Hacker Cinema
The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat
L'arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat
1896 · Film · documentary · 1 min
Directed by Louis Lumière, Auguste Lumière
A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.
1 positive4 neutralfrom 5 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
5 comments on Hacker News
>People were actually diving out of their seats during the debut of Lumiere's "The Arrival of a Train." It was real enough to them...
Actually, they probably weren't. This story appears to be an urban legend, and there's no evidence that it ever actually happened[0].
[0]https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/did-a-silent-film-about-a-train-really-cause-audiences-to-stampede
> When people invented movie films, they (almost certainly) didn't think watching a movie will be literally the same experience as going to the opera.
People were actually diving out of their seats during the debut of Lumiere's "The Arrival of a Train." It was real enough to them...
Sounds very similar to the "Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat"[1] film shown at the dawn of cinema. Some of the audience supposedly jumped from their seats in terror as the life-size train seemingly came straight at them from the movie screen.
I wonder if this kind of thing happens for any mediums you aren't familiar with from childhood.
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Arriv%C3%A9e_d'un_train_en_gare_de_La_Ciotat#Contemporary_reaction
This has been true since the beginning of film's history, with rare exceptions. Spectacle sells, even going back to the point when the technology of film itself was the spectacle. (See for example the always-thrilling L'Arrivée d'un Train à la Ciotat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk)
If you want "film as art," it's generally best to avoid studio mega-corps designed to make cash.
My grandfather was born in Abakan, and published several books on the history of the region. He visited Agafia several times by helicopter with my uncle, after the other members of her family had passed.
When I was around 15, he showed me a video of their first encounter with her, and to this day I cannot get the image of the pure terror on her face out of my mind. She had multiple visitors before, but something about this visit scared her so much that she hid inside for hours.
It turned out that this was the first visit where someone in the crew had brought video equipment (one of those big shoulder-mounted VHS cameras), and Agafia would later tell my grandfather that she thought this thing would 'steal her soul.' She wasn't shocked in amazement at the new technology, this was pure fear.
Reminds me of one of the early silent film The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station [1], which allegedly was so realistic that people ran out of the movie theater screaming.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LArriv%C3%A9e_dun_train_en_gare_de_La_Ciotat