The Arrival of a Train (1896)

7/10

Red-Barracuda30 March 2012

A train arrives at a station. And changes everything.

There isn't a lot to really say about L'arrivée d'un train a La Ciotat as a film itself. It's under a minute and shows a train pull up at a busy station. But what it signifies is another thing altogether. When we see that train come closer and closer until it stops in the station, on a surface level we watch a train arrive but it actuality what we are really witnessing is cinema arrive. This short film may not be the earliest movie but it is the first iconic image of the moving picture age.

Auguste and Louis Lumière weren't really artists. Their early films don't stand up to the highly imaginative work of George Méliès for example. But they still remain enormously important cinema giants. Not for the content of their films but for the fact that they kicked things off in the first place and produced the first iconic moment in cinema history. And for this reason L'arrivée d'un train a La Ciotat will always be remembered. Everyone who has a love of cinema should really take a minute of their time to pay homage to the first moment in an amazing journey.

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7/10

Not the Last Stop, but the First

Badwolf578 January 2009

At just under a minute, L'Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat (1895) is one of Louis Lumiere's earliest excursions into film-making. As was formulaic with what he called "actualités," or non-narrative shorts, Louis Lumiere set up his cinematographe (a portable crank-handled camera that triples as a film projector and developer) at such an accomplished angle as to catch the arrival of a train at La Ciotat, where it captures the bustling comers-and-goers of the station who happen to stray in front of the lens, looking altogether curious, or else wary of the unfamiliar contraption. The crowd seems lively enough, but just for good measure, Lumiere's refined wife and mother-in-law can be seen actively searching for an imaginary, but eagerly expected passenger.

As uninteresting as it is (and it IS, even for the most pretentious film buff), L'Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat's historical appeal is undeniable, if not legendary. The film's effect upon its first public viewing is a well-worn myth told to enthusiastic film students by their professors. Apparently, initial audiences, unaware of film's capacity to fully imitate reality, fled in fear of the image of a train barreling down upon the screen. The French newspaper, Le courrier du centre, (July 14, 1896) alleged the advancing locomotive made "spectators draw back instinctively fearing they'd be run over by the steel monster." Nevertheless, such a widespread and instantaneous physical response seems foolish or naïve even then, especially when the projector would have been visible and the sound audible to all seated in what at that time passed as a "theater." In reality, it is far more likely that this incident was limited to a few isolated cases, and was later exaggerated to enhance its appeal and boost the film's reputation. Consequently, the commerciality of the venture succeeded with tremendous results. Over a hundred years later, not only is L'Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat a cinematic icon, but proof of how powerful and impressionable moving pictures could (and would) become.

Recommended for those with an interest in film as an art form, or for those looking for early examples of film in history.

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6/10

Literally Just a Train

YesWeCandrew17 June 2016

So this is one of the first films ever created. It is a cultural icon and seems to have stuck in the minds of cinema goers since it was screened. Surrounding it is the myth that the first viewers screamed as the train went past, afraid to be run over. But with all that in mind it is literally a train. At a station. So reviewing on the quality of the film alone and its content, I'm giving it a 6, which is really quite generous. I think this film is a must watch for any cinema buff, but you know it's only a minute long. Now I'm just filling in space so IMDb lets me post it. To be honest, I just wrote this review to get the little tick on my profile because it was bugging me.

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One of the Most Enduring Images Of Cinema's Earliest Years

Snow Leopard10 March 2005

This footage of the "Arrival of a Train" is one of the most enduring images of the earliest years of cinema. The often-repeated accounts of the startled reactions to this movie from early audiences, along with the ways that such reactions were commemorated in other early movies such as "The Countryman and the Cinematograph", have made it one of the best-known of the earliest movies, and beyond that, the film in itself accomplishes its own aim very well.

The Lumières discovered very quickly how effective motion towards the camera could be, and that idea is certainly used to good effect here. The diagonal direction of the motion, necessitated by the material being filmed, gives it a distinctive character. Compared with the train, the crowd reactions here are a bit less interesting than they are in some of the other Lumière features that include crowds who know they are being filmed. A couple of them do acknowledge the camera as they go about their business.

