Movie theaters specializing in out-of-the-way films might be an unexpected casualty of the coronavirus pandemic. The Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak is the first such casualty that I’m aware of. I believe movie theaters will come back once the coronavirus pandemic is over. But they will be the larger chain theaters that mostly show Hollywood blockbusters, like the latest James Bond movie.
Movie theaters like the Main Art, which showed foreign films and movies from American independents, those might not survive. Adam Graham for the Detroit News:
It appears the final credits have rolled at the Main Art Theatre, a Metro Detroit moviegoing staple for decades and a home for independent and arthouse fare that opened film fans' eyes to a world beyond Hollywood blockbusters.
"Landlord kicked us out," reads the theater's iconic marquee, along Main Street just north of 11 Mile in downtown Royal Oak. "It's been a fun ride. ... RIP 1941-2021."
In April, theater reps announced the three-screen cinema was temporarily closing its doors. At that time, Margot Gerber, VP of marketing and publicity for Los Angeles-based theater owner Landmark Theatres, said, "It really just comes down to finances and attendance.
"The decision has been made to try and keep theaters closed that aren’t covering their expenses," Gerber said. "As far as when it will reopen, I’m not exactly sure."
If I’m understanding correctly, the parking lot of the nearby Royal Oak’s Emagine has the same landlord as the Main Art Theater, and that landlord is the A.F. Jonna Management & Development Co. That part of the article is not worded very clearly.
Paul Glantz, chairman of Emagine Entertainment, said Saturday he thinks it's a "mischaracterization to say, 'the landlord kicked us out.' Landmark just didn't pay their rent."
But how does Glantz know the landlord didn’t say to the Main Art something like “if you don’t pay your rent right away, we’ll kick you out”?
Whenever a reporter writes that an individual or an organization “could not be reached for comment,” I have a suspicion that the reporter didn’t actually want to reach that individual or organization for comment. So for now we don’t know exactly what transpired between Main Art and Jonna Management.
Glantz said Emagine's Birmingham 8 theater will be looking to "pick up the slack" of the Main Art's departure, but he has no interest in acquiring the building.
"I'm afraid the building itself is not in good condition," he said, saying disrepair inside the theater suggests a better future in development as something else. "I don't see it coming back as a movie theater."
Hmm…. is the building in disrepair because Main Art failed to keep it up… or because the landlord failed in their responsibilities as landlord? That’s the question I’d ask. I don’t know if any reporter would think to ask it.
Note that the Emagine Birmingham 8 is almost six miles north of the Main Art, whereas the Emagine Royal Oak is a stone’s throw away. This might not matter to people who are willing to travel from Detroit to Ann Arbor and back at the drop of a hat.
But if you only have one car in running condition and you need it to get to work daily, you might be hesitant to risk driving a longer distance to see a movie you might not even like.
And now that the pandemic has made streaming an even more attractive option for viewing movies with narrower or less obvious appeal, movie theaters will probably prefer to choose only movies that are guaranteed to bring people to the box office and the concession stand.
Movies I saw at the Main Art Theatre
I went to the Main Art Theatre a few times. Not as often as I went to the AMC Fairlane 21 in Dearborn, but often enough to remember it. I don’t think I’ve ever particularly liked a movie I saw at the Main Art, but I’m grateful that the theater showed movies I couldn’t have seen on the big screen otherwise.
When I first heard the news of the Main Art’s closing, I was reminded of Prof. Peter Schickele in P. D. Q. Bach’s Classical Rap:
Seeing foreign films was a hobby of mine
But now you pay a fortune to stand in line
To get in a theater that seats twenty-nine
And listen to Vivaldi one more time!
Maybe that’s been a problem in New York’s Upper West Side. But in a Detroit suburb, the lines at the Main Art were seldom long. And though each auditorium at the Main Art can seat more than twenty-nine people, that might very well be the average number of guests at any particular screening.
The first movie I saw at the Main Art must’ve been Immortal Beloved, the movie about Beethoven.
Not as offensive as Amadeus (which I contend is more about slandering the craftsman Antonio Salieri than glorifying the genius Wolfgang Wunderschmuck), Immortal Beloved is still probably one of those movies that wouldn’t have been made if the subject had a legally recognized estate, and a living family that could say “Hey, wait a minute, he wasn’t like that...”
If the Main Art hadn’t shown Immortal Beloved, I would have had to wait until it came out on VHS. As I recall, there were other theaters showing it, but they weren’t offering convenient showtimes, or were too far away (e.g., Ann Arbor).
A few years later I saw Romance, directed by Catherine Breillat. The movie raised a major hubbub because it would have surely been rated NC-17 if the MPAA had rated it. I was carded for it at a time when I wasn’t getting carded for alcohol. I wasn’t too impressed, but I did look more into Breillat’s oeuvre when I had Netflix (during the red envelope era).
A couple of years after that, I saw Intimacy, a very forgettable movie about extramarital affairs. A lot less there than the trailer suggests. But if the Main Art hadn’t shown it, I probably would have decided it wasn’t worth driving all the way to Ann Arbor if I didn’t other business there.
Maybe I’ve seen another two or three movies at the Main Art, but I can’t recall their titles.
I’m sad the Main Art is closing permanently, and other art theaters will also close. But I also hope that the bigger theaters will see an opportunity to fill in the void left by the art theaters.