Programming a Nicolas Cage blockbuster inside a serious repertory series about archival research is exactly the joke Film at Lincoln Center is making, and the film earns it - the plot is literally a man reading documents very intensely until a city appears under Mount Rushmore. It screens from a 35mm print, not a file. If you want the most fun two hours in this series, take the sequel over the original.
What to expect
A 35mm print with the grain, weave and occasional cue mark that comes with it, and an audience fully aware of what it signed up for. Expect laughs in the right places and a programmer's framing that connects Cage's document obsession to the rest of the Bibliomania lineup.
Good to know
- 1 to 66th Street-Lincoln Center; the theaters sit on West 65th Street
- Two screenings across the weekend, one evening and one matinee
- It screens from a 35mm print rather than digitally
- Runtime is a little over two hours
- Bring people who think repertory cinema is homework - this converts them
- Wheelchair accessible with assistive listening available
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Common questions
Do I need to have seen the first National Treasure?
Not really. The sequel re-establishes Ben Gates and his family grudge in the opening minutes, and the treasure hunt stands on its own.
Why is this in a repertory series?
Bibliomania: A Preface to Chronovisor collects films that dramatize reading, research and archives. National Treasure sits alongside The Name of the Rose and Alain Resnais's library documentary as the blockbuster end of that idea.
Is it really on film?
Yes, from a 35mm print. Nine titles in the series screen from 16mm, 35mm or 70mm archival prints.
More this weekend
