This is why something like the Naruse Retrospective using imported 35mm prints is so precious these days. Over at Shanghai we also had screenings of Yearning and When a Woman Ascends the Stairs this month but the 'DCPs' they used were simply container for crappy ancient transfers. With digital artifacts such as aliasing and blocking plaguing the big screen, one wonders why pay this much money for something one can easily (and possibly better with the Carlotta set) enjoy at home.
andyli wrote: Thu Jun 19, 2025 11:48 pm
This is why something like the Naruse Retrospective using imported 35mm prints is so precious these days. Over at Shanghai we also had screenings of Yearning and When a Woman Ascends the Stairs this month but the 'DCPs' they used were simply container for crappy ancient transfers. With digital artifacts such as aliasing and blocking plaguing the big screen, one wonders why pay this much money for something one can easily (and possibly better with the Carlotta set) enjoy at home.
I’m always impressed with the quality of the 35mm prints supplied by the Japan Society. The Seijun Suzuki titles they provided for his touring retrospective all looked phenomenal
MoMA's been doing a program honoring New York City's history of repertory theaters, and they've had some great introductions from current programmers as well as those who were around back in the day. Each screening is dedicated to a renowned programmer and/or theater, and Bruce Goldstein had the honor of doing an extended Q&A in addition to an introduction. (He joked that another programmer asked "why does Bruce get to do a Q&A?" and his response was "I've been here the longest!" which is true.) It was pretty informative - as he's mentioned before, Theater 1 at MoMA is still the only repertory screening room that was around when Bruce was going to films in NYC when he was growing up, but the screening in question took place in Theater 2.
He explained that cinephiles today are pretty spoiled - seeing films in good quality back in the day was difficult. Getting complete film prints could be difficult. Most people used to watch movies on television, where there was usually an allotted time slot for them, but unfortunately they always had to fit that time slot, so the stations mercilessly cut the movies to fit. In one case, a Fred Astaire musical lost all of its musical numbers. In another case, they kept the numbers but removed the verses from the song. This apparently had a spillover effect where available film prints may be edited, and it took someone like Bruce who knew the film to watch the print and confirm whether it was a complete print.
In the 1980s, repertory theaters had a tough time due to rise of home video, and people were already claiming it was the end for repertory cinema. It was around then that Bruce started programming for Film Forum. He ran a publicity firm at the time and wasn't sure if he wanted to split his time that way. Eventually he gave up the publicity firm and programmed full-time, but you can see how PR savvy was extremely helpful. He mentioned studios sometimes had prints they didn't want to lend out or they had the negatives but didn't want to spend money striking a new print, and the way to get around that was to make it clear you would make it worth the cost - i.e. book a weeklong run that was sure to bring them a good deal of money. And it helps to have a good relationship with a critic of a major newspaper, specifically Vincent Canby at the New York Times. He loved Film Forum and he was a huge fan of Preston Sturges, which was the first major retrospective they programmed at Film Forum's current location. He asked if they could screen him every title in their retrospective, which they did. Canby got a private screening for everything and as Bruce put it, imagine if your job is to watch every film that comes out, and 90% is crap - getting to watch every film from your favorite filmmaker at a time when each title wasn't readily available is going to make you especially happy, and that translated to Canby writing an enormous feature on the upcoming retrospective in the New York Times. He did that a lot, and when Bruce showed some examples of Canby's generous write-ups, he'd say "it would cost $300,000 to buy print ads that size" or "that's literally the equivalent of a $500,000 advertising campaign." Those days are long gone - no major newspaper devotes that much space to a film culture article anymore, where it literally spills over to another page, and nowadays they'll point out where you can stream the movies mentioned, much to Bruce's annoyance. (FWIW, one thing Bruce seemed good at was getting people hooked on repertory cinema - one of his first programs involved widescreen prints that were basically what was available in good quality, but coming at the height of the pan-and-scan VHS era, they made a convincing argument that home viewing was no substitute for watching a film in the theater.) I should mention, he also formed Rialto in order to make certain films readily available and to create new prints for those films, but that's something he's discussed before in related programs dedicated to Rialto.
