Lumière Museum in Lyon: diving into the early days of cinema

Closed for several months for work, the Lyon museum dedicated to the inventors of the cinematograph has reopened its doors. Preview visit…

While the fifteenth edition of the Lyon Lumière Festival has just ended with the crowning of German filmmaker Wim Wenders, 2023 Lumière Prize, the Institute’s teams are preparing for the reopening of the Lumière museum, which has been closed for more than months for renovations. “ Less static, more dynamic! “, was the watchword of Thierry Frémaux, the director of the Lumière Institute in Lyon, in order to rethink the scenography of this place dedicated to the brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière, inventors of the cinematograph. The museum located in the Montplaisir district of Lyon, very close to the legendary hangars of the Lumière factories where the first film in the history of cinema was shot, is a real institution.

Wim Wenders received the 2023 Lumière Prize

Promotion of films

It has been 21 years since the museum, located on the upper floors of the Lumière family’s imposing villa, opened. Dominique Païni, then Director of Cultural Development at the Center Pompidou, developed the principles of a visit promoting the first recording and projection tools such as the Cinematograph and other magic lanterns. A visit, certainly fascinating, but which, due to a lack of quality material, did not allow the Lumière films to be promoted. These “small” films are now the “stars” of the museum.

Thierry Frémaux, based on a restoration of the first Lumière films, signed the film in 2017 Light ! The adventure begin, a striking montage of 114 films made in the four corners of the globe under the aegis of the Lumière brothers between 1895 and 1905. The vitality of these shots, although limited in duration (a few minutes) and staging (mainly framing unique), jumped in the moviegoer’s face. As Bertrand Tavernier rightly stated: “ The Lumière cinematography is already the entire cinema. » The re-discovery of these Lumière films gave impetus to an improvement in the museum’s scenography.

An installation by Jean-Michel Jarre

This restoration work makes it possible, in fact, today to multiply screenings within the museum and to immerse the visitor in the early days of cinema. So in a room, a giant screen occupying an entire section of wall, allows you to capture these early films in life size. Further on, another screen offers a mosaic made up of a multitude of small squares, like so many films by the Lumière brothers which launched simultaneously offer a living picture. Further on, the musician Jean-Michel Jarre has specially created an installation with eight screens punctuated by his music.

The Lumière museum reopens its doors this Thursday, October 26.

Info: www.institut-lumiere.org