Little Theaters, Big City

By the time “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” made it to America about two years ago, it had already enjoyed great success. The Romanian film with an unknown cast and a laughable budget became the little movie that could: It quietly debuted at the Cannes Film Festival that year and ended up winning top prize, the Palme d’Or. As if that weren’t enough, A.O. Scott gave it an enthusiastic review in The New York Times – he called it the best film of the year. It deserved an audience in America and, at last, it would receive one.

After all the fanfare, though, its premiere in America was a quiet one – only two art-house movie theaters in the whole country screened it on its opening weekend. You’d think it would’ve had a wider release in New York City, where there are about 40 movie theaters in Manhattan alone, but it only opened in one: The IFC Film Center, whose plain marquee hovers over 6th Avenue like a news headline. It’s a broad marquee, big enough to include excerpts from various movie reviews. That night, it boomed, “‘BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR’ A.O. SCOTT NY TIMES.” In that light, it probably deserved better than the limited release it was reduced to.

Audiences didn’t mind, though. The one that gathered at the IFC snaked along 6th Avenue, far beyond the tattoo parlor and the abandoned KFC. (The same one that had trouble with rats some time ago – surely you haven’t forgotten.) Even people who had never went there before stood in line eagerly for tickets, talking among themselves about the films of Jodorowsky and Kurosawa while they waited. Some of them already knew they’d be back: According to the headline/marquee, the David Lynch film festival was starting soon.

Turnouts like this are not uncommon, not in a borough with at least 10 independent movie theaters. Some of the larger ones – like the IFC – play about 11 programs apiece. Ticket sales are great, and why wouldn’t they be? Lots of people love to see films that deal with content that Hollywood won’t. “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” dealt with a Romanian college student who wants to have an abortion while Ceausescu’s tyranny makes it illegal to do so. It was nothing like “Juno,” the multiplex favorite that involved a spunky American girl who finds out she’s pregnant: Not only will she have the baby, but she’ll give it to a lonesome couple.

The Hollywood film became a nationwide hit, while the foreign film became a local one. John Vanco, vice president and general manager of the IFC, said he wasn’t surprised. “I credit New York City with being, perhaps after Paris, the best place people can go to see a million great movies,” he said. “New York City draws a population – and it has for generations – of people who are interested in adventurous forms of film. So it’s the culture of New York that supports the very diverse kinds of programming for theaters. There are a lot of things you can get away with in New York that you can’t do elsewhere.”

Clearly. The IFC opened here in 2005 and became a neighborhood favorite in just three years. In spite of its success, Vanco said that it’s only the beginning. “We’re still the new kid on the block and there are still people who come here to see a film who are coming here for the first time,” he said. “We’re still developing our audience and letting people know we’re here. But our audience is growing from year to year.”

It seems that theaters like the IFC are taking independent films in another direction. Vanco, on the other hand, said that it’s a return to form. “We don’t run 20 minutes of ads before our films,” he says. “Back 50 years ago when people went to the movies all the time, you weren’t assaulted with commercials. There was an A feature, a B feature, a short and a newsreel. There was some heft to the experience…We’re trying to be cognizant of that having been a positive thing and counter some of the reasons why people hate going to movies.”

They do better than that – they offer alternatives that multiplexes won’t. As a matter of fact, it’s not unusual for the IFC to be the only theater in the country – or the world, even – to take a chance on a different kind of movie. “Mister Lonely,” a film about an island full of celebrity impersonators (Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, etc.) premiered at Cannes two years ago, but didn’t get the attention that “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” was blessed with. Still, when it was brought to the attention of the IFC, they couldn’t resist. When it opened, “Mister Lonely” was shown in only one movie theater in the world – this was it.

They’re not the only ones, though. While the IFC begins what may well be a long and rewarding life on 6th Avenue, the Anthology Film Archives doing good business on 2nd – its third location in 38 years. They’re just as unconventional as you’d assume an indie movie theater would be, but they’re even more bohemian than that.

“I think that there’s just more access to that kind of culture in a place like New York than there might be in a lot other cites,” said John Mhiripiri, the administrative director and exhibitions coordinator at Anthology. “I think that we’ve had periods that might be busier than others, but I think over the course of every year for the last 10 years, it’s been steady.”

It’s not as easy as it sounds. The IFC and Anthology survive because they’re run in New York, a city with the demographic and population to support it. Either element is crucial: Independent movie theaters in Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. profit from the large populations in each city, while the ones in Austin, Los Angeles and Seattle profit from the demographic. In that light, New York’s twofold advantage makes it something of a rare bird.

Brush Nash from www. the-numbers. com said it’d be nearly impossible for these kinds of theaters to survive in places that don’t have the elements to support them. “In most parts of the country, maybe 1 percent of the general population is interested and has the time to go to independent movies a few times a year, so you’re likely for find 10,000 customers in a city with a population above 1,000,000,” he said. “So as a rough rule of thumb, you can expect to find small indie movie theaters in cities with over 1 million people. Bigger cities can be expected to have more indie movie theaters.”

Nash agreed that New York is somewhat unique in two crucial ways: “First, it has a young, media-savvy population. Second, it has the density and transportation infrastructure that allows residents to get to theaters all over town, and often to have a choice of theaters within walking distance.”

New York might’ve been one of only two cities where “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” premiered in America, but the turnout on opening night at the IFC proved, if nothing else, that business depended on three things: Location, location, location.