
SILVER SCREEN MADISON MOVIE
Once complete, the new Touchstar Cinemas location will feature Alabama’s largest movie screen-and that’s not all. Photo via Touchstar Cinemas on FacebookĬonstruction is starting soon on a state-of-the-art theatre in Huntsville’s new MidCity District. 100 Years Later,” November 24, 2014.Facebook 186 Tweet LinkedIn Shares 186 A rendering of the upcoming Touchstar Cinemas location at MidCity District in Huntsville. Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, “The Lumberjack in Wausau.Larry Widen and Judi Anderson, Silver Screens: A Pictorial History of Milwaukee’s Movie Theaters (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2006).

Konrad Schiecke, Historic Movie Theatres of Wisconsin: Nineteenth Century Opera Houses through 1950s Playhouses, Town by Town (McFarland & Co., 2009).Marsha Orgeron and Devin Orgeron, eds., The Moving Image, 10(1), Spring 2010.Douglas Gomery, Shared Pleasures: A History of Movie Presentation in the United States (University of Wisconsin Press, 1992).Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research Collection, Internet Archive.UW-Madison Collection, UW-Madison Archives via University of Wisconsin Digital Collections.Public Enemies – Tinseltown Comes to Oshkosh, Oshkosh Public Library.

Milwaukee Historic Photos, Milwaukee Public Library.Eau Claire Area Historical Photographs, Chippewa Valley Museum.The images in this online exhibit come from the following digital collections: And every spring since 1999, the Department, in conjunction with the UW-Madison Arts Institute, has hosted the Wisconsin Film Festival, which is now the largest university-sponsored international film festival in the nation.
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In addition, the Department of Communication Arts houses a Cinematheque offering free screenings of old, rare, and popular films year-round. The Wisconsin Historical Society, located on campus, began to collect papers and memorabilia related to film and media in the 1950s and in 1960 the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) was formed. Oshkosh Public Library.įinally, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has long been an internationally renowned center for the academic study of film. We can also catch a glimpse of the past in old student films, such as Campus Smiles (1920), a playful look at the faculty and students of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.įans in Oshkosh crowd around Johnny Depp in the hope of meeting the star. Part of the fun of watching these films today is noticing how the city has changed over time. While few of these films survive, one prime example is The Lumberjack (1914), filmed in Wausau and preserved by the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. Since it was rare for people to own their own film cameras at this time, it was a treat to see friends and family on the silver screen. The filmmakers would select locals to act in the film and at the end of the week, the film would be projected at the local theater, to the delight of the town. From the mid-1910s into the 1950s, itinerant filmmakers traveled throughout the state recreating the same short films. Sometimes the pleasure of going to the cinema combined with the thrill of participating in the filmmaking process itself. This arrangement was likely a result of the theater’s previous incarnation as a vaudeville venue.Įxterior of Eau Claire’s Wisconsin Theater in 1928, a decade before the theater was remodeled and renamed the Badger Theater.

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In the photograph of the Alhambra interior below, notice the small size of the screen compared to the stage and the fact that the orchestra is located in a prominent position in full view of the audience. Nearly thirty thousand were at movies between eight and nine in the evening on a typical Saturday or Sunday night.”įor a short period during 1911, Milwaukee’s 3,000 seat Alhambra Theater was the largest movie palace in the world.

Film historian Douglas Gomery recounts that in 1911 the city of Milwaukee “estimated that more than two hundred thousand people went to the movies each week. She is currently completing her Masters of Library and Information Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.ĭespite its distance from Hollywood, Wisconsin has had a love affair with film since the turn of the century. Her work on sound design history and aboriginal media has appeared in Velvet Light Trap and the anthology Cinephemera. Guest curator Katherine Quanz received her PhD from the Department of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University.
