House of Dreams

Janet Orsi

Cinema Paradiso: Mark Fishkin is creating a new North Bay art house.

Rafael Theater stirs after long slumber

By David Templeton

F ROM ACROSS the street, obscured by a gray torrent of rain, the time-worn art-deco marquee of San Rafael’s historic Rafael Theater rises up conspicuously above an unsightly barricade of wet wooden beams and weather-soaked boards, behind which hides the remainder of the building that was once among the most beautiful and popular movie palaces in the Bay Area.

Shut up tight since 1989–when the Loma Prieta earthquake caused the theater to be deemed seismically unsafe–the Rafael’s future seemed as dim as the now-ruined light bulbs still outlining the fading marquee. Thanks to the Film Institute of Northern California–which two years ago renovated the classic Lark Theatre in Larkspur–working with a fierce cadre of North Bay film buffs and some expert fundraisers, the Rafael Theater is just beginning an astonishing transformation: not only is it scheduled to open again by the end of this year, but it intends to do so as one of the Bay Area’s hottest new filmgoing destinations, a living museum of cinematic history that will trace the art of the movies from the silent-film era straight into a high-tech, interactive future.

“It will be a museum of the moving image,” says Petaluma resident Mark Fishkin, executive director of the Film Institute, which also produces the Mill Valley Film Festival. “We’ll be able to greet people in the lobby, saying, ‘Come on in. This is what movies used to be like.’ And they can have that experience, and then we’ll say, ‘Now, let’s show you what movies are becoming.'”

Fishkin is standing in the theater’s lightless lobby–a work crew accidentally disabled the electrical power box–inches away from a curtain of rain leaking onto the broken-tile entryway in an atmospheric chorus of drips and splashes that echo all through the cavernous expanse of the room.

Ann Brebner, project chairperson for the Rafael Film Center, as the new three-screen complex will be called, shines a flashlight around the lobby, illuminating various architectural features of the nearly 100-year-old building, now fully retrofitted to appropriate seismic standards. Brebner points out the sweeping balcony, ornate wooden moldings, and a marvelous faded mural of an unclad female figure rising up out of a swirling mist.

“Silent movies began playing here in 1918,” Brebner relates. “It was the Orpheus Theater then, until it burned down in 1937 and was reopened in ’38 as the Rafael.” She shines the light on the mural again. “She was covered up by mirrors when we found her,” she says, feigning a gasp. “Apparently they hid her in 1961, when the Rafael began showing a lot of Disney movies. It was evidently deemed inappropriate for children to walk in and see a naked lady up on the wall.”

T HE PROJECT IS A long-awaited dream for Fishkin and Brebner. The finished Rafael Film Center will feature a 350-seat theater in the original auditorium–restoring the existing art-deco features–minus the original balcony, which will be converted into a 125-seat theater in the style of the Orpheus’ silent-movie house. A third theater, with 90 seats–reflecting a high-technology film theater of the future–will be established in the adjacent building, directly over the planned cafe that will lead into the main lobby of the complex.

All this was supposed to have opened last fall, but production was halted when fundraising efforts ran out of steam. An expanded board of directors has created a special committee of experienced fundraisers to find the necessary cash to complete the $6.8 million job. At first hoping to avoid taking on debt, the Film Institute has now given in, accepting a $3 million construction loan and taking on an additional $3 million bank loan.

“We hope to raise the remaining monies to pay off the loans sometime during the construction period,” Fishkin says. “But at least we now have the flexibility to continue with the project.”

Donations are actively being sought, and a number of innovative enticements are being offered. For instance, the first donor to contribute at least $1 million will receive the honor of lending the name of their choice, perhaps in memory of a loved one, to the theater complex as a whole. That name will be the official corporate name of the facility, used in all literature and on the letterhead. For smaller donations, naming rights will be given on everything from the individual theaters to the upstairs lobby and the grand staircase.

In addition to the Film Center’s museum status, the complex is expected to serve as a major educational asset–with classes invited in to view films that correspond to the students’ curriculum–as well as to be a desirable environment in which to view small independent movies, and even rare specialty films that will be available nowhere else.

“For instance, some marvelous films are available in several different languages,” Brebner enthuses. “We envision being able to show one film in three different languages, all at the same time, a different language for each screen. We want people to walk by the theater and to be able to say, ‘There’s always something in there for me. There’s something that relates to who I am and where I come from.’

“That,” she smiles, “is part of our dream.”

To contribute to the Rafael Film Center’s fundraising campaign, call 415/383-5256.

From the February 12-18, 1998 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Eccentric Glory

Gemma La Mana

Last Action Heroes: Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller create original characters.

To each his own in ‘Zero Effect’

By David Templeton

David Templeton drops by the home of renowned eccentric Mickey McGowan–a frequent Talking Pix guest–to discuss the delightfully off-the-wall mystery Zero Effect.

