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- And now, ladies and gentlemen,
time for the show.
Once again,
thank you for coming to our theatre tonight.
Have an enjoyable evening.
- If you're okay watching a movie on your phone,
then just stop watching this now.
- I think what makes this movie important,
is it's using the medium of cinema
to essentially address a problem within cinema.
- Make a movie about a movie theatre -
that's so meta, it's fucking sick.
(beat-heavy music)
(funky music)
- The importance of revival cinema in culture
is it's really no different
than a conventional museum.
- The sense of revival means giving life -
and this is, uh, this is life, it's giving not...
the movies don't need that,
they're already set, they're going, eternal -
the life they're giving is to the viewers.
We are the ones who get a chance
to see something we wouldn't see anywhere else.
- The idea of movies being resurrected,
I mean, this is... this is one of the things
that I love about a revival house -
a movie that can continue to live,
or can have a new life.
I think that's just money in the bank, that's fantastic.
- I've never been more moved
than running a Charlie Chaplin film this year
and watching audiences respond exactly how they responded
all those years ago.
How his movies still transcend time.
It's beautiful.
Revival houses remember that,
they remember that they're supposed to touch your heart.
- I'm a child of revival cinema.
When I was in high school,
I would get on the bus to New York
to go to the New Yorker Theater,
where they ran the most fabulous old double bills.
And it was long before home video,
and there were no places to see these films.
Now the argument is, now we have more films
available to see on video than we've ever had before.
And it's true. There are more films available
than there ever have been in my lifetime.
But the problem is that A, you have to know what they are,
someone has to point you to them and say,
"Look, this is a movie worth your time."
The other thing is, many need to be seen on a big screen.
Even the cheapest pictures were made
to be seen on the big screen and that experience
is not the same as watching it even at home with two friends.
- We're telling a story about the New Beverly
as a character
within his bigger story of the end of a format.
- I think the New Beverly is a really a perfect example
of a revival cinema because we've been around since 1978,
and because we're in Hollywood.
So there used to be so many theatres in Los Angeles
and, one by one, they've all died.
We still have a few revival cinemas left in Los Angeles,
but not as many as you'd think
for a city that revolves around film.
And the thing that makes me really nervous
is you have a place like the New Beverly,
where it should be packed every night,
because this is a town full of film lovers,
but it's not. So if the New Beverly
can't survive in Hollywood of all places,
what hope do we have for other revival cinemas
around the country or the world?
- What is absolutely true
is that the best way to see a movie
is in a movie theatre.
And that is why I think the New Beverly is successful.
- Watching a movie there
with an audience that's really into the movie
is better than any theatre I've ever been to in my life.
- It feels like this great party,
like the frat house without the douche-baggery.
- It's very much like chicken soup.
If you're feeling sick and you wanna feel better,
you come to the New Beverly and you feel better.
- And it's a family business.
You see the same folks, the staff is small.
It's like literally going from your home to another home.
- I picked my first apartment
based on proximity to the New Beverly.
- It's a little gem enclave in L.A.
that there really isn't anything like it.
There are some competing venues that do good work,
and also have a community vibe,
but there's something about the New Beverly
that just rises a little above.
- I found the rep house
I'd always dreamed of being able to go to,
and it was the New Beverly.
- It's just perfect.
- It's definitely a '70s movie theatre.
You get that vibe the moment you walk in.
You get the ticket that you tear off,
the old-school concessions,
and the place looks like a place
that's been around since the 1970s
Even with the upgraded seats, which is beautiful,
because they're not even brand-new seats,
they're seats from an older theatre from the '90s.
They're great, and it's fantastic,
but I just love that.
Even when the marquee was upgraded,
it's upgraded to look exactly like it used to
when it was brand new. - It's a constant.
It always has this sort of well-worn feeling about it.
I love going there. It's kind of reassuring.
In a sense, you could call it a temple.
It's a temple to movies.
- One of the very, very, very few
who are not eating out of anybody's hand.
They are totally independent.
- So it's always been kind of a little haven for me,
and this great little escape, far away from the multiplex.
It has a very special place in my heart.
- It was an extension of film school, going to the Beverly.
- As a high-school dropout, it was film school for me.
New Beverly's where I learned about movies.
- If you date me for any period of time,
it's only a matter of time: We gotta go to the New Beverly!
- If I win the goddamn lottery,
I would give it all to keeping the New Beverly Cinema going.
- Quite literally the one place that I could go
and felt like I belonged and I wasn't alone.
- It's nicer to see a movie at the New Beverly
than it is at some crappy multiplex.
It's got charm.
- Eight bucks for a double feature? On film?
And it's projected right - hopefully,
if I'm doing my job right - that's a good deal.
- The ticket prices at the New Beverly are awesome!
Why, I can get a full night's worth of entertainment
for me and my friends and family for less than $20.
- You pay eight bucks for two films
and you step into this community
that is whatever you want it to be.
If you wanna come in, order a drink, go sit down,
watch the film and leave, you totally can.
If you want to chat it up, meet new people,
talk about it with the owner, with the staff, you can.
- And standing outside the New Beverly
is sort of, you know, where the film geeks are.
Sort of in between the movies or after a midnight,
at 2:00 in the morning, there's people still standing
out in the street talking about films.
That's a community, you know.
- It used to be common and doesn't exist in the same way,
and not just the location or the style,
or the types of things that it shows,
but there's a spirit and a culture,
an experience about it, that is unique,
feels very safe and familiar and very celebratory of film.
- I also think it's really interesting that the clientele
asks me what I think of the movies all the time.
I can't think of another movie theatre
where it would even occur to me to ask the girl
giving me the popcorn what she thinks of the film.
- It is the entire cinema experience,
because you have 35 film,
you have that organic connection to it,
and you're experiencing being in an audience,
in those seats,
surrounded by that chatter,
and the smell of the popcorn, and you've got your drink.
That is the movie-going experience,
and that's why you go to the New Beverly.
(music)
- I love the New Beverly because it's independent
and stands for everything I believe in.
It's kind of anti-establishment,
and owned by a family,
and cheap,
and not about consumerism.
It's really about the love of film
and a community of people who love film getting together.
I moved to Los Angeles in 2001,
and I almost immediately found a New Beverly calendar.
And the calendar's so incredibly groovy and old school
and just spoke to me immediately and I saw it
and I said, "This is where I have to work.
This is the place for me."
And the first time I went,
I asked Sherman Torgan, the owner, for a job.
I asked him for a job every time I went back for five years.
- I was there every time she asked for a job.
Sherman tried to brush her off. She was very insistent.
- Eventually he caved
and he gave up one of his own shifts for me.
And right after I started working there, he said,
"Why did I not hire you five years ago?"
I said, "I don't know."
So I started in May of 2006,
and it's been fantastic.
(music)
In 1929, the building that the New Beverly was in,
7165 Beverly Blvd, originally opened as Slapsy Maxie's,
which was a nightclub opened by Slapsy Maxie Rosenbloom,
who was a famous boxer at the time.
- And, in fact, Martin & Lewis did their first gigs in L.A.
in that same building.
- It went through a bunch of different changes
from the '40s through the '70s.
There were some live theatre that was done there.
At one point it was called the Capri Riviera, a split,
which meant the theatre was split in two,
there were two screens. The theatre's so small,
I have no idea how they did that.
- I've been going to the New Beverly
since I came to L.A.
I have to confess that when I first came to L.A.,
the New Beverly was not a revival house,
it was a porno house.
And my excuse is that I was actually reviewing porno
for a trade magazine called Film Bulletin,
back when we used to review things like that.
Pornos were particularly fun to write about.
You could be so snarky.
- In 1970, it became the Beverly Cinema.
Now, the Beverly Cinema was a porno house.
The landlord at the time, his name was Howard Ziehm.
- Howard had been this porno director and producer
who'd done Flesh Gordon, which is actually a great movie.
He basically realized: Man, I'm making these porno movies
and I'm sharing the profits with the theatre.
And who knows how they were cheating at the box office.
