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Author
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Topic: What counts as a cinema?
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Jim Rankin
(Jim passed away in December 2006)
Posts: 123
From: Milwaukee, WI
Registered: Oct 2003
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posted March 15, 2005 02:37 PM
If you are talking 'architecturally' then the definition of 'cinema' usually agreed upon in the English-speaking world is that of an auditorium of any size that does NOT have real stage facilities, though many a cinema did have a platform in front of the screen and a single line of curtains that opened in front of the screen. Originally, this term was used to indicate a movies-only setting without the trappings of traditional theatres, e.g. dressing rooms, stage and rigging, orchestra pit and organ, etc. Thus a movie palace could not be called a cinema, but some cinemas were somewhat palatial in decor.
If you are speaking 'sociologically' then patronage might figure in the identity of the building, but then the usage of the term becomes much more localized and difficult to translate from one setting to another. One might attend any one of many 'film festivals' these days, which are said to celebrate 'cinema' but in that usage of the term means 'movies', not the place they are shown in, which may have been a traditional theatre that is simply being used to show films, though the film is not always called 'cinema.' Now you see the foggy nature of language and the various peoples may use it in quite different ways.
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William Hooper
Member
Posts: 82
From: Mobile, AL
Registered: Mar 2003
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posted March 16, 2005 02:23 AM
quote:
If you are talking 'architecturally' then the definition of 'cinema' usually agreed upon in the English-speaking world is that of an auditorium
Language is getting slippery here, too, since that would exclude air domes, as well as drive-in's.
quote:
Originally, this term was used to indicate a movies-only setting without the trappings of traditional theatres, e.g. dressing rooms, stage and rigging, orchestra pit and organ, etc. Thus a movie palace could not be called a cinema, but some cinemas were somewhat palatial in decor.
I think movie palaces were cinemas. Given that all that other stuff was to support the movies: organ & orchestra pit specifically to show the movie, dressing rooms & stage to accommodate the live elements of the time expected to support the movie; & it's still a movie house. It's all equipment whether technically tied to the movie itself or the venue's use of the movie, like sound equipment & advertising slide projectors.
Maybe the description would be closer to that of a building specifically designed to show movies.
This would let out a lot things like municipal, high school & college auditoriums which simply had the capacity to show movies as an auxilliary. When live houses were adapted to become exclusively movie houses, they then became cinemas. There might be some grayness in the area of some municipal theaters in smaller towns that were to be used as cinemas & municipal theaters as the need required, but those might legitimately be called dual-purpose buildings with one purpose being that of a cinema.
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Ron Newman
Member
Posts: 145
From: Somerville, MA
Registered: Jan 2005
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posted March 16, 2005 10:44 AM
I find the distinction difficult to make, given the number of live stages which have been converted to movie houses, and vice versa. Sometimes the same auditorium has gone through multiple phases of movies, live shows, movies, live shows, etc. At the theatre nearest to me, the main auditorium is often used for a live show one day and a movie the next.
When I submit a theatre to CinemaTreasures.com, my only criteria are (a) at some point in its life, it showed movies, and (b) it is (or was) open to the general public.
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Ron Newman
Member
Posts: 145
From: Somerville, MA
Registered: Jan 2005
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posted March 17, 2005 07:31 PM
> Here in the US I have rarely seen a place that shows films called a Cinema.
As a common noun, you're right -- people here would not say "we're going to a cinema after dinner". They'd say "we're going to a movie theatre".
However, "Cinema" with a capital C is often part of the proper name of a movie theatre. Around here we once had the Allston Cinemas, Central Square Cinemas, Janus Cinema, Cinema 733, Cinema 57, Nickelodeon Cinemas, Orson Welles Cinemas, Off the Wall Cinema, and Academy Twin Cinemas -- sadly, all closed now. Fortunately, we still have the Embassy Cinema, West Newton Cinema, and Kendall Square Cinema.
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Joe Vogel
New Member
Posts: 12
From: Paradise, CA
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted August 06, 2005 06:10 AM
In the late 1960s, I went to a screening of Howard Hawks' 1932 "Scarface" in a lecture hall at The California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena. The movie was shown in a good-sized hall (bigger than many auditoriums in some modern multiplexes) with a full projection room and stadium seating. It was part of an ongoing program of weekly screenings presented by the school's student association. All screenings were open to the public. I don't know for how long movies were shown there as part of this program, but I believe it went on for many years.
Still, I don't think that halls such as this need to be included in the listings of cinemas. I'd certainly include movie theatres in museums, such as Titus Theaters at New York's Museum of Modern Art, but not ordinary lecture halls that were used to screen movies only once or twice a week. Over many decades, there might have been hundreds, if not thousands of halls in schools, libraries and community buildings which were used for public screenings of movies. It would probably be impossible to identify more than a few of them.
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