New York City Repertory Cinema

[hearthesilence]

I can't say I've encountered this trend as I'm having a tough time thinking of many cinephiles who fit that mold. I can think of one, maybe two, and even then it would be a bit of a stretch because the closest person I had in mind is also a big Pixar fan and loves Spike Lee and loves Scorsese's work going as far as his early '90s work. In both cases, their taste gravitates towards American studio films, and they're both virtually senior citizens at this point.

[domino harvey]

Also I'd love to meet the other NYC cinephiles watching Griffith, send them my way.

My thoughts exactly— hell, there are barely even any cinephiles on this forum that want to talk about Griffith, I can’t imagine it’s somehow significantly easier IRL

[hearthesilence]

If we're talking Iowa, don't forget they had a white supremacist in Congress for many years, so if we're talking his district, I could see Griffith having a bigger following there.

[domino harvey]

I mean, more importantly, Iowa had (and may still have, I don’t follow this closely anymore) one of the best film studies programs in the country

[hearthesilence]

I think I mentioned this elsewhere, but one of the first silent film books I ever read was Seductive Cinema: The Art of Silent Film by the late James Card who basically made the George Eastman House's film archive what it famously became. It was an eye-opener because it expertly debunked a lot of myths in film history and even understood why such myths came into being over time. Griffith was the greatest beneficiary partly because he was an active manipulator in ways that now reflect our current political climate - he practiced a mendacious adage once uttered by Trump himself, which is if you keep repeating the same lie and do it with conviction, it doesn't matter if it's blatantly false, people will eventually believe it. As Card points out, Griffith actively promoted himself in print as the originator of many ideas that were clearly innovations of other filmmakers (especially those overseas), and his inflated legacy is what happens when you buy ads in the papers making such unchallenged claims and that's the record that ultimately survives generations later. (Doesn't help that many films one could hold up as proof against his claims were pretty much lost, extremely difficult to view or only known to survive in small fragments.) Card goes on to criticize Griffith as a filmmaker as well, often to make an argument that the praise lavished on him is overblown (like a realist approach to acting that in actuality was extremely inconsistent) but he does give credit where it's due - e.g. Griffith was an incredible, innovative editor. Card also addresses Griffith's horrendous politics, including detailing the experiences he had screening The Birth of a Nations and how it points to the disturbing power of cinema as propaganda whether for good or ill.

[domino harvey]

Well, you yourself and apparently this author are assuming that Griffith’s fandom is based on being the first to do something, when I suspect most people informed enough to even watch Griffith also know that you should never hinge any argument or appreciation on being the first anyways and instead focus on it being the most influential iteration of the idea/concept/technique. So there’s no “Gotcha!” there

[soundchaser]

I mean, more importantly, Iowa had (and may still have, I don’t follow this closely anymore) one of the best film studies programs in the country

Rick Altman’s now an Emeritus Professor, which surely drops the average class quality by a bit.

[Red Screamer]

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.

Fair enough! Of course it’s a very diverse scene, I’ve just had an odd streak of meeting this kind of NY cinephile several times the past few years. I imagine that what I’m talking about is a small group’s reaction (again, this profile is mostly men under 35, and apparently more marginal/anti-social than I thought!) against the broader, more popular trends you’re talking about. I’m in Boston & often meet New Yorkers when I’m visiting the city or at film festivals.

This being the NYC thread, I wasn’t at all talking about Iowa, though incidentally I went to Iowa’s film program not too long ago & there’s a small but healthy scene centered around it in Iowa City, mostly focused on experimental film, literature crossovers, and the campus film society. I don’t think the type of racists you’re referring to, hearthesilence, have much interest in film history (or real history, for that matter). The film program actually never touched on Griffith to my surprise so, if anything, it’s another example among many of the opposite politically-correct tendency.

