New Yorker Films
Encyclopedia
New Yorker Films is an independent film
distribution company founded by Daniel Talbot in 1965. It started as an extension of his Manhattan
movie house, the New Yorker Theater, after he discovered he was unable to obtain certain foreign titles for exhibition.
film Before the Revolution
. Other early acquisitions, such as Jean-Luc Godard
's Les Carabiniers
and Ousmane Sembène
's Black Girl
, helped establish New Yorker Films as a presenter of innovative, artistically significant, and politically engaged films from around the world.
's Celine and Julie Go Boating
; Chantal Akerman
's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
; Claude Lanzmann
's documentary
Shoah
; Emir Kusturica
's Underground; the Merchant-Ivory docudrama
The Courtesans of Bombay
; and Werner Herzog
's Aguirre, the Wrath of God
.
, the politically-embattled Latin American cinema, and the postcolonial African cinema
. It discovered the early breakthrough works of such now-celebrated filmmakers as Agnieszka Holland
, Juzo Itami
, Errol Morris
, Wayne Wang
, and Zhang Yimou
. Later it explored new frontiers in Iran
ian, Asian, and Eastern European cinema.
and classroom venues not generally served by larger film providers. The New Yorker Films library includes titles from leading independent and foreign film distributors such as Sony Pictures Classics
, First Look, and Lions Gate Entertainment
.
.
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
distribution company founded by Daniel Talbot in 1965. It started as an extension of his Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
movie house, the New Yorker Theater, after he discovered he was unable to obtain certain foreign titles for exhibition.
Background
Through New Yorker Films, Talbot aimed to import unavailable foreign films himself. His first acquisition for distribution was the Bernardo BertolucciBernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...
film Before the Revolution
Before the Revolution
Before the Revolution is a 1964 Italian film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci....
. Other early acquisitions, such as Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
's Les Carabiniers
Les Carabiniers
The Carabineers was the fifth narrative feature film by French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.-Plot:Les Carabiniers tells the story of two poor men called to serve in battle, lured by promises of the world’s riches...
and Ousmane Sembène
Ousmane Sembène
Ousmane Sembène , often credited in the French style as Sembène Ousmane in articles and reference works, was a Senegalese film director, producer and writer...
's Black Girl
Black Girl (film)
Black Girl is a 1966 film by the Senegalese writer and director Ousmane Sembène, starring Mbissine Thérèse Diop. Its original French title is La Noire de..., which means "The black girl of...", as in "someone's black girl". The film centers on a young Senegalese woman who moves from Senegal to...
, helped establish New Yorker Films as a presenter of innovative, artistically significant, and politically engaged films from around the world.
Titles introduced
New Yorker Films helped gain an audience for controversial and challenging works avoided by other distributors in the United States. Some of these included Jacques RivetteJacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette is a French film director. His most well known films include Celine and Julie Go Boating, La Belle Noiseuse and the cult film Out 1....
's Celine and Julie Go Boating
Celine and Julie Go Boating
Céline and Julie Go Boating is a 1974 French film directed by Jacques Rivette.Shot casually in a documentary style, we see a red-haired woman—we will learn that it is Julie --sitting on a bench in a pleasant but rather non-descript Parisian park. She is reading a book, we can see, on magic...
; Chantal Akerman
Chantal Akerman
Chantal Anne Akerman is a Belgian film director, artist, and professor of film at the European Graduate School. Akerman's best-known film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles , exemplifies a dedication to the ellipses of conventional narrative cinema.-Early life:Akerman was born to...
's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is a 1975 film by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman.Upon its release, The New York Times called Jeanne Dielman the "first masterpiece of the feminine in the history of the cinema." Chantal Akerman scholar Ivone Margulies asserts the picture is a...
; Claude Lanzmann
Claude Lanzmann
Claude Lanzmann is a French filmmaker and professor at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.-Biography:Lanzmann attended the Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand. He joined the French resistance at the age of 18 and fought in Auvergne...
's documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
Shoah
Shoah
Shoah may refer to:*The Holocaust*Shoah , documentary directed by Claude Lanzmann * A Shoah Foundation...
; Emir Kusturica
Emir Kusturica
Emir Nemanja Kusturica , is a Serbian filmmaker, actor and musician, recognized for several internationally acclaimed feature films...