Yet even today, the train grabs the viewer's notice, so that the crowd and other details get much less attention. That in itself shows how effectively this enduring classic was able to carry out an interesting idea.

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7/10

Waiting for the arrival of a Train at La Ciotat. Witness the birth of the cinema. That's exciting somewhat. Not really. Still OK to watch.

ironhorse_iv28 June 2013

Warning: Spoilers

While today, it might be mind-numbing to watch. People in 1895, love this 50 second film clip. Generally considered to be among the first motion pictures in modern history, this clip was filmed in La Ciotat, Bouches-du-Rhône, France that show a group of Turn of the Century people are standing in a straight line along the platform of a railway station, waiting for a train. Yeah, that's pretty much it. The film has no story besides that yet the film became popular to watch. Most people today could never understand the fear that gripped the 1895 audience facing the arriving train. Film in a way, the train looks as if it coming right at them. Some audiences' members at the time reacted by jumping or going under the chairs as they saw the train coming at them on screen. There is no apparent intentional camera movement, and the film consists of one continuous real-time shot. Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat illustrates the use of the long shot to establish the setting of the film, followed by a medium shot, and close-up. The whole time, the camera was static for the entire film, the effect of these various "shots" is affected by the movement of the subject alone. The train arrives from a distant point and bears down on the viewer, finally crossing the lower edge of the screen. It was great use of film by Louis and Auguste Lumière. If they didn't put the camera where it is, in my opinion, it wouldn't be as good as any other early films. I really glad they didn't film the train by the side. Not only is this one of the first early films, but it also serve as one of the first horror movies. This film also gave birth to documentary film. While it's not a great entertainment film; it's does give great insight of how life was like in Victoria Era 1895. Those female hats in the film are pretty outrageous wild. It's a remarkable piece of history, but it is not the first movie like some critics talk about. Not close at all. What film earns that honor depends partly on how you define movies. Asking what was the first movie ever made is a bit like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. It's hard to give a definitive reply. If you consider Edison's Kinetoscope shorts to be movies, the first movies were from 1893, not 1895. Some historian claim that the first ever video footage was 1893's New York Fire Brigade footage. There might a film that earlier than that. The earliest celluloid film was shot by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince using the Le Prince single-lens camera made in 1888 call "Roundhay Garden Scene". Before then, there was 'the horse in motion' from 1878. It's hard to figure out where Lumière brothers' film fits in with the others. It was filmed by Auguste and Louis Lumière by means of the Cinématographe, an all-in-one camera, which also serves as a printer and film projector. Unlike all early Lumière movies, this film contrary to myth, was not shown at the Lumières' first public film screening on 28 December 1895 in Paris, France. The program of ten films shown that day makes no mention of it. Its first public showing took place in January 1896. What most film historians left out is that the Lumière Brothers were trying to achieve a 3D image even prior to this first-ever public exhibition of motion pictures. Louis Lumière eventually re-shot L'Arrivée d'un Train with a stereoscopic film camera and demonstrated it along with a series of other 3D short at a 1935 meeting of the French Academy of Science. Given the contradictory accounts that plague early cinema and pre-cinema accounts, it's plausible that early cinema historians conflated the audience reactions at these separate screenings of the 3D version of L'Arrivée d'un Train. The intense audience reaction fits better with the latter exhibition, when the train apparently was actually coming out of the screen at the audience. But due to the fact that the 3D film never took off commercially as the conventional 2D version did. The 3D film version never went anywhere beyond that point. An example of the screening of the film was depicted in the 2011 film Hugo, no less. Overall: The moving images had an immediate and significant influence on popular culture ever since and allow future filmmakers to advance the science and art to a new level of entertainment.

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10/10

A moving train - voila

jhaugh27 February 2003

Having invented a hand-cranked, motion-picture camera during the year 1894 - and making films that could be exhibited to scientific groups during the early months of 1895; Louis Lumiere was a driven man. During one exhibition of the Cinematograph at the Societe d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale, he met an engineer (Jules Carpentier) who wished to manufacture the invention for selling in Paris. Louis accepted the proposal. Initial production would be 25 units. They would be professionally manufactured as opposed to the inventors experimental camera. Louis continued to use this camera to gather enough views for a public presentation at the end of the year.

