in 1866 the day was declared a public holiday for all Victorians. Held in Flemington, Melbourne, on the first Tuesday of November, the 3,200-m race is referred to in Australia as ‘the race that stops the nation’. It is also recognised as one of the world’s greatest handicap races and one of the richest.
- The spectators are shown wearing typical late-19th-century English fashion. Most of the women wear long, full-skirted dresses with fitted bodices and large leg-of-mutton sleeves, which made a focal point of the shoulders, giving an illusion of a smaller waistline. The popularity of large, decorated hats and the use of parasols are also apparent. The men’s attire is more conservative and relaxed, with most men wearing jackets and waistcoats, some with bowties and boater hats, and others wearing top hats.
- The clip is taken from an example of an early ‘actuality’ film. Filmmakers of the time saw the Cinématographe camera as a scientific instrument to be used to record actuality, or real life and events, without intervention or manipulation. Despite Walter Barnett’s enthusiastic manipulation of the crowd during the filming, and later, Sestier’s care in developing a sense of story by structuring the short cup scenes into chronological order and screening them as an integrated program, the footage, as a record of the 1896 Melbourne Cup, is recorded as ‘actuality’.
