The last (art house) picture show
May 5—details
Albuquerque
Guild Cinema, 3405 Central Avenue NE
505-255-1848, guildcinema.com
Las Cruces/Mesilla
Fountain Theatre, 2469 Calle de Guadalupe, Mesilla
575-524-8287, mesillavalleyfilm.org
Santa Fe
No Name Cinema, 2013 Piñon St.
Silver City
The Silco Theater, 311 N. Bullard St.
575-956-6198, thesilcotheater.com
The faded posters framed behind glass on the wall speak to a time when The Screen's film projectors brought us stories from around the world.
The posters advertise the 2019 documentary Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band, which played at one of Santa Fe's most revered art house cinemas, The Screen, during pre-pandemic times.
The Screen itself — which survived several prior attempts to close it — is now shuttered, its lobby nearly bare. The glass concession case in the lobby is devoid of the treats that once tempted moviegoers at the theater, which opened on the former College of Santa Fe campus in 1997 and closed for good when COVID-19 hit the state early in 2020.
The projection screen on the wall within the theater may still stand, but its voice has been silenced, as has been the case with many art house cinemas around the country, notably in Los Angeles.
It's an industry in trouble, some insiders say. And that has ramifications for Santa Fe's art house scene.
The art house cinema movement is "in hospice," says Ted Mundorff, who previously served for years as president and CEO of Landmark Theatres, a national chain of art house cinemas. (Its flagship on L.A.'s westside closed almost exactly a year ago).
Mundorff recently told Pasatiempo that he has concerns that some art houses will not survive and will go away.
Supporters of another longstanding art house cinema at the Center for Contemporary Arts have been working to ensure it doesn't go away after the board of that decades-old nonprofit voted to shut down operations in April.
The Cinematheque is scheduled to reopen in May, thanks in part to efforts by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Paul Barnes, perhaps best known for his collaborations with renowned documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. Barnes says he doesn't want to see the art house theater die, especially as so many others fall around it.
"The death of art house cinema is a complete horror show to contemplate," he says. "There's a whole cultural legacy that is being lost in terms of great cinema being made."
And, he adds, if those venues are lost, so is the potential funding for independent filmmakers who may find it "hard for them to find a spot to show their films."
Part of the challenge for art house theaters involves the aftereffects of the pandemic that continue to change the way people live — and see movies. With more stay-at-home screening options like streaming services, audiences are more likely to bypass the once traditional way of going to the cinema to see a movie.
Various industry reports released in the last few months indicate theater attendance has declined by about 50 percent in the last three to four years — including at art house cinemas. That means some of those stories that played out on the screens of those art houses will go away too, Mundorff said.
What that deprives audiences of, he says, is the chance to "discover a film... it's not a discovery when you go see Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible."
Art house cinemas, which have been running for decades, provide an alternative cinematic universe for viewers, opening windows to other worlds and the people who inhabit them. These smaller cinemas serve as the only place to see an Iranian film like No Bears or a documentary on The Fabulous Moolah or — in what was often the case at both The Screen and the CCA's Cinematheque — a revival of Sergio Leone Westerns. An art house theater is where you probably would have discovered directors Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise), David Lynch (Eraserhead), and Lina Wertmüller (Swept Away).
Film noir festivals also became a staple of the art house circuit. So did revivals of classic silent films, Hong Kong action movies, and B Westerns like the type directed by Budd Boetticher and starring Randolph Scott.
Film remains "the most persuasive art form the world has seen," says Jason Silverman, who ran the CCA's cinema for about 15 years. "And since it is such big business, it's important to have a lot of different examples of how the medium can be used rather than just a few. That's where nonaffiliated filmmakers — not affiliated with any studio or major corporate interest — have a really important place, not just in the world of cinema, but in the world of ideas."
While some foreign and art house films — such as The Swimmers, about two Syrian sisters fighting to survive hardships and compete in the Rio Olympics — are finding a temporary home on the streaming landscape, Mundorff says those venues are no substitute for an old-fashioned art house cinema.
He adds that streaming doesn't help independent films at all when it comes to slowly building an audience. "The film has to get out there and get word of mouth," he says. "Streaming does not provide that. There's so much content on streaming that nothing sticks out."
Bill Banowsky, who owns the Violet Crown cinema in Santa Fe — and who also worked as CEO for Landmark Theaters for years — says the days of releasing indie films in traditional theater settings where they could slowly build an audience and media attention "are really gone. So you see art house theaters trying to stay alive by playing commercial films."
While Violet Crown shows some art house films, it still primarily butters its bread with mainstream titles. Banowsky says the theater is dedicating at least one of its 11 screens to showing independent and art house movies. Art house owners, he adds, act as film curators, who seek to find gems to share with a dedicated audience who wants to experience a story that is much different than the one they might find playing on a screen in the multiplex at the mall.
"It's important to have those venues people associate with high-quality, foreign language, independent films that may not have enough commercial appeal to work in a commercial theater," he says.
Santa Fe has had a long history of art house cinema offerings. Starting in the 1970s, The City Light Cinema operated on St. Francis Drive for years, while the Collective Fantasy, which later evolved into the Jean Cocteau, opened on Montezuma Avenue in the early 1980s. Sci-fi author and Game of Thrones guru George R.R. Martin owns and runs the Jean Cocteau, which plays everything from vintage classics to 1990s hit movies to cult films to art house titles.
"It should be said that Santa Fe was an early player in what we now consider the art house cinema world," says Silverman, who is now one of the executive directors of Upstate Films, a nonprofit theater group that shows independent and foreign films in New York.
Silverman, like Banowsky and Mundorff, says art house cinemas have struggled to hold their ground for decades. "We never thought we could take our survival for granted," he says. But they learned "if you show beautiful things in the right spirit, people will come."
As technology and the pandemic tend to separate people, Silverman says the role of the art house cinema is more important than ever.
"Not as many people go to church or a synagogue as much as they used to," he says. "And I don't think as many people sit on their stoops with neighbors like they used to. So places where we can gather should be treasured more than ever, especially now, when there's so much divisiveness in the world."
How do we ensure the survival of art house cinemas? Go. See that wacky Bollywood adventure flick, dare to get close to the screen for a subtitled Norwegian experimental flick, jump at the opportunity to see Alfred Hitchcock's genius on a screen larger than your iPad, hit up that Chucky film festival. Buy snacks, go to fundraisers, attend movie lecture series, and donate — fans of the eclectic, foreign, and just plain weird movies are our best hope for the survival of art house cinemas.
Find listings for art house movies and theaters in Chiles (see page 36) and be sure to check out this sampling of art house theaters around the state.