There were a number of problems in producing the first prototype of the twenty-five units. Even when Louis, exhausted, took some rest-and-relaxation at the Lumiere's vacation house in the town of le Ciotat (pronounced see-oh-tah), he could not relax; and remained in constant communication with Jules in Paris. Louis was able to communicate on a daily basis with Jules because the mail trains of "le P.L.M. (Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee)" railway provided him with a means of staying in touch as well as providing his transportation between Lyon and la Ciotat.

Still driven by his work, he decided to go to the station and use the arriving train as one of his subjects. Perhaps wanting to assure that there would be plenty of action to record on the station platform, he took along his mother, his wife, and his two children along with their nanny. They all ventured forth, on a bright sunshiny Mediteranean day - la Ciotat is on the southern coast of France, between Marseille and Toulon, where people came to sunbathe and fish - the group ventured forth to the train station on the northern edge of the town with the verdant foothills of the Alpes de Provence providing a backdrop to the railroad.

Louis' wife, in a neck-to-foot elegant dress with a pristine white bonnet, and the nanny were instructed to run around the platform and appear as if they were trying to locate an expected-arriver as the train ground to a halt. The mother, in a shawl, would quietly observe - as a good matriarch should. Louis could not position his camera and let the train chug from right to left across the view because he would just capture a blur. He positioned it very near the track so the train would be seen in its entire length; and then rattle by very close to the viewer. The station personnel, in uniform, would hold back the crowd of departing people on the platform until the train had halted.

So the train arrives; locomotive and tender pass to the left of the camera followed by a mail car and a string of passenger cars. Louis has been cranking since the train was in good view. The crowd on platform can be restrained no more. They break ranks and move to the platform edge, ready to board, as the train stops. The two women with children in hand bustle about looking for someone. The matriarch stands still - observing. A young, and unscripted, peasant lad wanders about seemingly unsure as to where he should go to find his car. Dazed by the adventure of his first train ride? Then the doors open (on the French railway equipment the compartments are entered/exited directly to the platform.) Passengers begin to detrain. Louis has run out of film and stops cranking.

The first railroad train to star in a movie prepares to move on to Toulon (on schedule no doubt.)

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6/10

The Arrival Of Chinese Whispers

Theo Robertson25 June 2013

This a famous short film from the Lumiere brothers . Or is that infamous ? The film itself shows a train arriving at a train station La Ciotat , a guard walking up to the train that has now stopped and passengers getting in to said train and is every bit as unremarkable as it sounds

But ...

... there is a legend that people were so startled and frightened by this short piece of film that let out loud gasps and screams with embellishment over the decades that people fainted or ran out of cinemas screaming and wailing like banshees certain they were going to be squashed by a runaway train hurtling at the speed of light

Let's put this myth to bed and point out that the camera angle isn't head on with the train . Even if you were dumb enough to think a train is approaching behind the screen it'll miss the audience

But Theo in those days audiences were far less sophisticated weren't they ?

Were they ? You got any proof ? Let's remember an Orwell quote : " Each generation imagines itself more intelligent than the one that went before it and wiser than the one that comes after it " What's been the most successful movies in terms of box office for the last ten years ? Ones featuring comic book superheroes ! I rest my case

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9/10

Remarkable; unforgettable; the definitive image of 1890s cinema

ackstasis13 June 2007

There doesn't seem to be anything particularly exciting about an approaching steam locomotive, but somehow this image has stuck, the first iconic scene in cinematic history. Produced by pioneering French filmmakers Auguste and Louis Lumière, 'L' Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat / Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat' was filmed at La Ciotat, Bouches-du-Rhône, France on December 28, 1895 and first screened to a paying audience on January 6, 1896. The 50-second long film, like most other Lumière shorts, successfully captures a brief snippet of everyday life, chronicling the gradual approach of the train, its slow to a halt, and the disembarkment of its passengers.

