Great Cinema: Lesson 3 - How I Got Hooked

Learning to watch art movies is important. As a very young man I first read about Bresson, Bergman, Hitchcock and Fellini films in columns written in the New York Times, New Yorker magazine and the Philadelphia Inquirer. The writers would gush about a particular movie and then tell you where you could go see such a film. Even in the 1960s and 70s it was not easy to find theaters playing these types of films. There would be a paid ad next to the column describing the movie.

For the first year or so I read about these movies and stared at the small still photos sometimes printed beside them. I saw some on television by staying up late at night. The local community college screened old classic movies sometimes but that was a long walk. Then in 1972, a local movie theater in my little small town was leased by Amos Farruggio, the retired owner of a Philadelphia trucking company. Amos started showing what where then called nostalgia movies along with “second-run” hit movies. My future as movie-buff was assured.

Oddly, I pretty much stopped reading about movies before going to see them. I knew there were articles that dissected the movie’s meaning, along with books about movies and directors. But I found that even the short description of the movie in the paper or on the VCR sleeve was a spoiler so I would try not read them in advance. I wanted my art neat, straight-up and there in my head fresh for me to decide.

Using an 50-year old RCA projector (actually a RCA/Breakert/Simplex) Amos projected films on the screen of a theater built in the 1930s in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Newtown is an old colonial American town. The combination of old town, old theater and old movies somehow became successful. I saw Fellini movies, Bella Lugosi acting, and so many different types of movies available in no other locations.

I was still a young boy and not really permitted to see these movies but after talking with Amos and his wife, when I was caught sneaking in, we agreed I could watch some of them, often from just outside the projection booth up in the balcony. There were times when the place was nearly empty, but I always showed up. On school nights I showed up. I showed up to watch the same movie two or three times. I scraped up coins to buy the ticket. They gave me free leftover popcorn. I was advised not to mingle with the crowds during Intermissions. Yes, Amos gave the viewers an Intermission so they could smoke a cigarette outside the old wooden theater.

Sometimes the movie broke and Amos has to rethread it through the projector. Once in a rare moment a reel got mixed up. Amos quickly fixed the situation but this meant I got to see a scene again. I also came back to watch great movies two or three times. The tickets were quite inexpensive and I was flush with paper route money. I occasionally took young friends but they were bored and the girls sometimes got embarrassed. Classic movies are often more sexy than modern movies.

In addition to being a trucking company owner, Amos was also a projectionist and clearly a cinephile. We talked about the movies before and after the show and during intermissions. I could see the giant projector running and watched him swap the reels, this being nearly as much fun as the movie itself. The movies were sometimes violent or sexy or had foul language but I learned very little new from those scenes alone. I was an avid reader of books and magazines and my family was hardly puritanical.

This was my initiation on watching old movies, reading the subtitles, and enjoying every minute of the show. My head was spinning like the reels themselves during the long walk home. I would pen essays about the ideas these movies generated in my head. I still do, obviously.

In the years ahead I also watched many more classic movies at the nearby community college, in art museums, and eventually on VCR tapes and DVDs. I learned to try to watch several movies by the same director in sequence. I still do this today, watching three or four by  Fellini, then 4 by Hitchcock, then Woody Allen, then Bergman. This is the way you gain a deeper understanding of a particular director’s style.

Great Cinema: Lesson 2 - Get Started Now

Your first assignment as a budding connoisseur of the world’s greatest movies or “cinephile” is to watch Ingmar Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring”, Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” and Frederico Fellini’s “La Strada.” You don’t have to watch them in that order or even in the original Swedish, Japanese and Italian, with subtitles. This assignment is not some indication that these are the three greatest films ever made. I provide these three films simply to allow these directors the opportunity to teach you how watching a movie can be a truly life-changing event. If you are unable to sit through through any one of these three movies, perhaps you might want to go back to television sit-coms or modern blockbuster movies.

I want to be very clear from the start. Really great movies are “moving” in every possible way. If  you let them, some movies will crawl under your skin and stay there, for the rest of your life. This is a good thing, for Bergman will teach you an entirely new way to experience what it means to be a human, Kurosawa will demonstrate how great actors act and Fellini will just make you cry like a young lover again and again.

Throughout the duration of this course, we are going to dig deep into even more complex movies than these three great films. You will gain a greater appreciation for many directors currently making movies. I will teach you very little or nothing, I am merely opening doors into classrooms where the most fantastic professors stand waiting to teach you at any time of any day.

