When the Lumiere Brothers debuted their film “L’Arrive d’un Train en Gare” in Paris, 1895, the story goes that audience members, believing the train to be real, cowered and fled from the screen. Over a hundred years ago, people were just learning to differentiate between an image of a moving object and an actual moving object, a thought utterly absurd to us now.
The premiere was monumental, but not just for film. One might even argue that this was the moment when Modernism began in Western Civilization: The birth of Modern Simulacra!
What I want to know is: What other moments in film history do YOU see as culturally significant?? Post them!