Almanac: Auguste Lumiere, father of cinema
And now a page from our "Sunday Morning" Almanac: October 19, 1862, 152 years ago today . . . the debut of a future film-making pioneer.
For that was the day Auguste Lumiere was born in a small town in France.
Together with his younger brother, Louis, Auguste Lumiere improved on Thomas Edison's early projector, making it possible for more than one person at a time to watch a movie.
Their first exhibition in late December 1895 featured 10 short films, beginning with a shot of workers leaving the Lumiere factory . . . cutting-edge cinema for its time, believe it or not.
In 1897, they startled audiences with this sequence of a train arriving in a station . . . realistic enough that some easily-panicked viewers reportedly headed for the exits.
More shocking still that year was this sequence of a dancing skeleton. Scary stuff, no bones about it.
Other films would follow, though in 1910, Auguste Lumiere left the movie business, and devoted the rest of his life to medical research.
He died in 1954 at the age of 91, but his early film-making efforts are still remembered by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
- Survey finds most of America's silent films lost forever (12/04/13)
- Oldest surviving film of black actors found (CBS News, 09/22/14)
- Long-lost 1916 "Sherlock Holmes" is found, restored (CBS News, 10/02/14)
- Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp turns 100 (CBS News, 02/07/14)
- Lost 1913 film on Lincoln found in barn (CBS News, 04/13/10)
For more info:
- Institut Lumiere, Lyon, France