Film Journal: L.A. revival: Classic films find audiences in

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L.A. revival: Classic films find audiences in classic cinemas
May 14, 2009

-By Sarah Sluis


If it takes millions of dollars to market a new release—to convince people that they must see a film right now, in the theatre—how in the world do you convince the average viewer to see old films, many of which can be rented that evening on DVD? For revival theatres such as the Egyptian, Aero, and Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles, the key is focusing on the moviegoing experience, amplifying it, and creating a “release slate” that makes old films relevant to modern audiences.

In Los Angeles, the theatres are often as old as the movies playing. Whereas many decaying New York City theatres were torn down because of the value of the real estate, leaving most revival houses today located in new or nondescript buildings, Los Angeles movie palaces either laid vacant, like the Egyptian, or showed third-run movies, like the neighborhood theatre Aero. Money raised to renovate the 600-seat Egyptian came not from arts funding, but redevelopment money intended to fix the blighted Hollywood Boulevard.

At the time the American Cinematheque was in talks to take over the theatre, Hollywood Boulevard, according to Barbara Smith, the Cinematheque’s director, “was like Times Square. All the references were to Times Square, and they even brought in the people who had done Times Square at one time, and they talked to us about how to do this urban renewal.” After the Northridge earthquake of 1994, which caused extensive damage to the theatre, the city decided to change its strategy from having the organization run as an operator, to simply giving them the theatre, which then underwent over $12 million of renovations and earthquake retrofitting.

Smith recalls, “I do remember standing by while we were working on construction and people would say, ‘Are you crazy?’ No one thought it would ever change like this… The Egyptian really got saved and was a product of that spirit of preservation in a redevelopment area.”

The 425-seat Aero and the 154-seat Silent Movie Theatre were built around the same time, 1940 and 1942, as neighborhood theatres. Their presence isn’t intended to be commanding like the Egyptian, but neighborly and intimate. When the American Cinematheque took over the Aero, it was a theatre that everyone loved but nobody attended.

Located on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica amidst coffee shops, restaurants and upscale clothing stores, the presence of the Aero lent a small-town, Main Street feel to the area. The theatre was originally set to be taken over by the Sundance Institute, but when that deal fell through, the landlord approached American Cinematheque. He was working hard to keep the property running as a theatre, though Smith doubts the city of Santa Monica would have let it be used for something else. Compared to the Egyptian, the space was “much simpler, since it was built as a friendly neighborhood theatre,” and according to Smith, renovations only totaled $800,000.

The value of preserving theatres, in the mindset of American Cinemathque, is just as important as showing old movies. “We have a dual purpose of preserving a historic landmark, which we always think about. It can’t just be something else,” Smith declares. “I personally feel obligated to preserve the theatre. It’s one of our missions… Without us it wouldn’t be here, [The Egyptian] would have just fallen down.”

For audience members, seeing a throwback movie in a throwback theatre adds to the charm of the experience, but that doesn’t mean they’re not looking at the schedule first before they go.

Both Gwen Deglise, main programmer at the Aero, and Hadrian Belove, manager of Cinefamily, view programming theatres as philosophical tasks, and as they explain their methodology, it’s clear how deeply they think about how to group and introduce films, and the context in which they will be perceived. Deglise, who fittingly majored in philosophy (with a minor in film studies) and hails from France, combines her film history background with a practical, adaptable approach that recognizes what works best for the Aero.

Deglise started volunteering for the American Cinematheque before it even ran the Egyptian, then programmed there before becoming the main programmer for the Aero. Having selected movies for different cinemas, she’s discovered that the size of the theatres and their locations have shaped her film and series choices. Whereas the Egyptian needs 250 to 300 people to “get that collective experience of watching a film in a dark room,” the more modest Aero can give a “good vibe with 100, 80 people,” because “the volume of the space is intimate.” While certain films can always draw a crowd, Deglise struggles over the number of rare films in her lineup, since they often have more difficulty reaching that critical mass of people.

