With more than 5,000 cinemas, France has one of the largest cinema parks in Europe. The country of the Lumière brothers even has the oldest cinema in the world, the Eden Théâtre in La Ciotat, the town where the inventors of the Cinématographe shot their first films. Focus on other sites which, like this one, are now part of the heritage of the 7th art.
Is the French capital a movie lover? With more than 400 screens, the city where the very first public projection of the cinematograph took place in 1895 remains a Mecca of cinema with nearly 100 theaters, all generally accessible on foot in about 15 minutes. Three of these establishments are particularly mythical:
Studio 28
"The movie theater of masterpieces, the masterpiece of movie theaters": this is how its godfather Jean Cocteau described this place located in the district of Paris most represented in the cinema, Montmartre. Scenes from Amélie were filmed in this art house cinema created in 1928 and frequented by avant-garde artists (the screening of Luis Buñuel's The golden age caused a scandal). With its bar opening onto a small hidden terrace and the superb chandeliers bequeathed by Cocteau, this vestige of the Paris of the Roaring Twenties is a must for all film buffs.
The Grand Rex
The largest cinema in Europe (1 million spectators/year!) has been majestically enthroned on the great Parisian boulevards since the 1930s, a key period of the Art Deco style of which it is still one of the most beautiful references (with its facade with large columns and its aesthetic geometric patterns).
The replica of New York's Radio City Music Hall is also a concert hall and regularly hosts popular previews in its 2,700-seat theater. Since 1981, the popular cinema has been listed as a historical monument.
The Luxor
Also representative of the Art Deco style, this cinema opened in 1921 with its Egyptian-inspired façade. Mosaics, colors (cobalt blue, black and gold) and patterns (floral and animal) that are also found in the lush interior decor of this movie theater reopened in 2013 after being, in the 80s, a gay nightclub. With 3 rooms, this building that could be mistaken for a remnant of a World's Fair is also listed as a historical monument since 1981.
The Eden Theater
Inaugurated as a theater on June 15, 1889, the oldest active cinema in the world hosted some of the very first (private) screenings of Louis Lumière. The inventor of the Cinématographe made a dozen films in 1895 during his summer vacation in La Ciotat, the pretty town in the Bouches-du-Rhône. However, it was not until March 21, 1899 that moviegoers began to frequent this movie theater as old as the Eiffel Tower (which earned it a place in the Guinness World Records) and, since 1996, it has been listed in the Supplementary inventory of historical monuments.
The Castillet
Even before the creation of movie theaters, this privileged mode of diffusion encouraged by the Lumière brothers, cinema was popular in the 19th century in the Pyrenees-Orientales thanks to the travelling showmen who introduced the general public to different types of cinematographs.
It is therefore not surprising that, since 1911, Perpignan has been home to this great cinema, which has been labeled a "20th Century Heritage". An honorary title that the critics of the time would surely refute, its architectural style having been qualified at the time as "necropolar".
The Colosseum
With its chic Art Nouveau facade, its majestic multi-story hall and its ornate balcony, when you sit in this impressive Carcassonne hall you expect to see an opera rather than a film. It must be said that the place was originally... a festival hall! The opportunities to use this 1912 building were too few and far between so its owner decided to turn it into a theater - from the 1930s onwards - which would bequeath to the future cinema its red seats and its corbels inspired by the Vichy Opera House. Its bow windows and stained glass roof, among other features, recently earned the Colosseum a 34th place ranking among the 50 most beautiful movie theaters in the world by the British magazine Time Out.
To see a movie in the best conditions, several other atypical places like this one exist in France, the country where cinema remains an art and movie theaters of small museums.
Valerie from Comme des Français
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