For many years, there has been an enduring myth than, upon the first screening of the film, the audience was so overwhelmed by the image of the train bearing down upon them that they fled the room in terror. This has been shown to be something of an embellishment, and, though the film would undoubtedly have astounded and mesmerised audiences, there was never any real mass panic. French scientist Henri de Parville, who attended an early screening, is said to have written: "The animated photographs are small marvels. ...All is incredibly real. What a power of illusion! ...The streetcars, the carriages are moving towards the audience. A carriage was galloping in our direction. One of my neighbors was so much captivated that she sprung to her feet... and waited until the car disappeared before she sat down again." This, I think, adequately sums up how remarkable the film must have seemed back in 1896.

Auguste and Louis Lumière obviously recognised the power of illusion offered by their Cinématographe. In order to maximise the shock value of the approaching train, they have mounted the camera as close as possible to the edge of the platform, so that the audience feels as if they are almost standing right in the locomotive's path. The people departing from the train are just normal citizens going about their day (several Lumière relatives, however, can be spied on the platform), enhancing the realism of the short. Cinema does not get much more memorable than this.

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7/10

A Train Arrives

hereispierre7 August 2018

A train arrives at a train station. That is the entire short film here. But back then it must have seemed like magic to see actual moving pictures on a screen so I guess they didn't use to need more than that ha ha.

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9/10

First iconic image of cinema

jluis198411 May 2007

On December 28, 1895, at Paris's Salon Indien Du Grand Café, the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière transformed the industry of entertainment when they did a demonstration of their new invention. The brothers projected a series of images on a screen, but those images were nothing like a normal slide-show, those images were moving as if they were alive. While the idea of motion pictures wasn't new to the audience (Edison's Kinetoscope was a popular entertainment), the devise's ability to project them on a screen was something they had never seen before. 10 short films of barely a minute of duration each were shown that day, and the invention proved to be an enormous success for the brothers, so immediately they decide to keep making movies in order to improve their catalog. One of those new movies would become the first iconic image of the new art.

"L' Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat" (literally, "Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat") is without a doubt, one of the most famous films in history, as its image of a train arriving to the station, passing very close to the camera as it slows its speed, quickly became an iconic scene of the new invention. While initially conceived as just another one of the brothers' many "actuality films", it's clear that director Louis Lumière knew exactly where to put his camera in order to get the best image of the event as the film shows he had a good idea of the use of perspective (many consider it a study about long shot, medium shot and close-up). As a side-note, this is the film that originated the classic urban legend about people running away scared from the arriving train, thinking it was a real locomotive what was appearing on the screen.

While this famous tale has been debunked by historians as a fake story, it's existence is another testament of this movie's importance and continuous influence on the younger generations. Among the many different art-forms that we can find today, cinema is perhaps the one that better reflects the modern society that arose after the industrial revolution of the 19th Century; because, as painting and sculpture did before, it has become a keeper of the most representative icons of our history. "L' Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat" was not the first movie the brothers screened, and it definitely wasn't the first movie ever made, but despite those details, the image of the arriving train represents the first icon of cinema, and literally, the arrival of a new art form. 9/10

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7/10

First Movie Of All Time

icet200417 May 2007

This movie is 50 seconds long,but it's over 110 years.I can't say that it's good movie or one of greatest or even not normal.But it's watchable.This movie(1895)is 27 years older than Nosferatu. The Arrival of the Mail Train is of course to people like Paris Hilton life's most boring 50 seconds.But even Paris should watch this.Thanks brothers Lumière's that you create the world of film. There is no acting in there.This 50-second silent film shows the entry of a steam locomotive into a train station in the French coastal town of La Ciotat. Like most of the early Lumière films consists of a single, unedited view illustrating an aspect of everyday life.6.5/10

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10/10

... and here it all started...

alexbyrds28 January 2000

I can' t believe that people that vote everyday recent movies have not seen this. The simplicity of this one shot movie is supplied by the dept of origins pan-focus. Some young people might forget Tarantino & c. for a while, and re-discover the magic of earlier cinema, in a minute only.

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7/10

1 Minute

jack_o_hasanov_imdb2 October 2022

Maybe every cinema lover has watched this movie. It is a very famous movie. Actually, it wouldn't be right to call it a movie, when we look at the time, it's just a 1-minute video. But it is obvious how important a movie it was for that time. A movie ? It was a miracle then. I even remember watching a colorful and HD version of it as today's technology develops. I would like to see those times. Is there a movie about the Lumier brothers? I think it would be interesting if I looked into it. Indeed, when you look at it now, you realize that you are watching something silly but also historical. We all read history, right or wrong? But this is real history.

