La salida de la fábrica Lumière en Lyon

Story says that on that on December 28, 1895, a small group of thirty-three people was gathered at Paris's Salon Indien Du Grand Café to witness the Cinématographe, a supposedly new invention that resulted from the work done by a couple of photographers named August and Louis Lumière. The small audience reunited that day (some by invitation, most due to curiosity) didn't really know what to expect from the show, and when a stationary photograph appeared projected on a screen, most thought that the Cinématographe was just another fancy devise to present slide-show projections. Until the photograph started to move. What those thirty-three people experienced in awe that cold day of December was the very first public screening of a moving picture being projected on a screen; history was being written and cinema as we know it was born that day.

Of the 10 short movies that were shown during that historic day, "La Sortie Des Usines Lumière" (literally "Exiting the Lumière Factory") was the very first to be screened. The film shows the many workers of the Lumière factory as they walk through the gates of the factory, leaving the building at the end of a hard day of work. While a very basic "actuality film" (movie depicting a real event), the movie took everyone in the audience by surprise, as their concept of moving pictures was limited to Edison's "Peep Show" machines (the Kinetoscope), the brothers' invention was like nothing they had seen before and so the audience stood in awe, as the people and the horses moved across the screen. The idea wasn't entirely new (Le Prince shot the first movie as early as 1888), but the way of showing the movie was simply revolutionary.

"La Sortie Des Usines Lumière" would become the first in the long series of "actuality films" that the Lumière would produce over the years. This primitive form of documentary was the brothers' favorite kind of film because they were more interested in the technological aspects of their invention than in the uses the Cinématographe could have. Despite the initial lack of enthusiasm, after the first showing the Cinématographe became a great success and "La Sortie Des Usines Lumière" quickly became an iconic image of that first screening. It definitely wasn't the first movie the brothers shot that year, and it probably wasn't the best of the 10 movies shown that day (personally I think that "L' Arroseur Arrosé" was the best of the 10); however, it is really meaningful that the very first movie was the opening of a pair of gates, as literally, this movie opened the gates to cinema as we know it. 8/10

This 50-or-so-seconds-long film has held a special place in movie history for being the first of ten 50-or-so-seconds-long films to be shown to a paying audience at the Grand Café in Paris on 28 December 1895. This wasn't the first commercial exhibition of cinema; the Skladanosky brothers, for example, had accomplished the feat with their Bioscope nearly two months prior. Still earlier, Charles Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat projected films to a paying audience as early as September 1895. There were also the Lathams, whose experiments in projection were aided by William K.L. Dickson, who was still employed by Thomas Edison at the time. Some historians have made even earlier claims for others. If animated pictures on discs or other non-celluloid materials are included, another host of precedents can be added. Nevertheless, this showing by the Lumière brothers changed the world. It and subsequent presentations were exceedingly popular, and the projection of the films and the films themselves displayed technological and aesthetic advancement over previous equipment and pictures.

We now know that the Lumière brothers made at least three versions of "Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory", because these exist today. Until recently, however, it was generally believed that there was only one version. In the 1940s, Louis Lumière claimed to have made it once; he also misremembered the approximate date he filmed it. He likely made the three films separately between 19 May 1895 and August 1986. The brothers projected the first version (the one-horse version) at their first private screening on 22 May 1895. The second version (two horses) is the one that appeared on the screen on 28 December 1895. The final version (with no horses) was long believed (still confused to be by some) to be the first film and is still more widely distributed than the others. (For all three versions with the best quality transfer available, see "The Lumière Brothers' First Films" (1996).)

The light weight of the Lumière Cinématographe, as opposed to the bulky and generally immobile Kinetograph, allowed the Lumière brothers to create a new genre with their actuality films (a genre that, at least for a while, was probably more popular than the earliest fictional story films). Moreover, other advancements made for crisper and steadier films (although contemporaries complained of excessive flickering). The Lumière brothers would consequently be the firsts to largely decide the framing for their subjects. In this one of workers leaving the factory, the framing is essentially a perpendicular long take of the action. It's not quite as interesting as, say, the diagonal framing in "L'Arrivée d'un train" (1896), but the action here doesn't call for it. The camera is also stationary, but one of the Lumière filmmakers, Alexandre Promio, would change that by the following year, such as in "Panorama du Grand Canal vu d'un bateau".

"Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory" is the first so-called "actuality" film, a proto-documentary genre of early cinema. It is simply a film, as its title implies, of workers exiting the Lumière photographic factory in Lyons to passing out of frame to either side. Its major spectacle is that there's movement--projected on a screen. These actuality films were very popular, for the natural and realistic settings, the variety of subjects that were available, as well as the superior picture quality of the Cinématographe films. This prompted the Edison Company to create their own actuality films, in addition to improving their camera and, eventually, moving to the projection of cinema. Other early filmmakers, like Robert W. Paul and Georges Méliès, would also begin making films within the actuality genre. Yet, today, it seems apparent that this film and many other so-called actualités are directed--events have been manipulated. The camera is not an invisible recorder; it influences. "L'Arrivée d'un train" and some other actuality films do appear to be undirected, though; some even achieve the metaphoric invisibility of the camera (Louis Le Prince's "Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge" (1888) appears to accomplish it).

Reportedly (including by Méliès), when this film was projected to audiences, the projectionist would temporarily freeze the first frame and then amaze audiences by running the motion picture. Méliès later said of this: "I must admit we were all stupefied as you can understand. I immediately said, 'That's for me. What an extraordinary thing.'"

