L'arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat (1896)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Directors:

Auguste Lumière
Louis Lumière

Release Date:

1897 (Turkey)

Genre:

Short | Documentary

Plot:

Another of the Lumiere Brothers' one-shot films, this time showing a steam train arriving at a station...

Plot Keywords:

Train | Railway Station

Also Known As:

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (USA)
L'arrivée du train en gare de La Ciotat (France)
The Arrival of the Mail Train

Runtime:

1 min

Country:

France

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.31 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Filming Locations:

La Ciotat, Bouches-du-Rhône, France

Company:

Lumière

Trivia:

Film historians agree that the first public exhibition of motion pictures occurred on 28th December 1895 when Auguste Lumière and Louis Lumière (the Lumière Brothers) exhibited a selection of ten of their single-reel films to a paying audience at a Parisian café. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Drive-in Movie Memories (2001)

I Love the 90's...the 1890's!

Like the notorious inflation adjustment that gives Gone With the Wind (1939) the unbreakable box-office high, a slight technological adjustment given the time (109 years ago!) gives Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1895) the best special effects ever (relatively speaking, of course). Forget King Kong (1933), throw out Star Wars (1977), Arrival of a Train' blew audiences away with a little thing called moving pictures. There's a classic rumor of audiences running away from the movie screen, expecting the train to crash right through! As scary as Kong was, nobody expected him to reach into the audience and pick out a few snacks!

Also, it may not have been all that intentional, but the composition of this static, one-minute shot is excellent, and still unrivaled. The perspective of the train zooming past the lens like a wild stampede, the quick stop, then, the explosion of activity: people coming, going, on the train, off the train. What crisp energy! What a film! Viva la Lumiere!