So he basically said, "I'm gonna buy my own theatre
and book my own porno movies so I get 100% of the profits."
Around '77 or '78,
the LA Times stopped taking ads for porno theatres,
and so suddenly his business just dropped.
And so that's when Sherman decided to take it over.
- Sherman Torgan and some partners bought it.
And because the marquee says Beverly Cinema,
he didn't wanna pay to replace the marquee,
so he just changed it the New Beverly Cinema.
- It became revival house, and this was an era where,
in Los Angeles, there were a lot of revival houses and prints.
Of course, this was Hollywood,
there were studio prints to be had.
It was pretty much a movie-lover's dream.
The New Beverly was always a somewhat smaller venue,
but the projection was good and the people really cared
and it was very intimate.
- Sherman Torgan was simultaneously...
a father figure, a fellow traveler,
a culture warrior.
- Sherman Torgan,
this...
smiling homunculus in that scratched-up window.
He's like something out of a Dan Clowes comic strip.
- He was here every single time I came here.
- I would go to see something there
and Sherman would be at the box office,
then you'd walk in, Sherman would come around
and work concessions as well, like he was the only person.
- And he always had that weird energy of, like,
I'm getting to put on a show and show movies tonight.
- And he was a wonderful person
and really committed to what he did.
And even on the periods when he was down,
because the theatre wasn't doing very well,
he'd start making those noises: "Maybe I should pack it in."
I always would give him the pep talk,
but I kinda felt that deep down inside,
he didn't really mean it, 'cause what would he do?
I mean, this was his life.
- He actually knew how to run stuff up in the booth, too.
We'd have stuff break down up in the booth,
and Sherman might be, like:
"We gotta stop the show and we gotta do this."
And Sherman'd say fuck that he'd grab this new...
take the old projector head off and put a new one on,
slap it on, and say, "Let's go."
- Back when he was a hippie, he'd just fuck with the system.
He had great stories about how he'd get say a jaywalking ticket
and would insist on going to a trial with a jury
just to fuck with the system.
- One time a customer had come to the counter
and been really rude to me and I went up to Sherman,
and was, like: "God, that guy was such an asshole."
He said, "He can't talk to you like that.
Tell him to fuck off and get out."
That's like Sherman in a little capsule for me.
- I started going in '95, this was the summer of '99,
I'm buying a ticket for yet another double feature.
"I thought you'd be showing me a screenplay by now."
And that was the moment - and he wasn't trying to be mean,
but it was like: "You don't need to come here as often.
You need to stop hanging around the high school,
you've graduated. Go out and do other things.
...In the zoo. In your nightmares.
In the deep. In your favorite horror movies.
But not in your living room, on your TV.
- There will never be anything that gives you the beauty
and the enveloping sense that actual 35mm film does.
- It is actually about a mental connection that we have
with those images that are dancing on the screen,
because they are real.
They actually exist, on film,
with a light going through it,
with the shutter dropping in front of it,
the sound of celluloid going through a projector
and going over the spindles
and coming up on the take-up reel,
That is part of our movie consciousness.
Pffffff.... You make that sound,
and everybody thinks of the movies.
- Someone who can actually project 35mm properly,
you know, it's a dying breed.
There aren't too many left.
- I get a lot of comfort from knowing there's a projectionist.
There's a maestro, there's someone who knows
more about it than I do, in a weird way,
You know, it's the comfort. It's like a bus driver.
Nobody ever gets on the bus and thinks:
This bus driver is gonna like... No, you don't think that.
Maybe if the projectionist is and the bus driver are--
- You have totally lost me.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
- No, it's like having a tour guide,
somebody who's just sort of, you know,
kinda gonna hold your hand along the way.
- Aw... - When I'm not on set with you.
- I'm gonna keep doing this for the rest of the interview.
It's gonna get awkward at some point. Go ahead.
- My niece and nephew don't get the concept.
Like I showed my niece a piece of film and I'm, like:
"Look, light shines through this onto a big screen.
That's how it works. "Ah!"
- If somebody walks you through how a projector works,
and they say:
- As the films moves through the projector,
it first enters the picture section.
In this section is the projection lamp,
which is a very bright light source.
This light is concentrated on a single frame of the film
by a condenser lens.
The brilliantly illuminated frame of the film
is then projected by the projection lens
onto the screen.
As the film moves through the picture section,
it stops momentarily on each frame.
Next, the film enters the sound section.
Here, an exciter lamp passes light
through the soundtrack area of the film.
Sound waves cause the light beam to vary in brightness.
This makes the photo cell produce electrical pulsations,
which are then amplified and fed to the speaker.
- And that's how you watch a movie!
(funky music)
I had no idea how weird projectionists were
until I started hanging out at the New Beverly.
Like, projectionists are a specific type of... person.
- Just don't think we're good with people.
- Yeah, they need to socialize more,
get out of the booth.
- That's why more projectionists are like alcoholics,
or gone mad, or... really weird.
They're really weird. And I include myself on there.
- I think you become crazier.
- It's a stressful job.
I would have New Beverly nightmares.
- The job of a projectionist
is to make their job as invisible as possible.
- If the sound goes off and they have to say...
or focus, they know I'm there then.
I don't want them to know.
I wanna just keep everything going right.
Even making the lights go down,
just dim while they don't even notice it.
You don't want to know somebody's projecting this,
you wanna enjoy yourself, you wanna get lost in the story.
- I don't think anybody has as much fun when they're working
as somebody who works at the New Beverly.
- I often think: Where else would these people work?
- There's two people who work on the floor and a projectionist.
Like three people, per night. That's it.
- They're just nice. Except Matt.
What's up with him?
He smells like Fritos left in the sun.
It's really weird.
- Wocka! - He's someone who loves movies,
but is very serious about his movies.
- I'm not a very customer- service-oriented type of guy
with a customer-service job. But it works - it's the New Bev.
- He's the Hitchcock connoisseur of the New Beverly.
- Being a big Hitchcock fan growing up,
I watched everything on VHS.
So it really wasn't until the New Beverly
that suddenly I could see them for real.
And you watch something like The Birds
and it's a whole different movie.
- Marion, my best friend, also works at the theatre,
is sweet as pie, a smart cookie, and loves movies,
and has loved the New Beverly as long as I have.
- Marion... who's an actress,
writer and director.
- Very professional. Prim.
- Lookin' hot while she's, like, filling my drink order.
- She's so beautiful and so talented,
and she can really do it all.
- I've met filmmakers, actors,
that I've admired for such a long time.
I've got to screen movies that are some of my favorite films.
- I am Henry. I have been a projectionist
at the New Beverly since approximately 1981.
- I love Henry because he always looks slightly perplexed.
He loves music. Any movie: "It's composed by so-and-so."
- I am retired. I am no longer projecting.
I am projecting at the New Beverly.
- Vinny's our main projectionist and he is just a goofball.
- Usually the funny stuff happens to everybody else,
and I come down and then they tell me what happened,
I say, "That's funny. Ha-ha."
Then I go back and run the movies.
- Has one of the most endearing traits of madness
that I've ever seen in a person, which is quacking.
- Vinny makes this duck sound.
- He just walks around quacking.
- He kinda walks by you, goes "quack."
I'm not sure what that's about, but it does it all the time.
- Quack, quack, quack.
- I think he's been doing it so long,
it's become like a subroutine of his existence
where he will be quacking and not even realize it.
- It's probably something from the autism spectrum.
- Quack. Quack.
- He also likes to pit Matt and I against each other,
as far as who makes the best popcorn.
Because he constantly tells me I make the best popcorn.
"Seriously, it's really good. I tell Matt, but it's you."
Then he tells Matt the exact same thing!
- Does he? Sonofabitch.
- You do.
- Michael Torgan, Sherman's only son,
took over the business,
so he is now the owner of the theatre.
- He does all the pick-ups and drop-offs of film,
he books everything, he does all the concessions,
he's printing the calendars,
so he has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders.
- Michael has done a tremendous job
of keeping his father's legacy going.
