A man in a business suit soars in the air like a kite. One minute he’s floating in the clouds. The next he’s hurtling to the ground. It’s the opening scene of the 1963 film 81/2 by Italian director Federico Fellini, a movie that inspired the name of Wang Ming-huang’s (王明煌) cinema and film library in Greater Taichung.
“It’s all about dreams versus reality,” said Wang.
Wang has operated the 81/2 Classic Theater for the past 22 years. The small movie theater and library comprises a downstairs screening room with a 150-inch screen and 30 seats. For many cinephiles, the biggest draw is Wang’s vast film catalog, which consists of more than 3,000 flicks at the last count.
Photo: John Evans
Movie buffs across Taiwan go to Wang, who also operates a mail order film rental service, to find rare and obscure flicks.
For NT$1,000, members can rent 12 movies and have access to Wang’s library of film-related books and magazines. Without a membership, renting films, which come on DVD, costs NT$100 each.
“I love to introduce new movies to people,” said Wang, 51, while sitting on the edge of a chair piled high with DVDs. “I have movies that you can’t find anywhere else but here.”
Photo: John Evans
A devoted fan of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Taichung resident Mike Reczek visits 8? Classic Theater at least once a week for a movie and a cup of tea.
“Modern movies bore me,” said Reczek, 42, whose choice of movie, such as the 1928 silent movie Four Sons, is usually found at 81/2 Classic Theater.
Searching the shelves of Wang’s movie theater is like going on a treasure hunt, Reczek said. He’s discovered gems from Billy Wilder (One, Two, Three from 1961), John Ford (The Searchers from 1956) and Howard Hawks (Rio Bravo from 1959).
“Not that I have anything against color, but I’m really into black-and-white [films],” said Reczek, who added that good storytelling, a focus on cinematography and interesting dialogue are missing in many of today’s high-budget movies.
For Liu Sen-yao (劉森堯), 81/2 Classic Theater is the best place to get his hands on silent movies, such as the 1925 Russian-language epic Battleship Potemkim.
Liu, a professor at the foreign language department of Feng Chia University in Taichung, relies on the theater’s vast movie library as a resource for his literature and film course.
“Any movie you can think of, [Wang] has it here,” Liu said. “It’s the best place to find classic movies in Taiwan.”
While Liu, 60, might be enthralled by the beauty of a dialogue-driven Ingmar Bergman film, convincing his young university students to think likewise is another matter, he said.
“I grew up watching these films,” Liu said, “but students have a hard time understanding these kinds of movies. They think they’re boring.”
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