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5/10

But is it good?

iloveyoubreh12 April 2017

Warning: Spoilers

As a huge film buff, I'm a little surprised myself at the rating I gave it.

The reason I gave it a 5 is because I believe the ratings system is to determine the QUALITY of the movies, and not to signify the importance of them. Yes, this film is a classic and a technical masterpiece (considering the time, at least). But as a fully-fledged MASTERPIECE, I would think before calling it that. Yes, film had only recently been discovered, and people were looking for new ways to use film, so storytelling was still out of frame. (Amazing, right?) So at the time, the very notion of a moving resemblance of real life being thrown on to a wall from a hypermagical light machine was enough to instantly consider any film a masterpiece. But now, 120 years later, we've come to find so much more can be done with film and storytelling, that this seems just a memento of a then-blossoming technique which would soon change the face of media, period.

But to the point.

Would you call cave art from 10,000 years ago "Great Art"? Important, yes, but great? It was great at the time when humanity found the now taken-for-granted freedom of expression, but looking from today's standpoint, it's just some sloppy sketches of buffaloes, humans, and God knows what else. Same goes here. It is undeniably a monumentally important film that should never be forgotten, but calling it a good movie would just be silly.

So it's easy to give a 10 out of duty to history, and I'm not blaming any of you for doing that. I'm just stating my opinion on the film, and my reasons for it. I have given half of the rating grace to signify what the film represents for people then and now, but for the other 5 stars, I just can't bring myself to call it a genuinely good movie.

g'day

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Genesis

TyrconnellPictures16 November 2003

I have little to add to other reviewers, except to say that this film took a sudden importance in my life last year. In 2002 I was travelling by train to my first ever Cannes Film Festival. At one point the train was moving slowly and I looked out of the window and found that we were pulling through La Ciotat, and the platform hadn't changed a bit. Sadly the train didn't stop, otherwise I would have been tempted to jump off for a moment, but given the purpose of my journey I felt a strange thrill at being there. Just a little personal anecdote, but perhaps it shows something of the power and importance of those early steps in film.

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6/10

All aboard!

Pjtaylor-96-1380442 December 2021

'The Arrival Of A Train At La Ciotat (1986)' was shown in Paris in December 1895 along with nine other single-reel films by the Lumière Brothers and is considered by many to be the first film ever made. At any rate, it's certainly amongst the very first to have been publicly shown (though some sources, including IMDb, list its release year as 1896). Legend has it that the arrival of the train prompted the audience to panic and flee; whether or not that actually happened is, of course, debatable. Still, the magic of moving pictures should not be understated. This, along with the other shorts shown during that fateful winter, are incredibly important. Without them, we perhaps wouldn't have all the films that followed (though it's arguable that someone would have invented cinema at some point). The picture is a quaint little look into the past, a time-capsule that shows us a snippet in the lives of several people who lived over 125 years ago. Taken in context, it's revolutionary; its historical importance is, indeed, profound. However, there isn't that much to it. It isn't traditionally entertaining, primarily because it's meant to show off film as an invention rather than use it to tell a story. For what it is, it's decent. When viewed against the things it inspired, it's not all that engaging. 6/10.

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10/10

Firsts: Framing

Cineanalyst1 December 2007

This is one of the Lumière brothers' many actualitiés (actuality films), which other filmmakers were quick to emulate and which is a precursor to the full documentary. The Lumière brothers made it shortly after their original program débuted. It displays one of the more salient instances of positioning of the camera--the framing--of the early single-shot films. Most often, as one can see in the Lumière film "Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory" (1895), the framing in a film is perpendicular to the action. This was always the case with the Edison Company films trapped within the "Black Maria" studio. The lightweight and mobile Cinématographe, however, not only allowed the Lumière brothers to invent the actuality film, but also to introduce novel ways of framing and presenting action in and out of frame.

