Summary Of Gunning's Article 'Arrival Of A Train'

In Gunning’s article,.....
Gunning claims that the very first audience to view new technology within film were (terrified, shocked, scared, etc.) and were visually traumatized; The visual representation on the screen perceived such a realistic image.
Movie goers were vastly underestimated…
Gunning proceeds to explaining that these movie goers had experienced the beginning of cinema, therefore upcoming technology was as a myth?

Gunning begins this article by referring to the “myth” of frightened audience screaming in horror at the image of a train approaching the screen, a film by the Lumiere Brothers titled Arrival of a Train. He proceeds to claim that these so called myths were about the audiences screaming due to being frightened by an image of an oncoming train, and that some audience members ran out of the cinema in terror. He begins to disprove this claim by providing context of the newer technology in cinema and the time era they were produced. As argued by Gunning, the audiences of the cinema were made up of audiences far more sophisticated than many modern film theorists would like to admit. Gunning points out that audiences were not only used to the illusionism of the cinema, but were indeed avid to actually consume it in that fashion. Far from being frightened enough to actually flee from the approaching cinematic train, the

audience’s shocked reaction was expected and fostered by filmmakers and exhibitors.

“The audience’s sense of shock comes less from a naïve belief that they are threatened by an actual locomotive than from an unbelievable visual transformation occurring before their eyes, parallel to the greatest wonders of the magic theatre.”

In order to make his argument stronger, Gunning proceeds to clarify the differences between the cinema of attractions and more classical narrative films.

He points out the different characteristics which helps distinguish them. These certain characteristics show the shock displayed by the cinema of attractions. One characteristic is the projection of the still images displayed on the screen that would “eventually give way to motion, subjects within the film that would acknowledge the camera and the viewing audience”, and the narration would prepare the audience for the upcoming shock in the way “that a carnival barker

would.”
Gunning points out that the targeted audience in this era of cinema vigorously sought out the shocks in the cinema of attractions due to the lack of absorption and the invisible style we are now used to. Gunning illustrates the importance of contextualizing film history by also contextualizing the different ways in which earlier audiences and modern audiences conceived of the consumed films.
As I approached the ending of his argument, Gunning begins to speculate upon why there was a need for the shocks of the cinema of attractions. Taking from the work of Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer, Gunning suggests that the urbanized society that is absorbing these films were encountered with new images and sightings every day. Due to the increase in industrialization, society began to look for thrills that were shown to them by distracting them with the shocking scenes of the cinema of attractions