- The day-to-day stuff is all Michael.
- Michael Torgan: equally brilliant,
wonderful curator,
a totally different personality,
but courageous and incredibly inspired.
And it gives me joy every time I come to the New Beverly
and get to hang out with Michael.
- And I can see Sherman in Michael.
I can see that he likes to let the program speak for itself.
- You know, he's responsible for a lot of people
being exposed to a lot of movies
that they wouldn't necessarily seek out on their own.
- Michael's about best boss I think I've ever had.
I have an easy job because Michael works too much.
- He's great and super chill. And he reminds me of Moby.
- My kids love the place,
especially my oldest daughter.
Michael Torgan gave us the run of the place.
He let us throw
her 10th birthday party at the New Beverly.
And I get choked up thinking about it,
because it means a lot to me.
And, uh... to think that somebody would care enough
to create that kind of experience for a little kid,
uh... that's... I'll never forget that.
I don't have to think of another reason
why the New Beverly is important to me.
- That's the tiny New Beverly family.
(light music)
- There's a magic alchemy that happens with an audience,
when a whole bunch of people are watching a movie
and following a story,
that's unique, I think, to all other arts.
Because it's a communal experience,
where you're actually having the same emotional responses
at the same time.
- There's a reason they're called crowd pleasers.
It's because the audible reaction of an audience
is... is very infectious.
- You need that audience interaction
to make certain things funny,
like Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, Jackie Chan.
You got a room full of people laughing,
it's like a chemical reaction between people,
where one person starts laughing and the next...
- If I'm watching a horror film, it's much more scary
if I can feel the 200 people around me are just as scared,
rather than I'm by myself.
Or if the ending's really sad, everybody else is crying.
Just amplifies the experience of what the film is.
- All those emotional reactions are muted
when you're in the man cave and you're by yourself
and you're watching some huge screen,
no matter how good the sound and visuals are.
- To have people kind of in league with one another,
in emotional sync,
is unique in society, and movies provide that.
Even if it's a bad movie,
if people are laughing because it's cheesy,
it's still kind of bonding people together,
and I think that's the magic of that medium.
- When I started taking movies around to festivals
and seeing the same movie over and over
with different audiences, you really realize
how different a personality every single audience has.
- I feel like when you go to the multiplex now,
there's a real lack of consideration.
People don't care about movies, their fellow audiences members.
It's so hard to go now without somebody texting,
or somebody talking.
There is nothing that makes me more angry
than someone ruining my movie experience.
I have almost gotten into a fistfight.
I take it really seriously.
- I'm a maniac about people talking.
I see the light of a cellphone, I lose my mind.
- 'Cause it's our little house. (ringing)
- Is that you? - Didn't turn off my cellphone.
Fired! - I always turn it off in the--
- This is appropriate. - It's actually your girlfriend.
- You're fucking with our movie experience, literally.
- Put your fucking phone away.
- I once tweeted through a movie,
and didn't read the reactions till afterward.
I felt I was so clever. Afterwards, it was two hours of:
What kind of prick are you, tweeting through a movie?
And I was: "Oh, shit, I forgot!"
- If you have a texting section in a movie theatre,
you should also have a sterilization section,
and they're sterilized so they can't have kids.
And then you go: "Okay, that's the tradeoff.
You wanna text during a movie, we get to sterilize you.
It could be a state-run thing. I'd sponsor it.
- The New Beverly, we don't have those problems.
'Cause people are there to see this movie
and they're really into it.
- What's wonderful about the New Beverly
is the camaraderie that forms.
- They absolutely adore cinema.
- They're the most enthusiastic audience you will ever find.
They appreciate the work that goes into making a film
better than any other audience, I think.
- And that really does something for what you're seeing on screen
and brings it alive and adds this other dimension to it.
- The New Beverly crowds are just genuine,
they're there to have fun, they're there to love cinema.
Uh, that sounded super pretentious.
- A lot of the people there are filmmakers,
or stars of films and so forth,
who have incredible stories to tell and have known...
You're looking at a film by Peckinpah,
they've worked with Peckinpah.
When I go there I always learn something I never knew before
about the movies I'm watching.
- I would describe the clientele of the New Beverly as...
people who make me nervous.
- When you go to the New Beverly,
you have to figure in time for people-watching,
because it's the best place in the city to see people
who are like you,
except you can judge them as weirder than you.
And they're not, they're totally as weird as you.
- It's wonderful to just go somewhere
where everyone's like you and you're accepted.
- Frankly, we are a large group of weirdos.
- Fringe-dwellers come drifting in at times,
and what have you, but that's cool.
Kind of like a party to which everyone's invited.
- I have slightly lower-brow tastes than you do,
so I go to a lot of the more...
grindhouse-y, genre-y kind of programs.
You still see the crusty folks.
The ne'er-do-wells showing up for those screenings.
- No. (laughter)
No, I... I don't, no.
- We're all different kinds of freaks, but we're all freaks,
and love each other and have fun together.
- If it was give itself to any kind of formality,
it would ruin the vibe.
- My dream was that you would know my name
when I walked up to the New Beverly.
- It's a little creepy.
- Yeah, my dream was that it would be like Cheers,
was that somebody... "Hey, Noah.
Hey, welcome. Good to see ya."
And when that started to happen, I felt like I belonged.
- Yeah, I really feel I've kinda reached where I wanna be.
- Regulars show up every day regardless of what we're showing
'cause they just wanna be at the theatre.
- Colourful characters around town, and you can, uh...
you feel a little bit special being able to have that kinship.
- I spend a lot of time at the New Beverly and it's kind of...
I'm kind of attached to the place.
Definitely,
if it's showing something I haven't seen before,
I try to make a point of going to see it,
unless I have good reason not to,
because that's the environment I like. And if you like that,
then you should support that kind of environment.
- I've been known to plan my time around the New Beverly.
- You can't write this stuff. There's Scruncher, popcorn lady.
- Who comes in, an hour late into the movie every time,
and she will buy a popcorn and then she will take her fist
and push the popcorn down into the bag
as much as she possibly can and then make us refill it.
- No matter how high you fill the bag full of popcorn,
she will find a way,
find little air pockets and mash it down.
- She's a doozy. - I've filled that thing.
"She's not scrunching this time."
And then, nope, she finds a way to scrunch.
- This old man, we call him Zombie Man,
and he would, in the movie, make this noise periodically.
It would always be the most touching scene in the movie,
and he'd go: (heavy sigh)
And everyone would laugh.
He would do this periodically throughout the movie.
Then he would fall asleep, but he would fall asleep
slumped over the chair in front of him, like this.
And people would come out to the lobby and be like:
"Um, I think there's a dead guy in the back row."
And we'd be, like: "No, no, it's just Zombie Man.
He's not dead, he's just sleeping."
- There's a guy who would come in
who would tell me a lot about his diabetes,
and order a Diet Coke and then proceed to order, like,
six different kinds of candy bars.
And then would come back an hour into the movie
and ask for more candy -
but had to get a Diet Coke 'cause he has diabetes.
At some point I'd ask Michael: "Should I cut him off?"
I feel like a bartender. "No, you've had enough, sir."
Yeah, it's an amazing group of people.
And then behind them, Matt Dillon will walk in.
It's a really eclectic clientele.
- Well-Dressed Man,
this youngish man who comes in
who is always dressed to the nines.
- I was raised by movies.
- He's got a fedora, his three-piece suit,
his pocket watch, his handkerchief,
his gloves, his trench coat.
Looks like he stepped out of 1940. Just amazing.
- He speaks very properly, so he makes you.
So: "Good evening. How are you doing this evening?"
I'm, like: "I am doing fine. How are you doing?"
Why am I talking like this?
- And always pays for everything in $2 bills.
- And he only pays in $2 bills.
- People like a $2 bill. It brightens up their day.
They think it's special.
It's worth a lot more than $2 to them.
- Corky Baines.
A former roadie for Iggy Pop, who was a hardcore drug addict,
then had three heart attacks and then found Buddhism.
