User Reviews

This was obviously inspired by Rough sea at Dover, a groundbreaking film from 1895 that did more than most early films to demonstrate the power the motion picture had to capture dramatic motion - something the camera was incapable of doing. Unfortunately, the filmmakers here were unable to find a storm of similar proportions as that shown on 'Dover' so we're treated to a rather mind-numbing shot of what could more accurately be described as a choppy sea. We see probably a ten foot square section of this sea which is clearly so close to the shore that the cameraman probably didn't have to roll his trousers up to film it. Something gives me the impression that they weren't really trying here.

By the time cinema was invented, there were short subjects entitled "Rough Seas" There were even a couple made before the cinema, using one of the technologies that led up to it.

In the year this was issued, there were four movies released with the same or similar titles, and the same or similar things happening on the screen. Nowadays we'd call this a genre. Back then, the organization of the movie industry was different. Exhibitors did not rent films, they bought them from catalogues. Since Bamforth -- the company that offered this movie in its catalogue -- wanted more business, it ade sense for them to have their own version of the film on offer.

It wasn't that difficult by 1900. You could send a cameraman over to a likely patch of seashore and crank, or buy a copy of a competitor's film, duplicate it, and offer it as your own. Film was cutting edge technology at the time, and the law hadn't caught up.

While short and simple, this brief footage of the "Rough Sea" is convincing in making you feel as if you were right there on the shoreline as the waves rolled in towards you. The field of view is well chosen, and the quality of the photography shows few signs of having been taken over 100 years ago.

No doubt, not enough "happens" in this film to interest most viewers today, but it succeeds well in fulfilling its simple goal. As with any good movie, it allows you to feel close to what is happening on screen. In this case, you could well be standing along the water's edge, feeling the foam as the waves come in, and thinking about the power of nature. As basic as it may seem, it's probably done about as well as anyone today could do it.

I watched this film on a DVD that was rammed with short films from the period. I didn't watch all of them as the main problem with these type of things that their value is more in their historical novelty value rather than entertainment. So to watch them you do need to be put in the correct context so that you can keep this in mind and not watch it with modern eyes. With the Primitives & Pioneers DVD collection though you get nothing to help you out, literally the films are played one after the other (the main menu option is "play all") for several hours. With this it is hard to understand their relevance and as an educational tool it falls down as it leaves the viewer to fend for themselves, which I'm sure is fine for some viewers but certainly not the majority. What it means is that the DVD saves you searching the web for the films individually by putting them all in one place – but that's about it.

In the early days of cinema there were plenty of films that "simply" filmed an event occurring or something similar. In this Bamforth production we get to stare out at the sea rolling and waving at us. It is a simple thing that is easily seen as dull because, indeed, it is dull. However it is well photographed so that the images feel sharp and intimate and it is easy on a big screen to feel like it is quite close. Not brilliant then but technically it manages to bring the sea to the screen in a convincing and well filmed manner, which is all it was aiming for.

If you have yet gotten a chance to read the title of this brief Bamforth short, then I guess you'd have a bit of an idea about what happens here. Because audiences were amazed at even being able to watch movies at all, they never really cared what they were seeing--hence, filming a rough sea for 50 seconds got considerable profit. Today, the results seem really boring because nothing particularly interesting happens. However, as other reviewers have stated, this film's object was more to make the audiences feel as though they were at the seashore. That said, this is a really boring watch by today's standards and is really only worthwhile to film buffs such as me who would enjoy watching these early movies. On a side note, I don't know how anybody could possibly know for sure that this is really a Bamforth short, since I'm sure filmmakers made hundreds of shorts just like this in cinema's first years. Maybe the reel was labelled?