New York City Repertory Cinema

[Drucker]

Right, that's what I'm saying. It has nothing to do with a huge market for Visconti films, and everything to do with it being June in New York City (with maybe slightly less going on elsewhere in the city).

[Black Hat]

Had to chuckle at the shock of ticket prices. The biggest factor is movies are the cheapest thing to do in New York, thus why you have a bizarre mix of olds and college age people attending. That being said, I found a 10 year old ticket a while back for $7. Prices have doubled in 10 years. I noticed for save and project that MoMA has started limiting free tickets to two per person. Only a matter of time before they start charging. Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet.

[hearthesilence]

There are regular movie-goers but that doesn't explain how nearly every Visconti screening sold out in June of 2018 at Lincoln Center.

IIRC this was due to MoviePass - I used it many times for that retrospective.

[rrenault]

I must say I'm surprised a Metrograph screening of Phantom Thread at 9:20 PM on NYE would sell out a full day before. I would think the young crowd is too busy partying at that time on NYE while it's a tad late for a lot of the older cinema goers who tend to be major demographic at rep screenings.

[Drucker]

Outside of Film Forum, New York's rep screenings definitely over-index to young hipsters (myself included). Metrograph, MOMI, and Roxy Tribeca all skew young. Metrograph is legitimately a cool place to be, and caters towards under-40 moviegoers. Screening ends at midnight and you can be partying downtown within 15 minutes. Makes sense to me.

There are regular movie-goers but that doesn't explain how nearly every Visconti screening sold out in June of 2018 at Lincoln Center.

IIRC this was due to MoviePass - I used it many times for that retrospective.

Right. Good point.

[rrenault]

Outside of Film Forum, New York's rep screenings definitely over-index to young hipsters (myself included). Metrograph, MOMI, and Roxy Tribeca all skew young. Metrograph is legitimately a cool place to be, and caters towards under-40 moviegoers. Screening ends at midnight and you can be partying downtown within 15 minutes. Makes sense to me.

Don't worry. I'm not criticizing you here, but it does seem in general like one can't win. Either the repertory scene over-indexes to young pretentious hipsters or, in the case of Film Forum, it sticks with old-established Boomer-approved classics whether classic Hollywood or legacy Janus fare, so it's like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

At the end of the day though, a vibrant rep scene needs both a steady supply of the "Janus stuff" and things like Brakhage, Straub/Huillet, and so forth if and when possible.

Regarding screenings quickly selling out, a lot more people do go to the cinema during that Christmas to New Year bridge, so that could be a contributing factor too.

[MichaelB]

Had to chuckle at the shock of ticket prices. The biggest factor is movies are the cheapest thing to do in New York, thus why you have a bizarre mix of olds and college age people attending. That being said, I found a 10 year old ticket a while back for $7. Prices have doubled in 10 years. I noticed for save and project that MoMA has started limiting free tickets to two per person. Only a matter of time before they start charging. Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet.

Back in the 1980s, I had to watch everything in the double or triple bill, otherwise I wouldn’t get my £2.50 worth.

[FrauBlucher]

Outside of Film Forum, New York's rep screenings definitely over-index to young hipsters (myself included). Metrograph, MOMI, and Roxy Tribeca all skew young. Metrograph is legitimately a cool place to be, and caters towards under-40 moviegoers. Screening ends at midnight and you can be partying downtown within 15 minutes. Makes sense to me.

Don't worry. I'm not criticizing you here, but it does seem in general like one can't win. Either the repertory scene over-indexes to young pretentious hipsters or, in the case of Film Forum, it sticks with old-established Boomer-approved classics whether classic Hollywood or legacy Janus fare, so it's like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

At the end of the day though, a vibrant rep scene needs both a steady supply of the "Janus stuff" and things like Brakhage, Straub/Huillet, and so forth if and when possible.

Regarding screenings quickly selling out, a lot more people do go to the cinema during that Christmas to New Year bridge, so that could be a contributing factor too.

Just for reference sake, Film Forum repertory programs are and have been scheduled by Bruce Goldstein for a very long time, and he owns Janus’ equal , Rialto Pictures. So it makes sense for FF to operate the way it does.

