In the old days, we movie-lovers had to go to theaters to see movies; they didn’t come to us on TV or in video shops or via Netflix.
I still thank my lucky stars for the Atwood Theater at St. Cloud State University. (more on that later).
Way back when, if we missed a movie playing in the theaters, tough luck. It might come again for a second time but probably not. If we missed a movie, we missed it forever. I miss those days – that intense urgency to see a movie before it left town. I remember so well walking the nine blocks to downtown St. Cloud even in blizzards to see a movie on its last night before it disappeared.
In schools, in workplaces, so many would be talking about the latest hit movie because in those days, we were all “on the same page,” at least as far as movies go.
Back then, to my deep disappointment, foreign movies almost never played on our big screens, unless they’d win big awards. Year after year, I’d read in big-city newspapers reviews of these foreign masterpieces that I would never get a chance to see. Films by brilliant directors like Akira Kurosawa, Francois Truffaut, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard – to name just some.
Those movies never came to town for a variety of reasons: a stranglehold on film distribution by major American studios, audiences not liking to read subtitles, the often avant-garde styles of those movies, sensibilities and themes that were often more introspective than those of typical American films.
Reading about those movies, I would salivate with a longing to see them, but I knew I never would; I’d have to settle for reading about them, trying to imagine their visual impacts and powers. In 1963, to my everlasting gratitude, Fellini’s 8-1/2 opened at St. Cloud’s Eastman Theater for a seven-day run. I’d seen raves about that movie in the newspapers but never dreamed it would come my way. Its Oscar-winning status must have sent it to us. That movie, a visual astonishment, was like a long, intricate stream-of-consciousness poem in stark black-and-white. A wonderful puzzle. I went to it three times that week. It blew me away, and after all these years it’s still one of my top-10 favorite films.
Now, back to the Atwood Little Theater at SCSU. Starting in the early 1960s, the college hosted film festivals that showed foreign films and old classics in the Atwood Little Theater. Living only five blocks from Atwood, I felt like a kid in a candy store. Finally, finally I could see some of those masterpieces I’d been only reading about. Atwood is where I was thrilled to view – at long last – Orson Welle’s Citizen Kane, Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries and his The Seventh Seal, Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura, Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless and his Weekend, Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion and his Rules of the Game, Francois Truffaut’s Jules and Jim, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Erich Von Stroheim’s unforgettable silent film, Greed. They were the movies that never came to St. Cloud, movies that were visual revelations to me, such masterworks that they still land on Greatest Movies lists everywhere.
Since those Atwood days, virtually any movie is now available anywhere – via discs, streaming and so forth. And, thanks to Netflix, I’m still catching up on some movies I missed way back when.
Recently, I was glad to receive an email from Dr. Ana Conboy, assistant professor of French at St. John’s University/College of St. Benedict. She informed me the two colleges are about to feature a French film festival starting Oct. 4 at various locations on the two campuses. That good news brought back so many happy memories from my early years when friends and I trooped over to Atwood in all weathers to view cinematic marvels.
Sorry to say, I haven’t seen any of the six movies in the Tournees French Film Festival – yet. I do intend to see at least some of them. I hope others go see them, too. All people are welcome to attend the screenings, and – yes, don’t worry – there are subtitles for viewers who don’t speak French.
For more about the festival, see story in today’s newspaper.