If these movies happen to be playing at an Art Movie house in your city, by all means see them on the big screen. Otherwise rent the DVD or stream the movie from Netflix or another source. There are versions with the English language dubbed in, I don’t doubt those versions convey a similar message. I have not watched all of them in English, I rarely can stand to watch any foreign movie with the actor’s original voices dubbed over with some other voice. Watching a movie entirely with subtitles is a skill you must acquire to appreciate the best cinema productions.

There is no point in kidding anyone about this effort you are about to undertake. An appreciation of the best directors, movies, and actors will take time and effort. Many great movies are lengthy, few were originally made in English, most were made with black and white film. You will not like every movie you watch. There are chase scenes, love scenes, horror scenes and of course comedy, sometimes all in the same movie. There are scenes in each movie that will terribly confuse you at first. Each director stamps scenes with almost mysterious precision. You must watch two or three movies by the great directors to comprehend the depths of their perceptions.

There is a pot of gold brimming over at the end of this effort, I can assure you of that without a doubt. It is a reward steeped in human understanding, compassion and heartfelt emotion. You will walk down any street with a greater understanding of what it means to be alive, simply for having watched the movies I am about to introduce to you. Trust me, it is worth the great effort it will take. See you back here soon! 

Note: If you rent the DVD of Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring” be sure to listen to Ingmar Bergman’s October 31, 1975 speech at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, California. This speech was part of the the Harold Lloyd Master Seminars. It is a treasure of knowledge about film-making.

Great Cinema: Lesson 1 - Cinema Can Be Art

Good evening. Some may tell you of their recent fascinating experience at a local cinema hall. She may describe to you the action and suspense encountered, the emotions felt or the fear conveyed, all through the big screen. I will be seriously discussing those ideas and far more but to a depth and breadth intended to educate and illuminate any serious cinephile.

For the past 44 years I have made it my personal goal to understand the great movie makers. For me this includes actors, directors, camera operators, sound, special effects and costume people though I will focus my lens primarily on directors and actors. This will not only be a discussion of Alfred Hitchcock, Frederico Fellini or Akira Kurosawa and those who worked alongside these people, no, no. While they are listed among the great directors there are many others that deserve not just mention but discussion at length.

Toshiro Mifune, Audrey Hepburn, and Jimmy Stewart will be praised at great length. The performances linked with great directors like Max von Sydow mostly in Bergman films, Takashi Shimura with Kurosawa, Jean Gabin with Renoir, and Ruth Chatterton with Michale Curtiz are well-worth exploring at length.

At times you will hear me elaborate on likes of G.W. Pabst, Mizoguchi, and Bergman. The wonderful French directors Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson, the striking German director F. W. Murnau, Austrian Fritz Lang and the more recent Russian director Zvyagintsev will certainly fall within the scope of this discussion. I will not avoid controversial figures or movies like the Reifenstahl's or Polanski's of this world. Please write me questions or invite me to your university lectures, I am eager to participate in real discussions, while I am still able to do so.

My motivations for screening all these movies were not just about snuggling up against the warm body beside me. For these same 44 years I have been a still photographer and writer. In order to improve my talents I decided from the beginning to conduct a parallel study of the arts . Exploring Degas, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Cezanne and Monet originals in the world's great art museums alone would not suffice for me, though I do so. I have always mentally placed Fellini, Kurosawa, Welles, Satyajit Ray, Ozu, Lang and Bergman in the same great halls.

I go to great lengths to find works of art. I do not typically view a masterpiece just once. I cannot tell you how many times I have screened La Strada, The Hidden Fortress, Through A Glass Darkly and many, many others. I try as hard as I can to find and watch every movie made by Ozu, Hitchcock, and yes, Spielberg, Kubrick, Scorsese and Allen.

Many question how such a thorough study could possibly accomplished by one man alone. My life is composed of many live human experiences, of that have no doubt. I have lived and worked in New York City, Kolkatta, Port au Prince and Washington, D.C.. I have dear companions who also enjoy movies. I still work and sleep a total of 80 hours most weeks. I will be brutally honest with you about life itself throughout these cinematic discussions. I am able to closely study tens of thousands of hours of classic cinema because I do not watch modern television programming and because I was taught how to manipulate time itself. There will be more about that skill at a time appropriate.

In the days when I still could, I stopped the projector, rewound the movie and played back a scene. Ever since being able control the DVD, I review the credits to learn the names of the crews, I stop critical scenes and ponder the camera angle and I play the movie with different soundtracks, listening to the actors in Japanese, French, Russian, Bengali and English. I also listen to the critics and directors as they watch their own movies.

Much like the movies themselves, there will be an ending to this discussion, no doubt. But that will only come with my unfortunate demise, whenever it happens to occur. My associates have assured me that I have digested and extensively explored too many thousands of hours of classic cinema to take it all to my grave. I sincerely hope you enjoy the show.