Arriving in Lyon yesterday, we learned that the Lumière Brothers had their film studio here in the city and that Musée Lumière is open to visitors. I was very excited, so even though the tour company had an entire day of trips planned, I went on my own to the museum so I could see their home and studio. It was an enormous campus, even back in the last 1800s and early twentieth century, almost like visiting Paramount today.

I was immediately excited to see this because, of course, not only do I love movies, but I love the movie (and book) Hugo, which I thought was about the brothers.

Turns out, though, that I was completely confused. Hugo is about Georges Méliès not the Lumière brothers. In the bibliothèque, I asked the salesman about the relationship between the filmmakers, but he didn’t speak English. However, he clearly wanted to answer my question (he understood that names I mentioned), so he got a colleague, and the three of us had a translated conversation about the differences between the Lumières and Méliès. Basically, Méliès was an artist and the brothers were technicians. I said, well they must have known each other and worked together–they all lived at the same time, but he said, “Non, they did not.”

While Méliès was in Paris, the Lumières were in Lyon, which is, he added, “a world away.”

I really love the difference in our perspectives. People in France must all know each other, when, in fact, they aren’t near each other at all, especially over 100 years ago.

Here is just one of Méliès famous movies, which I’m sure you’ve seen and, if you watch Hugo — and you should — you will how Martin Scorsese imagined it being filmed.

Unlike this entirely imaginative science fiction flick, the first movies made by the Lumière brothers were “documentaries,” workers leaving the factories and trains arriving at the station. In fact, once they realized their camera worked consistently and reliably, they sent filmmakers all over the world.

Many filmmakers make a pilgrimage to the museum, and there are plagues on the wall honoring these important visitors.

I sat for a while in this little courtyard while I waited for my Uber.

Au revoir, Lyon! We set sail this afternoon and are heading down the Rhône to Viviers.

Since we aren’t traveling as far south as Cannes, I will leave my movie stories behind in order to explore medieval history in the villages of Provence.