[Black Hat]

Had to chuckle at the shock of ticket prices. The biggest factor is movies are the cheapest thing to do in New York, thus why you have a bizarre mix of olds and college age people attending. That being said, I found a 10 year old ticket a while back for $7. Prices have doubled in 10 years. I noticed for save and project that MoMA has started limiting free tickets to two per person. Only a matter of time before they start charging. Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet.

Back in the 1980s, I had to watch everything in the double or triple bill, otherwise I wouldn’t get my £2.50 worth.

Michael, have you ever done a cinematic tour of New York? Very curious what impressions someone like yourself would have, and how it compares to European cities you're familiar with.

Outside of Film Forum, New York's rep screenings definitely over-index to young hipsters (myself included). Metrograph, MOMI, and Roxy Tribeca all skew young. Metrograph is legitimately a cool place to be, and caters towards under-40 moviegoers. Screening ends at midnight and you can be partying downtown within 15 minutes. Makes sense to me.

Don't worry. I'm not criticizing you here, but it does seem in general like one can't win. Either the repertory scene over-indexes to young pretentious hipsters or, in the case of Film Forum, it sticks with old-established Boomer-approved classics whether classic Hollywood or legacy Janus fare, so it's like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

At the end of the day though, a vibrant rep scene needs both a steady supply of the "Janus stuff" and things like Brakhage, Straub/Huillet, and so forth if and when possible.

Regarding screenings quickly selling out, a lot more people do go to the cinema during that Christmas to New Year bridge, so that could be a contributing factor too.

Just for reference sake, Film Forum repertory programs are and have been scheduled by Bruce Goldstein for a very long time, and he owns Janus’ equal , Rialto Pictures. So it makes sense for FF to operate the way it does.

Absolutely, and it should never, ever change. As rep cinema has evolved into a "scene", I find Film Forum's lack of pretense a breath of fresh air. As you know, it's also one of the last places of any kind around that resembles the New York of old.

[rrenault]

Had to chuckle at the shock of ticket prices. The biggest factor is movies are the cheapest thing to do in New York, thus why you have a bizarre mix of olds and college age people attending. That being said, I found a 10 year old ticket a while back for $7. Prices have doubled in 10 years. I noticed for save and project that MoMA has started limiting free tickets to two per person. Only a matter of time before they start charging. Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet.

$17 seems to be standard in NYC for non-PLF screenings these days. I’m pretty sure back in 2010 or so Film Forum would have charged around $12.

I’m not MichaelB, but as someone familiar with both the Paris and NYC rep scenes I’d say the former’s rep scene in general is far more FF-y than Metrograph-y. There’s far less pretense and indexing to the trendy crowd. You still get that peculiar mix of under-25s and over-65s, but on both sides it’s just normies(and some Boomer-aged intellectual types) who simply “like movies”. The Paris rep scene vibe in general has much more of an old school cinephilia flavor to it.

My one gripe is that 35mm rep screenings seem to be more common in NYC than in Paris for some reason.

I do think the Paris rep and indie cinema scene is arguably better than NYC’s in terms of the breadth of what’s on offer in the city on any given day, even if some of the individual venues in NYC are ‘sexier’ and ‘glitzier’ than those in Paris.

[hearthesilence]

tbh, I feel like there was a big push to skew the repertory scene towards younger audience members sometime in the 2010s. Lincoln Center in particular launched various programs intended for younger viewers or students - for example, the New Wave program that involves quite a few social gatherings or the academy program for aspiring film critics - and I figured it was mostly done to secure their future rather than rely too much on older patrons who (not to sound morbid) weren't going to be around as long.

Also, streaming was about to take off, and if a cinephilic subculture that involves going to a theater doesn't take hold with younger generations, it could be devastating, so I don't blame them for wanting to cultivate that too. That was a problem with music where for a very long time younger listeners stopped buying music altogether - the whole vinyl revival was a godsend, but before that happened, I was one of the very few people within my social circles who actually bought albums while everyone else illegally downloaded everything or ripped them from CD's they borrowed from various sources.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Why are people this stringently anti-DCP?

