La Ciotat, a small quiet town in the South of France, holds something extraordinary – Eden Theater, the world’s very first cinema. The Lumière brothers in 1895 displayed Arrivé d’un Train à La Ciotat“(Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat) here and heralded a new era of moving images, stamping the theater as the official birthplace of cinema. Eden Theater displayed many of cinema’s firsts. However, after facing continual dilapidation since World War II, it officially shuttered its doors in 1995. Luckily, In 2013, work started to renovate the space. But before the renovations began, select photographers and artists were invited to tour the theater as it stands one last time.
I learned all this not at the theater but 20 minutes away, from a simple gallery book at a bookstore in Cassis. This was my last day in the South of France so I couldn’t go see the place for myself. But peering through the book, I was immediately struck by the intimacy I felt with a space I had never been to directly through the images.
Amongst the works, I was particularly enjoyed Kaitza Camus’ photographs. Red velvet seats at the theater – once vaunted – were now lined with dust, quietly holding onto memories. A light switch, painted around countless times, hinted at decades gone by. There is a sense of intimacy in seeing an old light fixture like this, one which was likely used thousands of times by the staff. Another favorite was Christian Ramade’s collection. His work is purposely subversive, almost mischievous. He likes to extend the frame of the photograph, slightly beyond to what you expect it to be. Instead of just the main theater room, he extends the image almost awkwardly all the way to the side curtains, giving peek into a space you don’t immediately visualize. Ramade subverts, surprises and almost provokes you to think differently.
That is the power of art for me: how it imprints itself on your worldview. It itches, makes you crave, and suddenly details in your own daily life are intertwined with those tidbits. With Eden Theater, I was moved by the collective memory of a space and how the intimacy others had with it could ripple outward and become mine too.
Living in New York City along with 8 million other people and millions of tourists, I am also on the same quest to find intimacy in this vast city. Over the past 4 years, I’ve found it in unexpected places. There is a tiny ornate Juliette balcony above the Swedish Candy shop Bonbon in Williamsburg that always makes me chuckle. The third bench in Central Park where I grabbed quick bites during lunch breaks and where I signed my very first lease in New York City. With the most perfect view of the pond and silhouette of the trees, I am always biased to that seat many years later too. There is the Pissarro room at the Met with a small bench. I can get a 360 view of Pissaro paintings here, in a relatively quiet part of the impressionism section which is hard to come by. Pissaro’s paintings always remind me of my childhood, endless long mornings, and strolls with my grandmother around our town. There is a cubist painting at the Whitney of a Lancaster mill with its interpretation of cubism and light that always captures my eye. In the same room as the Hopper paintings, it goes mostly unnoticed, but from its spot you get the best vantage point for watching people on the floor. And trees! Any place with trees is a place with memories. The sidewalk next to Williamsburg Theater where I remember many long nights with friends. The bench next to the volleyball court in the domino park where my friends and I always joke is the best place for sitting and laughing. There are these coupled interlocking trees on South 3rd that remind me of my husband and myself. It’s a beautiful feeling to be able to find intimacy in a city as large as this.
I’ve come to realize that what feels intimate to me are spaces layered with memories. With Eden Theater, it was the collective memory preserved through photographs. With New York, it is my own layering of daily life, loved ones, and quiet rituals. Perhaps intimacy lies in recognizing what calls to you—whether it is yours personally, or shared by others across time.
Today you can visit the renovated Eden Theater, about two hours from Cannes. It may lack the glamour of the Cannes Film Festival, but if the photographs and reverence I encountered are any indication, there is intimacy still alive there. Not in grandeur, but in the quiet, collective celebration of cinema’s origins.