The Paris Theater, an NYC cinematic landmark rescued by Netflix in 2019, will officially reopen August 6 with the streamer’s The Forty-Year-Old Version by Radha Blank and a week of repertory films programmed by the director.
The only single-screen movie theater in Manhattan and the borough’s largest, with 545 seats, has hosted limited theatrical engagements since March that included Netflix’ 17 Oscar-nominated films, retrospectives of Charlie Kaufman and Orson Wells, zombie movie classics and a Bob Dylan film series.
The Paris closed in August of 2019 after its lease with City Cinemas expired. That November, Netflix entered an extended lease agreement, said to be for ten years with owner the Solow Family, to keep the theater open and use it for events, screenings and theatrical releases of its films. The first was Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story. The theater was shuttered by Covid-19 last spring.
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The 40 Year Old Version is Blank’s debut film and earned the 2020 Sundance Vanguard Award and the Gotham Award for Best Screenplay. It was released on Netflix last fall.
The the lineup for the Paris Blank has curated includes: John Cassavetes’s Shadows, Robert Townsend’s Hollywood Shuffle, and Billy Wilder’s The Apartment; Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon; Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank; Kathleen Collins’s Losing Ground; Nick Castle’s Tap; Christopher Guest’s Waiting for Guffman; and Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail. Losing Ground will be followed by a discussion with Kathleen Collins’ daughter, Nina Collins. Hollywood Shuffle will be followed by a video conversation with Townsend.
After opening week, the theater will show films that previously premiered there in ‘The Paris Is For Lovers’ series curated by Paris programmer David Schwartz — the longtime chief curator of Museum of the Moving Image who joined Netflix last year as Manager of Theatrical Programming. That runs through August 26 and includes a few Netflix films (see list below). It’s not been announced what the streamer plans to show after that.
The Paris is For Lovers series:
Claude Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman
Bertrand Blier’s Get Out Your Handkerchiefs
Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet
Louis Malle’s The Lovers
Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan (with Stillman in person)
Albert & David Maysles’s Grey Gardens
Jean-Luc Godard’s Vivre Sa Vie
Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie
Alfred Hitchcock’s The Trouble With Harry
Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake
James Ivory’s Room With A View
Ira Deutchman’s Searching for Mr. Rugoff (with Ira Deutchman in person)
Marcel Carne’s Children of Paradise
Todd Haynes’s Carol
Roger Vadim’s ….And God Created Woman
Pietro Germi’s Divorce Italian Style
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear
Jacques Becker’s Casque D’Or
Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal
Orson Welles’s Othello
Luis Buñuel’s Viridiana and Belle de Jour
Just Jaeckin’s Emmanuelle
James Ivory’s Maurice and Howards End
Jean-Charles Tacchella’s Cousin Cousine
Alain Tanner’s La Salamandre
Terence Davies’s The House of Mirth
Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name
Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story
