Love letters to cinema have existed for practically as long as the studio system itself. As early as Buster Keaton’s Sherlock, Jr. (1924), in which the Great Stone Face plays a projectionist who dreams of himself as a character on the big screen, the industry has always adored a movie that adores movies. But, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, a new branch of this subgenre has emerged: love letters to the cinema, the movie theater as a physical place. Harkening back to The Last Picture Show (1971), recent titles such as Empire of Light (2022) and The Fabelmans (2022) transport modern-day audiences back in time to show how special, how flat-out magical the moviegoing experience once felt.
No doubt born out of the threat of permanent closure that loomed during the height of Covid, a number of filmmakers took the opportunity to pay their respects to the movie house on the off chance it wound up dead. The documentary Only in Theaters — which, for the record, is only playing in theaters — proves this isn’t the first time the cinema has faced imminent doom. What’s more, it argues the threat of closure isn’t a product of the pandemic. As with many of society’s most sacred and essential (and crumbling) institutions, the pre-existing conditions were merely exacerbated by Covid. Los Angeles-area arthouse theater chain Laemmle Theatres and third-generation owner Greg Laemmle can attest to these claims.
After opening with a montage of all the iconic discourse-spawning sound bites from the past several years of Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, and Quentin Tarantino interviews — the same clips that the internet has discussed and debated and broken down and misconstrued ad nauseam — Only in Theaters homes in on its subject: the Laemmle family and their 85-year-old LA theater chain. Through the lens of Laemmle Theatres, the documentary showcases a circus of experts on West Coast film culture — Nicole Holofcener, Leonard Maltin, Ava DuVernay, and Cameron Crowe, among others — and the chain’s synonymity with arthouse moviegoing in greater Los Angeles.
Admittedly, while relevant to the tens of millions of people that live in this populous metropolitan area (or, more realistically, the fraction of those that frequent Laemmle Theaters), it all feels somewhat aimless during the documentary’s opening section. Although it’s certainly interesting to see how different cities exhibit independent films — see also: the Criterion Channel’s ongoing “Art-House America” series — Only in Theaters doesn’t truly dig its hooks in until the big reveal: It’s 2019, and Laemmle Theatres is struggling to survive, even before Covid. Suddenly, the doc is imbued with a sense of urgency and real weight.
Shifting the focus away from the carousel of talking heads — though not completely abandoning them, as they will continue to appear periodically — Only in Theaters is at its most riveting when covering the potential sale of Laemmle Theatres during the summer of 2019. The heart aches as the hagiographic nature of the documentary begins to more closely resemble a eulogy. It’s difficult to imagine a more painful example of dramatic irony as Greg and his father, Robert, discuss their dismay with the then-current state of independent arthouse moviegoing and their hope for the future of the chain while the periodic timestamps inch closer and closer to the spring of 2020.
Going into the doc, audiences outside of Laemmle Theatres markets are unlikely to know the ultimate fate of the chain or where it stands today (unless, perhaps, they are a close reader of entertainment news sites). Leaving, however, they’ll feel as if they themselves had a stake in this regional theater chain. The conclusive message is much less hyper-focused: Support your local arthouse theater. Seek out the movies that aren’t playing at the multiplex. Nationwide chains will undoubtedly make it out of this downturn. The future of venues such as Laemmle might be uncertain, but there’s no question they’re going to fight. Only in Theaters is proof of this.
Only in Theaters screens nightly at 7 p.m. on March 17 -19 at the Webster University Film Series.
