Revival Meeting

Tim Grady [president of World Cycling Productions, publisher of Cycle Sport USA magazine, and Minnesota Film Arts board member]: Well, the Brattle is a famous spot along with the Walter Reade in New York and other rep houses. This is something that Landmark [Theatres Corp.] really started in the '70s: If you look at a pure rep calendar as designed by Landmark--Gary Meyer and the boys--it was a different double feature every night. And the economies now are such that you can't do that. There aren't that many 35mm prints. Rep is easy to book: You can put in Citizen Kane or whatever. But the print [rental] is $250, and the shipping is $50 or $100 each way. So the economy of it is one of the big problems.

Adam Sekuler [former programmer of the Bell]: Right, but I think Emily's question is in relation to other mechanisms that could be used to sustain a repertory program. Is there another way that the community could possibly invest in this kind of programming?

Robert Cowgill [co-founder of Oak Street Cinema and former executive director of Minnesota Film Arts]: I'd like to take a step back and just pose the question of whether the experience of seeing a repertory film is even valuable. Is it that valuable for us to go through all the difficulty that it takes to keep the theaters that run [old movies] open? I think that's a theoretical question that needs to be embraced.

Rob Silberman [cinema studies professor at the University of Minnesota and Minnesota Film Arts board member]: That's a rhetorical question coming from you [laughs].

Grady: I think we all would agree [that rep cinema is valuable]. My concern in the overall marketplace is dealing with the fact that, as people like Gary Meyer have told me, repertory is a nightmare right now. You can't find an audience with repertory [programming] alone: You have to juggle the great repertory shows with first-run art films, retrospectives, visits by directors, and so on. You can't strictly do a rep house any longer. It's just not possible.

Condon: Well, the Brattle is doing it. Their board [of directors] is committed: [Its members] have said, "We believe in this mission enough that we'll find the resources." And they have.

Grady: The old theaters--like the Balboa, which [Meyer] handled, and the Brattle--are great old movie houses that need to stay. They maybe need to be programmed properly; they need to be advertised and marketed. We'd all love to see a brand new print of North by Northwest or Citizen Kane, and that's important to us [MFA board members]. But delivering the message to your audience is the key.

Hugh Wronski [manager of Landmark's Uptown Theatre and Lagoon Cinema]: The Uptown runs rep every Saturday at midnight. Granted, it's midnight, so it's a little different, but it's still frustrating. Everyone who has booked rep knows the frustration: Why do people want to see Casablanca for the 40th time on the big screen rather than see a Humphrey Bogart film they've never seen on the big screen? Generally speaking, the stuff that works at the Uptown at midnight is bad '80s stuff.

Cowgill: In five years, it'll be bad '90s stuff.

Wronski: It could be. In my very limited experience with rentals of rep titles, I'd say that the fees from distributors are generally reasonable--so that occasionally I can get one pet title in there. I mean, we got The Man Who Would Be King because I wanted to see it on the big screen. It was fantastic. And there were maybe 30 people there, which was enough to pay the shipping--barely. I think that's what [a rep programmer] needs to look at: If your mission is rep films, you need to be happy with 30 people having a great time on a given evening. At least the Oak Street is on the nonprofit end of things; it's a little harder to justify within Landmark. That's what I experienced in college, too, back in the '80s: There was a limited audience, but a passionate audience. And I think it's important to do [rep programming] and do it well.

CP: Sure.

Wronski: The other thing, though, is that the number of bars, restaurants, and other nontheatrical venues that show films--and I really question the legality of a lot of those shows--is becoming quite substantial. Do [these venues] have rights [to the material]? Are they paying rentals? What's the story there? You look at the film listings in City Pages on a given week, and they're impressive. But is it fair for the Oak Street with a new print of a restored classic to be placed in the same review category as Bobino showing a DVD of something? Because that's apples and oranges to someone who knows better. But a lot of people don't know better. And then those people come to a real movie theater and say, "Why should I pay [to see an old movie]?" Well, you should pay because you're seeing [the movie] in a real theater on a screen; you're not watching it in a bar.