's Underground; the Merchant-Ivory docudrama
Docudrama
In film, television programming and staged theatre, docudrama is a documentary-style genre that features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction....
The Courtesans of Bombay
The Courtesans of Bombay
The Courtesans of Bombay is a 1983 British docudrama directed by Ismail Merchant. A collaboration by Merchant, James Ivory, and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, the film focuses on a Bombay compound known as Pavan Pool, where women aspiring to work in the entertainment industry dance for donations from a male...
; and Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog Stipetić , known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and opera director.He is often considered as one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner...
's Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a 1972 West German adventure film written and directed by Werner Herzog. Klaus Kinski stars in the title role. The soundtrack was composed and performed by German progressive/Krautrock band Popol Vuh...
.
Trends introduced
New Yorker Films considered itself the primary force in introducing the United States to New German CinemaNew German Cinema
New German cinema is a period in German cinema which lasted from the late 1960s into the 1980s. It saw the emergence of a new generation of directors...
, the politically-embattled Latin American cinema, and the postcolonial African cinema
African cinema
The term African cinema refers to the film production in Africa, following formal independence. Some of the countries in North Africa developed a national film industry much earlier and are related to West Asian cinema...
. It discovered the early breakthrough works of such now-celebrated filmmakers as Agnieszka Holland
Agnieszka Holland
Agnieszka Holland is a Polish film and TV director and screenwriter. Best recognized for her highly political contributions to Polish cinema, Holland is one of Poland's most prominent filmmakers.-Personal life:...
, Juzo Itami
Juzo Itami
, born , was an actor and a popular modern Japanese film director. Many critics came to regard him as Japan's greatest director since Akira Kurosawa. His 10 movies, all of which he wrote himself, are comic satires on elements of Japanese culture....
, Errol Morris
Errol Morris
Errol Mark Morris is an American director. In 2003, The Guardian put him seventh in its list of the world's 40 best directors. Also in 2003, his film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.-Early life and...
, Wayne Wang
Wayne Wang
Wayne Wang is a Chinese American film director.-Biography:Wang was born and raised in Hong Kong, and named after his father's favorite movie star, John Wayne...
, and Zhang Yimou
Zhang Yimou
Zhang Yimou is a Chinese film director, producer, writer and actor, and former cinematographer. He is counted amongst the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, having made his directorial debut in 1987 with Red Sorghum....
. Later it explored new frontiers in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian, Asian, and Eastern European cinema.
Non-theatrical market
New Yorker Films also serviced the non-theatrical market, catering to the specialized needs of film societyFilm society
A film society is a membership club where people can watch screenings of films which would otherwise not be shown in mainstream cinemas. In Spain they are known as "Cineclubs," and in Germany they are known as "Filmclubs"....
and classroom venues not generally served by larger film providers. The New Yorker Films library includes titles from leading independent and foreign film distributors such as Sony Pictures Classics
Sony Pictures Classics
Sony Pictures Classics is an art-house film division of Sony Pictures Entertainment founded in December 1991 that distributes, produces and acquires specialty films from the United States and around the world. Its co-presidents are Michael Barker and Tom Bernard...
, First Look, and Lions Gate Entertainment
Lions Gate Entertainment
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation is a North American entertainment company. The company was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1997, and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California...
.
End of the company
In 2002, New Yorker Films was acquired by Madstone Films. On February 23, 2009, New Yorker Films posted a notice on its Web site announcing it had gone out of business. An e-mail from company vice president José Lopez, published on the IndieWire news site, confirmed that the company's demise was the result of its parent company's defaulting on a loan.Revival
In February 2010, a year after it ceased operations, it was announced that Aladdin Distribution LLC, headed by Christopher Harbonville and David Raphel had acquired the company and its library. Former vice president of New Yorker Films, José Lopez was named president, and New Yorker officially restarted operations on March 8, 2010. Its first acquisition since the revival was My Dog TulipMy Dog Tulip
My Dog Tulip is an American independent animated feature film based on the 1956 memoir of the same name by J. R. Ackerley, BBC editor, novelist and memoirist. The film tells the story of Ackerley's fifteen-year relationship with his German Shepherd Queenie, who had had been renamed Tulip for the...
.