Falling Cat

Falling Cat is an 1894 chronophotographic image produced by Étienne-Jules Marey, a French scientist. It was the third film that came out in the 19th century filmed in a public park, Bois de Boulogne in Paris, and released in France. It is believed to be the first motion picture in history to show a live cat. The film consists solely of the feline falling down and landing on its feet.

Marey had assembled a camera that was capable of taking twelve consecutive frames a second. It resembled a short barrelled shotgun with a magazine. With this, he studied various animals in action. His most famous study was his ‘animated zoo’, in which this cat was dropped from a height of a few feet in order to see if it always landed on its feet.