And he's like super permafried, but he is so nice,
like the sweetest, sweetest guy, and he loves this place.
- I'm Corky and I come to the theatre.
I go on Sundays a lot, 'cause I'm riding the bus now,
so I'm a Sunday guy now.
And I come in and I walk in and I make sure right away
I start checking things out of my old habits
and make sure the seats are good.
- He was struggling with his weight a bit,
and was a hardcore soda junkie,
so I had to start weaning him off.
When he'd come to ask me, I'd be, like: "Hmm..."
He'd ask for like a large soda and I'd give him a water.
He'd be, like: "No, but I..." I would just stare at him.
Then he would take the water. Eventually he'd learn
that when I was working, he wasn't allowed soda.
I can give him his popcorn, he could have a candy bar,
but he's only allowed to have water with me.
- Yeah, 'cause I'm a little overweight.
In the old roadie days, I was real thin,
but since I'm not touring a lot...
And she said no more sodas on Sundays.
So this is I think it's almost two years now:
No Soda Sundays. (chuckling)
- Freddie. He used to drive for Orson Welles.
- I'm Freddie. I'm a regular at the New Beverly,
and I've been coming to the theatre...
two or three times a week and over a 30-year period.
- The great thing about Freddie
is he's constantly bringing us newspaper clippings
of things that are film relevant,
like if somebody dies, he always cuts out -
almost in a serial killer way - these clippings,
and then posts them on the glass doors.
- She saw me with a clipping out of the LA Times,
from the obit, and she said, 'Who died this time?"
- He's at the back of the theatre every night,
and if you can't get an interesting piece of information
out of that guy... you're just not listening,
because he's fascinating.
- One of our regulars,
who's the sweetest man on Earth, his name is Clu Gulager,
and he has been an actor professionally since the '40s.
He had his own television show called The Virginian.
- This guy is a legend unto himself.
- Where else are you gonna go to a movie theatre and talk
to somebody as awesome as Clu Gulager?
- The last seven or eight years,
I have considered the New Beverly my living room.
- He gives you a good insight about films,
'cause he's got a great point of view.
- He is a true cinéaste.
- The day that Clu Gulager told me
he was a big Harmony Korine fan, I about fell over.
- I see between 15, 16, 17 films every week
at the New Beverly.
- Every time he gets in there, he sits down,
puts his little piece of paper over his seat
to keep people from sitting by his seat,
or the two seats next to him.
- I've saved the seats to the left and to the right
for the filmmakers and the people
who want to ask filmmaking questions
so this is this is a very prioritized area of the theatre.
- Clu's all the way over... stage right.
- No, I didn't!
- Yes, and we named a seat after him in the Beverly,
the Clu Gulager seat. I put the tag on the seat.
- I don't know of too many theatres
that actually dedicate a seat.
- What happens when someone sits in Clu's seat?
- Shit goes down.
- To have that seat and to be honoured by folks,
you know, you say,
"It's only because you were an actor,
a big-shit actor."
No, it went beyond that.
We at the theatre I don't think we think that way.
I think we think in terms of people.
And that's what made me feel good.
- It's bittersweet with Clu,
because when his wife was alive,
they used to come to the Beverly Cinema
on a on a regular basis, sitting up front and all that.
He was devastated when she died and he told me...
he did say, "This is my new home now."
- Raison d'être. That's my reason for living.
When my wife died, I had no reason for living,
so I chose that.
The New Beverly.
It's not really a substitute,
but it worked for me.
I've gotten a lot of friends...
from sitting in the dark.
I've gotten Frank Capra,
I've gotten John Ford,
Marcello Mastroianni,
François Truffaut -
all kinds of wonderful, interesting friends.
And I've gotten a lot of good friends, also,
in the lobby. Good, close,
very dear friends.
And they will be dear friends to me until I die.
(music)
- Music to the ears of the hungry.
The sizzle of a mouthwatering hamburger.
Fresh lean beef done to a golden brown,
couched in a soft bun and garnished to taste.
Man, that's hunger heaven.
And you'll feel like you're heaven sent
when you get one at our refreshment stand.
- You know, we get all kinds of film fare there,
everything from Judgement at Nuremberg
to The Blood Farmers.
How's that for a segue-way? (laughing)
- It's the most fantastic programming in cinema
I've ever been around - and I've really been around.
- The way the New Beverly has always been programmed,
with the double features,
with the consistency within the double features,
the idea that you're going to get
a crash course in a filmmaker,
in an actor, in a writer, or a style.
- You can drag someone who's never seen
a Preston Sturgess movie and say, "Here, this is great.
Here, this is Billy Wilder, this is Howard Hawkes,
this is Buster Keaton."
- There are some places
that are super-duper pretentious revival-y places -
"We're playing only silent Polish shorts from the '30s."
But there's other places where they go to the other extreme:
"We're all crazy heads blowing up,
Dennis Hopper's in everything" kinda places,
where you're only going to see movies ironically,
and the New Beverly strikes a really nice balance.
- I love the way this is put together.
Look at that. That always goes on the cork board right there.
- You unfold it thus. - You put it on your fridge.
- So they would have a different colour every month,
so you get this rainbow effect when you have them all
stuck on your fridge at the end of a year.
Double features, and they just lay it out -
calendar style, if you will.
- I've seen the calendar from 1970,
the very first calendar that he did,
and it looks exactly the same to the calendars we print today.
- The New Beverly calendar, it's like the golden ticket.
Every time I see it, I say, "Oh that's the new one."
It's just fun to leaf through the pictures and descriptions.
I take great joy in that.
- When I walked into the New Bev and looked at the calendar,
same feeling I had: Ah, warmth that comes over you.
- After a while, it's like an addiction.
You look at it and go:
"How in the world am I gonna make it through July
without seeing that?
And when you miss it, it does feel like withdrawal!
Like: "Oh, no!!"
- I love collecting them.
It's just such a piece of history itself.
There's never gonna be that exact programming
for a month ever again.
- Going to the New Beverly on a normal night is great,
but going when there's a guest programmer is amazing.
- The way it works is that somebody,
either a director or an actor, will program for a week or two,
and they'll program all the double bills.
And they're movies that have either meant a lot to them,
or they've never seen before, and usually they'll bring
special guests to help them intro the movies,
or to do a Q&A afterwards.
- March and April of 2007,
Quentin Tarantino did a two- month run of grind-house movies,
and these were mostly from his personal collection.
- That's almost like he's showing you the DVD extras
ahead of the fact of his next film.
- In 2007, we had a double feature
of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz,
and Edgar Wright contacted us and said,
"Can I come down and talk?" We said, "Of course you can."
It went fantastically well, it was sold out,
and Edgar was really generous and lovely.
He and I got to talking. I said, "You should come and program
some of the movies you love." And he said okay.
So that December of 2007,
Edgar Wright programmed a week of his favorite movies.
And these movies were ones he loved watching, growing up,
and movies that had inspired him to be a director.
- Which was amazing, 'cause it was a great way
to see a lot of the films that I loved on the big screen,
sometimes for the first time.
And also, the great thing about Los Angeles
is that you can get pretty good guests.
It's a treat to see The Monkees's film Head
on the big screen.
It's even better to have Mickey Dolenz to talk about it.
Or to show Bugsy Malone and Phantom of the Paradise,
and get Paul Williams to come and talk about it,
American Werewolf in London and getting John Landis to come.
It's like a dream come true.
Doesn't matter how many times you've seen a film,
or how well you know it, it will never be as good
as watching it with other people.
In fact, there are some films I've watched here,
when doing my season,
that I feel I will probably never watch again,
'cause it will never be as good as that screening.
- One of the coolest things that happened
was when Edgar had his show and David Lynch showed up.
That was crazy! Edgar showed Wild at Heart.
I was so excited 'cause I hadn't seen it in a long time,
and Laura Dern was there, which was really, really neat.
- We have a back door that guests can come in
through the back door and surprise everybody.
So Laura Dern comes in and says, "I brought somebody with me."
