Cinéma Utopia

The other night C and I made a thorough investigation of one of Bordeaux’s cultural gems. Cinéma Utopia in the Saint Pierre district, at the heart of the historic centre ville is a five screen arthouse cinema housed in a converted church. The screen we sat in was small but adequate and the area around and underneath the screen was painted to resemble an altar with candles to each side. This irreverence is played out elsewhere in the building too. Some of the original stained glass windows have been modified to include the Utopia’s logo.

For a dedicated cinephile, the Utopia is aptly named. The films are not preceded by commercials or trailers. You sit and wait, the lights go out, people fall silent and the movie starts, just like that. It’s refreshingly pure to experience cinema treated with the same respect as theatre. During the movie everyone stays totally silent. There is no popcorn munching, (you can’t buy popcorn at the Utopia) nobody answers their phone and nobody issues whispered pleas for explication to their friends. The film we saw was Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict, from 1982, an original print in fine shape. There was a little dirt around the beginning and end of each reel and a significant amount on the tail of the film, which is to be expected. The colours had faded a little, but Paul Newman’s eyes were still startlingly blue. At the end of the film the house lights stayed down until the very end of the credits so you either watch until the very end or bumble about like an idiot in the pitch black.

The Utopia has a café and it’s the real French deal. Like I wrote earlier, there is no popcorn. There is no candy, either. There is an abundance of coffee, and a decent selection of beer, wine and pastries. Some wholesome and tasty meals come out of the kitchen. There is free wi-fi, but the place isn’t crammed with people bathing in the blue light of their laptop screens. The café has a couple of terraces of tables on the square outside, and I think it must bring in more money than the cinema itself. A full-price ticket for the Utopia is €6, and an abonnement (subscription) of 10 admissions costs €45. The multiplexes in town charge around €7,50. In the month of September they showed 36 different films, from a wide selection of countries and from different eras. Right now you can see the prizewinners from Cannes alongside retrospectives of great movies from the archives. In the coming month the selection of classic Hollywood movies includes Siodmak’s The Killers, Kazan’s East of Eden and Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. There is even philosophical and political graffiti in the toilets. The Utopia really lives up to its name.

It was spookily coincidental that the film we watched that night was The Verdict, in which a lawyer, whose idealism and naivety have cost him a comfortable job and his self-respect, takes a medical malpractice case to court, though it would be easier to settle, in order to do the right thing. It’s a classic tale of the little guy versus the big man, and yet Paul Newman in the title role and the direction of Sidney Lumet are create an emotional gravity that is modest, thoughtful and compelling in a manner seldom seen on screen in recent years. I hate to come across all curmudgeonly and say “They don’t make them like that any more,” but they really don’t.

On the way back from the cinema C and I were admiring Paul Newman as both a great performer, a genuinely good and philanthropic guy, and a good example of an American liberal. There are more films playing at the Utopia that benefited from Newman’s involvement, including one that he directed. I’m planning to make the most of the opportunity to see them. Having seen some of his best work the night before made the announcement of his death a little sadder for us. Damn, he was good.