A while back a mother asked if I would show movies her kid could see. I said, “Sure.”
I posted flyers for the program. I got an email from a Sean Stapleton attacking myself and my program.
The police showed up saying they had gotten a complaint. They started off by saying that were I doing the program they had no problem with it. They just wanted to know if I was posting the flyers or if the flyers were part of the long standing criminal harassment of myself by people who have been attacking myself and others for decades. I confirmed I posted the flyers.
The mother brought her kid. They had a swell time.
Today on reddit I found a post anonymously attacking myself for offering this program at my “illegal” cinema.
The CineForum is not a cinema. A Forum is a platform for ideas.
My work in Toronto has been under attack since it started in the mid 1960s. In THE TORONTO star David Beard stated, “Reg Hartt is under financed, overworked and snubbed. should be paying tribute to him.”
in 2000 I watched the owner of a street poster service paste a three page attack on myself. I laughed.
I did not laugh when in 2010 the city was wall papered with thousands of anonymous flyers targeting a former employee of the man as a rat (police informant).
This was ironic. The target had been attacked on the street from behind. He was beaten so badly he had to go to a hospital. The assault was witnessed by a police officer who begged him to press charges. The targeted person said, “I’m not a rat.” He wasn’t. I bought my first video camera. I recorded the posters. Mayor David Miller’s office got them stopped.
In 2012 I found myself the target of anonymous slander saying I was creating and distributing child porn. Oliver Moore did a story on this which was published in THE GLOBE AND MAIL. To read it google “Reg Hartt, Oliver Moore, The Globe and Mail.”
Another ex-employee of the man posting the flyers was also targeted as was then Councillor Adam Vaughan and Mayor Rob Ford. Both myself and the new target were informed by people they had been offered money to kill us. This has been going on for far too long.
The comments on the current post are uninformed and ugly. One person commented I serve pasta with no name sauce (I don’t but if I do, so what?).
Walking in my door Ed Keenan of THE STAR said, “Reg Hartt, you are the only man in Toronto who stands up.” I said, “I’m not but there are ever enough.”
In a piece on my work THE MONTREAL GAZETTE stated, “Reg Hartt is one of Canada’s foremost film archivists, lecturers and programmers.” They are not alone.
Toronto alternative-theatre founder stands up to bullying threats – The Globe and Mail
Jane Jacobs My mother loved Reg Hartt Jim Jacobs – YouTube
“Reg Hartt had an incredible impact on the city. No one else is doing it. No one else has ever done it.”–Rob Salem.
Reg Hartt has a feel for film unique in this country…genius level.”—Elwy Yost.
“I honestly believe Reg Hartt is the greatest teacher I know for only he teaches the evil of teaching. Well, not only he. For confirmation of everything he has been saying all along read David Mamet’s book TRUE AND FALSE.”—Emo Philips
“Reg Hartt has had an amazing impact given the size of the venue and the esoteric nature of the programming. He’s had an incredible impact on the city. No one else is doing it. No one else has ever done it.”–Rob Salem.
“Reg Hartt is what living in a metropolis is all about. He personifies the city as a meeting place of ideas, as a feast of experience and discussion and debate, as a triumph over the banal and soporific of the original and provoking.”—Michael Valpy, THE GLOBE AND MAIL
““Reg Hartt teaches like Neal Cassady drove a bus.”—Joe Fiorito. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2010/09/15/fiorito_we_gotta_have_hartt.html
“REG HARTT is what living in a metropolis is all about. He personifies the city as a meeting place of ideas, as a feast of experience and discussion and debate, as a triumph of the original and provoking over the banal and soporific.”—Michael Valpy, THE GLOBE & MAIL
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford recently came to the rescue of Reg Hartt, an individual who had run afoul of the law. Hartt’s violation? As explained by city authorities, he was illicitly running “a place of assembly.” Hartt’s actual crime? He is a non-conformist in a city that makes just about all commercial activities illegal, including those in the home, unless some city bureaucrat says otherwise.