- And then: "Oh, wait, there's someone in the back.
This can't be safe." And then fucking David Lynch walks out.
- À la Twin Peaks, just emerging from some sort of nether verse.
I didn't know there were doors behind that curtain.
Either he had been there the entire time,
or he was able to teleport.
- People go crazy in the cinema.
Like huge like standing O.
- Then he was all cool and just chatted about movies,
and was so normal and relaxed and we were all just like...
- Oh, now I'm doing a Q&A with David Lynch.
I am not prepared for this at all.
- It was the first time I'd ever seen Edgar tongue-tied.
- The first question that came out of my mouth
when I was trying to interview David Lynch
was just complete nonsense.
(laughter)
Some people had gone out for a smoke or something to eat
between the films, one of whom was Richard Kelly.
- That was... that was tragic.
I go on Twitter and I find out
that Laura Dern and David Lynch showed up, out of nowhere,
and it was just this mind-blowingly great Q&A,
with my hero David Lynch, and I was, um...
getting Italian food down the street.
- He texted me furiously later,
saying, "Why didn't you tell me David Lynch was gonna be there?
I wouldn't have gone to get something to eat.
I said, "I didn't know he was coming."
And I've never met him since.
It's literally like he came from the red curtain,
went back through the curtain, and I've never seen him since.
- It's always exciting to see what...
the director's pick.
- 'Cause you look at the list of movies and go: Oh, wow,
no wonder this guy's so great, or this guy's such a loser.
- If someone that you admire says you should see this movie,
I think it really gives you a better incentive to go see it,
that's part of what the guest programming series is for.
- That was one of the best weeks of my life, actually.
Being able to choose films I've always wanted to see
projected for the New Beverly,
having a week's worth of my favorite films.
I mean, I loved it.
Christmas came early for Stuart Gordon that year.
- It's very exciting and a dream come true
to be able to pick the movies.
And what they don't tell you until you get to program,
is that you get to pick the trailers too.
And there is a massive library
that comes from the network of friends
that support the New Beverly.
- I remember when Patton Oswalt was a programmer,
and, boy, they were right on it.
The Pelham 123/ Charley Varrick double bill,
that was awesome. Who else is going to book that?
- The main focus of the programming I've done so far
is I'm showing movies I wanna watch with an audience.
They're movies I've either seen by myself,
or I've seen them years ago in the audience,
and I loved the experience and I wanna see it again.
- Yeah, I got to program a week of con-man movies.
And uh, yeah, I did not feel worthy.
We had fun, we did a musical performance before one of them,
and I did a PowerPoint thing
and talked a little bit about the movies
and showed a little short before each one.
- How can you not be thrilled by your movie selling out
when they tanked when they were originally released?
- What the New Beverly has allowed me to do
is not only see my films in 35 mil,
but also connect with the audience
that grew up with the films.
And it's been a terribly rewarding, uh... process,
and I... I'm very very grateful.
- I was really impressed when Carnahan and Liotta came -
Narc and Smokin' Aces, right?
- Smokin' Joe. - Smokin' Joe.
- To watch it like that, with that group of people,
is to be in this wonderful time capsule
and to step back and you can be a viewer.
- It was really cool to see Joe
talk about... their perspective on movies.
And Joe said something that I think about all the time.
- That completely changed my perspective
on looking at his movies,
which are these sorta macho, you know, dude movies,
where you feel like there's a winner and a loser.
- That was pretty special, 'cause you're seeing it
with a group of people that are so appreciative,
and it's never disappointed me in that way, the New Beverly.
I've never had a bad crowd, I've never sat with a bad crowd,
and I've never screened a film with a bad crowd.
And invariably you always get the best questions.
- When you're in a place where you're with this crowd
who's all excited and waiting for this movie to start,
then the director of this movie walks up,
or the star of this movie walks up to introduce,
it's just gonna heighten your experience even more.
Then you're watching the movie and something comes up,
and you're like: "Why did this happen?
Well, can ask them afterwards."
So it just kind of adds to your experience
and makes it something more than just a passive experience,
where you're just sitting and watching a movie,
then you're going home.
You're talking to people and to the director about it,
so it becomes a way more interactive experience,
- Q&As, in the rest of the city, are, like, snobby,
and it's: "Look how much I know,"
"Oh, I'm so important to the world of cinema,"
and they make you want to kill yourself.
At the New Beverly
it's someone that's every bit as big a nerd
as you are nerding out.
- The New Beverly, it's fun, it's just fun.
It's so informal.
- And the directors there are always very accessible.
It's not like they're gonna be whisked off
into their limousine or something.
They're gonna be there and hang with you.
- There's something about walking through the doors
of the New Beverly that's the great equalizer.
- What's really nice about this theatre is people...
I think maybe because of the size of it,
so people are a little more candid.
- And it's awesome. They will go: "No.
It sucked to work with that guy. He showed up drunk and late."
And you're, like: Yes! Drunk and late! I'm in!"
- It's inspiring: it reminds you why you do what you do
and also why you're fortunate enough to do what you do.
This is what it's all about,
is the movie, the crowd,
and that connection and that experience.
- With mustard and relish, you're guaranteed
a mouthwatering satisfaction! Mm!
And now he slips his costume on, a beautiful golden bun.
There's his cue - blink! - to go out on stage!
He's a natural! He's the rage!
Meet this personality at our refreshment counter!
Treat the family!
- I mean, the theatre,
when Sherman was running it, the whole time,
he was always about to quit and give up,
because it was losing money and it was a nightmare to run,
and, you know, attendance was drooping,
'cause people wanted to watch DVDs at home
instead of having the group experience.
- I think he had just about given up.
And I, for one, don't blame him.
- I gotta stop. - Sure. Okay.
- He was always real cool.
You know, he let you come in the theatre,
and he'd go: "Cork, can you fix this?"
I'd go: "Yeah." 'Cause I always had tools with me.
And I'd fix the bathrooms or I'd fix something.
He was always real nice to me and you know it was real good.
And then when we buried him,
I threw in a bunch of New Beverly flyers in with him.
"Here, here's next week's show."
- In 2007, Sherman Torgan died unexpectedly.
He had a heart attack while riding his bike.
- It's devastating whenever something like that happens,
and when there's somebody as cool as Sherman...
I'd had other bosses, you know, actually pass away,
and I'd never really felt it as much as when Sherman went.
- I remember the day before he died,
I'd been at the theatre to watch a pirate double feature,
and as I was leaving,
Sherman was sitting on the stairs.
"See you tomorrow, Sherman," And he said, "Absolutely!"
And that was the last time I ever spoke to him.
Sherman's death was really hard for me in a lot of ways.
He was a friend and he was a fellow employee,
and he was someone I looked up to.
The thing that Sherman's death made me feel is... unfairness.
He had done something so wonderful with his life,
and was loved by so many people,
and started something so fantastic,
and... he was taken away.
And that was really, really painful,
something that really affected me,
and made it hard to work at the theatre for a while,
but also made it great to be there where he had been.
- There was just a huge amount
of flowers and tributes and candles outside
and it was a beautiful display of the love
that people had for this man and this theatre.
- When Sherman passed away, that really had, I think,
more of an impact than we probably ever suspected
because he created something
that was so important to all of us.
- I remember thinking... this is... they're gonna--
- It's gonna be over, yeah. - It's gonna be over.
Like, it's...
Because he was the New Beverly.
- I don't think we had a lot of hope
that the theatre would stay in business,
because it really had gotten to the point
that Sherman was running it as a labour of love,
and I don't know if he was even making money.
- You don't get into repertory to become rich.
You do it because you love what you do and you love the films
and you love the people who come to see the films.
- The landlord, Howard Ziehm, sold off the theatre
days after Sherman died, without asking the family.
He sold it to some people
who were going to turn it into a Chipotle and a Super Cuts,
which is about the biggest knife you could stab
into the death of the New Beverly.
- 'Cause Sherman was the owner of the theatre,
not of the property, the land of the building.
