Lourdes, Procession, I - 1897

The brothers Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière (1862-1954) and Louis Jean Lumière (1864-1948) are credited with the development of the Cinématographe (1895), an elegant and technically simple projection device that revolutionized the early motion picture industry. In contrast to Thomas Edison’s Kinetograph, which was heavy and difficult to move, the Cinématographe was a light, portable device that brought the camera (weighing just over seven kilograms) out of doors. The Lumières sent crews around the world to record a wide array of scenes and images. These films were shown to audiences which were amazed to see moving action projected on an inert screen. The Lumière company catalog grew to include some 1,200 titles, all of which were available for purchase, and which were shown worldwide. Many of the standards adopted by the film industry, including the 35-millimeter film width and the 16-frame-per-second exposure rate, were those established by the Lumières. This set of short films captures scenes from Lourdes, France. The first film shows people exiting the Basilica of the Rosary, a famous pilgrimage church and shrine. The other films portray the transportation of the sick and a religious procession.