“We hear a lot: “Is programming for 50 people okay? What is the mission?” And that is an ongoing decision…strongly rooted in the fact that if you have 50 people in an 150 or 250-seat theatre, it’s a different feeling than if you have 50 people at the Egyptian.” Her current “formula” for the Aero is “a short, weekend-long program that I extend to two weekends if it’s a classic and I know people will come. Kurosawa had two weeks, Hitchcock had two weeks.”

The formula marks a change from her original strategy. When she first started programming the Aero when it opened in 2005, the theatre had planned on “doing a lot of classic works, and repeating the program of the Egyptian, but after five months of that, it didn’t work. We had a really different crowd on the West Side, and I had to search for the community around the Aero and be part of the community, and redefine what we were going to show”—a process of trial and error that resulted in her current formula.

Deglise distinguishes between programming for the “real film buffs that are my generation and my parents’ generation” and the kind of programming that draws people to the Aero, which is “more events-oriented, more in-person-oriented, and staying close to the actuality of the Los Angeles industry: what’s coming out, what filmmakers I can find, and ‘Can I tap into this theme?’ It’s about staying ‘in the buzz.’”

To “stay in the buzz,” the Egyptian and the Aero frequently hold “sneak peeks” of upcoming films, typically smaller studio or independent pictures that might appeal to the revival audience. Before such an event, Deglise will often program a double feature of earlier works by the director or actor. She also constantly sends out inquiries to stars, asking them to make appearances. An upcoming May tribute to Mickey Rooney, for example, will include a discussion with the veteran star. Because the theatre is located in Hollywood’s backyard, she’s had great success attracting big names like Mel Brooks, David Mamet and Clint Eastwood. Others, like Jon Favreau, are neighborhood patrons of the theatre, who make a point to appear when they have a new film coming out.

In West Hollywood, between the Aero and the Egyptian, newcomer Cinefamily (founded in 2007) has been drawing movie fans to its intimate 154-seat space with its eclectic programming and focus on creating a “Cinefamily” of viewers who can share their appreciation of films. Before working as the manager of the theatre, Hadrian Belove honed his programming skills as the owner of independent video store CineFile. People held him accountable if they rented a movie and didn’t like it. He’s tried to program vertically, by day of the week, so people can reliably expect “Silent Wednesdays” and “Music Thursdays,” or the certain “tones, emotional flavors” that come with his choices for Friday midnight and Saturday late-night screenings. Recent Friday midnight series, for example, which seem geared toward a fun and raucous experience, included “Hot Wheels & Speed Demons” and “The Early Psychedelia of Tinto Brass.”

By programming vertically, Belove hopes to “brand” the theatre, giving it a “consistency of taste,” regularity, and a balance of artistic expression and works that are accessible to a wide range of viewers. He wants people to “fall in love with the brand” and compares his role to that of a DJ. Just like people will follow a DJ from venue to venue for a specific take and type of music, he hopes people will turn to Cinefamily with a strong idea of what kind of experience they will have.

Belove has tried to aid brand-building by using a “Nexflix-type” model, where people can pay $25 a month to see as many movies as they choose, or come in for a single film at $10 a pop. With a membership, Belove can encourage “experimental viewing”: If it’s already paid for, why not see it? He’s even had success drawing people in for blind screenings, selling out shows where audience members have no idea what will be shown. Members and ticket buyers alike are going because they have an idea of what a “Cinefamily” film is, proof of the success of the theatre’s branding.

So far, Belove is incredibly proud of the audience that has gravitated toward the theatre, calling them “discerning, sensitive” and extremely willing to give unusual films a chance. After Q&As, guests have told him his crowd was the best they ever had. Some of this comes, no doubt, from the “priming” Belove does. Each film is personally introduced, and most guests have already read the paragraph-long description of the film in the calendar. Avoiding one-note prefaces, Belove will prime films using subtle distinctions. A film might be presented ironically at the same time it’s praised as an overlooked, would-be giant.

