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Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat More at IMDbPro »L'arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat (original title)
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| Index | 31 reviews in total |
13 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
One of the Most Enduring Images Of Cinema's Earliest Years, 10 March 2005
Author:
Snow Leopard from Ohio
This footage of the "Arrival of a Train" is one of the most enduring
images of the earliest years of cinema. The often-repeated accounts of
the startled reactions to this movie from early audiences, along with
the ways that such reactions were commemorated in other early movies
such as "The Countryman and the Cinematograph", have made it one of the
best-known of the earliest movies, and beyond that, the film in itself
accomplishes its own aim very well.
The Lumières discovered very quickly how effective motion towards the
camera could be, and that idea is certainly used to good effect here.
The diagonal direction of the motion, necessitated by the material
being filmed, gives it a distinctive character. Compared with the
train, the crowd reactions here are a bit less interesting than they
are in some of the other Lumière features that include crowds who know
they are being filmed. A couple of them do acknowledge the camera as
they go about their business.
Yet even today, the train grabs the viewer's notice, so that the crowd
and other details get much less attention. That in itself shows how
effectively this enduring classic was able to carry out an interesting
idea.
14 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
A moving train - voila, 27 February 2003
Author:
James M. Haugh from Houston, Texas
Having invented a hand-cranked, motion-picture camera during the year
1894 - and making films that could be exhibited to scientific groups
during the early months of 1895; Louis Lumiere was a driven man. During
one exhibition of the Cinematograph at the Societe d'Encouragement pour
l'Industrie Nationale, he met an engineer (Jules Carpentier) who wished
to manufacture the invention for selling in Paris. Louis accepted the
proposal. Initial production would be 25 units. They would be
professionally manufactured as opposed to the inventors experimental
camera. Louis continued to use this camera to gather enough views for a
public presentation at the end of the year.
There were a number of problems in producing the first prototype of the
twenty-five units. Even when Louis, exhausted, took some
rest-and-relaxation at the Lumiere's vacation house in the town of le
Ciotat (pronounced see-oh-tah), he could not relax; and remained in
constant communication with Jules in Paris. Louis was able to
communicate on a daily basis with Jules because the mail trains of "le
P.L.M. (Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee)" railway provided him with a means of
staying in touch as well as providing his transportation between Lyon
and la Ciotat.
Still driven by his work, he decided to go to the station and use the
arriving train as one of his subjects. Perhaps wanting to assure that
there would be plenty of action to record on the station platform, he
took along his mother, his wife, and his two children along with their
nanny. They all ventured forth, on a bright sunshiny Mediteranean day -
la Ciotat is on the southern coast of France, between Marseille and
Toulon, where people came to sunbathe and fish - the group ventured
forth to the train station on the northern edge of the town with the
verdant foothills of the Alpes de Provence providing a backdrop to the
railroad.
Louis' wife, in a neck-to-foot elegant dress with a pristine white
bonnet, and the nanny were instructed to run around the platform and
appear as if they were trying to locate an expected-arriver as the
train ground to a halt. The mother, in a shawl, would quietly observe -
as a good matriarch should. Louis could not position his camera and let
the train chug from right to left across the view because he would just
capture a blur. He positioned it very near the track so the train would
be seen in its entire length; and then rattle by very close to the
viewer. The station personnel, in uniform, would hold back the crowd of
departing people on the platform until the train had halted.
So the train arrives; locomotive and tender pass to the left of the
camera followed by a mail car and a string of passenger cars. Louis has
been cranking since the train was in good view. The crowd on platform
can be restrained no more. They break ranks and move to the platform
edge, ready to board, as the train stops. The two women with children
in hand bustle about looking for someone. The matriarch stands still -
observing. A young, and unscripted, peasant lad wanders about seemingly
unsure as to where he should go to find his car. Dazed by the adventure
of his first train ride? Then the doors open (on the French railway
equipment the compartments are entered/exited directly to the
platform.) Passengers begin to detrain. Louis has run out of film and
stops cranking.
The first railroad train to star in a movie prepares to move on to
Toulon (on schedule no doubt.)
