Get Thee to an Art-House
To an independent theater go, and quickly too. (And not to "Dune 2.")
Art-house theaters are in trouble. This isn’t news—art-house theaters have always struggled. (For some of the challenges, and attempts to overcome them, see my 2011 article “How To Create a Thriving Arthouse Theater (Almost) Anywhere”.) So when there was rejoicing around the recent news that director Jason Reitman and his prominent filmmaker friends came together to purchase Westwood's Village Theater, I didn’t think this was a good thing. There have been lots of stories of philanthropic efforts and nonprofit foundations coming in to save vintage and independent movie theaters (see Maine’s Colonial Theatre) from extinction recently. But when a business depends on the benevolence of rich people, it’s no longer a business: It’s charity. How many Quentin Tarantinos does it take to save art-house exhibition in Los Angeles? Apparently, a lot.
On the other hand, corporations buying indie theaters as PR tools is worse news for art-house cinema exhibition. When Netflix bought The Paris Theater in New York City, or Rivian (yes, the electric truck company) recently purchased and reopened the South Coast Theater (pictured) in Laguna Beach, CA, this isn’t saving independent cinema so much as providing promotional space for a product—where movies happen to be showing. Once Netflix or Rivian decide this particular ad-spot isn’t paying off, you can say goodbye to these theaters, because these companies are not in the movie theater business; they are trying to sell subscriptions or trucks.
Recently, I’ve been told about one major art-house theater chain that is severely delayed in paying out money for movie rentals to a number of indie distributors. While I still need to dig further into how much this exhibition company is derelict in their payments, it isn’t a good sign. If the companies who have been created to exhibit indie films are continuing to wrestle with the COVID-era changes in moviegoing and unable to thrive, the business model they were founded on just isn’t working. Just look at Arclight—or the number of stories about movie theaters closing in the last year.
Since Sundance, there have been a lot of discussions about the ways in which film stakeholders need to come together to try to help the “indie ecosystem” stay afloat. I have a forthcoming article in Filmmaker Magazine that explores some of these strategies, but it’s interesting to hear the range of ideas, from people calling for more government support—a la nonprofit models—to those calling for more philanthropy or help from billionaires or new more equity-friendly models—a capitalist-friendly approach. Either way, it doesn’t seem to address the fundamental problem that people aren’t going out to see indie movies in theaters as much as they used to.
So here’s a simple idea that doesn’t require foundations or millionaires: Forget the Oscars next weekend and just go to your local art-house. There’s a lot of good movies to see that deserve a big screen. And I don’t mean “Dune 2.”
Festivals and art houses, whether in major cities or in multiple towns and cities across our country, need diverse funding sources to survive. Its interesting here to talk about "art house chains", which for a beat, sounds like an oxymoron to me, but whether independently owned or nonprofit, you 're absolutely correct: GO SEE A MOVIE. Because whether you are buying a ticket or making donation, or a company underwriting a cinema (I still love the Paris), a cinema only survives if its community wants it to survive. Appreciate this piece!
Getting people to WANT to go out to a movie, any movie, requires a lot of marketing power and expense. Perhaps a coalition of film stakeholders — from organizations to studios to theaters to producers — should underwrite a pervasive and powerful "GO SEE A MOVIE" marketing campaign to "float all boats." This must be something highly creative, not a slapdash effort by bureaucrats. Award-winning, even. Who would be a catalyst to pull this together?