The program description of Gone in 60 Seconds (the 1974 one), for example, opens by calling it “the ultimate car-love flick made by the ultimate car lover: successful real estate businessman H.P. Halicki, who wrote, starred in and directed the movie, leading American Film magazine to dub him ‘The Orson Welles of car-chase films.’” While the opening encourages you to see the film as the work of an auteur, the end of the description brings it back to the modern day, comparing it to the Beastie Boys video “Sabotage” and calling it “’70s camp” and “car porn,” letting you know not to take the movie too seriously.

Using their expansive knowledge of films and the relative ease of modern-day editing, Cinefamily has also had great success with its “Mondo” series, a film-length pastiche of clips centered on topics like car chases, “Christplotation” and “Kindercarnage.” Taken from one context and placed in another, the scenes acquire an entirely different meaning. They’re also the kind of series that encourage conversation and discussion afterward, which is one of Belove’s goals for the theatre. To facilitate interaction, the front rows don’t have individual seats but couches, and after a film, people gather onto an adjoining patio to talk about what they’ve just seen.

In terms of formats, Silent Movie Theatre will show “anything and everything,” and uses DigiBeta, for example, for hard-to-find titles. Because the theatre is small, Belove finds the difference in quality is not as noticeable as it would be in a larger venue.
For Deglise, seeing a print is part of the allure. “I am selling the film experience, faded or scratched, and people will come because it’s the unique print existing. Or it’s the 70mm one. People will come for specific formats.”

Because the theatres are located in Los Angeles, near some of the biggest cinema archives in the country, renting prints can often be done without prohibitive shipping costs. With an eye to budget, Deglise now tries to build a program around titles that won’t require the $1,500 to $2,000 cost to ship a print round-trip from Europe, or she’ll turn to different organizations that will help share the expense. She sees cost as eventually reducing access and circulation of prints.

“I think those rarer prints won’t be available. I can see now it’s too costly, and the archives don’t necessarily have the staff to be loaning those prints. You’ve got to inspect them, you’ve got to clean them, then you let them go, then they come back and you’ve got to inspect them again—and the life of these prints?”

She also sees digital restorations as eventually reducing access to prints, though she notes exceptions at the studios who believe there’s “a theatrical life to a print. Then they’ll strike a print.”

While Deglise doesn’t count herself as a convert to digital—“if the film has been shot to shown as a print, I want to respect that”—she realizes she’s part of a shrinking group. When the Egyptian received a digital projector, the theatre’s projectionist, who she “never would have thought would go to the other side, was just raving about it, because what’s on the screen is so close to perfection. You’re not going to scratch it, you’re not going to damage it. He’s completely converted… I’m more of a dinosaur than my projectionist.”

The Aero has increased its attendance in the low double digits every year since it opened, and Belove estimates that one in every four or five shows sells out at the Silent Movie Theatre. Because the theatre is so small, he has less incentive to show a huge crowd-pleaser or cult hit like The Big Lebowski—in fact, he tries to avoid showing such films—but focuses on developing a program that will fill theatres more consistently. Like Deglise, he notes that a small space is more conducive to a collective experience. In his theatre, even 50 people can create that sense of community.

While all of the theatres operate as nonprofits, and the American Cinematheque receives over half its budget from an annual fundraiser attended by the major agencies and studios, they don’t see revival cinema as dying, or the competition from home theatres and DVDs as an insurmountable threat. In fact, the Aero and Cinefamily both opened after the onslaught of home theatres and DVDs.

Smith sees some interesting links between revival cinemas and home entertainment. After the success of film noir programs years ago, she observes, all the studios started releasing those titles on home-video, and she mentions a recent move by Warner Bros. that will allow consumers to buy copies, on demand, of the more than 6,800 films not available on DVD. Deglise, meanwhile, has noticed that after certain retrospectives, people will rent those titles at the local video store—either they missed a particular film, or they wanted to see more. She ponders the role of the programmer in a world where people want to see everything “on demand,” but believes in the power of the moviegoing experience, which just can’t be replicated anywhere else.

“We are in the world of trying to experience authenticity,” Deglise says, “You want organic food, you want an authentic experience in a foreign country. Revival theatres are still the authentic way to see old movies.”