That's one of those, again, things that people
have trouble separating in their minds
Most businesses, it's in a plaza, a strip mall.
They don't own the strip mall, they own the business,
they rent the hole in the wall.
You know, it's the same kind of thing,
the New Beverly rented the building.
Even though it was designed as a movie theatre,
it could've been anything else.
- We really didn't know what was gonna happen,
we didn't have the capital to buy it,
and of course Michael, his son, was devastated,
and not in a state to be dealing with this kind of business plan.
- We were all kind of... really expecting the worst,
but, luckily, Sherman came to the rescue.
- We found the original contract that Sherman signed with Howard,
and luckily it gave us a right of first refusal,
so that way, Quentin Tarantino, who'd been coming to the theatre
since he was a youth and loved the place,
was able to step in and buy the building
out from Howard and the Chipotle guys.
So, essentially, Quentin Tarantino saved the theatre,
because we were going to close, and he stepped in and saved it,
and made sure the New Beverly
would stay the New Beverly forever.
- There's the business that's in the New Beverly,
and then there's the landlord.
The landlord's very supportive and we all love him, thank you.
- They kinda kept it, I think, low-key intentionally,
and also... 'cause it's still the family business.
And then Quentin was able to come in and contribute,
which has been wonderful,
and it not only gave the theatre a facelift,
but also gave the theatre some new energy
and it exposed it to more patrons.
- I felt like that was really the breath of fresh air
that the theatre needed after Sherman's death
that kind of gave you hope it was gonna be okay.
- I think that if Sherman were here today,
and he could see what happened after he was gone,
and how the place continued,
the people that stepped up to help the place continue,
and the incredible job his son is doing now in his absence,
I think he'd be really happy and really proud.
- I'm gonna have a pizza and popcorn and ice cream!
- And I'm gonna have a burger with fries and a soft drink!
(both): Yum! Yum! Yum!
- In November 2011, we received, at the New Beverly,
a letter from one of the major studios
who announced that at the end of 2012,
they would be stopping production of 35mm prints.
This was something that made me very, very nervous,
because although it didn't affect us immediately,
I could see down the line and how it would affect
revival cinemas and the New Beverly.
What I did was,
I created a petition, not to fight the studios,
but to ask for their cooperation.
I knew I couldn't change the digital changeover,
I can't stop that, that's beyond my power.
What I was trying to do was to ask the studios,
during this conversion, to remember
that there are revival cinemas and lots of people
who really care what format they watch their movies on.
And ask them to let their prints that are already printed
and archived remain available
for revival cinemas indefinitely.
I put it up online and it got
a tremendous amount of press and a lot of support.
We got over 10,000 signatures within three months,
from all over the world, from 60 different countries.
It was really fantastic to see all these heartfelt comments
from people saying how much 35 meant to them,
or how they were a projectionist and they lost their job.
It's a really, really widespread and personal thing.
- I couldn't have signed the petition fast enough,
because the fact that people don't count film
as an important thing to save is bewildering.
That makes as much as sense as someone walking into a museum,
taking Mona Lisa off the wall, breaking it across their knee,
and saying, "I have a digital picture of that."
It makes no sense. It's infuriating.
I can't believe that film stock is held to a different standard
than other mediums of art.
It's exactly the same.
And I understand that there's a time and place for finances,
for seeing the cost that storing film incurs.
I get it. But find a way to save these things.
You're never gonna get them back.
You're never going to get back a print
of a small movie made in 1942 that no one's ever seen
and nobody wants to see on DVD.
You're never getting that back, there's no way to recreate that.
And everything that all those people worked for -
everything that camera operator, that director, that extra,
that craft-services person worked for together - is gone.
It's completely gone.
And just saying that sends a chill down my spine.
- It's not like this petition is going to be submitted
to somebody who will then do something about it,
but it starts this dialogue going
in kind of the sphere of people who care about this stuff.
And it gets people realizing: This could actually go away,
and this thing could actually end up affecting my ability
to see these films the way they were meant to be seen.
- Yeah, I think you hit people where they live.
- The finality of it,
that the studios are taking this step
of cutting off sending prints out,
that kinda snapped a lot... I know it snapped my head up.
- Obviously, it's costly to store them,
and it requires a lot of space, and so on, but again,
so do a lot of things that aren't as important.
And I just think
this is about preserving... historical documents.
- It's kind of the end of film more than just the end of 35.
It seems we're in danger of losing something
quintessential about it without even realizing it.
- First-run and revival single-screen theatres
are barely squeaking by these days,
let's be honest.
To ask them all to upgrade to a digital projector
is a huge thing.
Digital projectors cost anywhere from $75,000 to $200,000.
And if you're a family-run one-screen theatre,
you're not going to have that immediate capital to do that.
And I know that a lot of small theatres
haven't been able to make this changeover, they're dying.
- The studios, especially those that have active libraries
are refusing to ship 35mm prints
and in some cases even junking them,
because they don't want to be bothered with it anymore.
And that's ridiculous.
To deny theatres like the New Beverly or the Cinematheque
the opportunity to show a film is nonsense.
Film should always be available as an exhibition medium.
- I think it's important for places like the New Beverly
to preserve that ethos, because it gives someone
an opportunity to witness it in present day,
as opposed to seeing it in a museum
as a reference of a time gone by.
- What is gonna be troublesome is the notion that studios
don't want to circulate existing 35mm prints.
- There's an audience,
and the studios just see this as small potatoes
and not worth their while but it doesn't cost any more
to cater to that audience.
- Nobody is against digital.
When I see a good-looking digital presentation,
I'm just as wowed as when I've seen
a good 35mm presentation.
Let it never be suggested
that this is supposed to be an either/or.
This is supposed to be a you and me.
- I'm not saying we shouldn't ever show anything in digital,
but what I'm saying is, just don't get rid of 35mm,
don't let this past die,
because it's part of film's history.
- A tiny number of the silent films exist
because the studios destroyed them
to get the silver out of the negative.
They didn't think they were worth money.
Unless you could re-release it or something.
It's a miracle that some films exist, period.
- Nobody expected silent films to go away.
The idea was that silent films and talkies would co-exist,
like black and white and colour, flat and scope, 2D and 3D,
and film and digital should be allowed to co-exist.
- Filmmakers and audiences should have a choice.
- This is a particularly terrible situation,
because they say you can just run it on digital,
but we all know the only movies that are gonna be put on digital
are gonna be Casablanca and The Wizard of Oz
and all the movies everybody has seen and are famous.
But the kind of movies that revival houses live on -
the quirky independent movies,
the offbeat B-pictures, those kind of things -
they're not gonna be available on digital.
And they're either gonna have to not show those pictures,
or they're gonna go out of business.
And I really am afraid that the studios don't care.
- Every single time we go to a new technology,
things are going to be lost.
They didn't transfer everything from 35 to VHS.
And everything from VHS didn't necessarily go to DVD.
So to count on the fact that there will be
a full accountability of a catalogue,
top to bottom, transferred to digital and everything,
no, that's foolish; that's just never gonna happen.
- It's not some idea that:
Oh, you're anti-digital or something.
No, it's what we can absolutely lose.
- I have seen Michael post signs up in the booth that says
this is the only print of this film,
and it is not out on DVD and not out on VHS.
Then I'll watch the film, and it's amazing,
but you know this movie by some random Japanese director
is never gonna transferred into a digital print
that they can ship around. No way.
So what happens to that movie if 35mm goes away? It dies.
- A lot of times you'll see movies out of print;
they'll never be released.
- How do you see these films
if not for places like the New Beverly?
- The connection to the New Beverly
and the connection to film are too interlocked.
They can't be... pulled apart.
- The problem with revival theatres
is particularly acute,
because, uh... they've long since relied
on studio prints and collector prints -
you know, prints, 35mm prints.
And I understand that when they pony up the money
for people's theatres to go digital,
part of the deal is they agree
to get rid of their 35mm equipment.
So, uh... a number of studios
have simply stopped supplying the prints.
