The Arrival of a Train

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

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.

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.

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.)

I watched this film on a DVD that was rammed with short films from the period. I didn't watch all of them as the main problem with these type of things that their value is more in their historical novelty value rather than entertainment. So to watch them you do need to be put in the correct context so that you can keep this in mind and not watch it with modern eyes. With the Primitives & Pioneers DVD collection though you get nothing to help you out, literally the films are played one after the other (the main menu option is "play all") for several hours. With this it is hard to understand their relevance and as an educational tool it falls down as it leaves the viewer to fend for themselves, which I'm sure is fine for some viewers but certainly not the majority. What it means is that the DVD saves you searching the web for the films individually by putting them all in one place – but that's about it.

Anyway onto this film which is the continuation of the understandable Lumière standard of standing a camera pointing at an event and then recording it happen. In this case a train pulls into a station and people get out. In terms of action it is not that interesting but in regards history of cinema it does offer something at least. It struck me that the other films from Lumiere I had seen to this point had point head on at the action whereas this one was set so that we had a wider view and that things played out across the screen towards the viewer. Also amusing is that some people become awkward when they notice the camera whereas other just bluster in front of it unaware.

The usual fare then that produces little of interest in terms of actual content but has more of interest when viewed in its historical and cultural context.