Hartt has been a credit to Toronto for decades. His Cineforum, which screens noteworthy films for small study groups in his living room, has long won acclaim from critics in Canada and abroad and endorsements from Canadian icons such as author Pierre Berton and urban guru Jane Jacobs. Lonely Planet lists 463 Bathurst St, his modest abode on a major Toronto thoroughfare, as among the top 30 sights to see in Toronto and in the top 30 of sights to see in Ontario. That’s quite a credit to the city. Yet although neighbours don’t complain, the city’s Municipal Licensing and Standards department periodically shuts him down.
Lawrence Solomon: Jane Jacobs rules as Ford strikes a blow for film freedom | National Post
A city that sees value in rules, but no value in letting Reg Hartt bend them, has no right to claim Jane Jacobs’ legacy, writes Edward Keenan.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/06/27/cineforum-deserves-a-happy-ending-to-its-saga-keenan.html
The city should drop its misguided fight against Reg Hartt…
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2016/06/28/the-city-should-leave-cineforum-alone-editorial.html
“I am a friend of Reg Hartt.
“So is anyone who can appreciate a man who teaches the way Neal Cassady drove a bus.
“I mean that, where you have style wrapped around content and tied with a ribbon of beat improvisation, there you have angels.
“Harvey Pekar was an angel.
“And I’ve never met anyone with wings who did not have an ego. Nor is this an easy town for a man who is larger than life, and does not care to suffer fools.
“You might like to know that the friends of Reg Hartt included the non-fool-suffering Jane Jacobs, who knew a thing or two about what, and who, makes life worth living in the city; that’s good enough for me. His philosophy as a teacher of film? “My programs are designed for people without money.” Yeah, but how does he earn enough to pay the rent? “The Lord said, ‘I will take care of you.’ The I Ching says the same thing.” A long time since I met anyone who throws those bones.
The city will do what it will.
And you will permit me an observation: if Martin Sheen can come to town and stand on the picket line with striking hotel workers, why won’t our senior cineastes stand up for Reg Hartt, as the city moves to strike him down?
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2010/09/15/fiorito_we_gotta_have_hartt.html
https://reghartt.ca/cineforum/?p=33438
Paul McGrath, THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Some audience members were visibly distressed by the frequency and force of Hartt’s interjections into the program but it is clearly his chosen way of doing things, and the payoff in information is worth it. He has many good stories to tell: about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’s transformation into Mickey Mouse, Disney’s most enduring character; about the furor that greeted the creation of Tweety Pie, which subsided only when the artists painted him yellow; and much valuable technical information for the animation students. He has some interesting tales about Mel Blanc, Warners’ resident genius of voice characterization, as he continues the series with a full scale look at the Warner work of Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, and others. It’s the best work of its kind you will see anywhere because, except in rare oases in the United States and Eastern-Europe, they don’t make them like that anymore.
JULIA SCUTARU, retired journalist, Bucharest, Romania: “In Toronto, I discovered by chance, Cineforum. Pure chance but a fortunate one. In that small room exhaling culture, passion and dedication, I watched the movie TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, an important historical, political and social document., and real artistic achievement….As a journalist (in Romania) I worked in the cultural field, including film reviews. Therefore I came to the Cineforum not just as a movie lover, but as a knowledgeable professional…We live in an era authoritatively dominated by brainwashing and political correctness…I admired Reg Hartt’s courage and passion put in searching out and defending the human truth, the artistic truth, the historical truth; the Truth and unveiling it…Discovering Reg Hartt and his Cineforum was one of the most important events of my visit in Toronto.”
DAVID BEARD, owner CINEBOOKS, quoted in THE TORONTO STAR, Nov. l, l979
“This man has devoted his whole life to bringing the film classics to the public. He treats animation-cartoons, if you will-as art. He is underfinanced, overworked and snubbed. I think we should pay tribute to him.”
This won’t of course stop the slanderers. Drop by The CineForum. Brit painter Peter Moore called it “The most perfect place on earth in which to see a movie.”
« Robert Bucklin, M.D., J.D. The Legal and Medical Aspects of the Trial and Death of Christ For over two decades Reg Hartt has been standing up alone to a bully posting anonymously in an attempt to incite violence upon him. »