9 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Remarkable; unforgettable; the definitive image of 1890s cinema, 13 June 2007
Author:
ackstasis from Australia
There doesn't seem to be anything particularly exciting about an
approaching steam locomotive, but somehow this image has stuck, the
first iconic scene in cinematic history. Produced by pioneering French
filmmakers Auguste and Louis Lumière, 'L' Arrivée d'un train à La
Ciotat / Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat' was filmed at La Ciotat,
Bouches-du-Rhône, France on December 28, 1895 and first screened to a
paying audience on January 6, 1896. The 50-second long film, like most
other Lumière shorts, successfully captures a brief snippet of everyday
life, chronicling the gradual approach of the train, its slow to a
halt, and the disembarkment of its passengers.
For many years, there has been an enduring myth than, upon the first
screening of the film, the audience was so overwhelmed by the image of
the train bearing down upon them that they fled the room in terror.
This has been shown to be something of an embellishment, and, though
the film would undoubtedly have astounded and mesmerised audiences,
there was never any real mass panic. French scientist Henri de
Parville, who attended an early screening, is said to have written:
"The animated photographs are small marvels. ...All is incredibly real.
What a power of illusion! ...The streetcars, the carriages are moving
towards the audience. A carriage was galloping in our direction. One of
my neighbors was so much captivated that she sprung to her feet... and
waited until the car disappeared before she sat down again." This, I
think, adequately sums up how remarkable the film must have seemed back
in 1896.
Auguste and Louis Lumière obviously recognised the power of illusion
offered by their Cinématographe. In order to maximise the shock value
of the approaching train, they have mounted the camera as close as
possible to the edge of the platform, so that the audience feels as if
they are almost standing right in the locomotive's path. The people
departing from the train are just normal citizens going about their day
(several Lumière relatives, however, can be spied on the platform),
enhancing the realism of the short. Cinema does not get much more
memorable than this.
9 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
I Love the 90's...the 1890's!, 27 October 2004
Author:
notdempsey from new york
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!
10 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
Truly Historical, But Not The First Film, 18 January 2002
Author:
jacobw from London, UK
The other reviewers are correct that this is a remarkable piece of history, but it is not the first movie. What film earns that honor depends partly on how you define movies. If you consider Edison's Kinetoscope shorts to be movies, the first movies were from 1893. And even before Edison, there had been some experimentation with projected motion pictures. Even if you give the Lumiere brothers credit for inventing the form (which is a very reasonable decision, but not an inevitable one), I believe their first film was "Workers Leaving The Factory" (aka " Sortie des usines Lumière, La (1895) ") Also, according to the "Oxford History of World Cinema", reports that terrified audience members hid under their seats when the film was first shown are probably apocryphal. Still, this (and the Lumiere brothers other early shorts) are well worth seeing for anyone who loves movies.
6 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Genesis, 16 November 2003
Author:
Rory O'Donnell (TyrconnellPictures) from London, England
I have little to add to other reviewers, except to say that this film took
a
sudden importance in my life last year. In 2002 I was travelling by train
to
my first ever Cannes Film Festival. At one point the train was moving
slowly
and I looked out of the window and found that we were pulling through La
Ciotat, and the platform hadn't changed a bit. Sadly the train didn't
stop,
otherwise I would have been tempted to jump off for a moment, but given
the
purpose of my journey I felt a strange thrill at being there. Just a
little
personal anecdote, but perhaps it shows something of the power and
importance of those early steps in film.
8 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
... and here it all started..., 28 January 2000
Author:
alexbyrds from milan
I can' t believe that people that vote everyday recent movies have not seen this. The simplicity of this one shot movie is supplied by the dept of origins pan-focus. Some young people might forget Tarantino & c. for a while, and re-discover the magic of earlier cinema, in a minute only.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
First iconic image of cinema, 11 May 2007
Author:
José Luis Rivera Mendoza (jluis1984) from Mexico
On December 28, 1895, at Paris's Salon Indien Du Grand Café, the
brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière transformed the industry of
entertainment when they did a demonstration of their new invention. The
brothers projected a series of images on a screen, but those images
were nothing like a normal slide-show, those images were moving as if
they were alive. While the idea of motion pictures wasn't new to the
audience (Edison's Kinetoscope was a popular entertainment), the
devise's ability to project them on a screen was something they had
never seen before. 10 short films of barely a minute of duration each
were shown that day, and the invention proved to be an enormous success
for the brothers, so immediately they decide to keep making movies in
order to improve their catalog. One of those new movies would become
the first iconic image of the new art.
