Looking back at 2020

by Gary Palmucci | 31st December 2020 | Gary's Corner

Several decades ago the esteemed Italian director Marco Bellochio made a film titled “Salto nel Vuoto,” or “Leap Into the Void.” If the transition to 2021 after this incredible year feels to many of us like a similarly vertiginous leap, here at New Plaza Cinema we also feel fortunate that — with your invaluable enthusiasm and support — we’ve been able to at least figuratively “keep the lights on.”

Even before the pandemic changed everything, our year had started calamitously when the beloved NYIT cinema was destroyed in a January flood. You, our loyal audience flocked to a benefit screening at Symphony Space, stirred by “Cinema Paradiso” and the late Ennio Morricone’s soaring themes, and the Museum of Art and Design quickly agreed to a revived film program in mid-March…but we know what happened then.

Like dozens of other independent cinemas around the country, we knew we had to come up with alternate ways of engaging you until theatres could even think about re-opening. Fortunately a group of indie distributors soon created an informal network, offering their releases to what became a national “virtual cinema” chain, which we were able to join. Since then we have played over a hundred films to date, with many more already scheduled for 2021.

We also got into the podcasting business with our Classic Film Talk Back series, where I was joined by my long-time friend and colleague, Max Alvarez. I suspect just listing them here will trigger some Sunday afternoon memories:

Swing Time, It Should Happen to You, The 400 Blows, The Last Picture Show, The Band Wagon, No Way Out, Baby Face, The Swimmer, I Vitelloni, The Manchurian Candidate, She Done Him Wrong, Le Samourai, My Darling Clementine, The Stunt Man, The Red Shoes, Paris Blues, Christmas Holiday, Breathless.

Special support from Claudine Bacher and Janise Bogard made The Red Shoes and Le Samourai programs possible.

Max also treated us to a series of effervescent lectures on Hollywood Musicals, Hitchcock, Mae West, Paris in the Movies, 1946 in the Cinema, A History of Movie Stunts, The Art of Movie Opening Credits, and the collaborations of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

Over 6,000 registrants joined us for these events, along with some special guests both announced and “surprise: — Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s daughter, Burt Lancaster’s niece, Diahann Carroll’s daughter, “Stunt Man” Steve Railsback’s nephew and “Paris Blues” novelist Harold Flender’s daughter.

Along the way several of our hard-working team mastered Zoom….and we survived a Zoom bombing!   We also launched our new website.

Now, as 2021 looms we are hopeful to secure a screening space for that long-anticipated day when we can gather again, and the lights go down….We can’t predict just when that will be, but the closing this year of Landmark 57 has created both a shortfall and an opportunity for art film exhibition on our beloved Upper West Side.

With your continued support and steadfastness, we hope to fill that need for this community…please keep watching these screens, wherever they may be!

Thank you and Happy New Year!

Gary Palmucci and all of us at New Plaza Cinema