They talked about current film culture as well - there's definitely a resurgence in interest for actual film, and even the younger crowd will like 16mm prints which is funny because back in the day, they used to post warnings about less-than-ideal prints (i.e., if it's "going magenta," etc.) and if they could only get a 16mm print when it was a 35mm production, it wasn't unusual for people to walk away. He's skeptical that film will completely go away - he mentions there's always someone with a fetish for 35mm who'll get a print struck if they have the clout - but he also isn't doctrinal about it and says he'd much prefer a restored 4K DCP over a beat-up print (and from my experience, I definitely agree - I remember once seeing a print of The Third Man that was a bit faded with shadows looking washed out instead of inky and dark, and when I popped in the Blu-ray at home, it was pretty disappointing to see how much better it looked). Sometimes he gets a choice between a 35mm print or a DCP so he'll check it out and there are cases where the film print is clearly not so great, which is why he'll go with the DCP.
FREE tickets to Oscar Micheaux's Body and Soul screening tomorrow morning (Saturday) at 11 a.m. at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center with live piano accompaniment. (And yes, it's in 35mm.) Complimentary popcorn and soda will be provided!
FWIW, this is arguably Micheaux's greatest film. Per Jonathan Rosenabum, "one of the revelations of this 1925 feature by pioneer black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux is that, in contrast to the faltering technique and garbled film syntax of his sound pictures, he was stylistically assured as a silent director. The great Paul Robeson gives a memorable performance as a duplicitous preacher."
So a rare 35mm screening of a great movie with live accompaniment, along with popcorn and soda...all for FREE. I have no skin in this game, I'm just saying this is a really good freebie for any cinephile.
hearthesilence wrote: Fri Jun 20, 2025 8:23 pm
MoMA's been doing a program honoring New York City's history of repertory theaters, and they've had some great introductions from current programmers as well as those who were around back in the day. Each screening is dedicated to a renowned programmer and/or theater, and Bruce Goldstein had the honor of doing an extended Q&A in addition to an introduction. (He joked that another programmer asked "why does Bruce get to do a Q&A?" and his response was "I've been here the longest!" which is true.) It was pretty informative - as he's mentioned before, Theater 1 at MoMA is still the only repertory screening room that was around when Bruce was going to films in NYC when he was growing up, but the screening in question took place in Theater 2.
He explained that cinephiles today are pretty spoiled - seeing films in good quality back in the day was difficult. Getting complete film prints could be difficult. Most people used to watch movies on television, where there was usually an allotted time slot for them, but unfortunately they always had to fit that time slot, so the stations mercilessly cut the movies to fit. In one case, a Fred Astaire musical lost all of its musical numbers. In another case, they kept the numbers but removed the verses from the song. This apparently had a spillover effect where available film prints may be edited, and it took someone like Bruce who knew the film to watch the print and confirm whether it was a complete print.
In the 1980s, repertory theaters had a tough time due to rise of home video, and people were already claiming it was the end for repertory cinema. It was around then that Bruce started programming for Film Forum. He ran a publicity firm at the time and wasn't sure if he wanted to split his time that way. Eventually he gave up the publicity firm and programmed full-time, but you can see how PR savvy was extremely helpful. He mentioned studios sometimes had prints they didn't want to lend out or they had the negatives but didn't want to spend money striking a new print, and the way to get around that was to make it clear you would make it worth the cost - i.e. book a weeklong run that was sure to bring them a good deal of money. And it helps to have a good relationship with a critic of a major newspaper, specifically Vincent Canby at the New York Times. He loved Film Forum and he was a huge fan of Preston Sturges, which was the first major retrospective they programmed at Film Forum's current location. He asked if they could screen him every title in their retrospective, which they did. Canby got a private screening for everything and as Bruce put it, imagine if your job is to watch every film that comes out, and 90% is crap - getting to watch every film from your favorite filmmaker at a time when each title wasn't readily available is going to make you especially happy, and that translated to Canby writing an enormous feature on the upcoming retrospective in the New York Times. He did that a lot, and when Bruce showed some examples of Canby's generous write-ups, he'd say "it would cost $300,000 to buy print ads that size" or "that's literally the equivalent of a $500,000 advertising campaign." Those days are long gone - no major newspaper devotes that much space to a film culture article anymore, where it literally spills over to another page, and nowadays they'll point out where you can stream the movies mentioned, much to Bruce's annoyance. (FWIW, one thing Bruce seemed good at was getting people hooked on repertory cinema - one of his first programs involved widescreen prints that were basically what was available in good quality, but coming at the height of the pan-and-scan VHS era, they made a convincing argument that home viewing was no substitute for watching a film in the theater.) I should mention, he also formed Rialto in order to make certain films readily available and to create new prints for those films, but that's something he's discussed before in related programs dedicated to Rialto.