[hearthesilence]

Well, you yourself and apparently this author are assuming that Griffith’s fandom is based on being the first to do something, when I suspect most people informed enough to even watch Griffith also know that you should never hinge any argument or appreciation on being the first anyways and instead focus on it being the most influential iteration of the idea/concept/technique. So there’s no “Gotcha!” there

First off, "fandom" isn't synonymous with one's place in history, which is what Card is addressing, and arguments of who made those innovations are pretty important for any historian - it would be foolish to dismiss them. It is correct that popularizing an innovation is more influential than actually being the first, but that becomes difficult to weigh when the record is so spotty in silent film history. It's not unlike the arguments made for various blues musicians pre-dating the rock era where it becomes difficult to trace the measure of influence when you put everything under a microscope. Griffith wasn't exactly the only one to see the groundbreaking films of his peers and take their ideas, those same ideas proliferated through other films outside of his scope. (IIRC Card details this with numerous examples.)

[pistolwink]

The funny thing about Griffith's rep is that in scholarly film studies there's almost been an overcorrection, with Griffith marginalized in the study of "early cinema" (mostly for the obvious reasons)... while outside that world, to the extent anyone cares, Griffith is still largely credited with all the innovations he boasted of and which previous generations of film historians mostly repeated uncritically. (I seem to recall a Paul Schrader essay published in Film Comment perhaps a decade ago which regurgitated that and many other dubious film-historical canards.)

The work of scholars like André Geaureault and Tom Gunning, among others, has done a lot to demonstrate how Griffith was at once an innovator and a genuine eccentric. Many of his techniques (among them his "doll house" approach to staging and contiguity) were notably idiosyncratic, and by the time of Birth, some of them—along with his films' heavy-handed moralism— already would have seemed old-fashioned. Although older historians would have Griffith as the main innovator of the "classical style," there are many films by his contemporaries that look a heck of a lot more "classical" (in terms of their adherence to an early version of the continuity style) than anything Griffith made.

One of the best arguments I've read about early cinema was by Ben Brewster, I think in his wonderful "A Scene at the 'Movies'" essay (but I might have gotten that wrong). He pointed out that a great many techniques like the POV shot, etc. appeared in very early cinema (of the 1890s and 1900s) as visual novelties, then dropped away, only to re-appear in the context of an evolving continuity approach. Which makes debating "firsts" especially fruitless.

Anyway....

[hearthesilence]

Again, "debating firsts" isn't really of critical importance, it's a historic argument, and while the historical record is important in itself, it remains a separate issue - even if Griffith's boasts were all factual, it still wouldn't define the quality of his work.

Anyway, I don't think "overcorrection" does justice to what's played out in recent years - don't forget Bowling Green State University in Ohio removed the Gish name from their theater due to Lillian Gish’s appearance in The Birth of a Nation. (IIRC members of the student body made that demand for that specific reason.) I don't know what the discourse on his work is currently like in film schools, but regardless of where people stand on Griffith, I think it would be a major mistake to wipe him out of history and ignore him as if he had no historical significance - even taking into account what I've posted above, it still remains substantial. I'm sure there were introductory classes devoted to Griffith before, but it's probably an even better idea now just to have students confront an ugly and perhaps universal aspect of history, how important works and important figures can and likely will consist of great and horrendous things at the same time.

[pistolwink]

The more pressing problem would be getting a film class on a silent-era director—whoever that director is—to enroll in an era when fewer and fewer students are interested in film history (on top of a general decline in people majoring in the arts and humanities).

[hearthesilence]

In light of some of the comments made comparing audiences in different cities, it's really sinking in that (in my experience) the audiences in New York City tend to be more respectful of movies than the ones I remember in Chicago, but at least the people in Chicago tend to be nicer and more civilized as people while there's no shortage of complete douchebags and assholes here in NY. (Strange how that works.) If I had to be more detailed, it's basically too many people coming off as arrogant, entitled assholes who look down on everyone else and don't give a shit about how their behavior can impact everyone else. A couple of recent examples that come to mind - carrying your gym shoes and swinging them as you walk, literally not giving a shit that they're about to smack into every passerby; running down some stairs and instead of going around someone, choosing to instead run right into them and continuing to do so even when said person has a firm grip on the rail; resorting to passive-aggressive pettiness instead of pointing out and talking out misunderstandings (although that's better than getting shot at, which does happen), etc. I guess that cliché about the Midwest being a much more civil place has more than a bit of truth to it.

