Everyone knows the story of "A Train Arrives at the Station" – the film whose viewers fled the theater in a panic, due to the fact that they did not realize that these were only pictures and feared that the train was about to run them over. But unlike the story, this was not the first cinematic screening in history. Not even the second, or the third. Today we gathered here for a screening of an article written with the help of Forefront that tells about the world's first commercial cinema screening.
On December 28, 1895, brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière held their first commercial screening, at the Grand Café on Boulevard Capoussin in Paris, as part of an exhibition of the National Industrial Development Association. The brothers screened not one, but ten films – each lasting about 50 seconds (incidentally, it's not entirely clear whether "A Train Comes to the Station" was one of the ten, or premiered only in 1986). The audience cheered enthusiastically for the new medium.
As is well known, the Lumière brothers invented the cinematographer, a device that can both capture and project video, in 1895. Their early films, which showed everyday situations such as leaving their factory and a baby getting food, were initially screened separately and for free, to attract audiences, and it was not until the end of the year that the first paid compilation screening was held.
The Lumière brothers' films were not the first in the world; Thomas Edison had already operated the Kinetoscope two years earlier in Paris – a kind of box with two holes for the eyes, to which a person could press his face and watch a movie for a few minutes. But for the first time, the Lumière brothers allowed audiences of several people to watch the film together on a big screen.
In that first marathon of films, the Lumière brothers made 33 francs – not for each ticket, but for a total of several hundred shekels. Today, the film industry brings in billions of dollars each year, with film lengths, budgets and revenues all rising drastically over the past 128 years.
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