They have the prints,
they just don't want to encourage their use.
I think they really would just like 35mm to go away.
- There's an agenda
to make this digital revolution complete,
because it's vastly economically advantageous
to film financiers and distributors.
- Now we have a duelling... Well, it's not a duel anymore,
it's a battle and it's more or less lost.
But we have 35mm vs. digital.
And as we know the studios have been trying
to get rid of 35mm for years, because of the bulkiness,
and you have to rewind it, mail it, pay for it,
and you have the projectionists and all that.
And it's a comparatively cumbersome formula
compared to getting a thing in a box
and putting it in a digital projector.
And this all happened very quickly.
Everybody knew this digital thing was coming,
but I don't think anybody quite realized
how fast it was gonna happen,
and how at the expense of 35mm it was going to be.
There are many plusses to 35mm,
one of which is that, uh...
it is the way movies were seen from the beginning of movies,
and there's something more romantic
about shadows on a screen than there is
looking into a box with ones and twos in it.
- You look at film that's been around for over 100 years
and has really never changed formats,
there's a reason it's been around so long.
It's something really stable, and if you have it in a location
with the right humidity and temperature,
it's gonna last a really, really long time.
Digital at the moment is changing formats
and upgrading so fast that we have no idea
where it's gonna be in five or 10 years.
- Every day we find out: Oh, gee,
my computer is now out of date, my software is out of date,
my cellphone is out of date... You can't keep up with it.
And it's like a financial commitment that we've made
that we have to keep assimilating
newer and bigger technology.
That's very much the reality in the movie theatres as well,
because every time digital technology is in place,
three months later, they say now it's time for an upgrade.
Those guys aren't paying for it. We're gonna pay for it.
And that's it. You got that...
35mm projector
you got that 35mm print,
that's like the Rock of Gibraltar.
It's there, it's unchanging,
and it doesn't come down and hit all of us on the head,
or it makes it too expensive for us to go to the movies.
- If it was a different format, people would be a lot angrier.
What if we say we're not gonna make printed books anymore,
You can have them on a Kindle, and they'll come out like that,
but bookstores: no more, no more printed books.
People would flip.
And I think this is very similar,
because it's no more physical prints.
- It's like looking at the Mona Lisa,
or Monet's Water Lilies, on a piece of paper, that big,
that's not what the artist intended.
And I think the art of cinema is really important,
because it is an art.
As soon as it becomes this disposable piece of flotsam,
then we might as well just cash it in.
- I know as a filmmaker,
my movie is different if you watch it this big,
or this big; or on your iPhone, this big;
than if you're watching it in a cinema projected correctly.
- My fear with digital is, does it go the way of the MP3?
Are we just squashing everything into this mid-range,
and we've lost the high end, the treble, we've lost the sub,
you know, we're not hearing that anymore.
You need only listen... put on an old album,
and you realize the sound quality
is so much more superior to what we have now, but, again,
we've been led down the primrose path
of digital is the way of the future,
and that's the only way to go.
I don't wanna see that happen with movies.
- Yes, they are. The final stage of the process
was seeing the DCP, then the different film prints.
The one struck straight from the digital out,
and the one struck from an internegative made from that.
- Oh, yeah, God, you could tell. It was night and day.
So the DCP, the digital of Looper,
looked pretty much exactly like the digital version
we were colour-correcting. It looked fine.
The film that was directly out, 'cause, at first,
they split-screen it with the digital.
And when they first do that, your eye automatically says
that film one looks fucked up, because it's jittering a bit;
because of the registration, it's a little bit crunchier.
Then they take the digital away and your eye adjusts to it,
and... suddenly it becomes the version that you favour.
It looks like a movie.
It looks like the thing we grew up watching.
It's got a life to it.
- It's a fairly tragic situation for, um... posterity,
because there is no such thing as digital posterity.
- You should only convert to digital
if it's a valid exhibition medium.
Films need to be preserved on film,
and that will never change.
And anybody who thinks digital is some kind of a storage medium
is an idiot and really fooling themselves.
There are movies that were shot in the early days of digital
where the original media has already become corrupted.
- And the sad fact is, I think that most people
don't care about these nuances that we're talking about.
And maybe they shouldn't care about them.
If they're getting the information
and they're engrossed in the narrative
and they fall in love with the characters,
I'm sure this is splitting hairs for them.
But for those of us that enjoy
the part of the process that is the craft part,
this is what craft is about.
There's this romance now on your iPhone and stuff,
for Hipstamatic and Instagram and all these things,
that are aping lo-fi image-making
because it's not just nostalgia;
there's something to be said for not seeing everything clearly.
There's an appeal to things that are pristine and new,
but for me, personally, there's a far greater appeal
to things that show...
the wear of time.
If the image is too perfect, too slick, too beautiful,
there's nothing evocative about it,
there's nothing human about it.
- Some of what is appealing about seeing older movies
is the feeling that they've been around for a while,
and here's the evidence.
The print itself has a history to it, it's not just the movie.
- If you wanna see a movie...
by a filmmaker who shot a movie in film,
you should see it in film.
- It's the push/pull of the old world
and the New Jack way of doing things,
you know what I mean?
Um, but I think side by side, I still prefer film.
- And it's an endless argument,
but it all goes to the value
of revival houses and 35-mil print
and keeping film alive.
Because if you don't see film projected in a mil projector,
you'll never have the sense of what that presence is.
It's very, very hard to describe,
but there's a beauty with 35-mil
that's gone with digital.
- Hey!
(sound effects)
They're ready, folks!
(old-time music)
- It's one thing the first-run community doesn't understand
about the repertory world,
is that it's really a brotherhood.
You know it's not competitive. Everybody pulls for everybody.
And in Los Angeles, if you walk into the American Cinematheque,
for example, you will see calendars
for the New Beverly and the Nuart
and the Cinefamily and every other theatre as well,
because we all pull for each other,
because everybody helps the other.
It's not a cut-throat kinda deal.
- The Prince Charles is like a cinema
that's right in the middle of London.
It's just off a side street.
It's this older cinema which shows second-run movies.
- The Prince Charles is the absolute twin
to the New Beverly, across the Atlantic sea.
Beautiful rep house and they do it like the New Bev.
Double bill, have fun with it and shit.
Good times. (music)
- I work at the Prince Charles Cinema,
and I'm the PR manager and repertory programmer.
My family don't think I have a real job.
When I told them I put films on, they're like that just happens.
Without further ado, please put your hands together
and welcome to the stage Julia Marchese.
(cheering and applause) (Julia and audience): Hello!
My name's on a fucking marquee in London,
so my mind's really blown right now.
I'm making a movie called Out of Print.
It's about the importance of revival cinema and 35mm,
and about how repertory cinemas all need to band together,
and Paul was nice enough
to ask me to come over and program,
so I wanted to include this in my documentary
to show that all cinemas kind of love each other.
- Having you here is having someone
who shares the same love and passion
for repertory cinema that I have.
And for me, meeting those people is a joy.
The New Beverly is a very famous theatre.
You pay attention to what people are programming around you
and programming around the world.
Because it's nice to see these are happening everywhere.
Sometimes you can get caught up in thinking
you're the only one doing it, and that can be a little, like,
fighting against this tidal wave of mainstream cinema.
But knowing there are groups of little guys out there
doing the same sort of thing, you're your own gang.
The New Beverly doesn't need to be in London
for us to admire each other's programming.
I don't feel competition
with regards to repertory programming.
I think it's very much a bit of a club,
and I have friends who are programmers
and there are always opinions,
and everyone's looking at what everyone's doing,
but at the end of the day,
if someone screens something that I wanted to screen
and they do it first, I'm glad someone's screening it.
- That would be interesting to try and enforce over here.
If they made us get rid of that, we wouldn't be able to show
80% of the rep stuff we show, because they just don't have it.
We built our audience on showing older films,
and you don't want to lose that.
Going digital and 35 on both screens,
we probably wouldn't be open.
Because the industry's changed,
not necessarily one that we wanted to make.
