The landmark cinema of south London – Ritzy is one of the oldest purpose-built cinemas that operate up until today. The venue began its life in 1911 under the name Electric Pavilion. It was a silent cinema, equipped with organs and moved to sound in 1929. Through its long history it had many name and owner changes, survived the Blitz and Brixton riots, faced demolition and today is a bustling, cultural venue of Brixton. In late 1970s Ritzy even operated as porn cinema before it closed down and was left forlorn. After a two year period of abandonment, a local film editor and cinema enthusiast Pat Foster decided to take action to rescue the cinema. When the necessary financial resources and the co-workers’ team where gathered, the venue reopened in 1978 under the name The Little Bit Ritzy. That initiated the cinema’s heyday as a politically and culturally bold art house. Alongside the diverse repertory programming, Little Bit Ritzy was also committed to screening more radical content with left-wing agenda, LGBT, feminist’s issues, equal rights, environmental matters and …show more content…
Things like pop-up screens, Secret Cinema, hot tub or pillow cinemas are on the rise. Ritzy embraces this trend entirely. In house through preparing deals such as bottomless brunch or theme events combined with film screenings and through adding sixth screen – Pop Ritzy. Pop Ritzy is located nearby the cinema in a shipping container and is a venue for alternative screenings – from local artists’ works to classic films with live music. Ritzy’s manager James van Dyke stresses the venue’s transformation to an important cultural hub of Brixton that with its broad offer of events and facilities is targeting not only cinema goers. The new term that is applicable to how Ritzy operates nowadays is “Cultureplex” meaning it is something more than a cinema – a multidisciplinary facility, event and art space all in
The cinema as a form of leisure was not new to British society, and indeed most western industrialised societies, during the interwar era. Prior to World War One it was not much more than a 'technical curiosity', but by the 1920s it was the 'new medium' and one that was a 'fully fledged form of art'. (Taylor 1970 p, 180) Throughout most of the 1920s, films shown in cinemas around the world were 'silent'. While silent films were not new to this era, the popularity of them experienced a 'new' and unique interest amongst the general public. Indeed, Vile Bodies highlights the popularity of the cinema and in particular, the 'silent' film as a regularly experienced leisure activity. Waugh's character, Colonel Blount, is the most obvious representation of the popular interest of films and film making at the time Vile Bodies was written. He tells Adam, after asking his interest in the cinema, that he and the Rector went 'a great deal' to the 'Electra Palace'. (Waugh 1930 p, 59)
Grainge, P., Jancovich, M., & Monteith, S. (2012). Film Histories; An introduction and reader. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
This case really takes a look into the world of the movie industry. The entertainment aspects and the motion picture exhibition are massive points that really make this case study interesting. This case harps on the dynamics of the value variables that have an impact on the profitability of movie theater owners. Consumers ultimately decide the way the studio-dominated business model will grow.
When the lights come up the audience is immediately thrown into an old and dingy movie theatre complete with popcorn strewn across the floor. It is within this set that deep social commentary is made throughout the
In Hollywood today, most films can be categorized according to the genre system. There are action films, horror flicks, Westerns, comedies and the likes. On a broader scope, films are often separated into two categories: Hollywood films, and independent or foreign ‘art house’ films. Yet, this outlook, albeit superficial, was how many viewed films. Celebrity-packed blockbusters filled with action and drama, with the use of seamless top-of-the-line digital editing and special effects were considered ‘Hollywood films’. Films where unconventional themes like existentialism or paranoia, often with excessive violence or sex or a combination of both, with obvious attempts to displace its audiences from the film were often attributed with the generic label of ‘foreign’ or ‘art house’ cinema.
It can be argued that at the end of the Second World War, arts were the first that began to feel the sense of liberalisation that society will later experience. In 1951 the British Censor Board introduced the X rating which dealt directly with films that were not “merely sordid films dealing with unpleasant subjects, but films which while, not being suitable for children, are good adult entertainment films which appeal to an intelligent public”. This was also the way in which the board perceived A Clockwork Orange. However, at the beginning of the 1960s, this sense of post war liberalisation received a strong backlash and began raising questions regarding the direction in which art was going. These questions started be asked more frequently and by the time A Clockwork Orange was released, they managed to shed a negative light on the ideas presented in the movie.
