New York City Repertory Cinema

[hearthesilence]

Article from Gothamist about him.

[hearthesilence]

He's been arrested in Philadelphia after setting fire to a hotel room.

[domino harvey]

I can’t wait for James Franco’s biopic of this guy

[Brian C]

I’m heading to NYC in the spring and definitely planned on hitting up some films, so glad to know the scene. Chicago repertory eccentrics were definitely a thing, but seemingly they were a good deal more low key.

[hearthesilence]

Don't forget to pack some heat!

In all seriousness, just be sure to have your phone on silent and don't have anyone see it light up. 80 or 90% of the trouble I see starts because of those things. Most of the rest may have to do with fighting for seats.

[therewillbeblus]

In all seriousness, just be sure to have your phone on silent and don't have anyone see it light up. 80 or 90% of the trouble I see starts because of those things

Add talking during the movies to to the mix and this sounds like my kinda' crowd (albeit dialed up to a radicalized degree)!

[Brian C]

I mean, I’m not *scared* or anything. I worked for awhile at the theater up in Evanston and I know you know the wide range of weirdos you can find up there, too. Just setting expectations.

[FrauBlucher]

Film Forum April/May Calendar

Some highlights.... Sidney Poitier and Mia Zetterling retrospectives.

[ando]

Anthology Film Archives April 2022 Schedule

Featuring the films of Carl Dreyer, Robert Downey Sr. and Friedl Kubelka vom Grölle

[hanshotfirst1138]

I wish people who ran celluloid prints of movies realized that there are in fact other places New York and Los Angeles.

[hearthesilence]

I wish people who ran celluloid prints of movies realized that there are in fact other places New York and Los Angeles.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't think repertory theaters elsewhere have problems booking 35mm prints in general. I was under the impression having an economically sustainable repertory theater was more of a problem. Like it's tough having just one full-time repertory theater that does well in certain cities within a few hours of NY. (Where I grew up, the only option was a library that had a 35mm projector, and that was at best four one-off screenings a month.

[hearthesilence]

More details about the MoMA stabber. Apparently there were other ugly incidents leading up to the ones at MoMA.

[ballmouse]

More details about the MoMA stabber. Apparently there were other ugly incidents leading up to the ones at MoMA.

I can't help but think this would make a good premise for a film itself. In my head I read the article as if it were a Scorsese flick a la Taxi Driver.

[beamish14]

I wish people who ran celluloid prints of movies realized that there are in fact other places New York and Los Angeles.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't think repertory theaters elsewhere have problems booking 35mm prints in general. I was under the impression having an economically sustainable repertory theater was more of a problem. Like it's tough having just one full-time repertory theater that does well in certain cities within a few hours of NY. (Where I grew up, the only option was a library that had a 35mm projector, and that was at best four one-off screenings a month.

A major hurdle is finding people who can maintain celluloid projectors. Even in Los Angeles, there is a tiny handful of people who are qualified to do that. Shipping prints definitely can be exorbitantly expensive, and L.A. certainly benefits from couriers simply being able to drive film canisters across the county.

Repertory theatres also generally don’t have access to many prints that are held in archives like the ones maintained by the AMPAS, UCLA, Eastman House, MOMA, Library of Congress, etc., and with studios being increasingly reluctant to loan out many titles, that’s another significant barrier

[Ribs]

Has there been any word on a redo of their scrapped Nouvelle Vague rarities program from summer of 2020?

It’s happening!

[domino harvey]

Well that’s great and all but not nearly enough time for me to arrange being there for much of it - any indication of all the films/screenings yet?

[Ribs]

Well that’s great and all but not nearly enough time for me to arrange being there for much of it - any indication of all the films/screenings yet?

The full schedule is now available in the link above.

