I first met Tom Wills at Nashville’s Downtown Presbyterian Church’s Lenten Film Series where he screened his 16mm print of F.W. Murnau’s 1927 Sunrise: A Song For Two Humans. We met up again at the 2009 Nashville Film Festival where he was an ever faithful presence.

I read an interview for NPT online where you humbly shunned the notion that you are considered by some to be one of the foremost authorities on panorams and scopitones, which are 16mm film jukeboxes from many decades past. Is your scopitone still on display at the Belcourt Theater in Nashville, and if so, is it still operational to the public?

Tom: Yes, as I said in that interview, I am not a foremost authority on panorams or for that matter scopitones. I have never seen a panoram, and though I own a scopitone that lives in The Belcourt lobby, it is the only one I have laid eyes on in person. I am a mad film collector, nothing more in this regard. Thus I own plenty of b&w, optical soundtrack “Soundies” from the 1940s that would have originally lived inside Panoram film jukeboxes, and I own plenty of color, magnetic soundtrack “Scopitones” from the 1960s which were made specifically for the Scopitone film jukebox.

The Scopitone player in the Belcourt lobby is currently out of service. I need to call in a technician from Maryland to come and service it, but I’ve been lazy. Thankfully, it is a beautiful machine and doesn’t offend the eye where it is. Your question may shame me into action. Thank you, kind sir.

You purchased the historic Belcourt Theater in order to help save it and then were able to sell it back to the non-profit entity once they had raised the funds. Please elaborate on that, as well as your past and present involvement with the organization.

Tom: I discovered the Belcourt Theater shortly before it closed. I was absolutely not a film buff at the time. But, I was a painter and an ardent supporter of the arts, which are two different roles for me. I still have an art studio in The Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville where I curate a film series during lent and where I met you. I was the first artist there, and now there is an artist community that is supported by the church without the church getting in its way, which is kinda rare for this town if not this country. I think it provided a psychological template for me to get involved in the Belcourt: a no strings attached embrace of the arts template. So, I guess you could say that I welcomed the Belcourt because I was welcomed as an artist by my church. Others who I joined with to save the Belcourt had their own different reasons. Those are just mine.

So, my role over the years has turned from artist to “arts activist,” as a friend recently put it. The Belcourt YES! non-profit which I helped start with Julia Sutherland’s leadership and the active hands and minds of F. Clark Willams, Scott and Mimi Manzler, Kathy Conkwright, and others truly sharpened my sense of how important arts activism is to the community. It is a blessing for an artist to create work for the community, but it is equally important to have spaces that allow that creativity to be shared in. One can’t live without the other. I believe that. The Belcourt lives on the shoulders of filmmakers, musicians and playwrights, yet we get to take credit for showcasing their works and history. It is symbiotic.

As far as my purchase of it, that was only a technicality, unless I had to pull the plug. As an owner of something so public, my role was to take it off the market and urge the board to raise the money to buy it themselves. I could never have afforded to renovate it or to maintain it long term. The only downside was the possibility that they would fail to take over ownership (i.e. buy it) and that I would be forced to conclude that the organization was doomed to fail regardless. Thankfully and fortuitously that proved not to be the case, and they now own it. Please understand, I would never have bought it had I thought they could do anything but succeed if they worked hard. And, thankfully they worked really, really hard. Right now, I am on the board of directors of The Belcourt Theatre, LLC.

Do I understand correctly, that you project your films on the Belcourt’s wall

outside?

Tom: The Belcourt does the projecting. But, yes they are my films, or films that I have borrowed from other collectors, and technically it is my projector. We try to stick to prints that I either own or can borrow on 16mm film. It is a matter of pride that we still project

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film. We’ve projected rare 16mm Technicolor prints such as The Girl Can’t Help It that was originally released in Eastman Color prints that faded to red. But, a limited run of 16mm Cinemascope Technicolor prints which don’t fade and had the most brilliant color to start with were struck back in the day, and I was lucky enough to snag one. Other highlights we’ve presented in the past are Plan Nine From Outerspace, Hitchcock’s The Birds and The Man Who Knew Too Much (in Technicolor), Forbidden Planet (in Cinemascope), Roger Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors with Jack Nicholson and others. the Belcourt’s summer series is being finalized at this moment, so I cannot reveal what Toby Leonard (who programs our films) and I have pulled from the vault. Stay tuned . . .

Are you comfortable being thought of as a film preservationist, and can you talk about your collection of films?

Tom: Well, I owe my relationship to the Belcourt for that. I’ve always had a collector streak in me since I was a kid collecting comic books. There is a kind of insanity to it, but I deflect the perversion by sharing my films as much as I can. In fact, the original intent of collecting them was to show them at the theater. So sharing them there has become a reality.

Not only do we share them as a part of the Summer Drive-In Series, but we also have been able to use them and other 16mm prints I have borrowed from other collectors on the screens inside. One example was Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders (1970), which was not available in 35mm, or From The Tramp To The Vagabond: A History of Homelessness and film series that The Contributor (a homeless newspaper I helped found) sponsored last year. It featured a mixture of 16mm prints, 35mm prints and digital presentations, but mostly 16mm film prints that were unavailable in 35mm, such as, The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford), Boudu Saved From Drowning (Jean Renoir), Miracle In Milan (Vittorio De Sica) and That Tennessee Beat (a 1966 B film with an appearance of Minnie Pearl as a wheelchair-bound preacher who helps save a homeless outlaw who tries to become a songwriter in Nashville).

Is there a way that film lovers

can find out about your special

screenings?

Tom: Stay tuned for the Belcourt’s summer outdoor film series. I don’t have any films planned for our church to screen until next year, and obviously we have not scheduled anything in stone yet. I wish I could invite all of your readers into my home to watch film after film, but I do have to honor this little thing called copyright. Copyright law requires one to pay for the right to show films to the public.

What do you think about the present state of independent films and filmmakers, and what are your hopes for their future?

Tom: I think that the future is bright, and always challenging. This is because it is a changing landscape. I am stuck in the past. Feature films have all but ceased to be printed on 16mm film. The major rental companies quit ordering 16mm prints in 2003. My portal to independent film IS the Belcourt. The Nashville Film Festival is a natural extension of that energy as well. But the Belcourt is the home of independent cinema in Nashville. As an “arts activist” I recommend that our citizens take advantage of the recommendations that the theater has to offer. You won’t find any better chances to see films such as Silent Light, which played the Belcourt about a month ago. Hunger also played, which a film critic friend of mine (who is from Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the film is set) claims is the most important film about the struggle yet conceived.

The future is now. Support what is being made and that will secure a future for the next filmmaker and his or her next project.

The Belcourt Theater events like Tom’s can be found at belcourt.org.