Remai Modern's SaskTel Theatre mixes art-house and family fare — but no popcorn allowed
'You might see Top Gun. I don't want to rule that out entirely,' says curator of Remai Modern screening room
During the recent grand opening of Saskatoon's Remai Modern art museum, a man walked out of the building's cushy, vault-like SaskTel Theatre and said to his friends, "I guess we'll never see Top Gun in here."
It was easy to see why he would think that.
On screen, a 15-minute French art film — something about a Kim-Novak-from-Vertigo-looking woman having a deep and subtitled conversation with a man in a gallery — played on an endless loop.
Belle comme le jour was still playing a month later when CBC News interviewed the Remai staffer who is programming Remai's 2,165-square-foot shrine to cinema.
But Troy Gronsdahl says people shouldn't completely write off the Tom Cruise-Anthony Edwards bromance.
"You might see Top Gun. I don't want to rule that out entirely," said Gronsdahl.
'A high standard'
It's not clear how much construction of the SaskTel Theatre added to the museum's total $84-million cost, but it is certainly not a hastily assembled screening room.
"We're trying to achieve a high standard," said Gronsdahl.
The theatre, like the rest of the museum, was designed by the same company, KPMB Architects, that fashioned the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto.
SaskTel gave $600,000 for the theatre's construction and got naming rights for the next decade.
A deck of equipment in the cosy projection booth will allow the museum to film its Q&As and lectures so that they can be rewatched on the Remai Modern website.
A commercial-grade digital cinema projector, costing somewhere in the tens of thousands of dollars, stands ready to beam the very same mainstream titles playing at the nearby Scotiabank and Roxy theatres.
But the SaskTel Theatre likely won't go that far.
"We haven't really considered doing more major releases at this point," said Gronsdahl.
Instead the theatre will focus on both vintage and classic films that reflect the history of cinema, plus movies with broad enough appeal to hopefully rope in the kiddies, too.
The inaugural Cinema at the Museum program, screening movies every Friday night at 7 p.m., will launch on Dec. 1 with Jean-Luc Godard's film-history treatise Histoire(s) du cinéma.
Later in the month, just before Christmas, the program's palette will become decidedly more populist with a primely timed offering of It's a Wonderful Life on Dec. 22.
The theatre's other main movie program, Discovery Cinema, launched earlier this month with titles like Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times and is aimed at more family-friendly fare. Those play on Saturdays at 1 p.m.
Admission to films in either screening series is included with a ticket to the museum.
Gronsdahl says he's also looking to partner with community groups to host films centred on different themes. Open Design Collaborative recently screened Integral Man, about a mathematician-designed home.
And if a private citizen wants to rent out the 150-seat theatre to screen their own favourite movie, they can do that too.
"We can kind of imagine people using it for conferences, big meetings or even screenings," said Gronsdahl.
Cutting into others' territory?
The theatre has not gone unnoticed by other movie houses in the city.
The Roxy, the Broadway Theatre and the Scotiabank Theatre all play vintage and classic films too, drawing considerable crowds with offerings as diverse as Dirty Dancing and Mean Streets.
"We welcome the new art gallery," said Tom Hutchinson, the president of Magic Lantern Theatres, which owns the Roxy.
"[We also] hope that the decision to build and staff a theatre space does not harm the Broadway (already supported by government and foundations and corporate donations) or the historic Roxy (not the recipient of public or corporate money), both of which would benefit from additional rentals."
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Hutchinson also asks whether commercial catnip like It's a Wonderful Life goes beyond the museum's mandate.
"We wonder if programming that strays from the educational and appreciative theme of 'art' and into the arena of Hollywood entertainment is really respecting the reason the theatre was built," he said.
Sorry kids: no candy
Gronsdahl said the SaskTel Theatre is not looking to compete with other theatre venues.
And there's one pretty major defect built into the SaskTel Theatre, as he pointed out.
"Unfortunately we have a 'no food and drink' policy so, sorry — no pop and no popcorn."
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