In the days before television sets and personal computers, the experience of watching a movie was, for many, a significant childhood memory. Almost everyone recalls the visit to the darkened movie theater - where, surrounded by strangers, we were mesmerized by the screen while discovering the wonders of the "seventh art."
Cinema also constitutes an inseparable part of the history of Haifa. The city of Haifa, like cinema itself, was shaped by the political and social processes that defined the 20th century. Between the 1920s and the 1960s, a range of entertainment centers housed in majestic "palaces," which were all designed by prominent architects, were built throughout the city. The names of these movie houses - Armon (palace), Pe'er (splendor), Hadar (majesty) - served to underscore the qualities that defined them, at least prior to their gradual demise. The experience of these vast, architecturally innovative theaters and the spectacle of sights, colors and sounds on screen became one of the epitomes of everyday "modern" experience.
The two exhibitions currently featured at the museum "Magical Theatres: Movie Houses in Haifa, Then and Now," constitute an initial attempt to examine Haifa's movie houses as a microcosm of Israeli society, as a symbol, and as a social, public and urban phenomenon that shaped the city's identity and character. These exhibitions examine local cinema in the context of the political establishment, a range of major events, as well as of movie-house owners and audiences. The rise of cinema is presented from two different perspectives - both as a significant aspect of modern urban life and as a mirror reflecting the evolution of Israeli society, and specifically of the local Haifa community.
These two exhibitions constitute, each in its own way, an initial attempt to introduce the public at large to the role of cinema in shaping the Israeli public sphere, Israeli culture, and Israeli collective awareness. In this sense, the examination of cinema in the current exhibition cluster serves as a tool for understanding the shaping of Israeli society in the course of the 20th century.
The exhabition were produced with the assistance of yes Planet Cinemas Chain (Israel Theatre group) and Haifa Art Foundation