Telling stories is something innate to the human being. An activity that goes back to prehistory with cave paintings, to the classical world with the theater or to the medieval world with minstrels. Man has used all kinds of resources to amuse his fellow men. But, without a doubt, the great entertainment revolution occurred with the birth of cinema in 1895. The invention of the brothers August Y Louis Lumiere, like so many others in the 19th century, it is the product of the contributions of many researchers. The first antecedent of the cinematograph was the magic lantern. This first projector in history was described by the Dutch Christiaan Huygens in 1659. The device was a large hermetically sealed lantern that only let light out through a lens. The lens projected the drawn images onto a panoramic glass plate that was shifted to give the images a sense of movement. This entertainment, typical of the aristocratic salons of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, went on, a century later, to become a popular attraction at fairs and theaters. In Córdoba, we have news of these public shows since at least 1854, when the poliorama on Calle de los Letras, today Conde de Cárdenas, was announced in the city’s press. A few years earlier, in 1839, the mother of cinema had been born; the photograph. The invention of Niépce Y Daguerre It was essential to achieve the moving image, since it was not only used in magic lanterns, but its technical evolution with celluloid films facilitated that first Parisian function of December 28, 1895, where the spectators watched with amazement the mythical films of the workers leaving the Lumière factory or the moving trains at La Ciotat station.
The first cinematograph
Córdoba barely had to wait a few months to learn about the new invention and on the night of October 23, 1896, the Circo Theater on Gran Capitán avenue hosted the first cinematograph session in our province. We do not know what his program was, but in these initiatory sessions small documentary films were screened. Pieces known as “pictures” and that were very simple, simple scenes of daily life that showed the capacity of cinema to offer moving photographs. Many of these sessions shared the program with other variety performances.
In 1903, the Great Theater projected a double session with the first fiction films: ‘Aladdin or the wonderful lamp’ and ‘Cinderella or little glass slipper’
The cinema was born silent and in black and white, although from the beginning it was tried to alleviate both limitations. Already in 1897, the Grand Theater hosted a function of animated photographs that was projected simultaneously with a phonograph. Another formula will be the figure of the explainer; a commentator who narrated the films or read the film’s titles and dialogue. The acceptance of the cinematograph by Cordoba society was dazzling. Proof of this is that, in 1899, the first exclusive cinema room opened; the Café de Colón on Avenida del Gran Capitán, where the sessions were accompanied by a guitarist. But also, in this same year, the City Council includes it as one of the activities of the May fair with free screenings. An attraction that for years coexisted with other paid cinematographers installed in the barracks of the real one on Paseo de la Victoria, where in 1908 six mobile cinemas were installed.
Córdoba is aware of all the film news and in 1903; the Grand Theater projects a double session with the first fiction films: Aladdin or the wonderful lamp Y Cinderella or glass slipper. The prices for these first sessions ranged from 9.25 pesetas for the prosceniums to 45 cents for paradise in mixed shows at the city’s great theaters. However, the tickets were more affordable in the mobile halls, which lowered their price to 30 and 15 cents.
First shootings in the city
The first known references of filming in Córdoba, according to the investigations of Rafael Jurado Arroyo, are from 1906. In this year, Antonio Ramirez, a businessman at the Modernista Pavilion, Córdoba’s first stable movie theater, commissioned a French camera operator to shoot some pictures of the city to project in his room. This practice will turn the city into a regular setting for documentary shootings. An example of this are the tapes of the Cordoba news, newscast created by Joaquin Guerrero, manager of the Ideal Cinema rooms. A true man of cinema, who in 1921 filmed the documentary on the inauguration of the monument of the Great Captain, as it appears in the credits. The businessman also set up his own development laboratory and exhibited up to a dozen of his own films of Cordovan themes in his rooms during 1923. In addition, Guerrero is one of the pioneers of that tradition so much Cordovan of summer cinemas, since 1913 he rents the bullring of the Tejares to carry out summer projections in the open air. Meanwhile, the main Cordovan theaters of this period, the Gran Teatro, the Teatro Circo and the Salón Ramírez, will be the scene of the great premieres of silent films. Charlot debuted in the city with his first comedy in 1916, while the films of Harold Lloyd They have been projected since 1921.
