Cinemania (film)

Cinemania is a 2002 German/American documentary about five obsessed cinemaphiles, who, throughout the year, each see two to five films a day and work out a daily schedule to see them in theatres across New York City.[1][2]

Cinemania
Directed byAngela Christlieb
Stephen Kijak
Produced byGunter Hanfgarn
Stephen Kijak
Avi Weider
StarringJack Angstreich
Eric Chadbourne
Bill Heidbreder
Roberta Hill
Harvey Schwartz
Music byStereo Total
Robert Drasnin
CinematographyAngela Christlieb
Stephen Kijak
Edited byAngela Christlieb
Distributed byLOOP Filmworks
Release date
  • 2002 (2002)
Running time
83 minutes
CountryGermany
United States
LanguageEnglish

Cast
  • Eric Chadbourne - A cinephile who lives on disability benefits, and who vociferously prefers musicals and romantic-comedies to foreign films. He is the only profiled character in the documentary who has succumbed to watching films on video, of which he seems to own thousands (the others steadfastly refuse to watch TV under any circumstances; Roberta Hill states that she "only has nightmares in video.")
  • Harvey Schwartz - A cinephile who has traits found among those with Asperger syndrome, who lives on disability benefits. According to Jack, Harvey has no discerning taste in film and will watch just about anything, including The Amazing Crab Monster. Can quote the exact running time of every film he's ever seen from memory; owns hundreds of soundtrack LP's, but doesn't have a turntable.
  • Bill Heidbreder - A cinephile who defines his taste in film as "effeminate" as he prefers "relationship" films to action films. An NYU grad student and amateur philosopher who lives on unemployment benefits.
  • Jack Angstreich - The most heavily profiled member of the quintet, Jack's justification for his abnormal behavior is to not deny what he considers to be a "visionary" lifestyle, that there is no "correct" way to live, and really has no interest in real-life beyond the cinema. Claims that he wouldn't want to make love to Rita Hayworth unless he was doing it in black-and-white. Living off an inheritance, Jack sees upwards of five films per day (and claims to have seen over 1,000 films in eight months at one point), and eats a voluntarily constipating diet so he won't be interrupted while watching a film and have to go to the bathroom.

Roberta Hill
Roberta Hill
Born(1936-06-18)June 18, 1936
Washington, DC, U.S.A.
DiedJuly 18, 2009(2009-07-18) (aged 73)
New York City, U.S.A.

Hill was born June 18, 1936 in Washington, D.C., a daughter of Robert L. and Dorothy (née Dyar) Hill, and a granddaughter of Harrison Gray Dyar Jr.[3] She lived for most of her life in Washington, D.C., moving in 1983 to New York City where she died on July 18, 2009. An obsessive-compulsive woman who, according to Jack, "is so far in the prison [of cinephilia], that to me, it's just a hopeless, Sisyphean lifestyle." Has kept every piece of film-memorabilia she's got her hands on for what appears to be the last five decades, including ticket-stubs, programs, fliers, a promotional bottle of water from an independent film called Water, and promotional plastic cups from Last Action Hero and Jurassic Park. Roberta has been banned from many theaters for her rude and uncouth behavior, which has included attacking ushers who have torn too much paper off her ticket-stubs.[4][5]

gollark: I don't disagree that you could reasonably argue something like that; I just think that if you are going to allow bodily autonomy on a very case-by-case basis, you are not really allowing bodily autonomy.
gollark: You seem to think it is consistent with the idea of bodily autonomy, however.
gollark: However, I think that sort of argument is inconsistent with banning drugs.
gollark: I agree.
gollark: Medical treatment such as abortion is in fact "foreign to your body".

See also

References
  1. FilmAffinity
  2. Sidewalk Film Center & Cinema
  3. "Dyar Family Oral History Interviews, 1993, 1999". Smithsonian Institution Archives Local Number: SIA RU009570. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
  4. "Roberta Hill (Obituary)". The New York Times. August 2, 2009. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
  5. The New York Times


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