Film Noir.
For even casual film watchers, the phrase evokes visions of the hard-bitten private eye as protagonist, femme fatales, compromised cops, gangsters, and guns, and the genre’s other hallmarks, including a starkly lit, shadowy, black-and-white presentation.
A staple of 1940s and 1950s Hollywood that’s remained a thematic presence in more modern releases, film noir is the focus of a film series underway at the Marco Island Center for the Arts that’s designed to provide fans with a truly immersive experience.
The carefully curated, classic cinema program is a partnership with Naples Cinematheque. The relatively new business screens vintage films that span the art form’s time periods and genres. Showings are augmented by a Q&A session with guest speakers who worked on the movies or presentations by film-historian David Garonzik of Naples.
“It’s a genre that is almost endless,” he said of film noir, which means ‘dark film’ in French. “There are so many film noirs and every studio made them. A lot of them, many people have not seen them since they were first released or maybe as a rerun, way back in the day. It’s not like many of them are even classic titles that you would recognize, but they all have great, great casts. A lot of actors started their careers in film noir.”
Garonzik is Naples Cinematheque’s CEO and co-founder, along with his wife, Cecilia. A lifelong film enthusiast, he worked in the industry for 25 years as a studio screening room manager and operator. His resume includes eight years at Miramax Films in Los Angeles, where he managed a screening room built for Quentin Tarantino and ten years managing and operating screening rooms for Dick Clark Productions.
He left that job when he and his wife moved to Naples in October 2022, specifically to found the Cinematheque (French for an archive of films and film-related objects in an exhibition venue).
Naples Cinematheque co-owner David Garonzik.
The Center for the Arts film noir series began on January 14, with a tribute to the actor who’s been called “The King of Noir,” Humphrey Bogart. The lineup included his final film before his 1957 death, “The Harder They Fall,” released in 1956, and “The Maltese Falcon,” released in 1941.
Screenings return on February 18 with a selection of films starring Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford: 1952’s “Affair in Trinidad” and from 1946, “Gilda.” The presentation will be highlighted by a special guest Q&A, done virtually, with film noir expert Alan Rode.
Rode is a contributor to Turner Classic Movies and a director of the Film Noir Foundation, which spearheads the preservation and restoration of America’s noir catalog.
The festival closes out on March 17 with two films by director and noted film noir specialist Phil Karlson: “99 River Street,” from 1953 and “Tight Spot,” released in 1955.
Tickets are $10 for Center for the Arts members and $15 for non-members.
At present, Naples Cinematheque is temporarily leading a ‘pop-up’ existence, as screenings are held at various locations throughout Collier County, as the company works to establish a permanent home in the city’s Bayshore Arts District. Garonzik hopes to be operating from there within 18 months.
Plans call for a state-of-the art, boutique, three-screen, repertory and revival theater. Selections from the more than 100-year history of cinema would be shown, a different movie each day. Each would be promoted and presented as if it were a brand-new release to recreate the sensation of the time when that was true.
Garonzik is focused on an alternative movie-going experience, as compared to modern cinemas, where restaurant-like services are often part of the business model.
“That, to me, just kills the whole movie experience,” he said. “We’re trying to elevate and to match, really, Naples, an elevated town and an elevated community. We want to match that and really give them a VIP experience. So it can’t just be just recliners and you’re having onion rings served to you. It has to be a much more elevated experience.”
By “elevated,” Garonzik means such things as luxurious seating, an intimate setting, the Q&As with experts, live discussions with fellow theatergoers and regular interactions with the owner, which happens to be him.
“First-run multiplexes, you’re not going to have an interaction with any kind of film historian or with or with anybody that’s associated with the films,” he said. “You’re not going to have someone making an effort to bring that to the community.”
Garonzik said advancements in film restoration make this an ideal time to establish Naples Cinematheque. “These films look brand spanking new,” he added. “That’s what makes it so wonderful.”
This area is an ideal locale for this type of theater, he said.
“What’s great about Naples is you have an older community that will totally embrace it,” said Garonzik. “Then you have this community of young people that are really into nostalgia. Kids today, they love what’s old is new, like when I was growing up, “American Graffiti” and “Happy Days were a big deal.”
The Garonziks decided to leave their jobs in LA behind during a road to visit his parents in North Naples during the time when the COVID pandemic had shut down activity in much of the nation.
“Our work in Los Angeles was closed, so we ended up coming here,” he explained. “As Los Angeles remained locked down, Naples was still open and people were still, enjoying their experiences, enjoying their dinners, enjoying their community. Then I also noticed, while we were here, that cinema was the only art form that wasn’t represented here. There was the philharmonic, there was the opera and there was live theater, all being produced of such high caliber and by top quality people, pillars in their industry. But there was no cinema per se. I was like, ‘Okay, that’s the one thing I do know is the 100-year history of film,’ and, and I thought if any town that would embrace it. It would be this town. So we resigned from our careers. We put our house on the market. We put it all on the table to come to Naples to build this theater.”
Marco Island Center for the Arts is located at 1010 Winterberry Drive. For more information, please visit, marcoislandart.org. Tickets for the film series are available at marcoislandart.org/film-noir-series/ or by calling 239-394-4221. For more information about Naples Cinematheque, please visit naplescinematheque.com.