AS WES ANDERSON RECOMMENDS LOOKING AT DE PALMA'S 'RESPONSIVE EYE' ON iPAD MINI OR APPLE WRISTWATCH
A GQ Style article posted yesterday has Wes Anderson interviewing New York's Metrograph founder Alexander Olch, who is also a tie designer. Early on, Anderson contrasts watching The Godfather projected on a large screen vs. watching on an iPad mini, favoring the former, yet accepting the idea of the latter. This leads into a discussion of the theater-going experience, and to Olch describing a sold out screening of Brian De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise:Olch: To your point about the iPad—there's a lot of chatter of Well, now people just watch things on iPads. But I think that if you want to stay at home, you're going to stay at home. If you want to go out, you're going out. The key thing is that going to the movies needs to be an experience that's special. So I don't think it's about whether or not you can watch the film somewhere else. It's about whether or not you want to come for an amazing experience.Anderson: I could see a lot of young people becoming real movie buffs watching things on their phones and so on and then arriving in New York and going to Metrograph three times a week.
Olch: Yes! And there's real energy in the room. I recently stood in the back of the theater for the opening credits of Phantom of the Paradise, the De Palma movie, which I had never seen before. I wasn't going to watch it, but I stood completely still for the entire movie. It was a sold-out house. And the place went nuts during the film. It blew me away. I'm still reeling from that screening. People were leaving the theater and coming over to the bar and going into our restaurant talking about the film, getting even more excited about it.That's great. And, you know, that's one of those movies that you really couldn't see for years and years. It had kind of disappeared. And I expect that audience at Metrograph was a much better—I don't know if Brian De Palma was there—
He wasn't. He's coming tonight for Hi, Mom! and Dressed to Kill.I think, if he had been there, he might've said, I wish it would have played like this back in 1974.
Toward the end of the article, Anderson brings up De Palma's The Responsive Eye...
You know, there's one more thing. I guess we can say, That was a good ending, and then we just keep going. Have you seen this film De Palma made of an op-art opening at the Museum of Modern Art around something like 1964 or something?
No. No!It's on YouTube. It's maybe 25 minutes or so where he documented an opening at the MoMA. Wandering around the party. Filming people and pictures.
No kidding.Interesting characters. Some people we know. Anyway, it's one worth looking at on your iPad mini or your Apple wristwatch.
Absolutely. Most importantly, thank you very much.