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Gambit > bestofneworleans.com > noVember 08 > 2011
“He didn’t like it,” Broussard says. “He said that it’s black and white, which is really identified with Palestinians. He said it should be green, because that represents more of the Muslim world.” It’s not the first time Middle Eastern programming at Zeitgeist has roiled people. One pro-Palestinian slate of films drew thousands of emails and calls from pro-Israel people, he says. A previous New Orleans Middle East Film Festival resulted in complaints from Muslim attendees who objected to alcohol being available on opening night. “I was told I’m culturally insensitive,” he says. “It’s a Middle Eastern film festival, not a Muslim film festival.” He rolls his eyes. You can’t please everyone.
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Zeitgeist’s whiff of controversy always attracts attention, and some remember the theater’s most notoriously disgruntled ticket buyer, or attempted ticket buyer: David Duke. In the mid-1990s, Zeitgeist screened the documentary The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993). The German filmmaker was exceptionally talented, but some of her bestknown works were propaganda films for Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, including Triumph of the Will (1934) and Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht (Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces, 1935). The first screening of the documentary sold out quickly, and Broussard had to tell arrivals the theater was full. “Just as I said that — I had no idea — the next guy in line was David Duke,” Broussard says. “He thought I was not letting him in for political reasons. I showed him we were full. I said, ‘Look, sorry, there are no empty seats.’” Duke left, and accounts of the event somehow made Broussard into a hero for denying entrance to the former Ku Klux Klan leader. But there was no principled statement in the works. Duke returned the next day — a half-hour early — in order to get a seat. “I’m not going to turn away anyone if they’re paying,” Broussard says. He once also had to turn away Taylor Hackford and Helen Mirren after the couple rolled up in a limousine to see a compilation of short animated films by the Quay brothers, which already was sold out. There’s no obvious formula for what packs the house at Zeitgeist. Sometimes it’s obscure experimental films that appeal to cult fans, sometimes it’s controversial films or events
— the Sex Workers Art Show used to be an annual sellout. A more recent success was the debut and subsequent run of Pearl Jam Twenty, Cameron Crowe’s documentary about the Seattle band’s career. Zeitgeist was the only theater in Louisiana to screen it on the night of its worldwide premiere, and it was one of only eight theaters in the United States permitted to do a theatrical run. “It was amazing,” Broussard reported after opening night. “We had an incredible line. I put food and drinks in a cart and went down the line while people waited for the second screening.” But even Broussard isn’t happy with every packed house. Where’s the limit of his tolerance for popular subjects? Alex Gibney’s Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, is one example. Gibney is the award-winning director of such films as Taxi to the Darkside, about the war in Afghanistan, and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, about the company’s accounting scandal. Gonzo was well reviewed by critics, and its only other local screening was in the New Orleans Film Festival. “I ran it for like two weeks and made a shitload of money,” Broussard says. “But I hate Hunter S. Thompson. The whole drunk gun thing — what a douche. Just trying to read him is one of the worst things ever.” Broussard constantly scans film festivals and reaches out personally to directors for screening copies, but programming at Zeitgeist has always been feast or famine. The recent Samuel Goldwyn release The Whistleblower, which in years past would have been more likely to run locally at the Landmark Theatres chain at Canal Place, drew only a dozen people on opening night at Zeitgeist.