Open Culture invites us to See 21 Historic Films by Lumière Brothers, Colorized and Enhanced with Machine Learning (1895-1902).

They highlight a collection of films originally created by the Lumière Brothers and now digitally enhanced by Denis Shiryaev.

Shot and projected at 16 frames per second, this footage has had its original frame rate restored, stabilized, upscaled to 240 fps at 4K, colourized and the faces enhanced with AI and finally output at 60 fps.

Dennis details his process in the first four and a half minutes of the film and categorically states, “This is enhanced material and is not historically accurate.”

Nevertheless, the films are a fantastic view into the past. Travel back in time to France, England and Egypt, among other countries. The motion smoothing does impart a different feeling to the footage than the jerky black and white aesthetic we normally associate with old newsreels.

My take: for me, the best shot, at 13:44, is “Panorama of the Golden Horn, Turkey, Istanbul” because it’s one of the few shots that is truly “cinematic” imho. All the other shots are filmed from a tripod and therefore static. This shot is also on a tripod but because we’re on a boat the effect is to dolly to the right, resulting in magical movement with very pleasing foreground, middle ground and background action.