On an interesting side note, the first projectionist of these showings was Charles Moisson, who also introduced the Lumière's to film, helped them invent the Cinématographe and made some of the company's earlier films. With Francis Doublier (who claims to appear in "Leaving the Lumière Factory"), they photographed the coronation of Tsar Nikolas II, which ended in tragedy when a stand gave way and thousands of people were trampled to death in an ensuing panic. Russian authorities confiscated the film, and it was never seen again. On the issue of actuality films, this was a dramatic example of the camera as a relative non-participant of events.

Anyhow, this film, "Leaving the Lumière Factory", is an important landmark in film history, for not only introducing many to cinema, but also for introducing, through their actuality films, a new way of seeing. Within and without the frame, the gates were opened.

(Note: This is the fifth 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), Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895), The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895), L'Arroseur arose (1895), L'Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat (1896), Panorama du Grand Canal vu d'un bateau (1896), Return of Lifeboat (1897) and Panorama of Eiffel Tower (1900).)

All films made before 1912 really need to be viewed with a sense of time and place.

In 1894, the Lumiere-family men [father: Antoine (1840-1911), sons: Auguste and Louis] owned and managed a factory that manufactured photographic plates and paper. Not a small enterprise; the factory had more than 200 employees who received pension and social security benefits - innovative for that time. It was located at Montplaisir in the suburbs of Lyon, France. What caused Louis Lumiere to become interested in building a Cinematagraph, in 1894, remains open for speculation. My suggestion is that the appearance of the Edison organization's Kinetoscope (peep-show machine), in Paris during the fall of 1894, provided the catalyst.

W.K.L. Dickson, of Edison's staff, invented a motion-picture camera about the size of an upright piano that was patented in February 1893. It was electrically operated (using power from from heavy storage batteries. This massive machine pumped celluloid film strip (newly developed by the Eastman company) past a lens at about 40 frames-per-second (fps). It was ensconced, as an almost immovable object, in the "Black Maria" (essentially the first movie studio.) The Kinetescope machines showed staged presentations (less than one-minute long)that were filmed in this studio.

During 1894, Louis Lumiere applied himself to the task of inventing a moving-picture camera. He had determined that, even at 16 fps on celluloid film, the persistence-of-vision of the human eye/brain would allow for normal motion to be perceived. His camera, dubbed the Cinematograph, was about the size of a large shoe box and was provided with a detachable film magazine that provided storage for enough film to make a shoot last about one minute when it was had cranked past the lens at 16 fps.

The size and light weight, of the camera (it could be converted into a printer or a projector by the addition of a light source) made it portable enough that it could be taken to any location to record an event (provided there was enough sunlight available.) In the spring of 1895, Louis filmed: trick-riding by some cavalry men; a house on fire with firemen arriving and dousing the engulfed building with water; and a number of other scenes in and around Lyon. Using a Molteni bulb, he turned the camera into a projector and presented his films to scientists assembled in the reception room of the Revue Generales des Science. The images were projected on a screen five-meters distant from the lens. The screen was stretched in a doorway between two rooms. At a meeting of professional photographers, that same year, Louis photographed the arriving delegates and the same evening showed them motion pictures of their arrival.

With accolades from both the scientific and photographic communities, Louis decided to have a public exhibition of his invention by the end of the year. Since each of his films would be about one-minute long, he would need at least a dozen films to make a good presentation. For one of these films he set up his camera at the entrance to his factory, photographing the egress of employees at quitting-time.

The public venue chosen by Antoine - who offered himself as the "fairground barker" for the Cinematograph - was the Salon Indien of the Grand Cafe on the boulevard des Capucines in Paris. It was a wintry Saturday night on 28 December, 1895. As the first audience sat, they were presented with a projected view of the exterior of the Lumiere factory (with closed gates.) Some were chagrined that they were just going to see a routine slide show of Lumiere photographs. But then the crank on the camera/projector was turned and movement began. Louis had an innate sense for motion picture taking. This film has a beginning, a middle and an end. In the beginning, the doors are opened and people begin to leave their workplace; during the middle, the people stream out - with many trying to ignore the camera, and the cameraman, as they seem to be happy to leave a day of labor behind them. At the end, the gates to the factory are being closed.

And this was the first film projected for the entertainment of the general public.

This is it!! if your looking for a thrilling few minutes of the French leaving work then it does not get any better than this.Action to look out for includes,

French woman walking at the screen, French bloke wobbling on his bike, The closing of the gates cliff-hanger Finale.

Oh and its maybe the most important few minutes in the history of cinema.

For almost anyone with an interest in the earliest motion pictures, watching this footage of workers leaving the Lumière factory never gets old. Its historical significance, as the first movie that Louis Lumière showed at the first public demonstration of his cinematograph, would certainly make it well worth remembering for that reason alone. But beyond Lumière's visionary and technical abilities, he also had a knack for choosing material for his features that was interesting in itself.

This particular subject could not have been more appropriate for his first public presentation. The seemingly simple footage is almost a microcosm of the new world created by cinema. The widely varying reactions of the various workers (not to mention the occasional dog) contain almost every common reaction to the camera: some are curious and don't mind showing it, some are curious and pretend not to be, some are a little uncomfortable, some seem to be fascinated by having their picture taken. With the 'cast' as large as it is, you can watch the film a good number of times and still not lose interest.

Beyond that, the way that the camera field is set up shows an innate sense of the value of movement, particularly movement towards the camera, in holding the attention of the audience. Some of Lumière's best films made further use of this idea.

In one very short movie, this film preserves an important step in cinema history, while also containing material that, in a sense, portrays and foresees many of the future effects of the Lumière brothers' invention. That we can experience both, any time that we view this footage of these long-past men and women and their honest reactions to the camera, is still fascinating.