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Arts & Entertainment

'The Landlord' Offers a Glimpse of Pre-Gentrification Park Slope

Classic film series in Tribeca features Hal Ashby's "The Landlord" on the big screen.

Park Slope residents have surely witnessed changes in recent years: more boutiques and restaurants, less crime, and of course, higher rent.

But to witness a dramatic contrast between the Stroller City of today and of the past, don’t miss a rare screening of 1970 film “The Landlord.”

The movie, which stars Beau Bridges as a posh 20-something who buys a building amid predominantly black Park Slope, screens at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2 at the 92Y Tribeca screening room.

Elliott Kalan, a writer for “The Daily Show” and a Slope resident, presents the movie as part of his “Closely Watched Films” series, which spotlights old and little-seen but, in Kalan’s view, unmissable films.

“The Landlord,” is “a great movie that deserves to be better known,” Kalan said. “It’s funny, it’s heartbreaking, it’s beautifully made, and it has a real energy to it.”

The film depicts a pre-gentrification neighborhood that little resembles the Park Slope of today. The mother of Beau Bridges’ character refers to the area with horror as “the ghetto,” and, in turn, Park Slope’s residents aren’t too thrilled at being pushed out of their homes.

After the screening, Kalan will discuss the changed landscape of Park Slope and will encourage the audience to join the conversation.

“The differences between Park Slope now and 40 years ago are enormous,” he said. “In 1970, Park Slope was predominantly black and lower-class. The brownstones were crumbling, stores were shuttered, blocks were burnt out.”

“Now, Park Slope is synonymous with a certain level of wealth, privilege and food-centric hipster parenting. Back then only the barest roots of gentrification had started, and that’s what this movie is about.”

The movie’s exteriors were shot at 51 Prospect Place, which remains standing today but now looks “like it came from an alternate universe,” Kalan said. “The block is unrecognizable just from having healthy trees planted on it.”

Beyond Park Slope’s gentrification, the film tackles head-on the broader subject of race relations.

Roger Ebert, the widely syndicated former critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote of “The Landlord” in 2004, “It adds up to a more honest, if less optimistic, portrait of American race relations than we usually see in the movies.”

The film was also the directorial debut of Hal Ashby (“Harold and Maude,” “Being There”) and stars Louis Gossett Jr. and Lee Grant in addition to Bridges. Grant was nominated for an Oscar for her performance as the horrified mother.

“It’s a great movie that you’ll never forget seeing,” Kalan said. “It’ll stick in your mind, and you’ll find yourself looking at where you live and how you live in a different way.”

Tickets for the screening cost $12.

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