Part of Milestones of the Last Quarter Century
As the Belcourt simultaneously wraps our 26th year as a nonprofit and the building’s 100th, our look back at the prior quarter-century kicks off with a beacon of sorts. From the moment we saw the prolific documentarian Morgan Neville’s indelible portrait of public television’s aspirationally benevolent paterfamilias Fred Rogers at Sundance in 2018, we knew it would find a home at the Belcourt. To our delight, the audience demand for the film so exceeded expectation that we scrambled to open the film on both of our downstairs screens — a rare flex resulting in repeat sellouts all weekend long and into the following weekend. To date, WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR is our highest-attended run of the last 26 years — and turned a lot of heads that week when little old us turned up the highest gross in the country.
Zooming out even further, 2018 was no joke. The year kicked off with a juggernaut triptych. Opening a week apart from each other, Guillermo del Toro’s THE SHAPE OF WATER, Tonya Harding flick I, TONYA, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s THE PHANTOM THREAD all played for months — leaving regular patrons wondering if we’d ever show anything else. Rep highlights included an Ingmar Bergman centennial, a tribute to Ida Lupino, and the 26-film Essential Westerns series (see THE WILD BUNCH below) — plus we commissioned a score from local electronic outfit Coupler for Yasujiro Ozu’s silent gangster flick DRAGNET GIRL that would go on to tour dozens of cities.
“For the many generations that grew up with Rogers’ friendly face as their guide, [the film] is like peering into the past with renewed clarity and wishing his civility had caught on... A powerful reminder that he was either way ahead of his time, or too late.” —Eric Kohn, Indiewire “Sweet and nuanced… He never talked down to kids, and they were drawn to him in kind: Watching footage of their rapt faces as they meet him will likely bring tears to your eyes.” —Sara Stewart, New York Post