In this actuality film, "The Arrival of the Train", the train approaches the station and just passes the camera while slowing down--creating a diagonal framing and recognition of off-screen space as the locomotive passes out of frame. Additionally, the subject appears to be undirected (as opposed to many other early actuality films), and many of the people filmed ignore the camera. Some do notice it, however, reversing the subject of the film back upon itself as is so often the case in these early actualitiés.

This framing of action must have been quite a marvel when first seen. Although the apocryphal story of it creating terror among early audiences has been a matter of recent debunking, it was a legend created early on. In 1901, Robert W. Paul parodied such a reaction in "The Countryman and the Cinematograph", as did Edwin S. Porter in his 1902 remake "Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture Show". Moreover, accounts of physical reactions (although not screaming and running to the back of the theatre) to early films are numerous, such as spectators supposedly fearing their feet might become wet while watching Paul's "Rough Sea at Dover" (1895). It seems more likely that the response to these films was more akin to modern audiences' response to shocking scenes in horror films, with the added marvel of witnessing the invention of a new visual art form.

Another historically interesting aspect of this film is that it features a train as its subject, which would become very popular in early cinema. They, too, were a technological marvel, as well as a source of movement and action. Film historians have also mentioned how looking out a train window provides moving pictures associative to cinema. Shortly after this film, the phantom ride genre would include the camera attached to the locomotive to create a point-of-view perspective from the locomotive as it passed through landscapes and tunnels. George Albert Smith created one of the first multi-shot films "A Kiss in the Tunnel" (1899) by placing a staged scene within a phantom ride film. It's interesting how trains have inspired advancements in movies.

Additionally, in my screening of early silent films, I've noticed many allusions to the Lumière films. Their decisions on such matters as framing became part of film grammar and style. The diagonal framing of a train here has especially become a staple. For example, William K.L. Dickson, for American Mutoscope, imitated it in his "Empire State Express" (1896), but movies made much later have demonstrated this early film's influence. Although most movies afterwards last much longer than 50 seconds and one shot, few have left as great an impression.

(Note: This is the seventh in a series of my comments on 10 "firsts" in film history. The other films covered are Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge (1888), Blacksmith Scene (1893), The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895), La Sortie des usines Lumière (1895), L' Arroseur arose (1895), Panorama du Grand Canal vu d'un bateau (1896), Return of Lifeboat (1897) and Panorama of Eiffel Tower (1900).)

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10/10

Simple, a beaut

catpantry27 January 2020

Some of us like simple (me too). Me and my cat saw this (at the theater). It was 3am. My cat was walking around checking things out. We were there for 16 hours and asked to leave.

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10/10

The Arrival

EdgarST24 April 2007

"Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station" was certainly not the first documentary ever made, but a short piece of cinema that is still fascinating because of the stories of the first time it was exhibited, when terrified spectators thought the locomotive was going to crush them; and because it contains in itself many possibilities of film expression: most notably, by the movement of people and things inside the frame, the different visual ways to register human bodies and objects: a single shot that changes in seconds from establishing shot, to medium shots and close-ups, and even suggests a travelling and a dolly in. Remade many times, including one in 1995, by Patrice Leconte, in the anthology film "Lumière et compagnie", also shot at La Ciotat.

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10/10

Very nice film

user-445-5661759 August 2012

This is a very nice film which makes one reflect on the progress that has been made during in the past century. I am currently resident in La Ciotat, France where it was filmed. Although I've been in La Ciotat only a few years, I've seen that it's citizens have a grand respect for these brothers. It has left a wonderful legacy for this town which has become known for its yachting industry, its "calanques" , and the "frère Lumiere". The city is actually in the process of redoing their old cinema. It is called "Eden theater" and can be found on line under the same name with ".fr" at the end. They have big plans. Its being marketed as the worlds oldest cinema.

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4/10

I hear the train a comin', it's rolling round the bend

Horst_In_Translation6 September 2013

Warning: Spoilers

La Ciotat is a town in South-East France and this little short may very well be what she's most famous for. While the train arrival is the center of the film according to the title, the real highlight are the people waiting for it. You see one man running in front. He obviously expected the train to stop earlier. Just like you do today when you know you should enter right behind the driver to save some way as you will otherwise need to walk the way anyway at the station where you exit.

