Clip Art: Arrival Of A Train At La Coitat

On December 28th, 1895 Louis and Auguste Lumiere screened several short films in a small cafe in Paris. This was quite a novelty since there had never been films projected on a screen before this. That's because the Lumiere Brothers were the creators of not only a way to shoot moving images using a special camera, but also a device that could project them onto a screen. This short film known to the folks who speak french as L' Arrivee D'un Train A La Coitat is one of the most famous.



It lacks a certain sense of story or characters, but you do get everything the title teases you with. This film is more famous than, Barque Sortant Du Port (Boat Leaving The Port) which was also screened that evening, because of the legend it carries with it.

The story goes that when the audience saw the train coming towards the camera, they ran from the cafe out of fear of being run down by the train. This is just a myth and was used in as an advertising ploy. Personally, I'm not sure why they felt they needed a hook to get more people to see it. The promise of seeing moving pictures seems pretty enticing to me.