Passages

This week saw the death of Leonard Rosenman, who won an Academy Award for his work adapting the musical score for Stanley Kubrick's classic Barry Lyndon, among many other film score credits. Most of Rosenman's movies were, as the saying goes, before my time, and before the age of film music by Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams and John Barry that I consider classic, but there's no denying the power of his cv. He was a major influence on films and film music. And Barry Lyndon is an utter masterpiece, one of the Kubrick movies that I simply need to see in a theatre every three or five years to re-make my acquaintance. Music is an important part of its power.

The screening I saw of the new movie Married Life (post to come) was the final program at the Riklis Theatre of the Museum of the Moving Image, which is embarking on a major expansion and renovation that will see the Riklis demolished. I won't miss it a bit. It was designed and built in the mid-to-late 1980s, and has all the joys of many sloped floor multiplexes of that era. The raking wasn't that good, so it wasn't pleasant to have the seats ahead of you occupied. Low ceiling, small screen size, chairs that don't rock or recline. It was a museum theatre, and has been tended to pretty much the entire time by an excellent projection staff, and it had a very good sound system that was not necessarily common to the '80s-era multiplex. But it will be so much nicer in two years to see movies in a new stadium-seating theatre at the Museum, and I shan't complain if the smaller screening room that will also be part of the expansion is just that, a smaller screening room. I saw a lot of movies at the Riklis, so it has a fond memory or two attached, but good bye, and good riddance!