"L' Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat" (literally, "Arrival of a Train at
La Ciotat") is without a doubt, one of the most famous films in
history, as its image of a train arriving to the station, passing very
close to the camera as it slows its speed, quickly became an iconic
scene of the new invention. While initially conceived as just another
one of the brothers' many "actuality films", it's clear that director
Louis Lumière knew exactly where to put his camera in order to get the
best image of the event as the film shows he had a good idea of the use
of perspective (many consider it a study about long shot, medium shot
and close-up). As a side-note, this is the film that originated the
classic urban legend about people running away scared from the arriving
train, thinking it was a real locomotive what was appearing on the
screen.
While this famous tale has been debunked by historians as a fake story,
it's existence is another testament of this movie's importance and
continuous influence on the younger generations. Among the many
different art-forms that we can find today, cinema is perhaps the one
that better reflects the modern society that arose after the industrial
revolution of the 19th Century; because, as painting and sculpture did
before, it has become a keeper of the most representative icons of our
history. "L' Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat" was not the first movie
the brothers screened, and it definitely wasn't the first movie ever
made, but despite those details, the image of the arriving train
represents the first icon of cinema, and literally, the arrival of a
new art form. 9/10
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Not the Last Stop, but the First, 8 January 2009
Author:
Andrea Montalvo from Burlingame, CA
At just under a minute, L'Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat (1895) is one
of Louis Lumiere's earliest excursions into film-making. As was
formulaic with what he called "actualités," or non-narrative shorts,
Louis Lumiere set up his cinematographe (a portable crank-handled
camera that triples as a film projector and developer) at such an
accomplished angle as to catch the arrival of a train at La Ciotat,
where it captures the bustling comers-and-goers of the station who
happen to stray in front of the lens, looking altogether curious, or
else wary of the unfamiliar contraption. The crowd seems lively enough,
but just for good measure, Lumiere's refined wife and mother-in-law can
be seen actively searching for an imaginary, but eagerly expected
passenger.
As uninteresting as it is (and it IS, even for the most pretentious
film buff), L'Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat's historical appeal is
undeniable, if not legendary. The film's effect upon its first public
viewing is a well-worn myth told to enthusiastic film students by their
professors. Apparently, initial audiences, unaware of film's capacity
to fully imitate reality, fled in fear of the image of a train
barreling down upon the screen. The French newspaper, Le courrier du
centre, (July 14, 1896) alleged the advancing locomotive made
"spectators draw back instinctively fearing they'd be run over by the
steel monster." Nevertheless, such a widespread and instantaneous
physical response seems foolish or naïve even then, especially when the
projector would have been visible and the sound audible to all seated
in what at that time passed as a "theater." In reality, it is far more
likely that this incident was limited to a few isolated cases, and was
later exaggerated to enhance its appeal and boost the film's
reputation. Consequently, the commerciality of the venture succeeded
with tremendous results. Over a hundred years later, not only is
L'Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat a cinematic icon, but proof of how
powerful and impressionable moving pictures could (and would) become.
Recommended for those with an interest in film as an art form, or for
those looking for early examples of film in history.
5 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Representation of a turning point., 6 September 2000
Author:
Alice Liddel (-darragh@excite.com) from dublin, ireland
The reaction to this celebrated short, of a train entering and stopping at
a
railway station, has become the stuff of legend, of audiences cowering or
fleeing at the sight of this black looming behemoth speeding towards them.
There is an excellent recreation of such an exhibition in an episode of
'The
Irish R.M.', starring the peerless Peter Bowles.
It is easy to snigger now, we who have lost any response to sensation; and,
anyway, I'm sure those early reports were somewhat exagerrated. But, admit
it, wouldn't you love to be able to see the film with that first audience's
eyes, that frisson that comes from novelty and ignorance, the same kind of
sensibility that believes in ghosts and hasn't become paralysed by
post-modern knowingness. There has been a shift in audience that can be
demonstrated by this film, an inverse 'Purple Rose of Cairo'.
We have nothing in common with the first audiences; we are up there with
the passengers on the platform waiting for a train we know will come, a
thing of wonder and power, something that explodes the screen into life,
animates the human world, breaches the division between this latter and the
technological, the industrial, into somehting quite mundane and functional,
even if we do admire the clean beauty of the image, the mathematical
division of train and platform. Of course, just as the train transports
humans, cinema transports representations of humans; we are at a
technological turning point, from the sturdy and visibly productive, to the
virtual.
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