Paris’s Grand Palais transformed into drive-in cinema
Posted June 12, 2013 9:31 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Under the vaulted ceilings of Paris’ Grand Palais, just off the Champs Elysees, film fans settled down on Tuesday to enjoy a drive-in with a difference.
The installation, dubbed “Cinema Paradiso,” is far from the dusty drive-ins celebrated in movies such as Grease, with the monument’s glass roof offering protection from the elements and the cars’ roomy interiors providing more leg-space than might be available in your local multiplex.
A thousand movie lovers a day are expected to visit the hundred-year-old exhibition hall that has been temporarily converted to screen cult classics, including Pulp Fiction and Dirty Dancing.
Those keen to go green and boycott the fleet of Fiat 500s parked in the cavernous auditorium can instead settle down on deck chairs and mattresses arranged on the floor.
Despite the historic setting, organizer Elisha Karmitz told Reuters that the novelty cinema was in keeping with the ethos of a building which has always celebrated innovation.
The all-American experience continues throughout the 12,000-metre space with retro video games, a classic American diner and a roller disco also installed in the Palais, originally opened for the 1900 Exposition Universelle.
Spectators taking their seats behind the wheel for the opening film — the Coen brothers’ 1998 cult offering The Big Lebowski — were keen on the set-up, but some said it could do with being roughened up around the edges.
“The cars are a bit new. There are lots of security personnel and so on, but I think that with some good pictures and a bit of music we’ll be dreaming a bit more,” Ulysse Bravit said as he sipped champagne in his red convertible.
With the host of other events happening throughout the Grand Palais, the film’s track is relayed through wireless headphones handed out to the audience.
“Cinema Paradiso” runs until June 21.
