“THE LOST ARCADE” THE LAST GAMES ROOM.
There are only a handful of films dedicated to the theme of classic arcade games. Some better known ( King of Kong for example), and others that are more underground, but definitely worth watching. I hope to share some of them with you in a future blog post.
In the meantime, there's a documentary that I think deserves your attention. The Lost Arcade is a documentary film released in the USA in 2015. It tells the story of a shabby but fascinating looking arcade, located in the Chinatown area of New York. The film takes us through the vicissitudes of this place from the 40s to the golden age of the early 80s, and in its last years of activity ranging from the 90s to the early 2000s.
Directed by Kurt Vincent, The Lost Arcade it tells of nostalgic dynamics through the eyes of those who lived and frequented it, from fighting game fans to the entire environment that orbited around the Chinatown Fair arcade (or " CF " as it was called by everyone). Throughout the film, CF patrons describe the shadows and lights of the place. The place survived many changes. Larger arcades sprang up in the early 1980s around the Times Square area, nearly putting CF out of business. But he always resisted and in the end CF has become New York City's latest arcade .
And that was it, Chinatown Fair was the last of its kind! It never really changed its business model to keep up with the times – there was no food or drink available, t-shirts or tokens to buy – it was a pure arcade, where users put coins into machines to play. Although to be fair, at one point there was “a dancing chicken” frequenting the place, but I will avoid spoiling that part.
As the years passed inexorably, he managed to maintain his charm and gain a mythological aura. Rows of bulky arcade cabinets leaning against a fire engine red wall served as the backdrop for CF, and somehow it worked. In fact, the community built around what was a simple arcade was seduced by the myth. An atmosphere that could not be found anywhere else in the city. Kurt, not surprisingly, is deeply inspired by this rich vein:
I kept thinking that this veritable institution hidden in New York City's Chinatown had a story that needed to be told, shared. I wanted to create a film that captured the original spirit that struck me the first time I walked through those doors. There was a melting pot of people there, representing various walks of life and sharing a common interest: video games. It was a microcosm of what New York was.
The location has seen moments of glory. Chinatown Fair's cult status was solidified when in 1984, Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep they shot a scene for the movie Falling in Love , and 1995 rap artist Ol' Dirty Bastard he used the premises to shoot a video for his song Brooklyn Zoo . These productions presumably paid handsomely for the ownership of the arcade, allowing it to keep the wolf away from the door during the years of crisis.
The growing dominance of home consoles, the low frequency with which new arcade machines were released and the soaring expenses necessary to keep the place open led to the inexorable demise of the arcade with a huge impact on the small community that orbited it. The film essentially documents the resulting fallout. Here is a community that saw CF as a place to engage with the outside world: Chinatown Fair was an opportunity to create bonds with people linked by a common passion. Friendships and rivalries were formed and for some CF became a point of reference or in some cases it changed their lives.
And this is kind of the central theme of the whole film: before the Internet, arcades were our Internet, but in the real world. Relationships and clans of people from all walks of life have grown organically away from computer screens, not by clicking a Like button or swiping images left or right. If like me you frequented arcades in the 80s, you will recognize much of the story and will be able to relate to these dynamics.
The official trailer for The Lost Arcade:
I really liked The Lost Arcade, at the center of it all is the celebration of a real New York institution that logically should never have existed all that time and perhaps shouldn't have existed at all. A film in which anyone who lived and frequented an arcade in the 80s will be able to completely identify with.
A fascinating story worth seeing by anyone with even the slightest interest in classic arcade games, and since you're reading this blog, you'll like the film.
The film is available for rent or purchase on a variety of platforms.