The Theater of the Future By Timothy Noordermeer The Capri Theatre, established in 1941, stands as a symbol of a bygone era and a social fixture promoting the importance of community involvement in cinema. An intimate alternative to the over-priced, selective, mainstream theaters. Courtesy of cinematreasures.org. Montgomery, Ala. - It s 1954, and the moon and street lights illuminate the cafes and storefronts of Cloverdale, a small, hole-in-the-wall section of city tucked within the historic homes of downtown Montgomery, Alabama.
Sweethearts are looking for a good time as they stroll down the sidewalk beside restaurants and theaters promising a night to remember. The night is late, and the local, one-screen theater is playing Alfred Hitchcock s Rear Window, and young lovers are looking for a thrill scary enough to encourage embraces of security and warmth. The Capri, like many theaters, was the locale for the perfect date, and today, in 2017, this theatrical experience continues to beckon high schoolers, college students and married, call-the-babysitter, couples searching for the right kind of venue to kindle or rekindle romance. Thirty-one years ago, Martin McCaffery moved from Washington D.C. to become the director of the Capri Theatre, and he continues to display his love for the distribution of films. I was a projectionist in the Projectionist Union up in D.C., so I knew about film equipment which nobody here did, McCaffery said. I enjoyed showing the movies and the physical contact with them. The projectionist quickly grew disenchanted with the big business types of L.A. schmoozing with filmmakers to catch the distribution deal of a lifetime.
I just didn t like the biz, McCaffery said. It s living and dying by the phone. When you get a job, you are always looking for your next job, and if you ever hear any of those cliched Hollywood speech talks that people do, they do talk like that. They re like, Hey, if you trust me, it s going to be fabulous, wonderful! It is a very precarious sort of job, lifestyle. Some people like the constantly changing job of having to work on really crappy movies. McCaffery was proud to separate from the Hollywood shuffle to maintain Alabama s longest, continually-operating, movie theater, and The Capri Community Film Society was established to preserve the historic movie house. It is a fixture in the community, McCaffery said. It s a relic of a pastime in movies before multiplexes when you had neighborhood theaters. We provide the opportunity to see movies that otherwise wouldn't be seen, so we maintain a certain degree of presentation quality that may not be available at other theaters. The director distributes films within minority interests compared to the larger-budgeted, mainstream content produced by film companies like Disney s Marvel Studios seeking to entice all demographics. We generally don t do superhero movies, McCaffery said with a chuckle. We bring in films from around the world. We bring in films that are obscure and some that are not so obscure. Right now, we are running a documentary about cats in Turkey. Next week, we are doing The
Zookeeper s Wife, which is one of the subsidiaries of the big studios, but it s there small feature art branch. When searching for the right film to present at the Capri, McCaffery tends to avoid movies laden with special effects, and he seeks variety as opposed to financial-powerhouse productions in the box-office, top ten. Saturday, we have the Black Maria Film Festival tour which will be an hour and a half of short films chosen by a film festival dedicated to cutting-edge, experimental shorts around the world and country, and we do monthly classics, McCaffery said. Lots of stuff for lots of different people. The Capri strives to captivate audiences with different forms of innovative entertainment, but without funding and a full-time staff, the theater is limited on selection for classic films McCaffery deems as educational and inspirational. People sort of think that movies are like books, McCaffery said. When they come out, every bookstore in America can get one if they want. It s not like that with movies. They ll say, Oh, we don t want to put it there! They will hear the review on N.P.R., but it s not available in Montgomery for another three months.
According to McCaffery, foreign films are the most neglected in distribution unless the movie is nominated at the Oscars, and by the time the film is chosen, most theaters are booked with other titles. Winning the nomination for Best Foreign Film is always kiss of death, McCaffery said. It s been that way since 1983. If you can show it during the nomination period, that s good, but after the day of the Academy Awards, nobody cares about the Academy Awards. Henry Weinstein figured out you don t have to release them until they get nominated. If they don t get nominated, you can dump them. As the Capri struggles to display maverick movies from foreign filmmakers, the director likes to present local, innovative talent in film festivals, if financial restraints permit. In short films, you get to see people working completely differently than feature films because they don t have to fill up 90 minutes, McCaffery said. They can concentrate on one little piece of weirdness. In the fall, we have the Manhattan Short Film Festival that is trying to be more pop-type, short films. Some people start out in shorts and use that as calling cards to get features, and some people spend their whole careers doing nothing but short films. Some people write novels, and some people write poetry.
McCaffery believes allowing short film festivals, foreign films and other movie oddities benefit the community by providing entertainment relevant to film frequenters of the 50s to the millennial movie buffs desiring a different film experience. There s a community aspect to motion pictures that is often discounted in the days of Netflix, but leaving your home, choosing a destination and seeing a film with other people is a cultural phenomenon, McCaffery said. With a few exceptions outside of the porn industry, movies are not meant to be seen alone. They were created and meant to be seen by a group of people, and that is an important part of the art is being able to see something other people are reacting to. The film My Big Fat Greek Wedding solidified McCaffery s belief in the power of watching entertainment in a group after a guest suggested the laughter in the theater added to the theatrical experience. People were laughing their asses off, McCaffery said. Everybody I ve talked to that didn t see it in the theater, but watched in on T.V. said, I don t get it. What s so funny about this movie? Comedies need to be seen in a crowd where it actually becomes infectious. Within a crowded theatrical setting, all emotions are amplified and many communities have lost this unification of emotional knowledge as single-screen theaters were put out of business by large film conglomerates with more screens and an emphasis on experiences shared with strangers compared to friends and family.
