While Thomas Edison was constructing his Kinetoscope in New Jersey, and the Lumiere brothers, their Cinematograph in Paris, an undistinguished Czech scientist by the name of Ondréj Prochâzka was busy drafting a design for his equally innovative, now all but forgotten "Shadow-Theatre." Having cultivated a life-long fascination with moving images, from the passing views seen through a steam engine window, to the popular novelty devices such as Zoetropes, Mutoscopes and Biographes, Prochâzka first constructed his own camera obscura at the age of nine. It was not until his twenties, however, that he conceived of his design for the Zdénj-Jeviste.
His vision came to him late one night on a visit to the Josefov Peep-show. He was sitting in the one of the darkened booths facing the brightly lit stage, ogling the dancing young women, when a vivid, fully-formed image sprang to his mind. Two years later, he succeeded in realizing this vision: a double sided theater wherein a film reel of transparency tape was rear-projected onto a sheet of perforated Mylar. The shadowy silver images with their semi-reflective, iridescent shimmer had a hypnotic effect on the viewer. Unfortunately, some did not take to this strobe-like quality, among them the mayor's epileptic child, Slavoj. The filmmaker was summarily flogged and banished from the city.
It was around this time that, halfway across the globe, the Hotel St. George was establishing itself in the New York thoroughfare. But while its dancing hall and marketplace were thriving, its cinema house was not catching on as was hoped. Serendipitously, Prochâzka had expatriated to the United States with the hope of finding work as a puppeteer the very summer the St. George had begun employing street entertainers – jugglers, dancers, fire-breathers – to supplement their evening festivities. Soon, he was performing for the swells of Brooklyn.
Nearly a year had passed before Prochâzka discovered the unused picture-show theatre, which he stumbled upon during a routine trip to the basement utility closet. He was searching for a can of oil to repair his puppet booth with when he came upon the cobwebbed auditorium which a band of gypsies had since claimed as their home. Bursting with inspiration, he appealed to the Hotel manager, Theodore Lamark (cousin of the English composer, Phelix), for the use of the cinema. Lamark had little to lose, and was charmed enough by his employee's enthusiasm to let him have free reign. Prochâzka immediately set to work, careful to tell no one of the gypsies, whose secrecy he hoped to barter in exchange for help.
By winter, the Hotel St. George Cinema was up and running, though the program was far from conventional. Prochâzka and the gypsies had produced a series of motion picture experiments – some whimsical and frivolous, some spellbinding and theatrical, others flat-out bizarre. Many of these represented optical tests such as time-lapsed exposures and subjecting emulsions to heat, but the most ambitious may have been the color studies. In one such film, Prochâzka dyed each exposed frame individually such that the three primary colors would alternate in equal increments; in another, he set up multiple projectors, filtered each with a different hue, and refracted their beams through prisms. While these miniature works failed to achieve their intended effect, audiences seemed to enjoy the "kaleido-chromoscopia" and would bring flasks of absinthe to intensify the experience.
Tragically, all of Prochâzka's creations were destroyed in the first Great Fire of 1903, but his spirit remains to this day. The Hotel St. George Screening Room continues its tradition of supporting strange and beautiful short films – though viewers must now supply their own hallucinogens.