Remembering Jack Garner (1945–2020)

This tribute to Jack Garner was written by Jared Case, curator of film exhibitions.

I knew Jack Garner for several decades. He didn’t know me for nearly as long, but I’m OK with that.

Jack’s film criticism coincided perfectly with my developing interest in cinema. His first review for the Democrat and Chronicle was Star Wars in 1977. I must have gone to the theater before that time, but I have distinct memories of driving to the Lakeshore Drive-In with my family for a double feature with Orca. Like so many others, that was a watershed moment for me, infiltrating my life with toys, books, comics, and trading cards as my sister and I would assume the roles from the film and create our own stories. At one point, I leaned over the bench seat in dad’s Xerox company car and pointed to the Rear Defroster button, labeled REAR DEF, and asked him if that controlled the “rear deflector.”

From that point I was hooked, and Jack was there with me every step of the way. Jack reviewed films for thirty years for the Democrat and Chronicle, just about everything that Rochester had to offer, and more. If I got the paper first, I’d rifle to the C section and take it, leaving the rest of the paper behind. I reveled in the morning and the afternoon paper, voraciously reading Jack in the morning and Mike Cidoni in the afternoon’s Times-Union, comparing them for content and opinions, then begging my parents to take me to the films that sparked my interest to determine if I sided with Mike or Jack on a particular film. His year-end lists were eagerly anticipated, and often clipped, preferably after my parents had finished with the paper.

This is how I knew Jack for some time before I actually met him. You can tell a lot about a person from how they react to art, and Jack was putting himself out to the reader every week. But the secret of Jack’s writing was that he always put himself into his articles. He never made it a secret that he loved a film or hid behind a pretense of detached cynicism. His appreciation of cinema (and, I came to find out, music) came from a giddy excitement of the possible. He was perfectly willing to be carried away by a film, surrendering himself to the experience.

Jack was a tall man, twice as tall as me it seemed, but he also had stature in the community. His broad, smiling face adorned each of his reviews, making him seem approachable, but set away from me behind a newsprint scrim. His was a voice to be listened to, not just because he knew his stuff, but because he had built up such goodwill in the community. He was easily recognizable in a room, but that didn’t mean a young(ish) film fan would have the ability to reach out.

The first time I met Jack was at a preview screening of John Carpenter’s Vampires in the Fall of 1998. Some friends and I had procured passes to see it at the fairly new Cinemark Tinseltown USA a few days before it officially opened. I wasn’t married yet, so I was still acting goofy in public. My friends and I had time to spare before the film and visited the arcade. I had some good luck on one of the games of chance and earned something like 180 tickets to exchange at the counter. I couldn’t exchange that amount of tickets for anything I wanted, so I decided to exchange them for 90 cheap “smiley face” rings at two tickets apiece.

I began giving these free rings out to whoever wanted them, my amusement coming from the juxtaposition of a crowd of vampire-horror-fan goths taking these rings with a confused look on their faces. And there, standing in line with the rest of us regular people, was Jack, standing alone, towering over us as he waited patiently to be let into the theater. Seeing my chance to connect with the newspaperman, I went over to him and offered one of the rings, which was open on the bottom and cheap enough to be bent to fit around one of his fingers. He took it with a bemused expression and I made my way back to my friends. That was it.

I don’t know if he remembered that encounter. I never brought it up to him.

I have been fortunate to be associated with the George Eastman Museum for twenty-one years now, in various capacities. One of the fortunes of that association was getting to know Jack a little bit better. He came around more often after his “retirement” in 2007, and even more often in recent years as a member of the Eastman Museum Council and then with a seat on the Board of Trustees. I’d get to see him at holiday parties or special events and talk film — classic or new, it was all great to him. As the cataloger in the Moving Image Department, I would sometimes be contacted by Jack to find out if a particular print was in the collection. I’d say hi every time I saw him sitting in the Café or lounging in the Dryden lobby.

If I had to describe Jack in a single word, it would be gregarious. He was perfectly suited to a life in the public eye. I’ve never heard an unkind word from him (oh, maybe a criticism or two, but always very constructive). He was able to carry on a conversation with anyone and often carried on one with everyone. I was always conscientious of his time because he always had someone else to talk to. It seemed like he knew everyone.

In my current role as curator of film exhibitions, I would often have conversations with Jack, on the phone or in person, about the films screening at the Dryden Theatre, or the Nitrate Picture Show, or just something we were excited about. When Robert Forster passed in 2019, Jack was the first person I turned to. We had screenings of two films featuring Forster from our collection in November, and Jack introduced both of them. It was wonderful to have someone who knew Bob providing context and lending a warm, compassionate voice to the proceedings.

You see, Jack was not just a fan of films, he was a fan of cinema–the process of seeing these objects projected on a big screen, hearing and feeling the audience react to it in real-time, and then graciously talking about it afterward. Over the last decade, Jack became an advocate for cinema, not just at the Dryden, but in the entirety of this wonderful film community we have in Rochester. We were very lucky to have him.

The last time I saw Jack in person was in January at the press conference and groundbreaking for the new visitor center being constructed at the museum. I came out from behind the desk I’m sitting at now when I heard his booming voice in the lobby to say hello. We talked about our favorite topic that day: our wives. Bonnie and Julie have a lot in common, not the least of which is that they have the innate ability to put up with us. It was a special day for me, and a way for me to interact with Jack on a deeper level.

The last time I spoke to Jack on the phone, he called to ask about rescheduling a photoshoot. He was asked to pose as a prominent member of the community and asked to choose an environment that best represented how he defined himself. He told me he wanted to stand next to the projectors at the Dryden to have his portrait taken. It was those projectors, and the images they represent, that had given him so much joy over the years. We were more than happy to help.

I’m already looking forward to programming in the Dryden Theatre for November and December, and will be assembling a series of some of Jack’s favorite films.

Jack Garner is a part of all of us now. His enthusiasm, joy, and good will live on in us. For Jack, let’s all go out and be gregarious.