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The Arrival of a Train at the La Ciotat Station

Author: Lumières brothers
Year: 1895 Edit Add
Book: Remediation

In 1895 the Lumière brothers showed as one of their films in the Grand Café, The Arrival of a Train at the La Ciotat Station. The story is that audience members were so taken with the reality of the moving image of the train that they panicked and ran from the room. This would seem to be a perfect example of film as a transparent medium, but it also helps us to understand the subtle ways in which the logic of transparency can sometimes operate.

File type: video
Info: Auguste and Louis Lumière, L'Arrivée d'un Train à la Ciotat, 1895 The first public exhibition of motion pictures occurred on 28th December 1895 when August Lumière and Louis Lumière (the Lumière Brothers) exhibited a selection of ten of their single-reel films to a paying audience at a Parisian cafe. 'Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat' is considered to be the first motion picture in modern history (although more an experiment from the Lumière-brothers to use their 'invention' of film, it shows a train arriving at a passenger station). Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the cafe in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. Most of the cast were members of the Lumière family and employees from the Lumière factory.
Original Url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk
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