My theory on this is film twitter, letterboxd, and the social aspect of groupthink, follow the leader. The first part is that a few people in middling positions of tenuous employment are loudly obnoxious about this topic. As the younger crowd looks up to these silly individuals, they think beating this drum scores points, which, to be fair, it does as nobody in human history does low self esteem like a millennial cinephile. The way these freaks behave reminds you of stories you hear about collective masturbation at all boys boarding schools. Nothing beats the thrill of a crackling print of a Renoir film in shambles.

There is absolutely a specialness and sense of collective appreciation for seeing a pristine print, even if that hails from a digital source. I love it when we send gratitude to the projectionist (who is often no longer anonymous as in days past). You’re in the company of people who seem to have more discerning taste, and they treat the experience as something sacred; they’re probably not going to use their smartphones or ruffle plastic bags. Prints are what helped make me a cinephile for sure

I'm not opposed to a 4K restoration as that has its values as much as an archival print does. Films to me exist in versions and contemporary restorations are just another version of a film. Any of these 4K scans from the original camera negative far surpasses what the film even looked like upon original release. I just saw the new 4K restoration of Duel in the Sun and can't imagine the film looking any better. But is that how the film was supposed to look? Between all the duped optical effects, visible brown face makeup, and obvious matte paintings, does the film benefit from this upgrade? Yes and no. Is this how the film was designed to be seen? I'd also think yes and no. It's stunning, it's gorgeous, it has been digitally fine-tuned to remove every scratch and blemish in the print and to fix any issues with phasing from the Technicolor process (also removing imperfection that comes along with the analog nature of film), but it's not how the film was designed to be seen during production and isn't exactly an accurate representation of the final film released in 1946. I can't complain as the results are still marvelous, but I think it's not without its faults. I often remember a Chris Marker essay where he discusses that the experience of watching An American in Paris on DVD on his laptop during a flight that surpassed the version he remembered seeing upon original release with Alain Resnais. He was right as the technology for film presentation and digital technology has surpassed whatever film could do.

But I'm longtime analog fanatic, and I prefer the quality of film projection even though laser projection is technically brighter and more vibrant than any xenon projection. I love film to the point where my career specialty is projects using mediums like 16mm and 35mm projections. I do agree with Black Hat that the internet is filled with people in "middling positions of tenuous employment" who control discourse just because they have the free time to post all day, but I've been going to repertory screenings for the last seventeen years of my life, have worked at a cinematheque, and continue to apply those skills to this day simply because I love film projection so much. I'm not always a film purist either as my disdain for Tarantino's love for his beat-to-shit IB Tech prints, or some of the dubious quality 35mm prints I've seen of digitally shot contemporary films transferred to film (Zone of Interest being the worst among them), but it is my favorite medium and something I've embraced for nearly half of my life now. Looking at what I watched last year, I watched 60 films on either 16mm, 35mm, or 70mm and two programs of shorts on 16mm. Most of the prints I watched looked excellent with the only one of questionable quality that I saw this year, Gabriel Over the White House, had some odd issue I've rarely encountered where the print was warped. I'd also kill to see a crackling Renoir print because frankly, who's programming Renoir these days?

I also think the types of people who deal with film and project it are different than twenty years ago. I think if you deal with film now, you have to be considered a skilled technician who has to handle each print as though it's a work of art. As a result, I think film projection has gotten better and projectionists more meticulous than ever. I was working at a small cinematheque when Janus' restoration of L'avventura was making the rounds (one of their last film prints) and the theater I worked at was the first place to present this brand new 35mm print that came still slightly wet from the lab. The projectionist was so careful with it, he didn't even want to permanently add cue marks for the reel changes and instead used a grease pen to draw small dots instead as he didn't even want to compromise it. These are the folk that mostly deal with film now and they treat it like it's an art work.

[rrenault]

I must admit I find it funny how catering to young people automatically means catering to “privileged pretentious hipsters” when in fact there are plenty of under 40s who are just schmucks from Queens or south Brooklyn who like movies.

It’s not like younger people from “uncool” parts of the city never trek to Film Forum or Lincoln Center to watch a film, even though “the young people” the rep scene is catering to are probably just affluent 20 and 30 somethings living in Williamsburg and the East Village.

It’s all just something I find amusing.

