L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de la Ciotat
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| L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de la Ciotat | |
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| Directed by | Lumière brothers |
| Produced by | Lumière brothers |
| Cinematography | Louis Lumière |
| Running time | 50 secs |
| Country | France |
| Language | silent |
| IMDb profile | |
L'Arrivée d'un train en la Gare de la Ciotat (The Arrival of a Train at la Ciotat Station) is a very early motion picture produced and distributed by the Lumière Brothers. Filmed in 1895, it was first shown to a paying audience in Paris, France on January 6, 1896.
The 50-second silent film captures the entry of a steam locomotive into the train station in the French coastal town of la Ciotat. Like most of the other early Lumière films, L'Arrivée d'un train consists of a single, unedited "view" illustrating an aspect of everyday life.
[edit] Shock of the new
The film is associated with an urban legend well-known in the world of cinema. The story goes that when the film was first shown, the audience was so overwhelmed by the moving image of a life-sized train coming directly at them that people screamed and ran to the back of the room. Hellmuth Karasek in Der Spiegel wrote that the film "had a particularly lasting impact; yes, it caused fear, terror, even panic." This anecdote was debunked by film scholar and historian Martin Loiperdinger in his essay, "Lumiere's Arrival of the Train: Cinema's Founding Myth" (The Moving Image - Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2004, pp. 89-118). Whether or not it actually happened, the film undoubtedly astonished people in the audience who were unaccustomed to the amazingly realistic illusions created by moving pictures. The Lumière brothers clearly knew that the effect would be dramatic if they placed the camera on the platform very close to the arriving train. Another significant aspect of the film is that it illustrates the use of the long shot to establish the setting of the film, followed by a medium shot, and close-up. The train arrives from a distant point and bears down on the viewer, finally cutting through the lower edge of the screen.
