2 Photos
Dan and Toby Talbot with Bernardo Bertolucci. COURTESY SAG HARBOR CINEMA
A scene from Juzo Itami’s 1985 film “Tampopo.” COURTESY SAG HARBOR CINEMA
Sag Harbor Cinema celebrates the life and legacy of one of the most influential figures of arthouse cinema, Dan Talbot, who died in December 2017, and the recent publication of his memoir, “In Love with Movies” (Columbia University Press).
Talbot and his wife, Toby, founded the distribution company New Yorker Films and ran the legendary Upper West Side’s Lincoln Plaza Cinema, a staple arthouse theater for nearly four decades. When the couple loved a film that they had seen at New York Film Festival (NYFF) by a young, as-of-yet unknown Bernardo Bertolucci, the only way they could screen it was by agreeing to distribute it. They founded New Yorker Films in 1965. Since then, their company has become synonymous with the best of international cinema. They championed filmmakers such as Bertolucci, Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Ousmane Sembene, Yasujirō Ozu, Wim Wenders, Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet and Agnès Varda. Some of their most notable endeavors include introducing the likes of “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972), “Tampopo” (1985) and “My Dinner With Andre” (1981) to an English-speaking, American audience.
“Dan and Toby Talbot’s love affair with film is a fantastic story. And an exemplary one, which deeply resonates with the community-wide effort that has made possible today’s Sag Harbor Cinema and inspires its mission.” says the cinema’s founding artistic director Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan. “It will be a poignant evening.”
To celebrate the release of “In Love with Movies,” on Monday, July 25, at 6 p.m. Sag Harbor Cinema hosts a special screening of one of the films distributed and loved by the Talbots — Juzo Itami’s “Tampopo.” The screening will be followed by a Q&A and book signing with Toby Talbot, who edited the memoir. Film critic Molly Haskel calls the book, “A vivid, boisterous, unputdownable memoir that offers a unique triple-headed perspective: the joys and travails of a theater owner, memories of movies and their directors from a sophisticated cinephile, and an inside look at the swashbuckling world of film distribution. You wouldn’t know from Dan’s funny meditative style that these are the ruminations of a hero.”
The Sag Harbor Cinema is at 90 Main Street in Sag Harbor. For more information visit sagharborcinema.org.
Staff Writer on Jul 20, 2022