Year: 1896
Director: Alexandre Promio
Country: France
Language: N/A
Born July 9, 1868 Jean Alexandre Louis Promio is mentioned as a pioneer in film and was the director for Sweden's first Newsreel. Interested in the art of photography, on March 1896 he quit being an optician and started working for the Lumiere Brothers. He visited cities around the world promoting this new concept of "film"/moving images. He would make some pictures himself, this review being one of over 30 documentaries he had made throughout his lifetime.
Shot from the window of a train, Alexandre Promio's early documentary would capture the beautiful scenery of Jerusalem.
During the onset of early Cinema, almost anything could be considered new territory. Every idea was fresh and innovative, everything was up for grabs and was ready to be consumed by an eager public. Leaving Jerusalem by Railway was considered a "phantom ride" type of film, essentially showing the scenery as the moving train chugged along. I can imagine this would be quite breathtaking.
The Lumiere Brothers made a smart decision in deciding to film the world as it was. Commercial air travel was not existent (the first airline wouldn't be around until 1914) and the only way to see such exotic locations was to either live in the area or go on a long, and often treacherous, ship rides. To make such locations immediately available for the public to view was unheard of, and therefore absolutely remarkable and ingenious.
Though it's not a long picture by any stretch of the imagination, modern audiences might get some historical pleasure out of this Jerusalem. At the time it was under Ottoman rule and slowly transitioning into the city we know today. As far as I can tell, the Jerusalem of 1896 has a very different look and feel than the Jerusalem of 2017. This is an impressive picture indeed.
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