1962 Nabatieh, Lebanon
Faisal Jomaa
1949
Nabatieh, Lebanon
Interviewed on February 19th, 2021
By Ellen Qian
It was with my entire French section in 9th grade. I was 13 years old. French Literature class was required, and we were reading the play, Le Cid, by a French author, Pierre Corneille. As a part of the class, we also went to watch the American movie, El Cid, which is based off the play. It starred Charlton Heston as Don Rodrigo and Sofia Loren as Jimena. The theater we went to was called Rivoli. It was on the main road, and there was no parking lot or anything. There were two stories in the theater. The movie itself was dubbed in French, but you could still hear the English language faintly in the background. I can remember watching some Mickey cartoons before the movie started and a preview of the next film they were going to show in the theater.
The theater was packed with other students from around the area who were also there on a school trip. There were a lot of students from the nearby Catholic schools in the area because they had a French program. Our school had around 70 students in the theater. When we got to the theater, we were sectioned off by ushers based on our class. The movie was three hours, but we all stayed very quiet and still. There was no messing around during the movie, and food and drink was not permitted. There was a five-minute intermission, but even then, we were quiet and didn’t mess around or talk to classmates. We just sat in our seats.
We had to pay attention because we had to write a short essay on the movie afterwards. The essay was about what we thought about the movie, the characters, and how we felt. It wasn’t anything too intense, but I hated writing it in French. It was hard to convey exactly how I felt because I didn’t quite have the vocabulary, and it took a lot of brain cells to write. I loved the movie though. The acting was not just good, it was great. My favorite scenes were the ones that were packed with fighting and killing. To this day, I still really enjoy action movies. They’re my favorite genre of movies to watch. El Cid was about a heroic Spanish knight, Don Rodrigo, who tried to unite the divided Spain against the invaders and bring peace to his people, but he was hated by the rulers. For honor and revenge for his own father, he killed his lover’s father, but he was always struggling between honor and love. It was a great movie, and I loved watching it. It was also much easier to understand the play after watching the movie. Afterwards, I watched other movies that starred Charlton Heston, like The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur.
The theater would show about one movie every two weeks, but El Cid lasted five weeks. When I didn’t have the money to go see a movie, I had two options. I could walk around town with a movie theater employee ringing a bell while me and another boy would hold a board with photos advertising the movie being shown in the theater. Afterwards, I’d be able to get in for free. Or, I could sneak into the theater from the bathroom window. I had a friend who lived adjacent to the theater, and we’d bring a chair to climb on and squeeze through the window to watch films. Once I got caught and got kicked out, but that never scared me. It was a rare treat to go to the theater. Back then, you either played with your friends or went to the theater for entertainment. It was an even better treat than going to Disneyland!
