First film & first public show

Visual arts coined upon the principle of  persistence of vision is most influential art form that took world to greater entertainment and scientific achievement

In the late 1880’s various people began experimenting with photo, blending them together to give the illusion of a motion picture.  But the technology and difficulty to capture that sort of video made motion pictures.

Arrival of a Train (1895)

This 50-second silent film shows the entry of a train pulled by a steam locomotive into a train station of the French coastal town of La Ciotat. It’s a single, unedited view illustrating an aspect of everyday life, and the film consists of one continuous real-time shot.

This was considered to be first moving images presented to public.

It produced countless emotions,excitement, fear and panic.

Myth says when the film was first shown, the audience was so scared by the image of a life-sized train barreling toward them that people screamed and ran to the back of the room.. . But few intellectual researchers turn down this as they say there was some panic and excitement.. But people where stationed.

The Lumiere brothers  created the first publicly shown movies, the first documentaries and, with this 50-second film shot at a Provence railway station, the first horror picture. It is said that as Paris audiences watched the train chug toward the screen, they believed it was about to crash out of the frame and into the auditorium.

This landmark short film was recently presented in 4K and at 60 frames per second. The restoration brings one of the most historic short films of the 19th century firmly into the 21st. The image is so clear it almost makes it appear as if the Lumière brothers shot “Arrival of a Train” on digital. The fan-made restoration was uploaded to YouTube on February 2 and has already amassed over 1.1 million views and counting in less than a week.

Many shorts where produced during that era like flowers blossoms, evening workers coming out of factory… Then Edwin.S.Porter’s  ‘ The great train robbery’ (1905) was turning point of filming a narrative with multiple camera angles.

Train Pulling into a Station a French short directed and produced by Lumiere brothers Contrary to myth, it was not shown at the Lumières’ first public film screening on 28 December 1895 in Paris, France: the programme of ten films shown that day makes no mention of it. Its first public showing took place in January 1896.

Cinema at theatres with public reception was huge business and cultural happening more than 100 years… But this pandemic era has brought many cinema halls stopping it’s presentation.

This new year 2021 should bring people back to theatres… Enjoy films as they had been for centuries.

Films are always meant to be at Big screen and it brings people of various walks of life together.

This togetherness is more greater than a worship places.

CJ Rajkumar

Author/ Cinematographer.