FROM THE STREET, Mickey McGowan’s tree-lined San Rafael house is surprisingly indistinct, almost invisible. It is not till you mount the front steps and come face to face with a front porch strewn with old, plastic doll heads and piles of floppy, shockingly weathered teddy bears, and a windowsill lined with weird, staring statuettes, that you realize you’ve entered the world of someone unencumbered by run-of-the-mill notions of standard home decorating.

This, in spirit at least, is the Unknown Museum, a world-renowned holding tank of odd, television-inspired memorabilia from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. Although the museum is currently closed to the public, McGowan is featured along with the museum in the brand-new book Self-Made Worlds: Visionary Folk-Art Environments (Aperture, 1998). McGowan dwells happily with his wife, Finnlandia, here in this off-kilter wonderland of quirky fond remembrances and, in terms of the sheer volume of artifacts, complete sensory overload.

“If we were open, it would be far more chaotic,” says McGowan of the museum, leading the way into a kitchen cluttered with old metal lunchboxes, giant plastic hamburgers, jars containing pickled Pee-Wee Hermans, and open cabinets crammed tight with food products popular 40 years ago. “There’d be hanging mobiles of white sandwich bread, plus bathroom scales laid out like stepping stones to follow.”

I am reminded of a line in the foreword to Self-Made Worlds, describing the featured artists: “Remarkable manifestations of the idiosyncratic; the eccentric glory of the human imagination.”

Which brings us to Zero Effect.

Starring Bill Pullman as Daryl Zero, the world’s most private “private eye,” Zero Effect is a small, loopy film with original ideas and a twisted, emotionally satisfying foundation. Daryl Zero, one of the freshest characters to hit the screen for some time, is a master detective who is terrified of the world outside his heavily guarded apartment, a man whose eccentricities threaten to keep him apart from the woman he suspects is a blackmailer, and with whom he unexpectedly falls in love.

“I loved this movie,” McGowan exclaims. “Real, true, affectionate love. And Daryl! What a wounded puppy. I loved him immediately. You could tell right away that he’s mentally ill, obviously, but he’s a genius. From the moment you first see him, you know that if he didn’t just happen to have it together enough to do the private-eye thing, he’d be out on the streets or in some mental hospital somewhere, like a lot of crazy artists who get into a weird eccentric lifestyle and then can’t channel it into something productive.

“He’s a heart-on-my-sleeve, take-me-or-leave-me, I’m-messed-up, I’m-paranoid kind of a guy, standing there saying, ‘Here I am!’ Someone like me can relate to someone like Daryl Zero completely.” Laughing, he adds, “Well, not completely. Let’s just say I relate on many levels.”

For example, McGowan frequently employs a Zero-like mindset while scouring garage sales and exploring dumpsters in search of artifacts for the museum.

“I like his philosophy of ‘Why be looking for one thing when you can be looking for everything or anything?’ That’s the nutshell of his professional approach,” McGowan says, standing up to make some tea. “That’s the way I am when I go out to a garage sale or an estate sale: I’m looking for whatever happens to be in front of me. I don’t go out with something particular in my head.

“That’s conceptual shopping,” he adds, “and I certainly don’t subscribe to that.”

On the subject of eccentricity, my curator host is a practiced expert.

“Eccentricity is anything deviating from the norm, of course, whatever that norm might be,” he says, and then observes that in the book Incredibly Strange Music (ReSearch, 1993), in which he discusses his immense collection of rare, hard-to-find records, “I defined strange music like this: take Barry Manilow, who is not particularly strange in the United States. Well, all right, true, he’s strange, but he’s mainstream, or was at the time I first said that.

“But if you take a Barry Manilow record into a village in the African wilds,” he insists, “it would seem eccentric, at least certainly odd or strange.

“Eccentricity is not a bad thing,” he continues, returning to the table. “It’s actually very good. I don’t mind it when people label me an eccentric. I’d be surprised if they didn’t at this stage. I mean … ,” he opens his eyes wide and waves his arm in a sweeping circle, “… just look around you.

“There are sometimes unkind assumptions made about eccentric people, though,” he says. “I’ve been visited by reporters in the past who flat-out ask me things like, ‘Was your father as crazy as you are?’

“When the museum reopens, I plan to have a little card to hand out to reporters, with a list of questions I will no longer be bothered with. Or,” he leans forward, having a flash of inspiration, “maybe I’ll attach a pull-string to myself–like many of the great dolls of our time–with 12 standard answers to any dumb question.

“Reporters could simply pull my string and then just quote whatever comes out,” he grins, clearly warming to the idea.

And what answers would he program himself to say?

“Oh you know, the classics,” McGowan replies. “‘I love you,’ ‘Please play with me,’ and, just in case, the ever-popular ‘Go away. I want to be alone now.'”

From the February 12-18, 1998 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.