[domino harvey]

Thanks! I’ll try to come back and speak to the ones I’ve seen (which is prob ~75%)

[therewillbeblus]

I've seen more of these than I thought, including La poupée just the other day, which was a huge letdown though it's certainly rare and only recently got English subs on backchannels after what was presumably a long wait

[Shrew]

FYI for Boston folks, it looks like the same French New Wave rarities program will also be playing at the Harvard Film Archive May-June (starting this weekend): https://harvardfilmarchive.org/programs ... h-new-wave

[Red Screamer]

“Forgotten Filmmakers of the French New Wave” curator Jean-Michel Frodon on the Film Comment podcast

[therewillbeblus]

Wow, cool, thanks! For those following these films/period more closely (ahem, domino?) are there some that are rarest/must-sees/special films of interest? Lots of these conflict with work unfortunately, but if I can maneuver around them proactively, I'll try my best

[aox]

Wow, cool, thanks! For those following these films/period more closely (ahem, domino?) are there some that are rarest/must-sees/special films of interest? Lots of these conflict with work unfortunately, but if I can maneuver around them proactively, I'll try my best

Like practically every cultural-historical subject, this could be its own thread. I'm very much interested in this question as well.

[swo17]

Thread

[domino harvey]

The best film playing without any commercial English-friendly release that I've seen is Un Témoin dans la ville. Here's my writeup

Was pleasantly surprised by Un témoin dans la ville (1959), the best of Molinaro's early pre-comedy noirs this decade, and give it a hearty recommendation. I could see a label like Arrow releasing this and making a nice profit as it's a real hidden gem with would-be wide appeal and great forward momentum. Lino Ventura avenges the death of his wife by faking the suicide of her murderer, only to have his perfect plan unravel after running into a cabbie on his way out the door. You have the give the film a little latitude on how dumb Ventura's delayed reaction is (if he had just given the driver his 400 francs fare the film would be over), but Ventura's fevered and unwavering stalking immediately after he realizes his mistake is terrific and never slows. By the end, the film becomes a variation of M, with a network of taxi drivers instead of criminals all working together against Ventura, who is oddly likeable in a role that becomes by design less defensible. Those who enjoyed the ASMR of all the driving scenes in Hill's the Driver will especially dig all the diagetically-scored interior car shots here, and for me the best thing about the film was seeing all of the great location shooting.

Perhaps easier is what you can skip. Let's start with the worst films here:
Le combat dans l’île is stupid as fuck. Snobs! is one of the worst comedies of the era, with an aggressively off-putting vulgarity that will shock anyone who thinks films from this era had a genteel sensibility.

Snobs! (1962)
In a mix of Woman’s World and One Two Three, a group of milk company execs vie for the presidency in the wake of their leader diving head-first into a milk vat in the film’s opening scene— this leaves everyone on screen laughing uproariously, including the man’s widow. This audience member was left out, though. Oh brother, this movie, this movie, THIS MOVIE. I initially gave Les dragueurs enough rope to assume the filmmakers didn’t side with the prurient protagonist. After this I’m certain I was mistaken. Snobs! is so tasteless that it defies even that cheap and easily-ascribed label. I could go on for some time just cataloging this movie’s worst offenses, so in the interest of saving time, allow me to provide a top five of the film’s most audacious yet unfunny moments. Spoilers present, obviously, but I can’t imagine anyone watching this so whatever, you’ve been warned:

05 During a newspaper montage, the only footage overlayed on the printing press is that of a toddler taking a shit in a chamberpot and then using the paper to wipe its ass

04 A split screen phone call between a religious executive (top) and the local bishop (bottom) is presented like this



with a shadow moving behind the obscured portion to show the presence of another party in the bishop’s genital area. At the end of the scene we hear a cat meow and think, “Oh how innocent.” Then the cat emerges from beneath the bed sheets at top of frame, not below

03 Another religious exec is shown throughout the film repeatedly praying in church and blessing the lord for his good tidings. On the day of the big announcement, he verbalizes how he’s ready for Jesus to lead him to greatness. Cut to him getting hit by a milk truck, instantly dying. He is then later shown intercut with a church service playing the organ shirtless in Hell while demons poke him with pitchforks

