"After the Ball" was actually not the very first film in the history of cinema to contain nudity. While many people often refer to it as such, calling it the 'first adult film', in this case Méliès was a little slow on the draw despite being groundbreaking in many different ways. So a different Frenchman (Albert Kirchner) actually beat him to the punch in the previous years' "Coucher de la Mariee". Reportedly, only a fragment of the latter film survives, (running at roughly two minutes now when it was originally seven) so it is impossible to be certain on whether or not it contained nudity. Thus, about all that can be viewed today of that short is a somewhat tame striptease. Since it was easy to provoke audiences back then just by showing a couple kissing or a bit of a lady's ankle, many of the pornographic shorts of the time rarely went to such lengths as in these two films. But there was a limit, and Méliès didn't quite surpass it. Notice how he blatantly keeps the woman's body stocking on. Observe the lack of frontal exposures. This is still an extremely tame short looking at it today. I'm not even sure if it was shown to that many people in the first place.
The film is simply a presentation of a maid helping a woman undress, relieve herself of those horrid corsets, and bathe in a tub for a few seconds before drying her off with a towel. From my conclusions, there has to be a reason why it didn't drive the public wild. After all, the Edison Company's peepshows sometimes got censored and they were even tamer than this. You'd think someone would know about its initial reactions.
The idea of the erotic film wasn't exactly new to Méliès, either. Previously, and in the exact same year, he had filmed "Peeping Tom at the Seaside" as well as "A Hypnotist at Work" which was made right after the release of this. Both of these shorts are now considered lost films, so it appears that this movie may be the only successor to an erotic film by this director. After all, the stag film was not a popular genre in Méliès's career. And one has to wonder exactly why he was still experimenting with actualities and such even though he was already aware of the film edit. Likewise here. It's obvious the director was still playing with his new toy and had no idea what people would think. So he says, "eh, why not? After all, the worst it could do is cause a few divorces!" (I am joking. I doubt married men were allowed to see this by their wives in the first place).
Nowadays, "After the Ball" is probably going to be viewed as just exploitative (i.e. as a way of getting peoples' attention by provoking them). Considering how tame it looks now, you could probably use it to teach film classes about the earliest types of pornography. And about all those layers of clothing that women wore then, don't forget that. It's also one of the few shorts by the director that doesn't star him, which is probably why it doesn't feel like a Méliès movie at all.
The film is simply a presentation of a maid helping a woman undress, relieve herself of those horrid corsets, and bathe in a tub for a few seconds before drying her off with a towel. From my conclusions, there has to be a reason why it didn't drive the public wild. After all, the Edison Company's peepshows sometimes got censored and they were even tamer than this. You'd think someone would know about its initial reactions.
The idea of the erotic film wasn't exactly new to Méliès, either. Previously, and in the exact same year, he had filmed "Peeping Tom at the Seaside" as well as "A Hypnotist at Work" which was made right after the release of this. Both of these shorts are now considered lost films, so it appears that this movie may be the only successor to an erotic film by this director. After all, the stag film was not a popular genre in Méliès's career. And one has to wonder exactly why he was still experimenting with actualities and such even though he was already aware of the film edit. Likewise here. It's obvious the director was still playing with his new toy and had no idea what people would think. So he says, "eh, why not? After all, the worst it could do is cause a few divorces!" (I am joking. I doubt married men were allowed to see this by their wives in the first place).
Nowadays, "After the Ball" is probably going to be viewed as just exploitative (i.e. as a way of getting peoples' attention by provoking them). Considering how tame it looks now, you could probably use it to teach film classes about the earliest types of pornography. And about all those layers of clothing that women wore then, don't forget that. It's also one of the few shorts by the director that doesn't star him, which is probably why it doesn't feel like a Méliès movie at all.