Exposiciones

Movie posters of the Puçol School Museum

From March 1 to 31, 2021


L'Aljub Shopping Center


In Film Posters, the Pusol School Museum exhibits a selection of the numerous posters it conserves, mostly from the Gran Teatro. Funds that are shown together for the first time, creating an important group both for their rarity and for the beauty of the works.


The first public screening of cinema with a ticket price was held on December 28, 1895, at the Salon Indien du Grand Café, on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris. For this event, the Lumière brothers already used a poster designed by the artist Henri Brispot. So it could be said that poster design and the seventh art are united from the outset.


Movie posters were, for many decades, the advertising resource most used by the film industry. These large posters hung in corridors and facades of all movie theaters of the time, in order to connect with the public and claim their interest immediately. The small leaflets that were distributed by hand were a more immediate attraction, in them the poster of the film was reproduced on its front, the cinema in which it was projected and the schedules of screenings were reported on the back.


The posters were also part of the advertising campaigns that were carried out around the select group of actors and actresses who became 'movie stars'. Idolized by the public, their faces starred in the posters of the films in which they acted, contributing to box office success. Today, these posters are the witness of the transience of this fame, acting as vanitas for our present, but also connecting us with the way of life of our ancestors, with the dreams they had, through the knowledge of their leisure time and their cultural tastes.


The development of poster design meant the revolution of graphic design, counting on true artists whose recognition grew as modern art evolved. The studios invested more and more in the publicity of their films, relying on the work of great poster artists in each country in which the films were distributed, who made their own creations, thus increasing the value of this artistic discipline. In Spain, mythical names such as Vinfer, Josep Renau, Ramon or Jano worked for both national and international production companies. At an international level, we will highlight Grinsson and Soubié, two French poster artists who worked for Hollywood and who sign several of the elements that we exhibit.


The cinema in Elche


From the presentation of the cinema in 1895 in Paris to its arrival in Elche... little more than a year passes! In the first months of 1897 it made its appearance in the now defunct Teatro Llorente, curiously in the same year that the Lady of Elche was discovered. Almost always, the projections are made in mobile barracks that go touring different municipalities. In our city they settled on the banks of the river (now Av. País Valenciano), in the Plaza de la Merced and in the Plaza de Baix, between 1902 and 1912 approx.


The only stable theater in Elche would be the Teatro Llorente, which in 1907 was adapted for cinematographic projections, until in 1920 the Kursaal was inaugurated in the Glorieta. This new building followed the aesthetics of nineteenth-century spaces, but it was already conceived as a cinema and a theatre, and it was not until after the Civil War that it was renamed the Gran Teatro. During its first years, it competed with Llorente for the highest grossing projections, managing to prevail with the exclusive contracting of Paramount, among other North American and European production companies. Not long after the first cinema in our districts was inaugurated, the Torrellano cinema would be a reality in 1926. The second urban cinema to open would be the Coliseum, in the middle of Corredera, in 1928. The first cinema was just inaugurated in the 1930s of neighborhood, the Ideal, dedicated to revivals and double programs. Later would come the Coliseum, the Victoria (summer), the Central and, already in 1949, the emblematic Capitol. The expansion through rural areas was also unstoppable: a theater was opened in La Hoya in 1944, then in Perleta, Jubalcoy, La Marina, Valverde... all the districts came to have a cinema, some with more than one. Among the last theaters to open were the Altamira Cinema, the Alcázar and the Central, still in 1956 the Palafox was inaugurated. In the 1970s, a decline began that, little by little, ended with the closure of the last "classic" rooms at the beginning of the new century.

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