Cinema of France-1895-Auguste and Louis Lumiere-The first real motion picture ever made-First comedy
The
Lumière (pronounced: [lymjɛːʁ]) brothers,
Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas [oɡyst maʁi lwi nikɔla] (
19 October 1862,
Besançon, France -- 10
April 1954,
Lyon) and
Louis Jean [lwi ʒɑ̃] (5 October
1864, Besançon, France -- 6 June 1948,
Bandol), were the earliest filmmakers in history. (Appropriately, "lumière" translates as "light" in
English.)
The Lumières held their first private screening of projected motion pictures in
1895. Their first public screening of films at which admission was charged was held on
December 28, 1895, at
Salon Indien du Grand Café in
Paris. This history-making presentation featured ten short films, including their first film, "
Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon (
Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory)" . Each film is
17 meters long, which, when hand cranked through a projector, runs approximately 50 seconds.
"
Workers Leaving The Lumière Factory" film is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made.
The film consists of a single scene in which workers leave the Lumiere factory. The workers are mostly female who exit the large building 25 rue
St. Victor, Montplaisir on the outskirts of
Lyon, France, as if they had just finished a day's work.
Three separate versions of this film exist. There are a number of differences between these, for example the clothing style changes demonstrating the different seasons in which they were filmed. They are often referred to as the "one horse," "two horses," and "no horse" versions, in reference to a horse-drawn carriage that appears in the first two versions (pulled by one horse in the original and two horses in the first remake).
This 46-second movie was filmed in Lyon, France, by
Louis Lumière. It was filmed by means of the Cinématographe, an all-in-one camera, which also serves as a film projector and developer. This film was shown in 1895 at the
Grand Café on the
Boulevard des Capucines in Paris, along with nine other short movies.
It is believed their first film was actually recorded that same year (1895) with
Léon Bouly's cinématographe device, which was patented the previous year. The cinématographe — a three-in-one device that could record, develop, and project motion pictures — was further developed by the Lumières.
The moving images had an immediate and significant influence on popular culture with "L'Arrivée d'un
Train en
Gare de la Ciotat (literally, The arrival of a train at
La Ciotat)", but more commonly known as "
Arrival of a Train at a
Station") . Their actuality films, or actualités, are often cited as the first, primitive documentaries. They also made the first steps towards comedy film with the slapstick of "
L'Arroseur Arrosé".
"L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat" (translated from
French into English as "
The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station"," Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (US)" and "The Arrival of the
Mail Train", and in the
United Kingdom the film is known as "
Train Pulling into a Station") is an 1895 French short black-and-white silent documentary film directed and produced by
Auguste and Louis Lumière.
Contrary to myth, it was not shown at the Lumières' first public film screening on
28 December 1895 in
Paris, France: the programme of ten films shown that day makes no mention of it. Its first public showing took place in January 1896.
The first silent comedy "
L'Arroseur arrosé" (also known as "
The Waterer Watered" and "
The Sprinkler Sprinkled") is an 1895 French short black-and-white film directed and produced by Louis Lumière and starring
François Clerc and Benoît Duval. It was first screened on June 10, 1895. It has the distinction of being the earliest known instance of film comedy, as well as the first use of film to portray a fictional story. The film was originally known as "Le Jardinier" (
The Gardener) or "Le Jardinier et le petit espiègle", and is sometimes referred to in English as "
The Tables Turned on the Gardener", and "The Sprinkler Sprinkled"
The poster for " L'Arroseur arrosé" has the distinction of being the first poster ever designed to promote an individual film. Although posters had been used to advertise cinematic projection shows since 1890, these early posters were typically devoted to describing the quality of the recordings and touting the technological novelty of these shows. The poster for
L'Arroseur, illustrated by Marcellin Auzolle, depicts an audience (in the foreground) laughing as the film (in the background) is projected against a screen. It depicts the moment the gardener is splashed in the face, and is thus also the first film poster to depict an actual scene from a film.