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Daniel Talbot changed the way the Upper West Side¿and art-house audiences around the world¿went to the movies.
In Love with Movies is his memoir of a rich life as the impresario of the legendary Manhattan theaters he owned and operated and as a highly influential film distributor.
List of contents
Foreword, by Werner Herzog
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Fragments from the Dream World
Part 1: Early Years
Nueva York
The New Yorker Theater
Theater Diary: 1960
The Ideal Movie House
Other Side of the Tracks
What to Play
Bella and the Critic
Chandler Brossard
Part 2: Those Who Made Me Laugh
Mae West and W. C. Fields
The Marx Brothers
Part 3: Unsung Film Pioneers
Collectors
Early Distributors
Ed Harrison’s Indian Idol
Mel Novikoff: West Coast Perfectionist
Presenting Don Rugoff: Manhattan Exhibitor Like No Other
Part 4: Acquisitions
Emile de Antonio and the Making of Point of Order
New Yorker Films
My Dinner with André
Rules of the Game
Part 5: Directors in My Life
Yasujiro Ozu
Nagisa Oshima
Ousmane Sembène
Roberto Rossellini
Jean-Luc Godard
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Wim Wenders
Werner Herzog
Part 6: Shoah
Claude Lanzmann
A Memory Project
Part 7: More Directors
Agnès Varda
Jacques Tati
Glauber Rocha
Jean Eustache
Part 8: Criteria
From the Safety of My Living Room
Rozhinkel
Miura
“Ignatz, don’t go so deep.”
Minyan
Part 9: Reflections
Clusters of Fragmented Moments
The New Frankness
Death Equals Freedom
Take to the Streets
Part 10: Portraits
Pete Martin and the New Yorker Bookshop
Pauline Kael: Fueled by Fire
Vincent Canby: With Brains and Heart
Toscan: Gaumont’s Wit
The Indomitable Lia van Leer: Founder of the Jerusalem Cinematheque
Kieslowski, Malle, and Mastroianni: Three Lives and Three Deaths
Gianni Amico and Jacques Demy: Journal Excerpts
Part 11: Upper West Side Cinemas
Upper West Side
All Seats $1.00 at All Times
Cinema Studio
The Metro
The Lincoln Plaza Cinemas
The Nuts and Bolts of Running a Movie Theater
Festivals
Epilogue, by Toby Talbot
Appendix: Excerpts from Dan Talbot’s Festival Notes
Appendix: Stanley Kauffmann Interviews Dan Talbot
Appendix: Dreams on My Screen
Credits
Index
About the author
Daniel Talbot (1926–2017) founded and ran the New Yorker Theater, Cinema Studio, Metro Theater, and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas as well as the distribution company New Yorker Films. Born in the Bronx, he was an Upper West Sider for almost sixty years.
Toby Talbot is the author of A Book About My Mother (1980) and The New Yorker Theater and Other Scenes from a Life at the Movies (Columbia, 2009). She has taught Spanish and Latin American literature at Columbia and New York University and documentary film at the New School, and has translated numerous works from Spanish, including Jacobo Timerman’s Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number.
Summary
Daniel Talbot changed the way the Upper West Side—and art-house audiences around the world—went to the movies. In Love with Movies is his memoir of a rich life as the impresario of the legendary Manhattan theaters he owned and operated and as a highly influential film distributor.
Additional text
A vivid, boisterous, unputdownable memoir that offers a unique triple-headed perspective: the joys and travails of a theater owner, memories of movies and their directors from a sophisticated cinephile, and an inside look at the swashbuckling world of film distribution. You wouldn't know from Dan’s funny meditative style that these are the ruminations of a hero, the visionary entrepreneur who turned the New Yorker Theater into a beacon for the city’s passionate moviegoing community during its golden era.
