Painting and essay by Robert Beck
A movie house is hallowed ground. A temple of storytelling, of enlightenment, of soothsaying. We need only look through a list of movies from decades past to see them reflecting, and in some cases leading, the cultural evolution of the time and place they were made. Movie theaters played a huge role in defining America. There is nothing like experiencing a good film on a big screen in a full theater.
Sure, some movies are manipulative crap or formulaic, but others are thought-provoking. Unfortunately, the best often don’t have enough gunplay, explosions, gore, loud noises, and emotional trauma to make it to your Hollywood Multiplex. Enter the Arthouse.
When I was a kid in North Jersey, I would watch Million Dollar Movie on the family black-and-white television after school. I tuned the set to WOR Channel 9 and stretched out on my belly with my legs under the sofa so my feet were near the heat register. I watched a lot of movies that way. I can’t tell you how many times I saw King Kong.
When I was old enough, I would see films at the PALACE in Bergenfield. It was later chopped into five screens and eventually became a Korean barbecue place. The new owners paid homage to the theater by naming the 260-seat restaurant Meat Palace.
Not many old-school single-screen theaters survived Blockbuster (ironic name), Netflix, and the multiplex cinema. This image was painted inside the Uptown Film Center, between 99th & 100th on Broadway, which used to be the Metro, and before then was the Midtown—a curious shuffling of geography. For a while in the 70s, it was a porn house…a meat palace in its own right.
A violence happened here: not to a person, but to the muses. A previous owner gutted the theater when it closed, leaving a cavernous shell with remnants of decoration peeling from the walls. Statues that stood on either side of the proscenium are long gone. I tried to describe the atmosphere, guided by the ghosts of Gable and Garbo, Bogart and Bacall. That Egyptian vibe. Is that buttered popcorn? It’s all there in the walls. Walls that watched us dream. Watched us surrender. We are getting another chance.
Uptown Film Center is a non-profit. They own the property. The business plan is modeled after successful theaters just like it. Right now, people have to go a considerable distance to see this kind of filmmaking. The Uptown is going to make a huge difference in the community. People will stay. People will come. Businesses in the area will benefit.
For many, films have been an alternative to the realities of their lives from an early age. A friend who ultimately worked in the movie business said that when he was a kid, his family was constantly moving, and the movie theater became a familiar place he could go wherever he was. It’s that way for many of us. Those for whom a theater is a second home will enjoy a menu of independent and international releases that are less about shock and awe, and more about illuminating truths.
When the Uptown reopens, the 20-year silence will yield to movies that matter and the conversations of people who love them. Dionysus, the Greek god of fertility, ecstasy, and theater, will be there, watching us fall in love with good cinema again.
Note: Before Robert Beck started West Side Canvas, his essays and paintings were featured in Weekend Column. See Robert Beck’s earlier columns here and here.
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