But since doing that and bringing these newer films in,
we felt even stronger about our roots and our history,
which meant we didn't get rid of the 35mm projectors.
In fact, we upgraded both.
If there was a 35 option, we'd take it.
But we do seek out prints, we do our best every time
to put a print on because the audience responds to it.
We screened To Live and Die in L.A. last week.
It was a pretty busy house. As soon as it started,
the guy behind me gasped and went: "Oh my god,
it's an original print!" You don't get that with digital.
I understand the need for digital now,
but you don't get that spark in someone's eye when it starts.
When I go and see a film, I wanna see a film.
I'm fully accepting that very rarely will I see
a new release on 35-mil, but I don't wanna lose
the history of the films I loved,
grew up on, to digital.
I understand some films don't exist on prints anymore,
having a digital copy of it is the only way this film's alive.
And that's fine. But if there is a print,
I don't see any reason why you're not screening that print.
Why would you not wanna see all those pieces of history?
Every speck of dust on a print is a piece of history.
And I know people like us get very romantic about it,
but that's the whole point: like, film is romantic.
Like, completely.
It's creating a world in front of you
that you just lose yourself in.
I think when you watch a film and see the marks and scratches,
it's all part of the history of that film.
It's been made, gone out there, lived beyond production
and the life it's lived sticks to it,
and you see that every time it screens.
- I think our current generation of filmmakers
are clearly looking to the past.
They show up at theatres all over playing old films.
I think the next generation of filmmakers,
if they don't have that,
then who are they gonna be looking to?
What are their influences?
What's gonna be driving them to make movies?
Are they gonna be inspired by, you know,
whatever $300-million explosion epic,
or is he gonna be influenced
by, you know, that quiet, intimate picture
that discusses real issues that potentially
could affect the way we think
about our country and the world?
It seems like we're pointing towards
a really bright future for film,
and for filmmaking.
And consequently, film-going.
But it's something that is, like, not set in stone.
If anything, it's probably more fragile than it has ever been.
- Just 'cause it's dying doesn't mean it's dead,
doesn't mean you have to let it.
"What a shame, look at it die. Why won't anyone help it?"
You can help it. Go out there. Bam! Eight bucks.
I don't think that was eight, but I'm bad at miming,
which is weird, 'cause I played Silent Bob.
Um, you put down your eight bits,
and you've supported, you're part of the solution.
- You're helping pay for the storage
and the preservation and the maintenance
of the print you're about to watch.
- I want the New Beverly to be around
for another 20 years or another 30 years,
because I wanna take my children there.
I want them to be able to watch Cary Grant on the big screen,
and to see Charlie Chaplin, because it's just an experience
that cannot be replicated at home.
It's a communal experience.
That's what movie-going has always been made to be.
- It doesn't really matter if the New Bev is showing 35,
it's showing digital, if it's you standing there
holding up film with a candle behind it,
I'm still gonna be there.
- It's magic.
And it's something that should be with us forever.
- It's like home, you know.
- It doesn't take a lot of people
to keep a revival theatre going,
it just takes the faithful.
- It's an amazing experience if you know it.
If you don't know, you will be glad you went.
And you're supporting something so much bigger
than just Rear Window on a big screen,
you're kinda supporting an idea.
But as our world gets bigger and bigger and bigger,
it gets, I think, more confusing and more difficult to understand
how the individual can contribute to this cause.
And I think it's as simple
as showing up to the movie theatres.
There is something powerful
about people showing up in numbers.
When you have a packed house, that says something,
that sends a message:
this is a place that is worth protecting.
So that's the first kind of easiest step:
if there is a theatre like that, you should be going.
And I think, collectively,
we could save revival-house movie theatres
and radically change the course of movies.
- Went to the New Beverly on a Friday night
to once again watch Casablanca with a group of strangers,
and we're watching the movie and everyone...
clearly no one was seeing it for the first time.
We're all just there.
It's like going to a church service.
I know the liturgy here, let's just go through...
the Roman Catholic mass right now.
And Rick is saying goodbye to Ilsa on the runway,
and he literally starts... getting on that plane,
and then the film snaps and the screen all goes white.
There was first this moment of: "Oh, man! Of all the places."
Then there was kinda laughter,
like: "Of course it would break right there."
And while they were up there trying to fix it,
everyone in the New Beverly that night,
on a Friday night, half-full,
we all started whistling As Time Goes By
until they fixed the film.
And I just feel like, in this transition now,
from going to see it in theatres to now it's filming,
we're just gonna have to keep whistling As Time Goes By
until they fix it again, and it goes on for a while.
We're just gonna have to keep doing that.
Like that's the version, in my head,
of how you survive the transition.
- Now, we haven't discussed the Old Beverly, have we?
We've not said anything about the Old Beverly.
I think the Old Beverly deserves some attention,
because she was hot.
- Take one!
- Aye! Jeez!
- I'm sweatin' like a crack whore with rent due.
- Want it louder? (both): Ah!
- Put your finger in there. No, don't do that.
- Ah! Jeez.
- Maybe now the fucking director's ready,
we can start this thing.
(crash) (Julia): Oh...
- That was very expensive.
- The New Beverly is like, uh, a mission, right,
in the sense of an old Spanish mission
on the California coast.
- I like to show up to my features
in a tube-top little ensemble.
It's got rainbows on it. Sugar sweet!
You can YouTube me at "rainbow tube top."
- The New Beverly is like a primordial soup.
- Security level... Ah, I can't even speak properly!
- Prolesytizing?
- ...projections. No, through... projection?
- Prolesolytizing?
- Projec... (Julia laughing)
- Hello, gluttons for punishment.
- Brain freezing up.
- Flames... side of my face.
- That's why I'm not gonna have kids.
I just don't wanna watch that much, like,
experimental improv theatre. (laughter)
- And have Bogdanovich on a bean bag,
talking about... The Last Picture Show.
Who wouldn't love that?
- Ah!
- Can't even make a proper joke, folks.
- They're making dinosaurs?! Oh, my God, let's go look!
Why aren't we filming that?! That seems way more exciting!
- Gently. - I'm trying to watch the movie.
- If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
And if a movie is not seen, does it exist?
And if you say something and your wife isn't there,
are you still wrong?
- I'm little Clu Gulager,
and I'm a regular at the New Beverly Cinema.
- That's me.
Hot Dog Gulager.
- And click. - Eee!
- I think she had me confused with George Peppard.
- Sorry. (laughter)
- Gotta do something about that fly.
- Hi. (indistinct chatter)
- Nice.
- Thank God no one was rolling. - Mark.
- You don't see Martin Scorcese blowing his nose, right?
- I'm sorry, keep rolling, keep rolling, keep rolling.
Go, go, go, go!
- Huh?
- I can pop and lock,
and then whaaaaaat?
* Pausing for plane pausing for plane *
* This is the musical number in the movie **
- Helicopter are exciting in their own way.
- Get in the choppa! - Helicopter--
- Hold for the helicopter. - I'm on a roll here, guys.
- Are we okay with the plane? We need to pause for the plane?
Fuck you, plane!
(imitating chopper)
- It's just like Hearts of Darkness.
(laughter)
- You can dub the planes in. You should just put the planes.
If you have a plane on your track,
just make sure you put a couple more planes in different places
so people think it's all part of the show.
- There you go. - Free advice.
- You're right, in all fairness, fuck me, guys, for sure.
(all making strange sounds)
(burping) - Excuse me. Sorry.
(laughter)
Testing.
(burping) - We burped at the same time.
(laughter)
(dumb laughter)
- I like that one. That was good.
- And what's my relationship with the New Bev?
Mostly sexual.
- That was it right there. - That was good.
- I have nothing further to say.
- Will I watch this film? I doubt it.
(old-time music)
- And now, folks, it's time to say good night.
We sincerely appreciate your patronage,
and hope we've succeeded in bringing you
an enjoyable evening of entertainment.
Please drive home carefully and come back again soon.
Good night.
Subtitling: CNST, Montreal