The very punk history of London’s legendary art/grindhouse cinema
The histories of modern alternative cinemas and punk are oddly intertwined. Maybe it’s just coincidence, that they both emerged in the late Seventies, that they thrived in the same grimy spaces. But in, the history of London’s seminal boundary-pushing theatre, the flicks become a side note to the scene – and sometimes the tunes. looks at a particularly brief period in the history of London’s legendary purveyors of provocative motion pictures.
However, don’t expect much discussion of its innovations in film programming in mid-Eighties Britain.
If anything, the biggest gap is the lack of British filmmakers and critics on the importance of the Scala. John Waters and Mary Harron did manage to make the cut, but the long list of locals who were also regulars are relegated to odd audio clips and a graphic. That Giles and Catterall rather cheekily refer to former Jesus and Mary Chain bassist Doug Hart as a filmmaker seems like they’re aware of the omission.
Similarly, there’s a weird glossing over of exactly how the Scala operated and what finally took it out . Equally, the allure of what projectionist Ali Kayley refers to as the “brutal beauty” of the area seems more like a hellish environment to watch a film, although one given a droll elegy from staffers left cleaning up cum and corpses.
But even for every infuriating diversion and act of self-indulgent revisionism, there’s also a sense of undeniable excitement, of the Scala as a place of cultural excitement. There’s a particular pleasure and resonance in the screenings at the Alamo Drafthouse for Fantastic Fest, for the Scala, with its grindhouse-meets-art house programming and DIY attitude, seems a clear progenitor for the early days of the Austin-based cinema chain.
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