The Original Solo Cinema Experience

Before theaters, movies were solitary peephole experiences. The Kinetoscope did not project images onto a screen, but instead forced viewers to peer into a small window to watch a film privately.

Invented in the late 1800s, this device created the illusion of motion by rapidly pulling a strip of film past a light. While Thomas Edison is often credited, his assistant William Kennedy Laurie Dickson did much of the heavy lifting to make it functional. By using a stop-and-go camera mechanism, they paved the way for modern cinema. It is fascinating to think that the massive movie industry once began with individuals squinting into a single, stationary box.