People tend to think of NYC rep screenings as only attracting baby boomers from the UWS and under-40 trust fund babies from Williamsburg, but “schmucks from Queens who like movies”, some of whom are the same age as the Williamsburg folks, go to those screenings too.

[MichaelB]

Michael, have you ever done a cinematic tour of New York? Very curious what impressions someone like yourself would have, and how it compares to European cities you're familiar with.

No. I’ve barely set foot in the US (just two trips, in 1996 and 2016), I’ve spent just 24 hours (if that) in NYC, and I had my entire family with me, with all that that implies.

And I’m also not anticipating crossing the Atlantic again any time soon, as I’m certainly not about to divulge my social media passwords to some immigration goon. (And if I did, they most likely wouldn’t let me in anyway.). Even in 1996 I was asked—thankfully in writing, as I don’t think I’d have been able to keep a straight face otherwise—whether I had any involvement in Nazi genocide, which had me wondering if anyone had ever ticked the “yes” box.

[Black Hat]

$17 seems to be standard in NYC for non-PLF screenings these days. I’m pretty sure back in 2010 or so Film Forum would have charged around $12.

I’m not MichaelB, but as someone familiar with both the Paris and NYC rep scenes I’d say the former’s rep scene in general is far more FF-y than Metrograph-y. There’s far less pretense and indexing to the trendy crowd. You still get that peculiar mix of under-25s and over-65s, but on both sides it’s just normies(and some Boomer-aged intellectual types) who simply “like movies”. The Paris rep scene vibe in general has much more of an old school cinephilia flavor to it.

My one gripe is that 35mm rep screenings seem to be more common in NYC than in Paris for some reason.

I do think the Paris rep and indie cinema scene is arguably better than NYC’s in terms of the breadth of what’s on offer in the city on any given day, even if some of the individual venues in NYC are ‘sexier’ and ‘glitzier’ than those in Paris.

How many rep theaters are there in Paris? It's surprising we don't have enough (or any, is Tenia in Paris?) Parisian members here to have a Paris thread, what a delight that would be. I was referencing member pricing, but the regular price was $10. Lincoln Center is up to 19/14, Metrograph 18/11, Film Forum 17/11. It's interesting Paris wouldn't have many 35mm you would think with all the archives in the EU they but I guess everything needed to make that happen is cost prohibitive.

tbh, I feel like there was a big push to skew the repertory scene towards younger audience members sometime in the 2010s. Lincoln Center in particular launched various programs intended for younger viewers or students - for example, the New Wave program that involves quite a few social gatherings or the academy program for aspiring film critics - and I figured it was mostly done to secure their future rather than rely too much on older patrons who (not to sound morbid) weren't going to be around as long

By and large the New Wave members don't attend rep screenings. I don't even blame them because they don't market that membership to cinephiles, it's marketed around the film festival, new directors new films, and the handful of parties throughout the year. I think the young people thing is more a combination of film twitter personalities talking about upcoming screenings and college freshmen finding a cheap thing to do and getting hooked. The number of (usually morose) young people I've met these last few years who essentially moved here to watch movies blows my mind.

[MichaelB]

One of the biggest financial hammer-blows the rep cinema I helped run was hit with was when a big student hall of residence moved from just up the road to the other side of London—with an immediate and very noticeable impact on the box office.

The other one was when the big Odeon down the road doubled its screens from three to six, and they’d run things like Groundhog Day and Thelma and Louise for weeks. We couldn’t book those titles until they’d finished with them, but by the time they finally gave them up all the local commercial juice had been squeezed out of them—and our business model relied heavily on weekend screenings of comparatively recent hits subsidising the riskier stuff.

[Black Hat]

My theory on this is film twitter, letterboxd, and the social aspect of groupthink, follow the leader. The first part is that a few people in middling positions of tenuous employment are loudly obnoxious about this topic. As the younger crowd looks up to these silly individuals, they think beating this drum scores points, which, to be fair, it does as nobody in human history does low self esteem like a millennial cinephile. The way these freaks behave reminds you of stories you hear about collective masturbation at all boys boarding schools. Nothing beats the thrill of a crackling print of a Renoir film in shambles.

