I can’t remember exactly when the cinematic past became palpable for me. It was probably sometime in the late Fifties or early Sixties, when the mix of television screenings, museum revivals, film festivals, and cultist publications here and abroad crystallized into a revisionist film culture. Until that time, the experience of moviegoing had been free of the stigma of culture. There were no courses in the subject, no obligations, and no imperatives. We went to the movies and came back home. The movies themselves came and went and almost never returned. Old movies, like old cars, were products for…