The 1920s turned Córdoba into a great film set, thanks to the enormous success of the film Jailers. A film shot in the city by José Buchs in 1922. It is an adaptation of a very popular zarzuela that makes a folkloric genre full of folkloric and dramatic clichés fashionable. The film helps the Spanish film industry take off and attracts up to eight shootings to the city this decade. These films exploit the beautiful exteriors of the Jewish quarter or the Cordoba mountains as the setting for their dramas. The genre is labeled by critics as “Spanish” and will give the opportunity to debut the first Cordovan actors: the bullfighter and photographer Antonio Calvache, who participates in the 1919 film Tragic Spain, and three years later to the rejoneador Antonio Cañero, who performs a role in the bullfighting drama Sun and shadow, a film produced by what would be his lover; the famous french actress Musidora.
Talkies are here
Córdoba will be one of the first Spanish cities to host the great talkies revolution. On April 10, 1930, the Duque de Rivas Theater, the former Circo Theater, remodeled in 1924, hosted the premiere of the first talking film: Noah’s ark from Michael Curtiz. In just a couple of years, these films have conquered the Cordoba public. A technology that all the halls of the capital immediately adopt. The 1930s expanded the list of Cordovan cinemas with large theaters: the Alcázar cinema in 1930, the Góngora cinema in 1932: one of the most modern Spanish salons of its time, and in 1935, the one that today is the summer cinema oldest: the San Andrés Coliseum. The technical complexity of the talkies filming ends up sealing the supremacy of the great American production companies. A dominance over national productions that is strengthened thanks to the production of versions in Spanish. Films that shoot with a wide cast of Spanish actors who emigrated to Hollywood. Among them we can list two people from Cordoba who work in the mecca of cinema: Rafael Valverde and the famous Carlos Villarias, known as the Spanish Dracula who made the Spanish version of the mythical film ofBela Lugosi.
The city will host another important milestone with the filming in 1932 of the sound version of Jailers. Directed again by José Busch, this film is considered one of the first spoken and sung Spanish films made entirely in our country. During the Civil War, Spanish cinema suffered a major break, although it was also used by both sides as a propagandist tool. In addition, the province will host various operators of war documentaries. A French team shot the Republican bombings on the city in 1936 and the famous Hungarian reporter Robert Capa films the capture of the town of La Granjuela.
Node, folklore and bulls
During the dictatorship, the documentary cinema and especially the news of the Node brought numerous news and traditions of the city to the national screens. Although in this period, Córdoba will not fail to host numerous national fiction filming in its streets. Films mostly ascribed to the folkloric or bullfighting genre, with tapes as much of the taste of the time as The merry genius, Toast to Manolete, The King of Sierra Morena, The Christ of the Lanterns O Learning to die. The city will also be the scene of some international films such as Guadalquivir River, Honeymoon O Scent of Mystery. With the arrival of democracy and especially of a new invention, video, cinemas suffer a significant loss of audience. An attempt was made to alleviate this crisis in the 1980s with a new theater format, the multiplex cinema. The Lucano will be the first Cordovan coliseum to offer this proposal. An offer that multiplies the number of films at the expense of smaller theaters. In these last decades, the city will contribute to the national filmography important creators such as directors Jose Angel Bohollo O Gerardo Olivaresas well as popular television actors Macarena Gomez Y Fernando Tejero placeholder image. During this period, Córdoba will become the capital of Andalusian cinema, hosting since 1987 the headquarters of the Filmoteca de Andalucía. With the new century, there will be great institutional interest because the city has its own film festival. It will be an ephemeral dream, hosting for four years the Tarifa African Film Festival. The latest cinematographic revolution is the modern series in streaming, which also arrive in the province with productions as diverse as the international Game of Thrones or the Cordoba MemE. Córdoba, a city with 125 years of cinema in its film library and that still wants to continue starring in many films.
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