flânerie was an urban social and cultural activity of idle wandering (mostly practiced by urban men) in the mid-nineteenth-century metropolis. Here I take the experience of flânerie—a concept which has been fruitful for writers and philosophers—and explain how, with the advent of cinema as a popular form of visual entertainment at the turn of the twentieth century, it was translated into cinematic aesthetics. Because most research on flânerie focuses on its existence and experience in European metropolises, a wider investigation of the alternative histories and geographies of flânerie is necessary. Lumière operators’ experiences and cinematic aesthetics of strolling in non-European cities may provide an interesting starting point for research in this field.

The inventors of the cinématographe, the Lumiere Brothers, published a list of their films in 1897 with the intention of publicizing and selling them, and this version of their catalogue contained 358 titles. By 1903, it had expanded to include 2113 items. Their company stopped producing films in 1905. The final edition of the catalogue listed 2023 films, including street scenes from a wide array of geographical locations such as Algeria, Tunisia, England, Spain, Australia, and the US. Walking in the city was a common practice among Lumiere cameramen, who studied the rhythm and movement of public space before they started filming. In this chapter, my use of the term ‘Lumiere filmography’ is not strictly limited to the films made by Lumiere Brothers; instead, it indicates the films produced by various camera operators using the cinématographe.