Plenty remains in L.A.’s repertory

posted by Michael Zoldessy on August 31, 2009 at 9:50 am

LOS ANGELES, CA — This article in the Los Angeles Times discusses what’s left of L.A.’s repertory cinema scene.

On a recent weekend in Los Angeles, avid and adventuresome moviegoers had a menu of screening choices that included a 1950s Mexican sci-fi film, a tripped-out 1970s insect documentary, glittery camp and fantasy action-adventure from the 1980s, plus a double bill of lesbian vampire pictures.

Also among those choices was Jean-Pierre Melville’s black-and-white 1961 film “Léon Morin, Priest” starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Emmanuelle Riva in a heartbreaking, disarmingly steamy yet chaste tale of unrequited romance between a widow and a local priest set against the backdrop of the German occupation of France during WWII. A late showing of the film played to a hundred or so people at the Bing Theater at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, a remarkably diverse crowd of varied ages, income brackets and nationalities. The little-known find, never before released in America, played to about 800 people total in four shows over two nights.