It was this Tuesday, March 22. It is the 121st anniversary of the cinematograph. The ‘invention’ of the Lumière brothers gave birth to the modern film industry.
It was March 22, 1895. Something was happening in the premises of the Parisian Society for the Promotion of National Industry. Louis and Auguste Lumière made the first private showing of their cinematograph. It would revolutionize the panorama of image projection.
The first film
What is usually considered to be the first film in history was screened. It was ‘La Sortie de l’Usine Lumière à Lyon’ (The Exit from the factory) of 38 seconds.
They were shown at the Sorbonne University, in Brussels and elsewhere. On December 27, 1895 in Paris, the first commercial exhibition took place, as the first paid show. Officially the cinema began.
The event took place at the Salon indien du Grand Café on the Boulevard des Capucines. It was projected ‘Departure from the Lumière factory’, and other films. Also: ‘Arrival of a train at the Ciotat station’ and ‘The watered waterer’. The gardener Jean-François Clerc appears there. Thus, with this catalog, cinema began its history as a documentary.
Commercial history
The brothers said that “cinema is an invention with no future”. But they took advantage of everything the new invention offered them to set up a profitable business. They sent a cinematographer and an operator wherever it was required. For example, to the coronation of Tsar Nicholas. With these tapes shot in the most exotic places on the planet, montage was born.
The rest is known history. The path of this industry has crossed all imaginable frontiers. Now we remember the 121st anniversary of the cinematograph, but we know that its influence will be even more extensive.
