Back in the day (1975-79), my first job was up in Yellow Springs OH. It was populated then (and still is) by artists, hippies, and generally eclectic people. The nice thing was a great movie theater they had there called The Little Art Theater. Seeing movies there in that era was like a doctorate level cinema where I got introduced to Fellini, Mastroianni, Loren, Godard, Truffaut, Jean Seberg, Bergman, Hitchcock, Antonioni, Kurosawa, Deneuve (oh god did I have the hots for her), Kubrick, Bertolucci, Woody Allen, and more. I had just been a midwest guy seeing the big headline movies and now I saw movies as an art form. I had always been a movie fan but this was a different level.
I had just gotten divorced and had a hippie girlfriend up in YS. We’d smoke some potent weed and a Saturday movie at the Little Art was a routine. We’d just go and see whatever movie was there. My eyes were opened as to what movies could be like.