All the old, little theaters, McCaffery said, pausing before finishing his sentence. Those are all gone, and you pretty much have to build from scratch now. The whole digital thing is more expensive and more painful, so this organization was just lucky to be doing it when they did it. When the Capri Community Film Society gained ownership of the Cloverdale theater, no one knew how to work a projector, so they hired McCaffery to run, finance $30,000 and ultimately, save the Capri from a fate shared by most single-screen, small-town theaters in Alabama. Every town should have their own local theater, but they don t, McCaffery said. It s unfortunate that everything is now multiplexes. It s a McDonaldization of movies. There s no character to it, and nobody seems to miss the old multiplexes when they died because they re built to be disposable. McCaffery explains community film theaters were built with the hope to last forever, but over 1,300 have been decommissioned and destroyed. If you are a independent, mom-and-pop theater running first-rate movies from Hollywood, more than 50 percent of that ticket price goes back to the distributor, McCaffery said. If you re in Montgomery with a 10 percent sales tax, that s gone. It s not a big, money-making thing.
Owning a small-town theater may not be a lucrative adventure, but the lack of funding has not stopped the creation of new community film theaters. McCaffery has encouraged and aided other film buffs to build single-screen theaters in their communities, and notably, a theater in Mobile, Alabama, named the Crescent has grown in popularity. Max Morey, a former real-estate developer and marketing executive in the casino industry for 23 years, combined his skills in marketing and networking to become the operator of the Crescent Theater under the approval of the Crescent Theater Film Society. Every city that wishes for growth and success really needs a single or a two-screen theater to make it happen, Morey said. Our intentions are to show films that don t go to a multiplex. We are trying to give our community options to see films other than blockbusters. Morey has no qualms with big multiplexes, but he feels the 10-to-16 screen theaters are concerned with younger audiences waiting to see the next big-budgeted, animated film. The Crescent s goal is to find local artists in need of screen time to gain publicity for their latest film projects.
We have never said no to a local filmmaker with a small film, Morey said. We are here to help, so we have shown dozens of smaller films. In the past, we have participated in the annual South Alabama Film Festival, and we have also helped out with smaller, homemade films by sponsoring an annual event called the Mobile Bay Film Scramble. We are here for the community. We try never to say no. For eight years, The Mobile Bay Film Scramble holds a competition to write, film, edit and produce a film in two weeks, and the winner receives a cash prize to spurn their movie-making career. The Crescent is instrumental in inspiring young filmmakers, Morey said. With the advent of digital filmmaking, everybody s got a camera in their pocket, so anybody who ever wanted to make film is capable of it now. We let them screen it for free, and if they want to charge admission, we may get a little piece. With new interest in creating and producing film for smaller theaters, Morey believes the popularity of the multiplex theaters are fading away with low attendance and frequent disruptions like cell phones, late attendees, loud talkers and children. We try to get quality films that adults want to see, and we serve beer and wine, Morey said. It s not a good environment for children. We attract a more mature crowd that appreciates
visiting with their neighbors and talking about a film with special content that may be provocative or thought-provoking, but that s the future in film. The director of the Crescent explained his shock to find some theaters allow their audiences to bring in laptops and ipads with little to no regulation for loud talking or cell phone usage, and many multiplexes have lax security with audiences hoping from screen room to screen room without paying for admission. The Crescent maintains a strict policies to create a peaceful film experience, but Morey added a few new tricks as meaningful accompaniments to each film showing. It s a Crescent Theater tradition to give a 20-to-30 second introduction to thank the audience for coming and give a little content about the film, Morey said. The idea is to never give away anything that would spoil the enjoyment of a film, but maybe talk about the director or a little background on the film. We never show a film without it, and the people love it. Attendance has risen every year since the Crescent first opened its doors in 2009, and film studios are asking Morey to play their films. We can generate more revenue for a good film than the multiplex can because of our policies we enforce and our demographics, Morey said. It s has been wonderfully positive from the get-go, and it s getting better all the time.
Morey sees the film distribution enterprise as an extraordinary journey with plenty of challenges along the way to keep him on his toes. I am at a loss for words, Morey said. It s been hard work. The studios are tough and demanding, so learning how to work in a cooperative spirit with them has been a challenge. It s only positive things. I have had wonderful exposure, and I have thousands of new friends. It s good, and it s a good thing for every community. I strongly encourage everybody to open a single-screen theater. A brighter future is emerging for single-screen theaters as McCaffery and Morey pick up the pieces from long-forgotten relics of yesteryear to bring back a time where young sweethearts shared kisses under the neon glow of the theater sign and the light of the moon.