Départ de Jérusalem en chemin de fer

Jerusalem in the Ottoman Empire in 1897 was a strange place to us today. Christians, Muslims and Jews lived side by side in relative harmony. They celebrated their own customs, and also partook in the celebrations of the others' customary feasts and holidays.

The old Jerusalem Train Station has recently been re-opened - preserved and renovated - and gives hundreds of thousands of people joy as a public area with cultural events and great restaurants and bars in Jerusalem.

The Lumiere brothers' claim to fame is that they invented an "all in one" camera in which a film could be shot, film developed, and then film projected that allowed their "actualities" - shots of real life - to be seen by an entire audience. Edison's original invention only allowed one person at a time to view one of their films and their devices were unwieldy, unlike the device devised by the Lumieres. Their camera also produced a much clearer image than the Edison's camera could produce.

Départ de Jérusalem en chemin de fer (1897)

Mixing travel with a train, something that would have been quite popular to people willing to pay and watch this film back in the day. The camera is set on board a train and we see the footage of the station as the train is pulling away. That's pretty much the only thing that happens here but the Lummiere Brothers were making all sorts of movies where their crews traveled the world to shoot footage. Trains were also quite popular in the day so the company decided to combine the two. There's some pretty good footage here that's at least well-shot as we get to see what people were doing at the station. As I always say, it's fascinating getting to see these moments in time that were captured.

I watched this film on a DVD that was rammed with short films from the period. I didn't watch all of them as the main problem with these type of things that their value is more in their historical novelty value rather than entertainment. So to watch them you do need to be put in the correct context so that you can keep this in mind and not watch it with modern eyes. With the Primitives & Pioneers DVD collection though you get nothing to help you out, literally the films are played one after the other (the main menu option is "play all") for several hours. With this it is hard to understand their relevance and as an educational tool it falls down as it leaves the viewer to fend for themselves, which I'm sure is fine for some viewers but certainly not the majority. What it means is that the DVD saves you searching the web for the films individually by putting them all in one place – but that's about it.

With the usual descriptive title I had assumed this would be footage of a train leaving a station in the way that most of the Lumière films I had seen on this collection so far had been about a static shot of an action occurring. So it did actually make me go "oh" to see that the camera this time was on the item that was doing the action and pointing away from it rather than towards it. To the modern eye of course all we're looking at is a train leaving a station – and not even a particularly visually interesting station at that neither. However watched in context of the historical development of the media it is interesting to see the camera taking a person's view – right down to the people waving at "it" as it leaves.

Unlikely to blow your mind or anything like that, but this film is interesting for seeing the development of ideas and techniques by Lumière.

Plot

A train is leaving a railway station at the outskirts of Jerusalem. From the very end of the train a barren, rocky landscape is seen, and some ruins of very old buildings,. Five men walk along the track, tipping their hats when the train departs. When it approaches the station building more people are seen, people of different ethnicity and religion. Some men wear fezzes on their heads and canes in their hands. A Franciscan monk comes walking in the middle of a mixed group of people. The platform outside the station is crowded with people waiting for the next train. Among them is a man with a sword at his side. The big windows of the station are covered with shutters. After the station the train passes a long fence, enclosing a lumberyard.

Cast

Non-applicable

Verdict

French made and pre 1900's this lasts but a minute (Literally) but is a fantastic little example of where cinema began.

It's just a 51 second recording off the back of a train as it pulls out of Jerusalem in 1897, sure all you're seeing is a bunch of people waving and smiling at the camera but that's all its purpose ever was.

The camerawork is static but the camera quality is better than you'd imagine, in fact films up to and including the 1930's were often not this crisp!

Quaint and endearing.

Breakdown + History put to film

• That's basically it

Rants

What a different place Jerusalem was then, such innocence compared to today. No "Cleansing", no genocide, no hatred and intolerance just fascination with the advancement of technology before religion decided to put an end to that and instead put their efforts into mythology and intolerance.

If you take a good look into the world of the first films ever than you will find many different genres that were popular during the time and were copied a lot. "Leaving Jerusalem by Railway" is a film that can be placed in the actuality genre, but can also be considered an entry into the Phantom Ride genre. Phantom Rides were films taken on a train that basically documented the surrounding area as the train moved. And, considering I've seen several of these, I think I can safely call this short the first Phantom Ride film ever. Other phantom ride films include Georges Melies's "Panorama from top of a moving train" and Lumieres' own "Panorama de l'arrivee en gare de Perrache pris d'un train". Films involving phantom rides as part of narrative structures include Smith's "A Kiss in the Tunnel" and Edwin S. Porter's "The Great Train Robbery".

Here, instead of filming in a forward direction like later Phantom Rides, this short moves backwards. The train which the camera is mounted on pulls out of the station and leaves the people behind. I suppose the Lumiere cameraman Alexander Promio only had so much film in the camera so that's why is ended so quickly. Interesting actuality and while not the first moving shot ever (the first moving shot was in "Panorama du Grand Canal pris d'un bateau", another Lumiere short) it does add to that category. It's also an interesting look into the past, as is all of Lumiere's movies.