ENTER THE Boys Fort storefront at SW 9th and Morrison. Head rightâpast the â503â baseball caps, the letterpress coasters, the artisanal slingshotsâand round a corner.
Nestled in the back, past the essential oil and handmade earring pop-up shops, youâll just about run into a hardcover oral history of Mel Brooksâ Young Frankenstein. Nearby is Taschenâs the Ingmar Bergman Archivesâa 600-page, 15-pound tome on the Swedish filmmaker. Above it sits a tantalizing Wong Kar-wai monograph and Orson Welles retrospective.
This clean, well-lit space is Portlandâs newest bookstoreâAdelina Film & Art Books. Opened by Rachel Greben and Dan DeWeese (of Propeller Books), the 200-square-foot store caters to Portlandâs vibrant film community, which is sometimes overlooked in a city of bikes and breweries.
The co-ownersâ commitment to film is evident from their highly curated collection to their company ethos. âOur inspiration comes from Italian neorealism,â says Greben. âMaximum creativity shaped from limited resources.â (And yes, the store is named after Sophia Lorenâs character in Vittorio De Sicaâs Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.)
The inventory will have film buffs salivating, whether theyâre into Chantal Akerman or Star Wars. Going beyond the average coffee table book, the owners select books that are as pleasing to the eye as they are to the mind. âItâs a good place to buy a book you tell yourself youâre going to give to someone elseâwhich you then just keep,â says DeWeese.
DeWeese adds that the average film fanatic will be familiar with many of their titlesâwhich is a good thing. âIâm hoping their first feeling is a sense of comfort: âThese shelves are my kind of place.â But they also see, after a few minutes of looking, that in fact there are some things here they havenât seen elsewhere.â
Heâs referring to the UK-published BFI Film Classics collectionâportable paperbacks with beautiful covers examining films from Akira to Vertigoâthat are frankly âtoo much of a pain in the ass for other bookstores to get.â Adelina may be one of the few places in the country where you can physically thumb through Salman Rushdieâs thoughts on The Wizard of Oz, the authorâs âvery first literary influence.â
Greben hopes the art book side of the storeâfeaturing folios for all ages on photography, music, dance, painting, and architectureâoffers a similar environment, one thatâs as accessible as it is illuminating. âSo many people feel that if they donât understand art, that world is closed to them. In truth, there is some kind of artistic experience out there for nearly everyone. So our first tendency is to include books that are inviting and informativeâas many different perspectives as we can fit into this space.â
But do we... need another bookstore? Especially blocks away from the cityâs independent behemoth? âPeople think bookstores are in competition with one another,â says DeWeese. âMy sense is that theyâre more like coffee housesâthereâs room in a city for plenty of different experiences.â
DeWeese pauses. âI own physical DVDs and Blu-rays, because when I look at my shelves, I see things I might want to rewatch. If I just go onto Hulu, the scope is narrowed, my browsing is controlled. And while the computer screen is an interesting room, I think there are actual rooms that let your mind do more things. What good stores do is open up the scope.â
Adelina manages just that, allowing you to get lost for hours within a circumscribed but comforting spaceâmuch like the best films.