Lumiere's First Picture Show

From Turner Classic Movies and producer David Shepard, Lumiere’s First Picture Shows is a collection of films made by Louis and Auguste Lumiere as they are considered the creators of cinema. The thirty-five minute film is a collection of 30 surviving films that were saved and remastered in the 1970s that showcases some of the earliest forms of what is film and the potential of what it could be dating back to 1895. Featuring a new score performed by Robert Israel, the result is a fascinating look of film at its most earliest and majestic.

In 1895, two French brothers in Auguste and Louis Lumiere created a camera that would project images based on techniques creates by Emile Reynaud and Leon Guillaume Bouly as they finally unveiled their first series of short films ranging from a minute at the most of moving images. Shorts such as Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory, Baby’s Breakfast, Arrival of a Train at a Station, and several others shown in this collection showcase these early forms of film. The shorts themselves are quite mesmerizing where it does capture something extraordinary in the ordinary whether it’s a gardener trying to water plants and be a victim of a prank or a card game happening.

The shorts also showcase the Lumiere Brothers first experiment with color on film which were hand-painted as one notable short in a woman dancing as her dress would change colors throughout. The collection also capture the very first time a U.S. Presidential inauguration commenced in William C. McKinley dating back to 1897. The shorts also feature the emergence of life in New York City through horse-pulled wagons, trolleys, and such as it helped express the idea of what film could be. By 1901, the brothers had copyrighted nearly 1300 films as the thirty films shown from 1895 to 1898 are considered some of their finest. Yet, the brothers didn’t see the full potential of cinema as they ended it 1905 thinking the medium, which had wowed the public in many events, would be just another novelty. However, these short films showcase something that is just incredible and immense as the music provided by Robert Israel help play into the music that was often accompanied to during the days of silent cinema.

Lumiere’s First Picture Shows is a phenomenal collection of short films by the Lumiere Brothers. It’s a collection that anyone who is interested in the history of cinema must see as it display some of the early examples of cinema at its most primal as well as what it aimed to do from the very beginning. In the end, Lumiere’s First Picture Shows is a tremendous collection of short films by Louis and Auguste Lumiere.

© thevoid99 2017