The “famous” tea party scene at Tighsolas. I am having http://www.tighsolas.ca/ redesigned by a PhD in History, but I think I will use this ‘movie’ theme for all the pics.
Well, BBC Radio Four is broadcasting a 100 year retrospective of the motion picture industry, Going to the Flicks, by Barry Norman, and Norman opens by telling me something I did not know, that silent movies weren’t silent, in that there was a lot of noise in the cinema. But of course. And also I did not know that children (who were often literate) read the titles out to illiterate old people. NOW, that is most interesting for my story Flo in the City.
Considering the controversy in the era about children and the evils of the nickelodeon, this contributes some context.
I think I’ll have one of Marion’s students parents say: “At least they are practicing their reading.”
Fabulous.
The Golden Globes were last night, but I didn’t watch. I was at a friend’s and we watched three episodes of Slings and Arrows. My friend’s husband was from Stratford, Ontario.
I got up early this morning, 6 am, to return home, and almost froze my fingers off scraping the thin hard sheet of ice from the windscreen. When I got into the car, the thermostat said -22.
It’s been a long time since I had to suffer in this way. (And my car seats warm up these day which is a real luxury/necessity.) And when I got home 30 minutes later my neighbour was warming up his car to bring his youngest of three to daycare and I remembered HOW HARD it is to be a parent of young children, especially during the winter months in Montreal.
There’s something to be said for being an empty-nester.
Anyway, apparently Ricky Gervais was very acerbic at the Golden Globe Awards and was chastised, perhaps, half way through. (Isn’t that his job to make people uncomfortable?) and Colin Firth won for The King’s Speech and Paul Giamatti won for Barney’s Version and Annette Bening won for the Kids are All Right, so I am happy. And the Social Network won all the 0ther major awards, mostly. (I liked that movie, except for the fact the only female characters in it are young, incidental and skinny sex-objects. It looks to me that Colin Firth will win the only Oscar for the King’s Speech movie, despite the recent hype and that the Social Network has long legs.)
Anyway, back to Going to the Flicks, the radio program chronicling 100 years of cinema.
Box Office Mojo claims in a recent article that box office receipts in 2010 are down 15%. (With dvds and satellite feeds of movies I don’t think this means fewer people are watching movies; just that fewer people are eating overpriced popcorn at the Cineplex’s.)
Well, they must have been worried in November 1938 (the year before ‘the best ever year in cinema’ because the Motion Picture People published the following ad in the Montreal Star. (It’s one of Edith’s clippings, but she clipped it for the story about the demolition of the Reford Home in Westmount on the back. In Barney’s Version, Barney’s dad (Dustin Hoffman) mentions “a big house on the hill.’ He’s referring to rich Westmount.)
This article is VERY interesting, for obvious reasons. Here, in 1938, the movies are described as a ‘democratic medium’. Hmm. TV was only in embryo, I think.
A World Within Four Walls
Going to the ‘movies’ has become as much a part of modern life as going to work or going home to dinner. It is a habit that survives wars, strikes, political upheaval and national crises.
The first ‘movies’ were gaped at in much the same way as their contemporaries, the first automobiles. Today nobody stands at the curb to yell, “Get a horse!” at the streamlined version of either. The modern motion picture is as far a cry from the nickelodeon “flicker’ as the sleek, sixteen cylinder limousine is from its one-lunged ancestor.
This development was possible because going to the movies, like automobiling, became a national habit.
(In 1910, traditional theatre owners blamed the decline in attendance on both movies and the automobile.)
Why? Why do we go to the movies? It is because the motion picture has taken unto itself some basic functions in society. Motion Pictures intensify life!
For the younger generation, especially, an evening at the movies offers nearer kinship with other people – a greater insight into life – than a visit with neighbours.
The movies has given our eyes new ways of seeing. Because a star’s face appears before us on the screen in a hundred foot close up, we are more familiar with his features than those of our sister.
A portrait of a motion picture audience would show peace in the darkened theatre, happiness…freedom from care… hands held. As the audience reacts at what is taking place on the screen, it shares its feelings – and affirms that man is a social being. It is a group experience that is good for all of us, good for our individualities. Motion pictures are the chief cultural possession of the average man and woman. Millions who are removed from the other arts find it in the film their literature, their expressions of beauty in form and design, their interpretations of the world about them.
While the motion picture theatre is itself a great classroom in which our generation has acquired matchless knowledge of far regions and understanding distant peoples. There is more than a passing connection between the American way of life and American leadership in the world of motion pictures. For the movie is by its very nature a democratic product – a cooperative effort of the talents of many people. Their work is subject to the approval of the box office – a referendum as accurate as that of the ballot box itself.
It is in this public expression that motion pictures have found their greatest inspiration, their constant challenge to a new endeavor… Great stories, splendidly produced…love-filled romance, stirring drama, gay adventure, hilarious comedy, tuneful musicals, star studded casts filled with your favorites -new talents for which the world has been searched. One after another these fine pictures are coming to the screen of your favorite theatre, a world within four walls.
