Left in the Dark: Portraits of San Francisco Movie Theatres celebrates twentieth century movie theatres and moviegoing through lush full-color fine art photographs, and personal essays that offer both scholarly and literary appeal. R.A. McBride’s vivid portraits of San Francisco movie theatres, including the Castro, New Mission, and Balboa to name a few, illuminate the role of the movie house as a great social nexus. McBride has gained rare access to the interiors of closed theatres, picturing them empty and allowing the grandeur of the architecture to take center stage. Casting the theatres as characters within the city's cultural landscape, scholars and film exhibitors such as Rebecca Solnit, Eddie Muller, Chi-hui Yang, and Gary Meyer, among others, uncover a spectacular variety of forgotten or never-before revealed histories. As society retreats from public life into the anonymity of multiplexes and personal entertainment technologies our moviegoing heritage becomes an ever more significant and inspiring source of ideas for new communal cinematic experiences. San Francisco is particularly fortunate to be one of the world’s most vital moviegoing cities and to still have so many of its historic movie theatres. By drawing a continuum from past to present, Left in the Dark offers hope that even as these gorgeous historic theatres crumble, the spirit of Cinema thrives.
10 x 8 cardstock cover
59 photographs
168 pages
11 chapters