Public life in San Jose has long been challenged by the paradoxical reality of its downtown - bustling by day, but virtually empty at night. After work, the vast majority of its population pushes against a mass of traffic or streams toward the setting sun and the Coast. What remains is subject to decades-long memories of dangerous places and unkempt residents - unhappy neighbors in even the most prosperous times.
In search of sites of meaningful interaction,students in a Fall 1999 media criticism course decided to explore one significant place within the cultural geography of San Jose - the Camera Cinemas. Their comments are striking and their criticisms, sharp. Jayme Maltbie provides context to this search by noting that, "in the early years of redevelopment, the downtown had no soul. Any draw it did have amidst the closed shops and construction came from the enterprising theaters that brought variety to the cultural film life of the growing community." David Major adds to Jayme's analysis with his discussion of the history of the Camera Cinemas and its troubled future.
Robert Byrd and Mark Bestul expand the conversation by depicting the tension between San Jose's need for art and culture and the Camera Cinemas' need to embrace a public whose appetites are shaped by mass media, not high literature. Finally, Jennifer Dyer describes the potential of film festivals to serve as a kind of start up - borrowing from Silicon Valley vernacular - that might provide the sorts of cultural incubators necessary to keep the Camera rolling.
Jayme Maltbie - America's Search for a Cultural Center