Ask anyone who watches live sports, irrespective of their team of choice: the best show on television is SNY’s nightly broadcast of new Mets games. They’ve got a justly celebrated announcing team of Gary (Cohen), Keith (Hernandez), and Ron (Darling), but their biggest star is someone you might never see or hear: John DeMarsico, who since 2020 has been their in-game director, chief innovator, and resident cinephile. Like a live sports Orson Welles, DeMarsico has altered our expectations for what me might see, introducing cinematic techniques to split-second coverage, such as whip-pans, majestic dissolves, canted angles, and split-screens, as well as edited sequences evoking western showdowns, action thrillers, and even The Wizard of Oz.
For this unique event, DeMarsico will present a short film representative of his work, in which clips from his live broadcasts are interpolated with clips from the films that inspired them—ranging from Kill Bill and Once Upon a Time in the West to Planet of the Apes and Blow Out—followed by an extensive discussion with JBFC Director of Curation & Film Programming Eric Hynes about his trailblazing approach to live television, the magic and complexity of realizing each broadcast from their mobile studio, his favorite old and new films, and of course, the current state of the Mets. You don’t have to be a baseball fan to fall under the spell of John DeMarsico, but you might become one by the end of the night.
Images taken by Michelle Farsi for the New York Times.
