For many, cinema began on December 28, 1895, with the first public projection of short films like Arrival of a Train and The Card Party by Louis and Auguste Lumière. But these iconic films also exist in alternative versions, sometimes with each frame of the print colored by hand! Lobster Films purchased the original Lumiere-perforation negatives of Arrival of a Train and fifty other titles at an auction in Lyon for about fifty U.S. dollars. They were wrapped up in old paper, which turned out to be an original poster of Watering the Gardner, perhaps the very first poster in the history of moving pictures! Music for Arrival of a Train by Eric le Guen. —Flicker Alley
Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière, Born 19 October 1862 in Besançon (France). Died: 10 April 1954 in Lyon (France).
Auguste Lumière and his brother Louis Lumière invented a new machine to manufacture photographic gelatin dry-plates in 1882, which made them wealthy. They invented the Cinematograph, a machine which made and projected what were arguably the first modern-day motion pictures, in 1895. They made many movies over the next several years, most of which were a minute or less in length and consisted of one shot from a stationary camera, but Louis and Auguste Lumière’s films established the basics of cinematography, camera-angle, composition, and directorial technique. Seeing little business future in the Cinematograph, they stopped making movies in 1901.
Lumière’s primary interest was in medical matters, and he left the film shop in 1910, using the proceeds of the brothers’ photography business to establish a large-scale research laboratory in Lyon. Over the last… read more
Louis Jean Lumière, Born 5 October 1864 in Besançon (France). Died 6 June 1948 in Bandol (France).
Although no-one will ever come up with a definitive answer as to who “invented” the cinema (probably because no one single person was responsible), Louis Lumiere has one of the strongest claims to the title – for it was he (with his brother Auguste) who invented the cinematographe: a machine that combined the functions of camera and projector and was thus able to project films onto a screen to an audience. The invention was patented on February 13 1895, and a programme of short films directed and photographed by Louis was first unveiled to the general public on 28 December 1895 – a date that many historians claim to be the birthdate of the cinema as we know it. The cinematographe was an immediate hit, and its influence was colossal – within just two years, the Lumiere catalogue included well over a thousand films, all of them single-shot efforts running under a minute, and many photographed… read more
fascinating to watch the subtle curiosity as the passengers pass the camera...
Odd.. I didn't know that were at least two different train arrivals shorts done by the Lumiere Brothers..