There is absolutely a specialness and sense of collective appreciation for seeing a pristine print, even if that hails from a digital source. I love it when we send gratitude to the projectionist (who is often no longer anonymous as in days past). You’re in the company of people who seem to have more discerning taste, and they treat the experience as something sacred; they’re probably not going to use their smartphones or ruffle plastic bags. Prints are what helped make me a cinephile for sure

I'm not opposed to a 4K restoration as that has its values as much as an archival print does. Films to me exist in versions and contemporary restorations are just another version of a film. Any of these 4K scans from the original camera negative far surpasses what the film even looked like upon original release. I just saw the new 4K restoration of Duel in the Sun and can't imagine the film looking any better. But is that how the film was supposed to look? Between all the duped optical effects, visible brown face makeup, and obvious matte paintings, does the film benefit from this upgrade? Yes and no. Is this how the film was designed to be seen? I'd also think yes and no. It's stunning, it's gorgeous, it has been digitally fine-tuned to remove every scratch and blemish in the print and to fix any issues with phasing from the Technicolor process (also removing imperfection that comes along with the analog nature of film), but it's not how the film was designed to be seen during production and isn't exactly an accurate representation of the final film released in 1946. I can't complain as the results are still marvelous, but I think it's not without its faults. I often remember a Chris Marker essay where he discusses that the experience of watching An American in Paris on DVD on his laptop during a flight that surpassed the version he remembered seeing upon original release with Alain Resnais. He was right as the technology for film presentation and digital technology has surpassed whatever film could do.

But I'm longtime analog fanatic, and I prefer the quality of film projection even though laser projection is technically brighter and more vibrant than any xenon projection. I love film to the point where my career specialty is projects using mediums like 16mm and 35mm projections. I do agree with Black Hat that the internet is filled with people in "middling positions of tenuous employment" who control discourse just because they have the free time to post all day, but I've been going to repertory screenings for the last seventeen years of my life, have worked at a cinematheque, and continue to apply those skills to this day simply because I love film projection so much. I'm not always a film purist either as my disdain for Tarantino's love for his beat-to-shit IB Tech prints, or some of the dubious quality 35mm prints I've seen of digitally shot contemporary films transferred to film (Zone of Interest being the worst among them), but it is my favorite medium and something I've embraced for nearly half of my life now. Looking at what I watched last year, I watched 60 films on either 16mm, 35mm, or 70mm and two programs of shorts on 16mm. Most of the prints I watched looked excellent with the only one of questionable quality that I saw this year, Gabriel Over the White House, had some odd issue I've rarely encountered where the print was warped. I'd also kill to see a crackling Renoir print because frankly, who's programming Renoir these days?

I also think the types of people who deal with film and project it are different than twenty years ago. I think if you deal with film now, you have to be considered a skilled technician who has to handle each print as though it's a work of art. As a result, I think film projection has gotten better and projectionists more meticulous than ever. I was working at a small cinematheque when Janus' restoration of L'avventura was making the rounds (one of their last film prints) and the theater I worked at was the first place to present this brand new 35mm print that came still slightly wet from the lab. The projectionist was so careful with it, he didn't even want to permanently add cue marks for the reel changes and instead used a grease pen to draw small dots instead as he didn't even want to compromise it. These are the folk that mostly deal with film now and they treat it like it's an art work.

Superlatively written post, thank you. Please don't mistake me, I'm in complete agreement with both of you, but I think it would behoove us to also acknowledge that some prints are no longer worth showing, and plenty of DCPs of amazing films that haven't been released on bluray or ever shown up on streaming that get completely ignored. My observation is the 35mm zealots, who rail online or in lobbies of rep houses, have lost the plot. Especially as, in my experience for talking to them, a lot of archivists are pro digital.

I must admit I find it funny how catering to young people automatically means catering to “privileged pretentious hipsters” when in fact there are plenty of under 40s who are just schmucks from Queens or south Brooklyn who like movies.

It’s not like younger people from “uncool” parts of the city never trek to Film Forum or Lincoln Center to watch a film, even though “the young people” the rep scene is catering to are probably just affluent 20 and 30 somethings living in Williamsburg and the East Village.

It’s all just something I find amusing.

