By Julian Hale
Following on from a year dedicated to Art Nouveau, this year Brussels will celebrate Art Deco, as the city marks 100 years since the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs de Paris in 1925. As you might expect, there’s a myriad of cultural activities on offer, including a free exhibition about the early days of cinema at Les Halles, in central Brussels’ Place St Gery.
Right from the start of this small exhibition, you’re plunged into that world of the 1920s, with programmes, posters and images of movies and their stars, featuring names such as Maurice Chevalier, along with the music of the time. Displays recall the era’s low-cost tickets, as well as the hostesses who once showed you to your seat with a torch and sold you sweets and programmes.
Back in that period, cinemas often had bars, dancing, restaurants and cabarets tacked under the same roof. The best example of how luxurious they could be is probably the El Dorado cinema, now part of the UGC cinema close to Metro De Brouckère. The cinema was once decorated with majestic golden decorative stuccos and a large sun design. As part of the Art Deco year, you can see The Great Gatsby there on 27 March.
Another good example is the Metropol, opposite the UGC. It’s closed now but used to be a hotel with a cinema that led out onto the Rue Neuve. As the curator, Isabel Biver explained to the AEJ Belgium interview, the cinema was sponsored by the beer industry. Set up by the Wielemans-Ceuppens family, it included hotel rooms, a luxury apartment, a bar, a dancing area and a shoe shop. The Metropol marked the first time in Brussels that there was no balcony and no stalls in a movie theatre.
She also explained the movie experience of the time, which included physical curtains and a gong to announce the film and ‘calicotistes’, the graphic designers of that era, who worked on the big cinema billboards. 1928 was the first time when you could hear the actors speak on the big screen, when The Jazz Singer was shown in Brussels.
At the end of the exhibition, you can see pictures of how the old cinemas look today. This little exhibition is a must for people who like history and cinema aficionados as it’ll certainly pique your interest to find out more. It’s just a shame that it hasn’t been translated from French and Dutch into other languages, including English. The exhibition ends on 11 May.
For more about the events of the year as a whole, check out this website: https://www.visit.brussels/en/visitors/what-to-do/architecture-art-deco-brussels
For events about cinema and art deco, see https://hallessaintgery.be/event/exposition-cinemas-art-deco-a-bruxelles/
And for guided tours of the El Dorado, see https://www.visit.brussels/en/visitors/agenda/event-detail.Cinemas-Art-Deco-de-l-Eldorado-a-l-exposition.5700005179