Another interesting thing is the film's hat culture. Hats and mustaches obviously were the most common thing back then, two trends we see less and less these days. Also, nobody really seems to realize that they are filmed. Just think of going to your nearest train station and start filming and imagine for a moment how people today would react to it. They'd either love it or hate it. Here everybody's just going on doing his business.

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I Love the 90's...the 1890's!

notdempsey27 October 2004

Like the notorious inflation adjustment that gives Gone With the Wind (1939) the unbreakable box-office high, a slight technological adjustment given the time (109 years ago!) gives Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1895) the best special effects ever (relatively speaking, of course). Forget King Kong (1933), throw out Star Wars (1977), Arrival of a Train' blew audiences away with a little thing called moving pictures. There's a classic rumor of audiences running away from the movie screen, expecting the train to crash right through! As scary as Kong was, nobody expected him to reach into the audience and pick out a few snacks!

Also, it may not have been all that intentional, but the composition of this static, one-minute shot is excellent, and still unrivaled. The perspective of the train zooming past the lens like a wild stampede, the quick stop, then, the explosion of activity: people coming, going, on the train, off the train. What crisp energy! What a film! Viva la Lumiere!

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10/10

Representation of a turning point.

the red duchess6 September 2000

The reaction to this celebrated short, of a train entering and stopping at a railway station, has become the stuff of legend, of audiences cowering or fleeing at the sight of this black looming behemoth speeding towards them. There is an excellent recreation of such an exhibition in an episode of 'The Irish R.M.', starring the peerless Peter Bowles.

It is easy to snigger now, we who have lost any response to sensation; and, anyway, I'm sure those early reports were somewhat exagerrated. But, admit it, wouldn't you love to be able to see the film with that first audience's eyes, that frisson that comes from novelty and ignorance, the same kind of sensibility that believes in ghosts and hasn't become paralysed by post-modern knowingness. There has been a shift in audience that can be demonstrated by this film, an inverse 'Purple Rose of Cairo'.

We have nothing in common with the first audiences; we are up there with the passengers on the platform waiting for a train we know will come, a thing of wonder and power, something that explodes the screen into life, animates the human world, breaches the division between this latter and the technological, the industrial, into somehting quite mundane and functional, even if we do admire the clean beauty of the image, the mathematical division of train and platform. Of course, just as the train transports humans, cinema transports representations of humans; we are at a technological turning point, from the sturdy and visibly productive, to the virtual.

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8/10

Watch it in historical context

vovazhd18 December 2007

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat is an excellent example of what made a movie in 1896. A single scene, it shows a train coming at the screen and continuing through, then stopping until the passengers get off. Although the concept is basic, it must have been an incredible experience at the time. Being in the experimental stages of cinema, it has its flaws (obviously), but nonetheless succeeds in creating an image that sticks with you. I think that the camera could have been moved even closer to the train, but the effect still works as it is. Seeing how it is less than a minute long, I can't help but recommend it to anyone that has a chance to see it.

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9/10

Great Silent Short(SPOILERS)

I_Am_The_Taylrus12 December 2006

Warning: Spoilers

SPOILERS

Wow, I commented on the first film ever made, now I'm commenting on this. I found this to be a little bit better. It was much longer and at least had music, but the Garden Scene was the first film ever, so this one is more complex than the Garden Scene. The music was actually pretty good. This film was actually kind of spooky the way that huge train slowly moves into shot.

Again, there is somewhat a plot, but no real one. This is it. People are walking by a train station, then a huge train comes. It slowly fills up half the screen while all the people are walking by. It slowly comes to a halt and some people come off. Then more, and more. Then film ends. It is not much to watch, but it is more than Roadhay Garden Scene. That was only two seconds, this is one minute.

Overall, this is a fantastic silent film. This is only the third silent film I have commented on, and this is second silent film I have commented on today. Anyway, I have one thing to say. Watch out for a man in a dark black coat. He comically runs next to the train. I have to admit, that was pretty funny to watch. Anyway, this is a nice little film that will not take you a lot of time to watch, but it is fun nonetheless.

9/10

Recommended Films: Roadhay Garden Scene.

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