Glasgow Film Theatre
Encyclopedia
Movie theater
A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
in Rose Street, (off Sauchiehall Street
Sauchiehall Street
Sauchiehall Street is one of the main shopping/business streets in the city centre of Glasgow, Scotland. Along with Buchanan Street and Argyle Street, it forms the main shopping area of Glasgow, containing the majority of Glasgow's high street and chain stores.Although commonly associated with the...
), Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
. GFT is a registered charity. It occupies a purpose-built cinema building, first opened in 1939, and now protected as a category B listed building.
History and Architecture
GFT’s predecessor, the Cosmo, was Scotland’s first arts cinema and only the second purpose-built arthouse in Britain, after the Curzon Mayfair in London. Opened on 18 May 1939, it was also the last cinema to be built in Glasgow before the outbreak of WW2.The Cosmo arrived at the close of an important decade for British film culture. With the advent of sound in film, language became a barrier and popular films from the continent quickly disappeared from British screens. In Glasgow, audiences for world cinema were served by the Film Society of Glasgow. Founded in 1929, this was the first cultural film group in Scotland, and its growing membership demonstrated a real appetite for foreign-language film in the city.
In fact, Glaswegians in this period had a healthy appetite for film in general: in 1939, they went to the cinema an average 51 times a year, compared to 35 times for the rest of Scotland, and 21 times in England. And they were well-served for cinemas – by the close of the decade, the city could boast 114 in all, with a total seating capacity of more than 175,000. But there was, as yet, no commercial arthouse cinema.
Spotting a gap in the market, in stepped George Singleton, member of one of Glasgow’s illustrious cinema chain families. He was joined by Charles Oakley, Chair of the Film Society and the Scottish Film Council, and together they created the Cosmo – the name a snappy shortening of ‘Cosmopolitan’, a small cinema in Cambridge known to Oakley.
Singleton approached renowned local architects James McKissack and WJ Anderson II to work on the new cinema. Their design for the Cosmo’s geometric, windowless façade was influenced by the work of Willem Marinus Dudok
Willem Marinus Dudok
Willem Marinus Dudok , was a Dutch modernist architect, best known for the brick Hilversum City Hall....
, a leading Dutch modernist architect. The international theme was continued outside in the choice of cladding materials – a mix of Ayrshire brick finished with faiance cornices, set on a base of black Swedish granite – and inside, where a globe was installed over the stalls entrance. In its original layout, there was just a single auditorium, seating 850.
The Cosmo opened on Thursday 18 May, with an advertisement in the Glasgow Herald the following day promising future audiences a programme of ‘continental fiction films, revivals of British and American fiction films, documentary films, cartoons and news reels. There is only one qualification – they must be of first rate quality.’ The opening screening was Julien Duvivier’s Un Carnet de Bal (1937).
The opening also saw the first appearance of Mr Cosmo, a dapper and bowler-hatted cartoon figure based on George Singleton, designed by Charles Oakley. Mr Cosmo figured on posters and adverts for the cinema, and popped up on-screen ahead of the main feature in a pose – comic or tragic – appropriate to each release. Over the years, he would become a familiar figure to generations of Glasgow cinema-goers and can be glimpsed around the GFT building to this day. He also lives on in the name of GFT’s downstairs café.
Quality European cinema was central to the Cosmo’s programming from the start, with programmes in the summer of 1939 including La Grande Illusion (1937) and La Kermesse Heroique (1935). Though supplies dried up during WW2 and the cinema fell back on more mainstream English-language fare, screenings were enthusiastically resumed shortly thereafter. In February 1946, the Cosmo became the first cinema in the UK to screen a French film made under the Occupation, and Cosmo audiences also saw wartime German features, including – in breathtaking Agfacolour – The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a 1988 British adventure comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam, starring John Neville, Sarah Polley, Eric Idle, Jonathan Pryce, Oliver Reed, Uma Thurman, and Robin Williams.-Plot:...
(1943). Big hits at the cinema included Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
(which ran for eleven weeks in 1948), Les Enfants du Paradis (1945), Jazz on a Summer’s Day (1959) and Disney’s Fantasia
Fantasia
Fantasia may refer to:*Fantasia , a traditional equestrian performance practiced in North africa*Show tango, also called Fantasia, a more theatrical and exaggerated form of Argentine tango*1224 Fantasia, an asteroid...
