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Cooling Off in the Grass
Bryant Park’s Summer Film Festival—a great way to spend a summer night in New York City
Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind will be the finale film in this spectacular summer series
Outdoor movies are one of the best ways to spend a summer night in New York City, and of the available venues, Bryant Park provides the best environment. Its lush lawn eclipses Central Park’s hard ground and Brooklyn Bridge Park’s overpowering scenic background. Backed up against the New York Public Library’s historic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the humble green space hides some fancy underpinnings. One of its most magical but lesser-known features lies six feet under the soil: two levels of books, miles of the public library’s stacks right under your feet.
The park has come a long way from its seventies-era nickname, Needle Park. The former elevated and fenced layout encouraged urban crime. The park’s recovery began with funding from a private entity, now called the Bryant Park Corporation. In the U.S., a park run without public funding is unusual, but Bryant Park is a successful experiment. Based on annual attendance rates, it is the world’s most densely populated park. This is all too evident at the annual summer outdoor films, a tradition since the early nineties. Arrive early, bring a blanket, a picnic (or order one in advance) and enjoy one of the classic films offered every Monday night.
This year’s selection of films all claimed critical success in their time. The opening film, conmen caper The Sting, won seven Oscars. Starring Paul Newman, the choice acknowledges the recently deceased actor’s substantial contribution to film. The second feature is Breaking Away (Dennis Quaid), an inspirational story about a small town kid’s love for Italian cycling. Next is the uplifting Ginger Rogers musical Gold Diggers of 1933, a film designed as a welcome distraction from Depression-era troubles that will be just as welcome today.
As July brings the heavy summer heat, Dog Day Afternoon invokes the madness-inducing effect of New York City humidity. Most of the movies playing in the park were made in the seventies, and this masterpiece starring Al Pacino epitomizes the era’s flair for complex drama. How Green Was My Valley follows another common theme in this line-up, a dramatic look at socio-economic struggles. Harold and Maude is a reprieve from seriousness, if you find humor in a teenage boy obsessed with death who falls in love with a thieving old lady. July ends with The Defiant Ones (Sidney Poitier), a feel-good story of race reconciliation through the mutual goal of prison escape.
In August, Kramer Vs. Kramer explores late-seventies divorce and child custody issues, as a dad (Dustin Hoffman) goes to trial with his ex (Meryl Streep) for his right to parent. The next week is John Sturges’ archetypal Western The Magnificent Seven (Steve McQueen). And finally, perhaps the biggest seventies classic to be shown, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which Richard Dreyfuss becomes obsessed with reaching Devils Tower National Monument after an encounter with a UFO. It was Steven Spielberg’s first venture into the extraterrestrial. A grand scale, visually exciting blockbuster, the finale film in this spectacular summer series is the most exciting of them all.
View the complete schedule.