The Swing

Émile Reynaud managed to reproduce unfiltered joy in his strip “The Swing” (1878). The two children are not merely subjects in an animated experiment; they come alive with each movement of the rudimentary apparatus. Their faces burst with laughter, creating an optical illusion that convinces the viewer that the swing is accelerating, an effect that could have been controlled by altering the speed of movement within the Praxinoscope itself. Ultimately, it required both the animated images and the projection machine to achieve the intended result. This combination allowed Reynaud, as the maker, to realise one of the most successful early attempts at expressing emotion through moving images in cinematic archaeology.