They talked about current film culture as well - there's definitely a resurgence in interest for actual film, and even the younger crowd will like 16mm prints which is funny because back in the day, they used to post warnings about less-than-ideal prints (i.e., if it's "going magenta," etc.) and if they could only get a 16mm print when it was a 35mm production, it wasn't unusual for people to walk away. He's skeptical that film will completely go away - he mentions there's always someone with a fetish for 35mm who'll get a print struck if they have the clout - but he also isn't doctrinal about it and says he'd much prefer a restored 4K DCP over a beat-up print (and from my experience, I definitely agree - I remember once seeing a print of The Third Man that was a bit faded with shadows looking washed out instead of inky and dark, and when I popped in the Blu-ray at home, it was pretty disappointing to see how much better it looked). Sometimes he gets a choice between a 35mm print or a DCP so he'll check it out and there are cases where the film print is clearly not so great, which is why he'll go with the DCP.
Thanks for this, HTS. Film Forum receives a lot of flak in very misguided quarters of cinephilia, but it is the crown jewel of New York's repertory cinema. Canby doing that is impressive, not something I can imagine a critic doing today. There are so many problems with film critics today, but one of them is a complete lack of vision. Another, ironically, is New York.
One detail I forgot from Bruce Goldstein's talk: due to the scarcity of 35mm prints, they can't splice them together and project them using the platter system, they have to keep reels separate and show them on alternating projectors (i.e. switch between reels). As you can see from this photo, this can be noted on the film cans themselves.
That's a long-standing policy for archival prints. When I was in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin in the last century, we were able to borrow all kinds of archival and collector's prints because we used dual change-over projectors. Didn't stop our projectionist from burning a hole in a Technicolor IB print of The Searchers, though
I remember being annoyed that the bulbs in the two projectors had slightly different color temperatures so every 22 minutes the picture would abruptly get warmer or cooler looking.
The repertory cinema in the same town could only borrow studio prints because they used a platter. Of course none of those circulate at all anymore.
Universal calls every print they send out now an “archival” copy. I’m sure some of them are, and they did apparently make some new answer prints from original camera negatives after the 2008 fire, but take it with a slight grain of salt
andyli wrote: Wed Jul 09, 2025 11:50 pmFull program for the Luc Moullet retrospective.
FWIW, tickets haven't quite sold out so if you want to catch one of his appearances this weekend, you can probably land one without resorting to the standby line.
It’s odd how the Michael Caine retrospective is named after one of his best films and performances, A Shock to the System, and yet it isn’t part of the lineup
A heads up... the restoration of Bresson's Four Nights of a Dreamer opens at the FF Friday the 5th. Runs through the 18th. I do think it will be extended as FF tends to do
Aurore Clément was supposed to appear at MoMA on the weekend of October 3 to introduce some Akerman films, but all mention has disappeared from MoMA's website. I presume they cancelled her appearances? (Just wondering - I don't think I saw any official announcement.)
Even considering in isolation many of these films have played in the city regularly or recently, the accumulation of titles here is seriously impressive. Though I am saddened about in particular the lack of La roue (which felt like it deserved more than two shows in a 95 seat screen at NYFF for its theatrical footprint in NY) and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, both of which are major titles dear to me I associate w Brownlow.
I had some delusion they’d do a secret day showing all of Hollywood, which would be awesome.
What is with NYC (male) cinephiles having such conservative tastes? Basically every one I meet puts Griffith, Ford, and Rossellini as their favorite directors and acts like movies made after 1980 (and not by Abel Ferrara) are beneath contempt. Is it just a case of something becoming so unfashionable it’s cool again? A panic to distance themselves from “film bros” and horror fans? Then again, these are also the people who will all agree that A Countess From Hong Kong is obviously Chaplin’s best movie or that Henry King is as good as Howard Hawks and pretend(?) to not know these are at best minority opinions, so maybe I’m the one taking the hipper-than-thou taste game too seriously.
What an odd comment. Where are you meeting these people? It says your location is Iowa, and you recently posted about watching films in Boston. Come watch any number of films at an NYC cinema that features female leads/queer themes/anything outside the standard pre-1960s cannon and there's a great chance you'll get a sold out crowd. Feels like you're painting with a broad brush here. Also I'd love to meet the other NYC cinephiles watching Griffith, send them my way.
