Main Art Theatre RIP

I can’t say I was surprised that Landmark Theatres stateside decided to close the Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak, one of three major art houses in metro Detroit over the last 30 years. The Main was a converted 1940s-era mainstream theatre that opened for foreign and independent films in the 1990s. Located at the corner of well, Main Street and 11 Mile Road in suburban Royal Oak, it also happened to be in a perfect location for downtown Royal Oak’s early hip renaissance, also one of the few metro Detroit walkable communities with lots of bars, restaurants and boutiques. The three-room venue remained the same all those years. Countless times did I drive up to 11 Mile, early or late afternoon, early or late evening, park in a sometimes sardine like lot due in part to spillover from next door’s Emagine cinemas super plex, a later addition to the area. I went alone, with girlfriends, with other friends, with groups of people, year after year after year. Yet Covid – or should I say Covid restrictions – killed it – and Los Angeles-based Landmark closed its only Metro Detroit theatre. But even before Covid, few were the times, at least in recent years, when any screening I attended was anywhere near more than half full. It might have been due to at least two screening rooms' rather cavernous sizes. Still, filling those seats is what any enterprise is all about and I didn’t see a whole lot of people at screenings. It’s sad, very sad. Now I await some developer demolishing the place and building yet another trendy hi rise condo to join others that have gone up around the Main - 11 Mile intersection. RIP The Main…..Meanwhile there have been two other large art houses in metro – the Detroit Film Theatre (DFT) at the DIA and The Maple Theater at West Maple and Telegraph in Bloomfield Hills. Just prior to the pandemic it had undergone a major renovation. It has now re-opened post-pandemic. The DFT still remains closed though films can be rented online. And Cinema Detroit, a later smaller addition to metro’s art house scene, located in Midtown near downtown Detroit, is also open. There’s also the more recent Film Lab in Hamtramck, to which I’ve never been. Of course, all of this is academic to Canadian cineastes as we still cannot cross the border for “non-essential” reasons due to Covid travel restrictions. And in Windsor and Ontario no theatres – mainstream or art house, indoor or outdoor - are open, period. 

Windsor International Film Festival cancelled again. But the summer riverfront drive-in is now permanent. And there may even be an indoor pop-up later this year.

These articles first appeared in Windsor Detroit Film's companion webnewspaper www.WindsorOntarioNews.com June 11.

While the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF) has cancelled its regular 10-day event again this fall – for the second year in a row – there still may be films in the pipeline for a sort of “pop-up” mini festival later this year or early next. Director Vincent Georgie said once the film distribution system gets back up and running, after major disruption because of Covid, and matters like health and venue availability are nailed down, programmers may schedule several films over a weekend indoors. “As soon as we sort of think, hey, there’s some sense of normalcy or whatever we’re going to pilot test, yeah, pop up a couple of days with five six movies - and really with only the goal of seeing how people are feeling,” he said. The festival announced this week it was cancelling the 10-day event, Canada’s largest volunteer run film festival and was in its 15th year in 2019. Georgie told WON.com this was largely due to films not being available from distributors, even this far in advance of the mid-autumn festival. “Speaking to all of our distributors across Canada they’re all like, we still don’t really have a handle on fall 2021, everything has a question mark on it and we still can’t get into any agreements,” he said. (165 films were booked in 2019.) There was also the question of venues like the Capitol and Chrysler theatres. These facilities themselves are “unsure what their operational plans will be even when it’s legally allowed to go back to sort of normal,” he said. As well, the festival’s “core” audience are retirees, many of whom buy 10-day passes. This is also the same demographic most at risk for Covid-19 and therefore would likely be “most reticent” to attend, said Georgie. Finally, though more countries are seeing their vaccine numbers increase there are still travel restrictions. That makes it almost impossible to fly in filmmakers which is a major festival cachet. “Filmmakers are really reticent to travel if at all,” he said. But don’t despair. WIFF, like every other organization, is monitoring the state of health, vaccinations and eased public gathering rules, and could in fact hold some mini event late this year or during the winter. “Could that happen in November or December – absolutely,” Georgie said.

