Leipzig photographer Ricarda Roggan traces her fascination with the mysterious darkness of the cinema and her attraction to moving images back three decades and across two political systems, east and west.
Watch her film "The Moviegoer", commissioned by the Goethe-Institut Toronto as part of the North American premiere of her photo series
KINO at the Goethe Media Space. This excerpt from her film script recalls the artist changing sides from spectator to projectionist:
“Around 1997, I recall that I tried changing sides, from spectator to projectionist. I no longer know exactly where I got the idea. One of my favourite cinemas offered training to become a projectionist. At the time it seemed like the right thing. When you consider the technical side, it’s of course a purely mechanical matter: After the training, you could load the material in the right way . . . usually six rolls in total on two machines, which project alternately. You could repair tears in film, change lights, adjust mirrors, repair projectors. You’d have a basic understanding of optics, acoustics and mechanics.
The one thing was that you were not allowed under any circumstance to watch the film through the small window of the projection room and lose track of time.
If the small triangle and the circle appeared in the upper right corner of the frame, it was already too late. The reel would end abruptly, the second projector with the next reel had not yet started. The cross fading that is not supposed to be visible, would fail, the screen that is suddenly brightly lit would blind the viewers, who would turn around and look up to the small window of the projection room and see my dreamy face.
Of course that wasn’t allowed to happen. I sat so I could see the projector for the 20-minute length of a reel . . . how the film slid through the many reels, reaching the Geneva drive with the right tension, its wonderful mechanical rattle. In summer, it was hot in the projection room. You could make tea on the lamp housings. Light flashed from the cracks of the old machine, filling the whole casing from the lamp housing through the mirror and lenses to the objective, finally projecting the film on the screen as a bundle of rays. A good projectionist can hear from the sound of the projector the state of the inner parts, where a drop of oil is needed, what to adjust, smelling beforehand when the light is about to burn out.
I sat in amazement in front of the wondrous machine in the warmth, in the darkness filled by small flashes of light, with the distant hectic noise of the plot half in my ear. I would fall asleep until a disquieting calm and brightness woke me again.”
Also read projectionists James King's appreciation of the Siemens 2000 16mm projector and Andrei Gravelle's thoughts on the Weimar 3 8mm projector in Ricarda Roggan's series.
