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We used to go to the movies. Now we want the movies to come to us, on our televisions, tablets and phones, as streams running into an increasingly unnavigable ocean of media. The dispersal of movie watching across technologies and contexts follows the multiplexing of movie theaters, itself a fragmenting of the single screen theater where movie love was first concentrated and consecrated. (But even in the “good old days,” movies were often only part of an evening’s entertainment that came complete with vaudeville acts and bank nights). For all this, moviegoing still means what it always meant, joining a community, forming an audience and participating in a collective dream. As the way we experience movies evolves, the Archive takes an international look at how the movies have depicted moviegoing over these years of change. The selected films carry us from the anarchic, freewheeling exhibition of the early silent era, through the exalting opulence of movie palaces to the post-war rise of exploitation shockers and into the romantic nostalgia for pre-television days gone by. Whether a moviegoer in France, Italy, Argentina or Taiwan, the current sense of loss at the passing of an exhibition era takes its place in the ongoing history of cultural and industrial transformation reflected in these films. Preceding the features, this series will also present a selection of related cartoons, short subjects, theater advertisements, promotional films, trailers and other exhibition ephemera that reflect the rich mix of media that has also always shaped our shared visions in the dark.
Special Panel Discussion on June 15: as part of this evening's event, the Archive is pleased to host a panel of film programmers and curators from venues around the city to discuss the joys and challenges of repertory and art house film programming in Los Angeles in the age of DCP and online streaming. Panelists will include: Bret Berg, Alamo Drafthouse, Los Angeles; Ross Melnick, co-curator of "Marquee Movies;" Grant Moninger, American Cinematheque; KJ Relth, Cinefamily; Bernardo Rondeau, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Series co-curated by Paul Malcolm and Ross Melnick.
Special thanks: Bill Su-pao Chang—Taiwan Academy in Los Angeles; Valeria Rumori, director, Serena Camozzo—Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Los Angeles.
