Any attention paid to the mural above the lobby bar at the new Cinemark North Hills and XDcq was an afterthought.
How times have changed.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Mixed media: Movie theaters have changed, but murals remain a staple
Any attention paid to the mural above the lobby bar at the new Cinemark North Hills and XDcq was an afterthought.
How times have changed.
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3 comments:
This article seems to me about how do we treat the past. How do we as a society treat what has some and gone just a few decades ago, let alone a 100 years or even a 1000 years. Do we paint over things in the name of progress or do we protect things in the name of history. Drama's original home in the CFA has a beautiful mural in the entrance and would be a shame to paint over it but many murals have been painting over.
The movie theatre trying to bring some class and prestige to there building is a interesting note. Trying to be a higher class and to compete with live theatre. That is kool and it is sad that many of the murals are not even appreciate any more. We just walk by them and ignore them.
So how do we save the past while still moving forward is a great question, that has many different answers.
I think this article says a lot about what the movie industry has become. As the article stated, murals were painted in old movie houses to add a feeling of "high culture" that mirrored the decorative arts that went into creating theatre houses of the day. During Hollywood's heyday, movies actually were a glamorous tribute to high culture and were a work of art and innovation. Audiences would dress up to go to the movies because it was that special of an occasion. fast forward almost 100 years in the future and you have a very different mindset about what it means to go to the movies. Movie theaters no longer hold a place in American high culture. While the movie industry continues to make advances in technology, going to see a movie does not mean the same thing it did in the 1900s. Today, it is an inexpensive pastime. The novelty of going to the movies has worn off. Our age of technology has also made it easy to bypass the theatre by streaming movies illegally online. The lack of and destruction of murals and decorative arts in movie houses exemplifies how movie theaters no longer hold a a prominent place in American culture.
I was surprised to hear a movie theater was built today at all. Times have changed. People's tastes in culture have changed as well. while we no longer appreciate the symbolism and craftsmanship that goes into creating works of murals like we used to should not be surprising. We are the age of digital and tech savy tricks to keep our short attention spans growing ever shorter entertained. People no longer see the need to go to movie theaters when they can see movies on a giant hd screen in the comfort of their own home where they can play and pause and they desire.
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