[domino harvey]

They actually bothered to release the dates for next year’s Rendez-vous with French Cinema more than a month beforehand (March 5-15)

[hearthesilence]

I have created a festival that will play the IFC Center in early January titled PANAHI & KIAROSTAMI: TWO MASTERS, so that people can see the whole range of Panahi’s work alongside that of his mentor.

And indeed, even though a link hasn't been put up on their homepage, Google has picked up the page for it.

[FrauBlucher]

For those interested a 35 mm print of the The Lost Weekend will play at the Film Forum Dec 26 to Jan 1

[FrauBlucher]

Film Forum January thru March calendar... many highlights... Agnes Varda comprehensive retrospective, The Sorcerer new 4k resto, Port of Shadows new 4k resto, Sunset Blvd new 4k resto, Queen Kelly new 4k resto, Bitter Rice new 4k resto and more

oh, and a doc about Billy Preston...

[rrenault]

Hey:

So I’m passing through NYC for the holidays, and I see the 70mm screenings of Marty Supreme at AMC Lincoln Square are all super popular whereas there are plenty of tickets available to watch it in 70mm at Regal Union Square. Is the former just a much better cinema or something?

[Never Cursed]

Hey:

So I’m passing through NYC for the holidays, and I see the 70mm screenings of Marty Supreme at AMC Lincoln Square are all super popular whereas there are plenty of tickets available to watch it in 70mm at Regal Union Square. Is the former just a much better cinema or something?

If it’s on the IMAX screen it’s because of how big the screen is at that location. For my money, if the Village East is playing it on 70mm, I’d go there

[rrenault]

The Village East isn’t showing Marty Supreme in 70mm unfortunately.

Also, is it worth bending over backwards to attend one of the 35mm screenings of Eyes Wide Shut at Metrograph? In short, I’m wondering what the print quality will be like.

[Never Cursed]

Metrograph is notorious for screening whatever they have access to. I’ve seen pristine imported prints there, and also faded-to-red garbage. I would try and see if they say where the print is from.

[hearthesilence]

I saw Eyes Wide Shut there a few years ago and it was a beautiful-looking print. Not pristine - apparently all circulating prints are from the original 1999 run, so it's doubtful any are - but if they manage to get the same print and nothing egregious has happened to it, it could still look great. IIRC, there was no source given so I don't think it came from an archive or anything like that. (EDIT: Website just lists Warner Bros. as the "distributor," so I'm guessing they just rented it from the studio.)

[Never Cursed]

Oh yeah, if that's the case, it probably looks very good

[Drucker]

I have found nearly all prints I've seen at Metrograph over the years to be quite good. However, I've seen two films advertised as IB Tech which definitely were not and they have a well-deserved reputation for fucking up the formats listed on their website. I caught Children of Paradise advertised as 35mm but they played the DCP of the poor looking restoration.

I'm planning on catching Blow-Up next weekend to kick off my 2026 quest to get into Antonioni. It's advertised as 35mm but I have my doubts. We'll see!

[rrenault]

I'm planning on catching Blow-Up next weekend to kick off my 2026 quest to get into Antonioni. It's advertised as 35mm but I have my doubts. We'll see!

Why do you have your doubts? Is this a common occurrence with Metrograph that screenings are falsely advertised as 35mm? I did encounter this issue at a Paris rep cinema once with a screening of Blow-Up no less , so who knows...

P.S. A few minutes ago, I purchased a ticket for their 35mm screening of Mouchette happening that same day.