It seems that the arthouse continues to soar. I’m thinking of Mark Asch’s recent Film Comment article on the three new independent cinemas opening in New York City: The Low Cinema, a new single-screen movie theater in Ridgewood, co-founded by filmmaker John Wilson; The Metro Theater, a historic Upper West Side movie house that was recently purchased by a nonprofit led by film producer Ira Deutchman; and a new year-long cinematheque in the Rockaway neighborhood of Queens being built by team behind the Rockaway Film Festival. Regardless of how their modes of operation and offerings differ, the people behind these endeavors are all convinced that there is an ongoing, strong demand for experiencing movies in a collective setting. And if you have been following reports on the state of the arthouse, you already know that it is the young audiences driving this trend. This is something we can attest to at the Cinematheque as well: Our annual growth over the last year saw a significant amount of increase (almost double) in the patronage of those 25 years old or younger. Young people come to the movies to share in an experience they have been deprived of during the pandemic – a form of enjoyment that they cannot replicate on their own. They are curious to see the classics on the big screen that they have been reading about as they dive deeper into what cinema can offer. They want to learn about the canon as well the outliers. And they want to be there when a new movie puts its name in the hat to become a new cult favorite.
I say this as I remember the feeling. Well, not particularly of witnessing something attain cult status in real time, but of having that innate, though unexplainable knowledge that the movie you’re seeing is special, even if no one – yet – knows about it. Let’s go back.
Summer of 2003. It must be July, the month that Istanbul empties out. I’m spending the school break in the city, dealing with existential anxieties that visit certain teens of a certain temperament, mostly on my own. However, I do not mind being on my own. See, my neighborhood was so that I didn’t need a car, money, or even company to enjoy it. I could just go out, check out the record stores, look at the shop windows, come back home walking.
On another afternoon like this, idling away so as not to be home, I see the title Donnie Darko (it had just got released in Turkey) on the marquee of a small theater I didn’t visit too often, tucked away in an underground arcade from the 1930s that shared space with second-hand bookstores. I didn’t know the movie, and I didn’t know it played there. I saw the poster though, and it intrigued me. I went into the lobby to look at the film stills they used to hang up on the pin board. I bought a ticket. I killed some time going through the stacks of books piled up in front of the bookstores. I then made my way inside the theater and took a seat. There was no one except me. As the trailers were coming to an end, only one other person joined me in the theater. Then the film started. It would be hard – and too personal – to share the details of my state of mind as I watched the picture, but I can say that there was a singular reverberation between the film and the mood that marked that lonely summer. And I remember how that experience in that almost empty movie house – a cool and pitch-dark movie house in total contrast to the July sun outside – felt quasi transcendental.
This is perhaps why I am so excited to bring Donnie Darko to our screens on Donnie Darko day in October, in a brand new 35mm print. Besides our film series which all include in-person appearances by special guests (Julian Glander for Boys Go to Jupiter, Liam Young for the Architecture & Film Symposium, and Erik Piepenburg for Martyrs), make sure not to miss Faust with live musical accompaniment by The Silent Light. See you at the movies!
Bilgesu Sisman, Director of Cinematheque