“Queer Cinema is Back” – headlines the front page of the 2005 issue of the Advocate, signifying to a new flood of movies making way into theatres. Five years prior to this news release B. Ruby Rich, who coined the art as New Queer Cinema almost a decade earlier, declared that the cinema had co-opted into “just another niche market” dominated by popular culture (Morrison 135 & Rich 24). What had seemed to be a movement, turned out to be only a moment in the brief years between the late 1980s and early 1990s when the energies of queer theory, the furies of AIDS activism, the legacies of independent and avant-garde filmmaking, and the schisms of postmodern identity politics came together in a bluster of cultural production to form a cinema of its own (Morrison 136). In many ways Rich’s criticism of the cinema is correct, the queer aspect that so brightly shone in films like Poison, Swoon, Paris Is Burning, Tongues Untied, The Living End and Head On, was shifting as the new millennium was approaching and making more difficult for queer films to stay queer against the forces of Hollywood. However, Rich lacks in her analysis on New Queer Cinema because she does not consider the breadth to which queer operates as a concept within the cinema. For Harry Benshoff and Sean Griffin, the editors of Queer Cinema, queer is an umbrella term encompassing dissident sexualities through history and, indeed, nominating them more productively than they were ever named in their own time (Morrison 137). For Michele Aaron, queer is a specific product of exigencies of social activism of the late 1980s and early 1990s, “with AIDS accelerating its urgency” and New Queer Cinema arising as an “art-full manifestation” of i...
Watching a movie in the 1920s was a cheap and easy way to be transported into a world of glitz and glamour, a world of crime, or a world of magic and mystery. Some of these worlds included aspects of current events, like war, crime, and advances in technology; while others were completely fictional mysteries, romances, and comedies. Heartbreakers, heartthrobs, comedians and beautiful women dominated movie screens across the country in theaters, called Nickelodeons. Nickelodeons were very basic and small theaters which later transformed into opulent and monumental palaces. When sound was introduced into film by Warner Bros. Pictures, “talkies” took top rank over silent films. “Movies were an art form that had universal appeal. Their essence was entertainment; their success, financial and otherwise, was huge” (1920-30, 3/19/11). Films offered an escape from the troubles of everyday life in the 20s, and moviegoers across the country all shared a universal language: watching movies.
Handy Andy, Inc., a maker of trash compactors, had a problem with how the distribution of their products was being done by distributors and retailers alike. The company made two models of trash compactors the standard and the deluxe, the latter having more capacity thus a higher price. The distribution of the trash compactor to the end user worked like this, a customer makes an order for a trash compactor through a licensed retailer, once the order is made the retailer buys from the distributor to fulfil that order and then delivers it to the customer. The initial agreement between Handy Andy Inc. and the distributors was based on delivering and installing all units in a period of 5 days after an order was made by a retailer, as compensation
Mathijs, Ernest, and Jamie Sexton. Cult Cinema: An Introduction. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. Print.
Wollen, Peter. Signs and Meaning in the Cinema. London: Secker and Warburg in association with the British Film Institute, 1972.
The cinema of attractions is an idea that Tom Gunning and Mr Gaudreault developed and over time coined as a term to describe the capabilities of film. They had a different idea of the early days in film history and wanted that to ...
It was not until the mid 1930s that the brutish dictator truly recognized the potential power of media, where in 1935 a special funding was given to the production of Italian films which was used to open up film institutions like the ‘Centro Sperimenale di Cinematografia’ (CSC) film school, and ‘Cinecitta’ (Cinema City) studios in 1937 (Ruberto and Wilson, 2007). The development of these institutions sparked the appearance of early sound cinema, specializing in genres such as comedies, melodramas, musicals and historical films, but were all categorized as ‘propaganda’ and ‘white telephone’ films by many critics due...
Nevertheless, the question at hand is whether theatre will have a role in the society of the future, where cinema, digital television, and computers will continue to expand and grow. The answer to this question is yes. Heading into the 21st century, theatre will only be a fraction in a solid media industry. However, despite all the excitement technology brings with it, they will never replace theatre because it has something that can not be recreated or offered anywhere else. The cinema and its larger than life world appeals as an affordable alternative. Digital television provides digital interaction between the viewer and the producer. Theatre on the other hand, and its contents may take on a larger dimension, but we receive it directly in flesh and blood – one to one. The magical atmosphere between an actor and spectator who are constantly aware of each other and the theatre’s level of engagement is fundamentally more human and far more intimate.
The aim of this research is to explore cinema audience's, festival goers' and workers in cinema views and experiences of film festivals, trying to understand what values they give to them and trying to figure out if they believe that in difficult times, such as the one we are living through, a film exhibition is still necessary.