 It Isn't the Pictures That Got Small...
It's the People
A night out to the cinema was once what it claimed to be, i.e. a night out. There was a time when a new film arrived, the hyperbole would make front-page news and ripple its way through the public imagination. Premier’s would be filled with excited expectation and not very many social climbers. For Miss Seventeen and never been kissed, an invite to the cinema would weaken the knees and gladden the heart. Couples would meet outside, all brylecream, glad-rags, and skirts dangerously close to the knees, and then in they would skip gay as lambs. After the movie, out they would shuffle, all wide-eyed and full of wonder. A few lucky boys looking triumphant and manly with partners looking thoroughly ashamed. It was a thing to do at the end of the week and made you feel you were finally living.
Nowadays, the cinema is there for a diversion when there is nothing on t.v. - a time killer until the nightclubs open or a place for morose couples to go on a Friday night to avoid conversation. I don’t think that it is the fault of the films - they only ever seem to get better - I believe that cinema, although usually low art, is still the pinnacle of human creativity. It is the fault of people. We are just never satisfied! It is our nature. But don’t worry. In Amsterdam there are still reasons to get excited about a night out at the cinema – no, not the cinemas in the red light district – for here you can still find the splendour, romance, and intrigue that our parents and grandparents knew. Let me start by introducing you to Theatre Tuschinski…
The Tuschinski Theatre has been described as belonging to three distinct schools of architecture: Jugenstil, Art Deco, and the Amsterdam school of architecture, but it is far more than that. Descriptions in terms of architectural styles would fall far short in conveying the splendour of this creation; there is far more at play. The façade of the Cinema is the most striking of all terraced buildings in Amsterdam. It may be Art Deco but it may also be a Picasso rendition of a gothic cathedral and the spires could have been plucked from the mind of Heironymous Bosch, or perhaps it could be the palace of some elfin princess from fairy-tale fantasy who fell in love with H R Giger and asked him to do the cladding. A deceptive appearance of austerity and cold dissolves away slowly as the eye begins to adjust and register the whole. Every stone has been individually shaped to give the building an undulating, organic flow. Elephants hold up this fortress of delight, illuminated at night from delightfully sinister lanterns and stained-glass windows that glow from within. The best time to see it is during a pink-skied twilight when the lustre on the bluish-grey surface reflects a strange, purple lambency.
 As you walk through the door and into the main foyer, you feel the sumptuous splendour seeping in through your skin and enthralling the soul. It is a visual orisonorium, an opium eater’s phantasmagoria or an impressionist’s vision of rapture. Every detail of the interior, from the 150 meter square hand-woven Moroccan carpet to the thinnest skirting - every mural, moulding, fitting, and frieze is an art form in itself yet part of the resplendent whole. Everywhere are peacocks and birds of paradise, plumage and petals, dragonflies, beetles, and blooms. All crimsons and ruby reds, ultramarines and emerald greens, saffron, silver and gold. The richness of the décor is unsurpassed in even the stateliest houses of Europe. It is gaudy but in no way vulgar. Every feature complimenting the next giving the impression of a thriving, living thing. Pass the marble bar - with its wrought iron and brass fittings – then float up the sweeping staircase. The art-nouveau woodland scenes on the walls of trees, vines, and creatures give the impression that perhaps there are nymphs and fauns, once lost, have found a home hiding in the shadows. Finally, you take your box in the main auditorium, perhaps fashioned from an Egyptian architect’s dream, where there is champagne on ice and a waiter on call. It is always nice to attend a premier and this week in Amsterdam we have a choice. We can either watch Step Up 2 (The Streets): a story of love between aspiring dancers from opposite sides of the tracks, which is the sequel to Step Up: a story of love between aspiring dancers from opposite sides of the tracks. The other film premiering this week is Rambo: the story of a Vietnam vet who is caught up in a war that he didn’t create, which is the sequel to… Never mind, you get the idea.
Okay, it was a poor week for premiers. I don’t wish to snobbishly condemn Hollywood films for being empty vessels of art where the actors only ever play themselves; I’m really quite glad that’s what they are. It saddens me a little when I hear critics condemn them. Blockbuster films are pure entertainment, a few hours of escapism produced by the most talented people in their field. A film doesn’t have to spark your imagination to be any good and doesn’t need a spark of imagination to become a hit. I think almost every Hollywood film created is a thing of wonder, although hollow, like beautiful bubbles gleaming in the sun. Take any film from now and place it in a cinema twenty years in the past and the audience will ooh and ah with awe. Place the same film twenty years in the future and the audience will ooh and ah with nostalgia. As I said before, it is not the films that are at fault; it is human nature. We are spoiled for choice and over stimulated as a drug addict is, always having to up the dosage to get our little thrill. The special effects have to be ever more realistic, the sex & violence must always be that bit more graphic and the action scenes more spectacular. But it has to stop somewhere; extreme sensation must have an end and then what? We couldn’t possibly start to tamper with and improve the themes and scripts could we? The scripts and themes have remained more or less the same mainly because we want them to. You’ll probably find most of the stories somewhere in ancient folklore. In fact, the themes haven’t changed much since the time of the ancient Greeks and the scripts have changed little since the time of the Elizabethans. Horses in chases are replaced by cars, adventure on the sea is replaced with expeditions in space, comedye is replaced with comedy, medieval visions of hell are now horror films: I could go on and on but the tragedy is that it seems that the dynamism of the film industry is finally at an end. Small independent film makers just cannot compete with the high finance world of the film industry, but, thankfully, technology is changing all that and now there is a plethora of excellent films cropping up at film festivals all around the world to help lead Hollywood into the future. Of course, at many of these film festivals you must dig through mountains of dirt to find just one diamond and perhaps a few pearls but there are exceptions to the rule. And these are the screenings of the ‘Future Shorts’ films: Arguably the best avant-garde cinema around and without a doubt the most exceptional short films in the world. I was at a screening here last night and it was perfection from the first to the last.
Future Shorts are the leaders in showcasing short films around the world. Giving a platform to absolutely stunning new talent; some films deliver simple messages dealt with an artists touch, some loaded with depth charges of super-significance, some may seem as a slight altercation on the status quo but covertly question your understanding of perception. These are absolute candy for the intellect, taking you to new worlds of abstraction and higher planes of beauty and emotion. Screenings here shall become a regular feature and there are screenings all over the world. To check for one near you go to www.futureshorts.com and if you don’t believe that what I say is true, then check the sample films on youtube; there are plenty to choose from.
The screenings are usually in the cheapest venues available to appeal to the widest audience. The ones in Amsterdam are shown in studio 301, a squatted cinema on the Overtoom, but unfortunately they don’t sell champagne. And that is the real tragedy! If Abraham Tuschinski (the founder of the Tuschinski theatre) were alive today, these are the films he would want most in his cinema. When he saw his first film in 1910, cinema was the avant-garde art form of its day and it inspired him to build a theatre to share this new magic with humanity. From the time of the Tuschinski theatre’s opening in 1921 until Abraham was murdered by the Nazis in 1942, cinema was still a dynamic force of infinite possibilities. Now I feel that cinema shall branch into two distinct forms: one type of film should be shown in the soulless multiplexes; the other should be shown in beautiful places like the Tuschinski theatre. You may decide which should be where. Audiences are becoming more sophisticated and perhaps cinema, as we know it, shall become a nostalgic diversion such as classic theatre or opera. Nothing of ‘film’ that doth fade. But doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange!
Incidentally, I decided to go with the film Rambo on premier night and...it was great! Although I think i'll understand it better if I watch it again. That's the thing with Sylvester Stalone movies, you can never really understand what the artist is trying to say.
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