Who remembers when the trolleybus crossed Corso Cavour and also stopped in the market square? Faint memories even for me as I couldn’t tell if the road was one-way or if the traffic ran in both directions. Yet, it wasn’t long ago that the area was almost entirely pedestrianised, a measure which when it was adopted aroused a lot of criticism even though it followed the example of many European cities. When I happen to tell my grandchildren who are children of cell phones and social media, I see the same incredulous expression as when I tell them that my favorite entertainment was reading a book.
However, I remember this very well, I got off the trolleybuses in the market square at the stop near Via del Mille and before returning home I took a walk along the two pavements of the market square not to see the fruit and vegetable stalls but just to enjoy the billboards with the posters of the most sensational shots of the films being shown in the city cinemas. Astra, Civico, Cozzani, Diana, Odeon, Monteverdi, Marconi, Arsenale and if I missed any, blame the registry office. Cinema, projection room. Today that type of venue no longer exists, it has been erased by technology. The former cinemas have become shops, amusement arcades and only the Civic survives because it functions as a theater but in the darkness of its gallery which in the summer opened its roof to the stars, how many promises of love were exchanged!
For the younger ones I will say that those cinemas were for all budgets. There were the first screenings where you saw films that had just been released on the market but whose entrance fee was demanding; there were family cinemas where the whole family spent Sunday afternoons at a low cost and then there were the licethat’s what we called them, where for a few lire you attended the screening of two films: you came in after lunch and went out to go to dinner, perhaps telling your mother who always asked you, that you had been studying with your classmate who was using the computer at the same time. your name as an alibi.
But the lice were always crowded for several reasons: the low cost of the ticket that if you managed to convince one to come you couldn’t also ask her to pay for the entrance, the possibility of doing something on a gloomy day, the opportunity to see old films but famous: at the time the programming of the only television did not include the playing of films. In short, it is easy to understand that seeing cinema posters was more than a necessity.
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Tags: visions cinematrographs lice
