While other movie theaters around the country screened the current box office hits last Thursday, volunteers at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art showed a film more than eleven years old: Dead Presidents.
“[The film] is about the failures of civil rights,” said show captain Cort Rankin, a Weinberg senior. “It expresses the rage of returning [Vietnam War] veterans on how little things have changed.”
Since its creation in 2001, Block Cinema has been showing films important to art, politics and culture — though not always the ones that made money. The hybrid museum/cinema and student film group screens classic and contemporary films every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night.
Before a film makes it to the screen at Block, it goes through a long process.
It all starts with the programming committee. Made up of about 15 people, the committee chooses which films get shown. It meets once a week and chooses three film series per quarter. Each series — a group of movies unified by genre, director, time period or central theme — is selected two quarters in advance.
“I always like the discussions we have during programming meetings,” Rankin said. “It’s interesting to see how someone might group movies in a way that you might not have done otherwise.”
Usually, the students on the programming committee create one series per quarter.
Block Cinema Director Will Schmenner and a three-member faculty advisory committee must approve all committee choices.
Most screenings this quarter are part of three different series: “New Jack Cinema,” “Ride Lonesome: The Western Hero,” and “Fritz Lang: Relentless Emergencies.”
Thursday’s screening of Dead Presidents was part of the “New Jack Cinema” series that Rankin created last spring. The series includes films released in the 1980s and ‘90s, a majority of which were made by black directors and largely black casts.
“I originally conceived it as [representing] this historic moment where black filmmakers broke down stereotypes,” Rankin said. “It was a unique moment of expression for black cinema.”
“Ride Lonesome” complements the Radio/Television/Film course, “Radio, Television and Film Genre: Western.” It features western films with release dates ranging from 1925 to 1992. The movies highlight a variety of western heroes who mature while facing the frontier.
The “Fritz Lang” series coincides with the Block Museum’s current “From the Trenches to the Street: Art from Germany” and “Lovis Corinth: Weimar Period Prints” exhibitions, and spotlights many of the director’s German Expressionist films.
Like “Fritz Lang,” some series are made to coincide with museum exhibits.
“But we only coordinate them when it makes sense,” Schmenner said. “Only when it’s not forced.”
In addition to the programming committee, Block Cinema boasts 30 other student volunteers helping out as ticket sellers, projectionists, show captains and various other positions.
“Volunteers are the heart and soul of the operation,” said Communication junior Jamie Dobie, a volunteer and member of the programming committee.
The volunteers learn a lot through hands-on experience, according to Cate Smierciak, projectionist and fellow Communication junior.
“I learn more at Block than I do at some at of my classes,” she said. “You start as an apprentice and learn from another student, who teaches the next. It’s just hanging out with your peers and learning from them.”
As a projectionist, Smierciak has to arrive at the museum an hour and a half early to prepare the film reels. With a 35 millimeter film like Dead Presidents, about six reels are needed for a two-hour movie. Rewinding the reels, she checks the film for damage and looks for the cue marks indicating that she has to change to the second projector.
With the help of her assistant and Rankin, the show captain, Smierciak then runs a test reel on both projectors, adjusting the position and focus.
When the screening actually starts, the projectionist is still at work preparing additional reels and switching projectors every 20 minutes. Generally, the volunteer doesn’t even get to see the movies projected for the audience.
“You can watch it through the tiny windows,” Smierciak said. “But it’s not the same experience.”
In order to get a large audience for both screenings and special events, student volunteers tackle marketing on top of their other duties.
“It’s a lot of flyering, a lot of e-mailing,” Dobie said. “The first week of the quarter, we go to all the businesses in Evanston and distribute calendars.”
About 10,000 Block Cinema calendars are printed every quarter and are on hand in class buildings, dormitories and at the Block Museum of Art.
However, the calendar is not Block Cinema’s only publication: Day for Night is a magazine run by Block Cinema’s Film and Projection Society. The biannual periodical gets released as a supplement to the screenings at Block, and provides movie analysis to those in on the film scene.
Despite their marketing efforts, some volunteers wish more of a younger crowd would attend the screenings.
“The majority of our viewers are Evanston residents,” Dobie said. “We have been trying to create series that appeal more to students.”
Occasionally, the group will plan special events aimed specifically at students. For example, Block Cinema screened Pandora’s Box, a 1929 German movie, on Friday night and paired it with live musical accompaniment by Andreas Kapsalis and his band.
“Any events with musical accompaniment attract a lot of attention and are a lot of fun,” Smierciak said. “I wish that more students knew about them.”
But Pandora’s Box is just the beginning: “We’ve got some great stuff coming up in the spring,” she said.
Potential events for next quarter include Turkish film screenings, “Sonic Celluloid,” which is a forum for experimental films in cooperation with WNUR, and a film festival to highlight NU student filmmaking.
Looking further ahead, Block Museum and Block Cinema are planning a unique collaboration for fall 2007. While Schmenner curates the museum’s “Alfred Hitchcock as Artist” exhibition, Block Cinema will show Hitchcock movies at every screening. This partnership will replace the usual three series.
With new movies coming out every week, Block Cinema offers students the chance to see uncommon films in an intellectual environment.
“I like it because I can play films like [Dead Presidents] in a museum,” Rankin said. “We’ve got some damn good movies here.”
Block Cinema hosts screenings every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in the Pick-Laudati Auditorium on the first floor of the Block Museum of Art. General admission tickets are $6 for each screening, and $4 for students, seniors and Block Museum members.