An inheritance three generations on
Projectionist Gao Xiangqing, born in 1964, began to help his father, Gao Jingshan, at the age of 13, and has since accumulated four decades of experience as a projectionist. For a time in the 1970s, Gao Jingshan was the chief technician at Tainan’s Chunghua Theater, where he acted as projectionist and maintained the theater’s equipment. After pornographic films were shown at the theater, however, Gao Jingshan was detained by the police and spent two weeks in jail. The experience prompted him to seek greater freedom as a projectionist by turning to open-air cinema.
Gao Xiangqing’s first step to becoming a projectionist was to study how his father rewound films after a showing. He watched intently as his father operated the rewinding machine, using his fingers as a buffer to control the rewinding speed and also to check the condition of the film. If he encountered damage or irregularities, he would stop and inspect it more closely before continuing with the process. While he checked the film with one hand, the other held a wooden guide that ensured rewinding at a uniform width. “When business was good, we had eight screenings a night, and to make sure that the film was ready, you can bet we had to rewind it quickly. If I did a bad job or worked too slowly, my dad would whack me with that wooden slat.” To this day Gao has not forgotten his father’s strictness.
At 16, Gao completed his apprenticeship and became a projectionist in his own right. Temples both large and small are common in southern Taiwan, and they hold temple fairs throughout the year. In the 1980s there was a craze for lottery-style gambling. Some who made money would host films outside temples to thank the gods for their luck, and at some temples a couple of movies would be showing at the same time. All by himself, Gao could manage two showings at once, and sometimes even operated four projectors without a hitch.
Just as his father had relied on film projection to support the family, Gao also recruited his wife and children into the projection business to help the family make a living. Today his son Gao Puyuan, born in 1990, has returned to Tainan to take up the projectionist’s craft. Puyuan also started to learn from his father at an early age. By second grade, he could already manage open-air films shown with a semiautomatic projector.
After majoring in film and video studies in college, Gao Puyuan moved to Taipei, where he threw himself into various film and television projects. Unwilling to let the projectionist skills cultivated in the family be forgotten, Gao moved back to Tainan with his wife, who also worked in film production. Together they founded the Bear Men Film Studio in the hopes of resuscitating the dying art of open-air cinema.
On Tainan’s Junxi Street, people enjoy a rare opportunity to catch an open-air movie. (courtesy of Bear Men Film Studio)