History · Documentary
French (La Sortie de l'usine Lumière à Lyon)
1895 · Directed by Louis Lumière · 1 min
A fixed camera looks at the gate of a factory in Lyon, and ordinary people go about the end of their working day. It runs under a minute, with no story and no actors, and it is one of the first films ever shown to a paying public.
Why it matters in cinema history
It belongs to the first wave of "actualities", short films of real life that made up the earliest public cinema. It also began the documentary impulse that runs through the medium.
Watch with intention
Watch it as a record of a real place and day, and ask how a single fixed frame still manages to compose a scene.
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