People tend to think of NYC rep screenings as only attracting baby boomers from the UWS and under-40 trust fund babies from Williamsburg, but “schmucks from Queens who like movies”, some of whom are the same age as the Williamsburg folks, go to those screenings too.

I can't remember the last time I heard the word "hipster". I think you're showing your age here a bit, my friend, because the demo of Williamsburg and the EV you describe is long gone. It's anecdotal, obviously, but I don't think many of the under 40s are "schmucks from Queens or south Brooklyn". They're mostly immigrants from NJ or some other godforsaken American pit of suburban despair who infiltrated deeper parts of Brooklyn. A lot of the younger 40s now are actually Chinese students or young professionals.

[Black Hat]

Michael, have you ever done a cinematic tour of New York? Very curious what impressions someone like yourself would have, and how it compares to European cities you're familiar with.

No. I’ve barely set foot in the US (just two trips, in 1996 and 2016), I’ve spent just 24 hours (if that) in NYC, and I had my entire family with me, with all that that implies.

And I’m also not anticipating crossing the Atlantic again any time soon, as I’m certainly not about to divulge my social media passwords to some immigration goon. (And if I did, they most likely wouldn’t let me in anyway.). Even in 1996 I was asked—thankfully in writing, as I don’t think I’d have been able to keep a straight face otherwise—whether I had any involvement in Nazi genocide, which had me wondering if anyone had ever ticked the “yes” box.

Yikes, I didn't know they asked questions like that, but yes, there's absolutely no reason to come here, and almost all my favorite European friends aren't either, so you're in good company.

[rrenault]

I’m in my 30s and grew up in NYC but, admittedly, have spent much/most of my adult life in Europe. So I admit I’m somewhat out of the loop regarding the demographic makeup of the under-40 crowd at cultural events in the city.

[rrenault]

How many rep theaters are there in Paris? It's surprising we don't have enough (or any, is Tenia in Paris?) Parisian members here to have a Paris thread, what a delight that would be. I was referencing member pricing, but the regular price was $10. Lincoln Center is up to 19/14, Metrograph 18/11, Film Forum 17/11. It's interesting Paris wouldn't have many 35mm you would think with all the archives in the EU they but I guess everything needed to make that happen is cost prohibitive.

There are many:

Le Champo

Reflet Médicis

Filmothéque du Quartier Latin

Grand Action

Ecoles Cinema Club

Christine Cinema Club

Mac-Mahon

Cinematheque Française (yes, *that* cinematheque)

Espace Saint-Michel

And then there are plenty of other independent cinemas that primarily do first-run programming but may have occasional rep screenings, as well, such as L'Arlequin, for instance.

[Ogre Kovacs]

Even in 1996 I was asked—thankfully in writing, as I don’t think I’d have been able to keep a straight face otherwise—whether I had any involvement in Nazi genocide, which had me wondering if anyone had ever ticked the “yes” box.

Cannot help but think of this piece from 1992 near the end of Zappa's career when he was working with Ensemble Modern for The Yellow Shark album. The text of the U.S. Customs form was narrated with the ensemble improvising via hand cues (if I recall correctly).

Frank Zappa--Welcome To The United States

[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.

FWIW, I saw the 35mm screening for The White Balloon and it looked great, so 35mm devotees can attend with no fear. EDIT: Actually they clearly swapped out one reel with a warmer looking one, so you'll see the color shift at the reel change, but that's a common issue with so many prints, I wouldn't be bothered by it.

[FrauBlucher]

To Black Hat and herethesilence and really any other NYer on this forum, I very rarely see the IFC Center mentioned on this thread the way I see MOMA, FF and Lincoln Center and others talked about. Thoughts?

[Drucker]

Except the main theater, the screens are painfully small. It's also got very repetitive programming that caters to exactly the kind of film snob that appears on Twitter. Midnight screenings of Lynch films, Kathryn Bigelow, hipster chic, etc. Rarely things not screening on the Criterion channel. And since it's owned by Dolan I think the theater is sort of neglected (I saw Casino in 35 years ago with MSZ introducing Pileggi and they kept having to pause between reels since the projector is so old.

[Black Hat]

Yes, exactly. I don't even think of it as a rep theater, but I had no idea Dolan owned IFC. When did that happen?