Synopsis
The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (L'arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat, 1896) — watch online on iFILM. Filmed by Louis and Auguste Lumière on a platform in Provence, this one-minute short shows a locomotive pulling into the station and passengers moving on and off. That is the entirety of the film.
The camera was set at a diagonal to the track, which meant the train grew from a speck in the distance to something filling the whole frame. Reports from the first public screenings in January 1896 described audience members jumping from their seats, convinced the engine was coming for them. Film historians have since classified that story as promotional exaggeration — but photographs from those early shows suggest the response was somewhere between wonder and alarm. The Lumières shot on the Cinématographe, their own patented device that served as camera, developer, and projector in a single unit.
Fifty seconds. No story. Watch The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896) online on iFILM.
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