At a time when all Washington movie theaters were independent and locally owned, Georgetown’s Biograph was the most independent and most local. This credit is largely due to proprietor Alan Rubin, who died on Nov. 6, at 85, from complications of Parkinson’s disease.

As a major cultural influence throughout the Biograph’s 29-year run, Rubin was one of a group of friends who opened the theater on Georgetown’s M Street in 1967, and he continued to run it until 1996, when it closed because the building was sold to a drugstore chain. During those three decades, he championed domestic and foreign repertory film, educating generations of local cinephiles by introducing them to some of the most innovative filmmakers of the time. His love for the cinema and willingness to book films more adventurous than typical theaters was appreciated by filmgoers throughout the area, and those who were lucky enough to know Rubin treasured his intelligence, affability, and encyclopedic knowledge. 

Following the closure, Rubin attempted, unsuccessfully, to open a successor theater, but most of his post-Biograph life was devoted to his often playful, realist paintings.

Richard Harrington, a former Washington Post music and film critic, worked briefly as a box office manager for the Biograph years before he would review films playing at the theater. “Alan’s influence on people’s knowledge and love of film in this area is immeasurable. It was really important, and it was immense,” Harrington tells City Paper. “He was the first person to screen Jean-Luc Godard, the first to show Werner Herzog, Akira Kurasowa, Wim Wenders, Todd Haynes, and John Woo.

“He also showcased a lot of animation, and he established the tradition of midnight films in the area by screening Pink Flamingos for a full year, every Friday and Saturday night,” adds Harrington. “So he helped establish John Waters.”

“Alan was the biggest mensch in the business,” says local documentary filmmaker Aviva Kempner, who organized four editions of the Washington Jewish Film Festival held at the Biograph during the early to mid-’90s. “Alan was a total pleasure to work with. He totally got it. Alan was very proud of being Jewish, very proud of being from Brooklyn, and one of the funniest people I know.”

Former programmer for the now-shuttered American Film Institute Theater, Michael Jeck—who considers Rubin a mentor—began his career as a film distributor by organizing various Japanese film festivals at the Biograph between 1977 and 1990. Those festivals yielded some of the theater’s biggest hits: revivals of Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo and The Hidden Fortress. “I loved Alan. He was a wonderful man. And he was wonderful at what he did,” Jeck says. 

“He was just straight-up rock-and-roll, totally tuned into movies, and very improvisational as a programmer,” says Eddie Cockrell, who preceded Jeck as a booker at AFI. “He had an audience that went along with him with that kind of programming, which he could only do because he knew movies inside and out.”

In addition to his cinematic savvy, Rubin is remembered fondly for his geniality. “Alan just listened to you as if everything you said was fantastic,” says former Washington Post film critic Desson Thomson. “He laughed, and he listened, and he hummed with this kind of benevolent embrace of everything.”

Adds Harrington: “Alan was an amazing person. He was kind and funny and creative, and he had a wicked sense of humor.” 

Rubin’s widow, Susan Rubin, attributes her husband’s graciousness to his upbringing. “His mother was filled with love for him, and she was always praising him, constantly giving him love, saying that he was a beautiful person and could do anything,” she says. “I think that’s how he became so positive.”

Rubin was born in Brooklyn, an only child, who, according to Susan, remained close with his parents throughout their lives. Trained as a geologist, Rubin moved to Washington in the early 1960s to work for the U.S. Geological Survey. Susan recalls the spacious home they bought near Marshall, Virginia. It was quite different from his childhood home, she says, describing a small apartment where he shared a room with his grandfather. “He loved the space…His friends came the first week we moved out here, and they said, ‘This is such a big property. How will you take care of it if you don’t have a lawn mower?’ He laughed and said he would buy one.”

By 1965, Rubin decided to leave his day job, which was then at the Pentagon, and began exploring the prospect of opening a movie theater. When the Biograph opened it began by showing the mainstays of 1960s repertory cinemas, including rock documentaries, Hollywood classics, “underground” movies, and foreign–often French—films. The theater opened and closed its doors with a double bill of Jean Renoir’s A Day in the Country and Godard’s Masculin Féminin.

The arrival of the VCR upended the theater’s formula. Rubin successfully shifted to films and genres that were then more obscure—and less likely to be available on videocassette—including Japanese anime and Hong Kong action movies.

“He was very open to offbeat stuff,” says Jeck, citing the Biograph’s success with Mahabharata, British director Peter Brook’s three-hour film of the Hindu epic. After Mahabharata’s initial run ended, Rubin played it weekly (for an unknown number of weeks) so that it could reach all of its potential audience. 

“He would program the Biograph like it was a multiplex. We showed upwards of five movies a day even though we could only show one at a time,” says Paul Bishow, the theater’s longtime projectionist and manager.

Rubin booked movies that were controversial, such as Godard’s allegedly heretical Hail Mary, which got a publicity boost from the protesters who picketed the theater, and Haynes’ Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, then the subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit.

Of the latter, Bishow recalls, “We had to hide the prints at night when we left the theater so it wouldn’t be confiscated.”

The Biograph also nurtured D.C. area filmmakers, hosting regular “Expose Yourself” festivals of local short movies and screening the work of Maryland’s neo-slapstick troupe the Langley Punks. Local filmmaker Jeff Krulik, who is best known for his 1986 documentary Heavy Metal Parking Lot, first met Rubin in the late ’80s and later collaborated with him on the Rosebud Film Festival showcasing local film and video projects.

“Alan was very accommodating and supportive of local films as well as films that were maybe a little challenging for audiences,” says Krulik. “If he didn’t book it himself, he was willing to rent the theater and work with you to help you achieve your screening.”

Krulik has conceived an evening-long tribute to the Biograph—and the local filmmakers it showcased—that he hopes to present next year at the AFI Silver Theatre. “Alan was very welcoming to filmmakers starting out and veteran filmmakers who needed a venue to screen their work,” says Krulik. “He was just such a kind and inspiring person.”