The cinema of must.
Yesterday I took the MBTA from North Station in Boston to visit the scenic seacoast town of Rockport, Massachusetts. Besides being a place of natural beauty, the town is touristy enclave of shacky boutiques, ice cream shops, fudgeries, and a shanty eatery called Roy Moore Lobster Store, serving lobster, chowder, and stuffed clams. You can eat your purchase on the rear porch on bench-and-box furniture. Pleasant enough, although I was reminded of an Albert Finney line in a movie set in San Francisco, "This place could die from quaint."
Walking down one of the streets I encountered a place called "Little Art Cinema." I like old or funky theatres, anything not in the mainstream. In is on the second floor of a three-storey former Swedish social club. The scheduled film The Lives of Others wasn't going to be starting for a few hours yet. The door was open, and the manager let me go upstairs on my own to peek at the auditorium. It's a cute little tattered array of weatherbeaten seats infused with a musty aroma and surrounded by peeling walls. I loved it immediately!
I think it's a seasonal operation, located in a Swedish fraternal lodge. The manager told me they used 35mm projection, but I could not detect a projector through the very tiny booth porthole. When I started to take a photo (I had already sneaked a couple before he popped in), he got upset and said that was enough. He wanted to know where I was from and started acting suspicious about my intentions. He abruptly hinted I should leave, which I did. I have a theory about why he was upset, but I shan't tell.
Ejected from the comforting mustiness of the theatre, I re-boarded the MBTA train, iced coffee in hand, heading back to North Station.