(1941), a long-running Cosmo Christmas favourite. A ‘Cosmo Club’, offering films ‘unblessed by the Censor’s certificate’, opened in 1960.
The Cosmo ran for three decades until economic circumstances dictated that it could not survive in its original form. On 21 April 1973 it was sold to the Scottish Film Council, re-opening the following year as the Glasgow Film Theatre with the former auditorium subdivided into a 404 seat cinema (now Screen 1) in the former balcony and a conference/exhibition space in the stalls. Mr Cosmo bowed out at a gala screening of Fantasia, announcing he would ‘watch with pride an affection this new development of the old tradition.’ The new cinema opened on 2 May 1974 with a screening of Fellini’s Roma
Roma
- Places :Italy* Rome, the capital of Italy, is called Roma in Italian and some other languages* Roma Tre University, a university located in Rome, Italy, and founded in 1992...
.
In its new guise, the cinema would continue to show films beyond the commercial mainstream. The key difference lay in GFT’s broader remit. Taking London’s National Film Theatre as a model, GFT continued to show the latest world cinema releases, but also advanced newer trends in film culture, collaborating with the Third Eye Arts Centre (now the CCA
CCA
CCA can refer to:*ICAO callsign for Air China*California Charter Academy*California College of the Arts*California Culinary Academy*Canadian Canoe Association*Canadian Cascade Arc*Canadian Cat Association*Canadian Centre for Architecture...
) to show experimental films, screening film seasons, retrospectives and late-night cult classics, and developing educational activities.
In 1986 GFT became a registered charity and embarked on a campaign to raise money for a second cinema to replace the old basement conference room. Screen 2 (with seats for 142), and the downstairs café-bar Café Cosmo, opened for business in 1991. Edinburgh-based architect James Doherty returned in 1998 to revamp the foyer; in a nod to the original design, the new foyer includes a mosaic globe designed by American Glasgow-based artist Todd Garner set into the floor. In the same period, new sets of curtains were commissioned from Glasgow School of Art graduate Adrienne Brennan (Screen 1) and Glasgow studio Timorous Beasties
Timorous Beasties
Timorous Beasties is a design led manufacturing company based in Glasgow, who specialise in fabrics and wallpapers. Timorous Beasties was founded in 1990 by Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons...
(Screen 2), both of which reference the ‘cosmos’ in their design.
In 1988 the building was B-listed by Historic Scotland
Historic Scotland
Historic Scotland is an executive agency of the Scottish Government, responsible for historic monuments in Scotland.-Role:As its website states:...
.
Films
GFT screens a wide variety of international cinema, classic films and documentaries alongside locally made work and material aimed at a range of community groups. In total, it shows over 600 different films every year, of which 60% are foreign-language.In addition to daily screenings of films, GFT is host to a number of clubs and activities:
- The Monorail Film Club holds regular screenings of new and classic films, followed by a discussion in the Café Cosmo.
- The Film Discussion Group meets in the upstairs bar on the second Wednesday of each month to discuss new mainstream and foreign-language releases.
- The Skinny Film Quiz meets monthly at Café Cosmo.
Since 2005, GFT has been home to the Glasgow Film Festival (GFF). Held annually each February, the festival presents a programme of feature films, shorts, special events and live and interactive happenings from the GFT and other cinemas, galleries and unusual venues across the city.
Famous Faces
Over the years GFT has played host to many illustrious guests, including:Richard Attenborough
Richard Attenborough
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough , CBE is a British actor, director, producer and entrepreneur. As director and producer he won two Academy Awards for the 1982 film Gandhi...
, Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions...
, John Byrne (playwright), Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
, Simon Callow
Simon Callow
Simon Phillip Hugh Callow, CBE is an English actor, writer and theatre director. He is also currently a judge on Popstar to Operastar.-Early years:...
, Robert Carlyle
Robert Carlyle
Robert Carlyle, OBE is a Scottish film and television actor. He is known for a variety of roles including those in Trainspotting, Hamish Macbeth, The Full Monty, The World Is Not Enough, Angela's Ashes, The 51st State, and 28 Weeks Later...
, Robbie Coltrane
Robbie Coltrane
Robbie Coltrane, OBE is a Scottish actor, comedian and author. He is known both for his role as Dr...
, Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
, Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
, Carl Davis
Carl Davis
Carl Davis CBE is an American born conductor and composer who has made his home in the UK since 1961. In 1970 he married the English actress Jean Boht....
, Bill Forsyth
Bill Forsyth
Bill Forsyth is a Scottish film director and writer, noted for his commitment to national film-making.Forsyth first came to attention with a low-budget film, That Sinking Feeling, made with youth theatre actors and featuring a cameo appearance by the Edinburgh gallery owner Richard Demarco...
, Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
, Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway, CBE is a British film director. His films are noted for the distinct influence of Renaissance and Baroque painting, and Flemish painting in particular...
, David Hayman
David Hayman
David Hayman is a Scottish film and television actor and director, best known for his role as DCS Mike Walker in ITV drama Trial and Retribution. He also a prominent supporter of the SNP's call for Scottish independence....
, Jane Horrocks
Jane Horrocks
Barbara Jane Horrocks is an English voice, stage, screen and television actress, voice artist, musician, and singer. She is best known for her role as "Bubble" in the TV series Absolutely Fabulous as well as her distinctive voice....
, Eddie Izzard
Eddie Izzard
Edward John "Eddie" Izzard is a British stand-up comedian and actor. His comedy style takes the form of rambling, whimsical monologue and self-referential pantomime...
, Felicity Kendall, Anthony LaPaglia
Anthony LaPaglia
Anthony M. LaPaglia is an Australian actor. He is known for his role as FBI agent Jack Malone on the American TV series Without a Trace, for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama...
, Paul Laverty
Paul Laverty
Paul Laverty is a Scottish lawyer and scriptwriter.-Birth and early career:Paul Laverty was born in Calcutta, India, to an Irish mother and Scottish father. He obtained a Philosophy degree at the Gregorian University in Rome...
, Johnny Lee Miller, Janet Leigh
Janet Leigh
Janet Leigh , born Jeanette Helen Morrison, was an American actress. She was the wife of actor Tony Curtis from June 1951 to September 1962 and the mother of Kelly Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis....
, Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh
Michael "Mike" Leigh, OBE is a British writer and director of film and theatre. He studied theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and studied further at the Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design. He began as a theatre director and playwright in the mid 1960s...
, Ken Loach
Ken Loach
Kenneth "Ken" Loach is a Palme D'Or winning English film and television director.He is known for his naturalistic, social realist directing style and for his socialist beliefs, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as homelessness , labour rights and child abuse at the...
, Baz Lurhmann, David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
, Ewan McGregor
Ewan McGregor
Ewan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor. He has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. McGregor is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting , young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy , and poet Christian in the...
, Hayley Mills
Hayley Mills
Hayley Mills is an English actress. The daughter of John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, and sister of actress Juliet Mills, Mills began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising newcomer, winning the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for Tiger Bay , the Academy Juvenile Award...
, Peter Mullan
Peter Mullan
Peter Mullan is a Scottish actor and film-maker who has been appearing in films since 1990.-Early life:Mullan, the sixth of eight children, was born in Peterhead in the northeast of Scotland, the son of Patricia, a nurse, and Charles Mullan, a lab technician who worked at Glasgow University. He...
, David Niven
David Niven
James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...
, David Puttnam
David Puttnam
David Terence Puttnam, Baron Puttnam, CBE, FRSA is a British film producer. He sits on the Labour benches in the House of Lords, although he is not principally a politician.-Early life:...
, Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Jean-Paul Rappeneau is a French film director, screenwriter, and actor.He started out in film as an assistant and screenwriter collaborating with Louis Malle on Zazie dans le metro in 1960 and Vie privee in 1961...
, Christopher Reeve
Christopher Reeve
Christopher D'Olier Reeve was an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author and activist...
, Nicholas Roeg, Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
, Paul Schrader
Paul Schrader
Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and former film critic. Apart from his credentials as a director, Schrader is most notably known for his screenplays for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Raging Bull....
, Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
, Tilda Swinton
Tilda Swinton
Katherine Mathilda "Tilda" Swinton is a British actress known for both arthouse and mainstream films. She has appeared in a number of films including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Burn After Reading, The Beach, We Need to Talk About Kevin and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her...
, Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
, Guiseppe Tornatore and Max Von Sydow
Max von Sydow
Max von Sydow is a Swedish actor. He has also held French citizenship since 2002. He has starred in many films and had supporting roles in dozens more...
.