Photo Essay: Chinese Cinema Museum
Photo Essay: Chinese Cinema Museum
This was posted on the Discovery Group a couple of years ago so it's probable that not many NT members got to see it. I have re-mastered the photos for this showing, but some of the items were behind glass, affecting the clarity somewhat. While we were living in Chengdu at that time, we had a friend with a car who took us to some ancient villages in that area, and I will be re-posting my photos of those trips in due course. I had been there a couple of months previously but my camera broke down before I saw the museum. I was really upset because I didn't know if I'd have the opportunity to return, but as it happened I did so I was very thankful to be able to photograph a lot of the displays. It was one of the most interesting and educational things about more recent Chinese history that I have experienced.
1 The entrance to the Cinema Museum.
2 I remember projectors that looked like this.
3 I believe this is a film editing machine.
4 Posters to advertise their films.
5 I had an 8 mm camera like the one on the right. You can see my legs and shoes reflected by the glass.
6 Some other vintage items on display there.
7 She was either an actress in the Peking Opera - perhaps they filmed it, or else the article is for a historical drama. They show historical action films and dramas all day long on TV.
8 This was a monster of a projector - almost as big as me.
9 Could be a Chinese femme fatale.
10 This seems like a pretty modern projector, yet still for film.
11 Speaking of film. Up until a few decades ago, Chinese film was a weird size, not 8 mm, 16 mm or 35 mm, because the government did not want people to watch foreign films, so all the equipment for taking movies and showing them was built to a strange specification. Nowadays foreign films from Hollywood and elsewhere are shown in movie theatres, DVDs of them are sold, and I watch English language films on TV almost every day. I was pretty busy today so I didn't get to watch TV - I saw that The Godfather Part One was playing, but I recently saw it so I didn't bother watching it.
12 A typical vintage movie theatre. Today there are multiple screen cinemas in shopping malls that show regular, 3 D and even 4 D movies. The only time I went to a movie theatre in the 12 years I've been here was to go see the final Hobbit movie a few years ago, in 4 D. Not only do you have to wear the usual 3 D glasses, but the seat shakes when there's an earthquake or explosion on screen, and when water splashes in the movie or there's a rainstorm you get a fine spray from the seat ahead, and wind blows on you from there as well, and if there is a surprise in the action, you get punched in the back by your seat back. All in all it's quite an experience, but even though there's a multiplex theatre complex in the huge new department store across the road I have no desire to sit in a movie theatre again. We have a flat screen HDTV with a screen almost 5 feet wide, and that's good enough for me.
13 Okay, the lights have dimmed. "That's all folks"...(I think I recall those were the words on the screen at the end of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.)
My apologies to the many members who might feel that I dirty their Front Page domain with culture, art, architecture, sociology and history rather than complying with their unalterable obsession with politics and religion.
Great stuff Buzz....I especially like the movie theater photo...
Did I tell you that I am in a Chinese movie...Yup, believe it or not I was the token red guy.
There's nothing unusual about being red in Communist China. LOL
I've been to events here where I was the token white guy.
Great stuff Buzz.
The vintage movie theater has the classic shape. The one in our town was eventually turned into a pharmacy, some office space and a dance and performing arts studio.
I found an older photo of it:
This is what it looks like today:
Druid? Wasn't the princess a Druid in Mel Brooks' movie Spaceballs? The famous line was "That's all we need, a Druidish princess."
The older photo doesn't show up on my computer - is there a link to the website?
I think I remember that. Of course that movie was filled with zingers. Love the Mel Brooks stuff.
I tracked the image and it is embedded within an historic county pdf. I grabbed a copy and used good ol' Irfanview to convert to jpg then uploaded here. Hopefully you can see it. I think this is from the mid '40s. I can't completely make out the writing for the event on the billboard. Even back then it shows a little age. There is a 60s image where it looks in pretty bad shape.
Okay, no problem seeing that image now. The building looks pretty well the same now as it did then.
Positive Comment
LOL
A MOVING presentation that PROJECTS the very best of NT …
… without leaving a FILM on one's teeth.
After this comment, perhaps we should consider SCREENING before posting.
Your post leaves me SILENT, it's such DRAMA one needs to ORIENT oneself to it.
Picture that.