Group 8 Blog 5
Authors: Christina Wang, Kristen Vitolo, Yunfei Qiang, Abby Oxley
As our research sadly comes to an end and this concludes our blog series, our group is incredibly proud of how far we’ve come in terms of our research question and collaboration as a group. We have managed to work well together through many virtual brainstorming sessions and will miss working as a group with the semester coming to an end. With that being said, we would like to share our final thoughts on our research project and pose some unanswered questions that we still have about the Great Star Theater and would love to research on our own time.
Our chosen venue, the Great Star Theater, acts as an integral part of the Chinatown community as a space for Chinese immigrants to experience a piece of their culture amongst other immigrants and children of immigrants for generations to come. Through donations and countless renovations, the Great Star Theater’s teams throughout the years have worked tirelessly to continue to show Chinese cinema despite also including other shows such as operas, circuses, concerts, comedy shows, and ballets later on. It is incredibly inspiring to see how the Chinatown community has rallied behind the Great Star all these years to ensure the doors of the last Chinatown theater remain open. When other theaters in the area began renovating and revamping their moviegoers’ film viewing experiences, the Great Star Theater did the same by installing a new movie screen and upgraded the theater’s seats to keep up with the competition and keep the space open as a place for Chinese immigrants to stay up to date with mainland China’s latest films. The Great Star did absolutely everything it could to continue to show traditional Chinese films, but the slew of external factors that contributed to the ultimate demise of the theater’s film showing overtook the efforts to keep the screenings alive.
As none of us are from the Bay Area, we learned a lot about San Francisco and the rich history it has in relation to Chinese culture. The emergence, development, and demise of the Chinese theaters in San Francisco tells a story of what the socioeconomic climate of the city was like. In the 1920s-1940s, theaters began to show up all over San Francisco, appealing to the Chinese immigrants and bringing them a sense of home. At this time, many of the theaters were used for opera or other forms of entertainment. Jump to a couple of decades later, these theaters began to screen Chinese movies. We found many flyers from the 1960s-1980s that told us what movies were being shown, ranging from wuxia actions films to graphic pornographic movies. We also learned how the Chinese population at this time began to assimilate more to the American culture, but also started to reject their own. Many of the Chinese theaters in San Francisco closed and got converted into different types of retail stores. Fortunately, many of the historic buildings were preserved, but the theaters are no longer cultural hubs for people to enjoy entertainment and socialize.
Our research deepened our understanding of theater spectatorships, especially when we realize the cultural importance of Chinatown theaters throughout the 20th century. We believe that movies extend beyond its content and techniques to provide a window for the audience to imagine more possibilities of lives. For Chinese immigrants in San Francisco Chinatown, Chinese theaters became a place for them to reminisce about past lives in China. It has created a special connection to bring the groups of Chinese immigrants and Asian Americans together and back to their cultural heritage. In addition, Chinatown theaters are a place for them to interact with one another and build strong social bonds. In our analysis of Wuxia films and its mass screening in the Great Star from the 1960s to 1970s, we realize the significant meaning of cinema for a population in the diaspora to connect to a national identity. We believe that this project to recognize the history of local film culture in the Bay area has greatly helped us to understand the overarching topic of the course.
It came as a surprise realizing the amount of hands that Great Star has been in as far as ownership is concerned. Within our research, we looked at how the change of ownership worked for and against the preservation of the Great Star. From an unfortunate homicide case, to unsettling inches of dust from the history of the theater, Great Star excitingly rests in a ten year lease with Roger Pincombe and Alice Chu (Pei Chu). With any amount of research there are still some questions we have, and hope to see more research on in the future!
- Will the new Great Star bring back Chinese cinema in the near future to continue this legacy? We know they hope to (as they have a new screen), however are there plans of action to do so? What does that look like? Could we see a Great Star Festival?
- From a community perspective, does the “new image” that the theater has, still connect to the community bonding? Particularly for the diasporic communities and identities that built up the success around where Great Star is now?
Citations:
https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Woman-killed-at-Chinatown-theater-venue-s-6256767.php
Comments
Post a Comment