The 14th June 2013 saw the last screening of a 35mm film at the Savoy Theatre in Monmouth. The film chosen was, "The Look of Love"; the biopic of Paul Raymond, starring Steve Coogan.
Featuring a protagonist of a seedy excess, within the last celluloid projection in a cinema that has has its own architectural reminiscence for an era when smoking in public spaces and salacious carrying on in the back rows of a long gone Friday night freedom, seemed somehow appropriate. The Savoy has plush velour and faded yellow painted walls behind its paint brushed, chandelier and gilt framed foyer.
Monmouth itself has an anachronistic disregard for the contemporary. Englands' obsession with past; a love of what appears to epitomise a golden era of high society, an idolisation of pastoral bliss or a romanticisation of history, is at the heart of Monmouths' living history. As The Savoy screened its last 35mm film, I was under no illusion that Monmouth would shake off its love of the past. While we were challenged to rise judge the caricature of bygone Raymond, this cinema and its town, seemed to welcome our indulgence in the romance of history.
Curtain down
A curtain glow show, a red light world in Soho and the peep show windows of a projection room gave the visitors one last chance to glimpse into the chemical fix of transparent 35mm, rolling off the machine, a production over, an era consigned to obsolescence, as much as the top shelf title
and the final era of side show cheap thrills ends.
The End.
The good news though is that small cinemas are making a come back. Thanks for writing this up Steve.
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