02 The religious exec from Number Four is suspected of nefarious acts due to him disappearing every night with a big leather bag. Rivals for his contract call and report him to the cops, who discover him in a lighthouse. The camera frames the inside of the lighthouse to reveal what appears to be the exec violently sodomizing a naked man. After being arrested, it is revealed the exec has healing powers and was giving the man a massage. A police officer is so pleased that we see him unbuckle his pants and make hand motions indicating the unleashing of his genitals. The exec looks on longingly at the unseen sight of the policeman's reveal

01 A scout leader is discovered by our protagonist with what appears to be a thirteen year old girl beneath the sheets in the back of a milk truck. She is a member of a teenage dance troupe supported by the local mechanic bigwig, a grotesque bald man with a high-pitched voice who pays the girls to dance lithely in his shop while he looks on from the passenger seat of his cab. The protagonist forces the lovers to marry and the girl is dismissed from the troupe. The protagonist hires the scout leader to drive trucks for the company and the pair are later seen driving the milk truck that kills the man from Number Three. In order to assure the bald man’s compliance with his plans, our protagonist provides his own girlfriend, who is also underage, to replace the dismissed dancer. We see the bald man greedily lead her away for no doubt pure activities

So… this movie is remarkably vulgar. But it’s not funny, like, at all, and while I will confess to being impressed at how the film managed to find new depths of depravity to sink into, this is just a bad Billy Wilder movie with small dick jokes. Oh, I didn’t mention the small dick jokes. There are many, many small dick jokes.

L'education sentimentale is garbage too, great double feature if you're a masochist. Speaking of, Les abysses is still the most annoying film I've ever seen in my life, and you literally could pay me no amount of money to sit through it again.

His debut film, Les Abysses from 1963, was the only film I'd previously heard of, and I was intrigued by its obnoxious release history. The film was rejected by Cannes, so Papatakis got a bunch of his famous mates (Genet, Sartre, de Beauvoir et al.) to lobby the government with over-the-top claims ("the greatest film I have ever seen!" etc.) so that Minister of Culture Andre Malraux imposed the film on the festival. Papatakis was relentlessly vocal in his work and interviews about the neccessity for revolutionary struggle, but it doesn't seem that those rules applied to himself!

The film was poorly received, and understandably so. Like the two that followed, Thanos and Despina and Gloria Mundi, it's formally impressive (great black and white photography, somewhat inventive editing, solid, flexible mise-en-scene), conceptually bold (with one and a half feet in the gratuitously provocative camp), and with performances pitched so far into hysteria that it's practically impossible to care about anything that the characters go through (ritual humiliation, torture, rape, murder - whatever, just shut these people up!) They're all interesting films, but they're so tonally overegged that watching them is something of a chore. For the record, the "paroxysmic" performances are absolutely intentional on Papatakis's part, but that doesn't make them any good!

While I am relieved to see you didn't like it, you are still far too kind to Les abysses. Since it appears it will soon be coming from Criterion, I can now state that, unbelievably, the Norman Mailer films will no longer be Criterion's worst release. Me calling this the worst film I've ever seen means nothing, as I'm sure I've said it too many times for anyone to believe me. But there's no doubt this is and (God willing) will forever be the most annoying movie I've ever seen. This is like 88 minutes of having two angry six year olds screeching into each ear, nonstop. I can not think of a worse time that I've ever had watching a movie. Beyond the grating nature of its very existence, the film is inept on every possible level-- I don't know how you can praise the cinematography here, given most of the film appears to have been filmed by holding a lamp directly off-camera pointed right at the actors. I also wish I lived in a world where that was my primary complaint for this film. I will never, ever watch another movie this "director" had his hand in, even if he came back from the grave and cast Amy Adams.

Mediocre but not without some merit: Octobre à Paris was originally credited only to "X", who got "his" own segment in the famous Cahiers issue the programmer pulled this selection from. It sounds better than it is, and the Rouch short it's paired with is not as essential a viewing as it sounds either. Une aussi longue absence's inexplicable Palme d'or win will not make any more sense after seeing it. Un roi sans divertissement is a total shift from Letterier's superior first film, a murder mystery of sorts set in the snow-- but as much snow as there is, it's not a black and white film regardless of the program notes! You can skip the Pollet shorts too, IMO