WIFF Under The Stars, the Windsor International Film Festival’s bow to Covid restrictions last year as a way of showing movies in a socially-distanced way, will become an annual event, “Covid or no Covid,” festival director Vincent Georgie says. And expect an expansion in this year’s program slated for August, from two and a half weeks to a full three weeks. The drive-in, along the riverfront at the city’s Festival Plaza, proved a hugely popular event, with almost 100 per cent sell outs and about 7000 people attending. “I want to ballpark it at a solid five more days.” Georgie said of the expanded length. WIFF had to pivot last year because Covid restrictions – and the lack of new films in the pipeline – made it impossible to hold the normal annual 10-day festival in the fall. The drive-in was perfect since people could watch movies safely from their cars. “Drive-in was clearly super popular,” he said. “People love it.” Films were shown not only at night but during the day for families. “Because we invested in doing an LED wall we’re able to do daytime screenings,” Georgie, who also is the fest’s chief programmer, said. “So that really hit the nail on the head for families.” He said he’s already getting requests from sponsors and community partners of booking entire screenings for things like “staff appreciation.” WIFF organizers noticed something different. The market for the drive-in was substantially different for the regular festival, which shows many more foreign and independent films. The drive-in screened popular mass market films from years past. Georgie said about three-quarters of attendees had never gone to the main festival. He said the film selection was in part mandated by technical matters. Foreign films require subtitles and they couldn’t be viewed easily from parked cars. And more serious films, like about sex abuse in the Catholic Church (earlier screened at the fest) were downers when “sitting in a car on the Detroit River on a Saturday night.” The plaza holds 87 vehicles. The bottom line is WIFF Under The Stars is here to stay, even when the regular festival resumes. “It’s very clear to us how much people love drive- in,” Georgie said. This week WIFF announced the cancellation – for a second year – of the main festival. Georgie blamed this on the long timeline for booking films and the film world, production-wide, still reeling from the fallout of Covid-19. But he said a “pop-up” type weekend event of a few films later in the year may still be possible. 

Jeanne Moreau as inscrutable chameleon

 

Jeanne Moreau is one of those defining actresses of the French post-war cinema and a seminal figure in the French New Wave having worked with its iconic directors like Malle, Demy, Godard and Truffaut. But what’s fascinating about her is her chameleon like roles. In many cases it’s hard to tell this is the same actress from film to film. However, while the looks and appearances change from movie to movie there are commonalities - every character evokes sophistication, sexuality and independence. Recently (on the Criterion Channel) I caught five of her films. They’re only a tiny subset of her vast oeuvre including with many other legendary directors, mostly in Europe. (She died in 2017.) In The Lovers (Louis Malle 1958) Moreau plays a kept wife by her austere wealthy newspaper publisher husband, escaping to Paris on the weekend to a flamboyant female friend. Proper and poised is her demeanor here. But her inscrutability belies an awareness and ultimately a yearning for freedom. In Diary of a Chambermaid (Luis Buñuel 1964) Moreau is the poker-faced newly hired maid to a wealthy country family (the female equivalent to Dirk Bogarde in Joseph Losey’s 1963 The Servant). The belittling commands of “Madame” are water off her back as she privately mocks the family and surroundings, and eventually has them around her finger. There’s an hilarious scene in this absurdist drama when the house’s aged paternal figure asks her to model fetishist boots and she rolls her eyes in insouciance.  In Joseph Losey’s Eve (1962) Moreau is a high-class call girl in Rome whose sole interest in life is, well, really herself. Bored, almost amoral, she loves nothing better than retreating at the end of the night to her apartment, alone, and playing a Billie Holiday record. Ruthless and remote she plays a would be suitor for a fool and as a kind of other woman provokes a searing personal tragedy. In Bay of Angels (Jacques Demy 1963) Moreau looks entirely different as a platinum blonde. But her character is similar. Though frivolous and contradictory she is no-nonsense, a woman of her own in a story that takes us among the great gambling casinos of the French Riviera. Finally, in The Fire Within (Louis Malle 1963), a lesser role, she is the cool knowing intellectual and sounding board to an emotionally distressed recovering alcoholic. In all these roles, however, Moreau is alluring, physically as well as intellectually.