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EXPERIENCE ESSENTIAL CINEMA
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THE MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA
HALLOWEEN TRIPLE BILLS Vﾃ，LAV HAVEL 1970S AMERICAN ROAD MOVIES VISIBLE VERSE 2014 FIRST RUNS, REVIVALS, RESTORATIONS
SEPTEMBER + OCTOBER 2014 1131 Howe Street | Vancouver | theCinematheque.ca
THE WICKER MAN
y SEPTEMBER + OCTOBER 2014
=FIRST
RUNS + REVIVALS+
A New Film by Jonathan Demme
A Film by Chris Marker
Vancouver Premiere!
Vancouver Premiere!
A Master Builder
USA 2014. Dir: Jonathan Demme. 127 min. DCP
“Terrifically performed . . . The dynamic duo behind My Dinner with André and Vanya on 42nd Street take on another classic of the stage, with Jonathan Demme replacing the late Louis Malle at the helm.” – Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter “The artistic triumvirate of Jonathan Demme, André Gregory, and Wallace Shawn update Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder, a modern classic about a successful, egomaniacal architect who has spent a lifetime bullying his wife, employees, and mistresses – who nonetheless wants to make peace with himself as his life approaches its final act. Wallace Shawn gives a tour-de-force performance as the cruel, yet guiltridden architect. Jonathan Demme’s direction is based on the near-legendary production created for the stage by André Gregory over a period of more than 10 years. Lisa Joyce plays a sensual, mysterious young visitor who turns the household upside down, much to the consternation of Julie Hagerty, perfectly cast as Shawn’s neurasthenic, long-suffering wife” (Film Forum New York). The film is dedicated to Louis Malle. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 – 6:30 PM FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 – 6:30 PM SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 – 6:30 PM SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 – 4:00 PM & 8:35 PM
35mm Print!
My Dinner with André
USA 1981. Dir: Louis Malle. 110 min. 35mm
The unlikeliest of movie hits, Louis Malle’s much-loved My Dinner with André consists of two New York intellectuals – avantgarde theatre director André Gregory and actor-playwright Wallace Shawn, playing fictionalized versions of themselves – talking for two hours over dinner. They discuss theatre, travel, philosophy, the search for the transcendent, and the quest to live authentically. The sense of spontaneity and real-time is illusory: the film was carefully scripted, rehearsed for months, and shot over two weeks on a set designed to resemble a tony Manhattan restaurant. Gregory and Shawn reunited with Malle for 1993’s Vanya on 42nd Street, and team up again in Jonathan Demme’s latest film, the dedicated-to-Malle A Master Builder (also screening this weekend at The Cinematheque). FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 – 9:00 PM SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 – 9:00 PM SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 – 6:30 PM
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Level Five
France 1997. Dir: Chris Marker. 106 min. DCP
“Level Five uses the future as a conduit to the past – sci-fi as memory . . . If ever there was a filmmaker who might come up with a Theory of Everything, it’s Marker.” – Tom Charity, Time Out “Too complicated for words – yet unforgettable – Chris Marker signs a masterful historicfantastic thriller, a vital reflection on death and image.” – Pierre Murat, Télérama The unconventional, almost unclassifiable works of the late film essayist Chris Marker constantly reinvented the way we look at history, memory, time, and cinema. Reminiscent of his 1982 masterpiece Sans Soleil, and offering a nod to Vancouver novelist William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Marker’s newly-available Level Five uses cyberspace as the medium for an inquiry into a momentous but little-known tragedy involving mass suicide in wartime Japan. “Marker’s shockto-the-senses mind-melter concerns a woman (Catherine Belkhodja) haunted by the loss of her lover while working on programming a video game about World War II’s Battle of Okinawa. Melding retro-futuristic sci-fi imagery, references to American film noir, and reflections on traumas in Japanese history into a visually and philosophically provocative puzzle, Level Five is a hallucinatory visual essay on memory, tragedy, and early digital culture” (BAMcinématek, Brooklyn).
preceded by
La Jetée
France 1962. Dir: Chris Marker. 28 min. Blu-ray Disc
Chris Marker’s most celebrated work is this legendary “photo roman,” a moody, moving, utterly marvellous tale of time travel set in a post-apocalyptic Paris. A man with unusually vivid memories, forced by scientists to participate in time-travel experiments, comes to solve the riddle of a mysterious recurring memory that has obsessed him since childhood. With the exception of one fleeting image, La Jetée it is composed entirely of still photographs. Pauline Kael called it “very possibly the greatest science fiction movie yet made”; Terry Gilliam remade it as 12 Monkeys. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 – 7:00 PM WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 – 7:00 PM THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 – 9:00 PM
BJÖRK: BIOPHILIA LIVE
Vancouver Premiere!
Björk: Biophilia Live
Great Britain 2014. Dirs: Nick Fenton, Peter Strickland. 97 min. DCP
“A dazzling audiovisual spectacle that benefits from the full cinematic treatment. A mix of avant-garde opera, high-tech science lesson, and largescale performance art piece.” – Stephen Dalton, Hollywood Reporter “Visually and sonically inventive . . . A captivating record of an artist in full command of her idiosyncratic powers.” – Guy Lodge, Variety There is serious “Wow!” factor in this entrancing concert film from Icelandic eccentric and innovator Björk. Shot in London at the conclusion of her 2013 tour, it has Björk performing her ambitious 2011 multimedia project/album/app release Biophilia, a high-concept inquiry into biodiversity and musicology. British naturalist Sir David Attenborough contributes; Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio) codirects. Both the music and the visuals are gorgeous; spacey animation and other tricks celebrate the fecundity of nature. “An extraordinary piece . . . Utterly bonkers yet moving . . . There are not many artists who can combine the lifecycle of a jellyfish with a breakbeat and make it work. . . It should be mandatory viewing for anyone about to dam a glacial river to facilitate aluminium smelting” (Lucy Siegle, The Guardian). FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17 – 6:30 PM & 10:15 PM SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19 – 5:00 PM & 8:45 PM WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22 – 6:30 PM
35mm Print!
Stop Making Sense
USA 1984. Dir: Jonathan Demme. 88 min. 35mm
David Byrne and Talking Heads, at the height of their musical powers, burn down the house in Jonathan Demme’s legendary concert film, which this year celebrates its 30th anniversary. Filmed over three evenings at Hollywood’s Pantages Theatre, Stop Making Sense features killer performances of “Psycho Killer,” “Take Me to the River,” “Burning Down the House,” and other tunes – and, of course, has Byrne decked out in that now-iconic Big Suit! Demme’s film earned kudos for a stripped-down cinematic approach that focused on the sizzle of this influential band’s stage show and musical performance. We pulled this rare 35mm print of the film from The Cinematheque’s vaults to complement this week’s premiere presentation of another innovative concert movie, Björk: Biophilia Live. Demme’s latest film, A Master Builder, receives its Vancouver premiere in our September calendar. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17 – 8:30 PM SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19 – 7:00 PM WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22 – 8:30 PM
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ROME, OPEN CITY
=NEW
RESTORATIONS+
“Shattering power . . . Rome, Open City remains a film of electric drama and high emotion, as well as a major turning point in film history.” – Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribute “Unbelievably moving . . . There is perhaps no film to rival the humanism and clarity of purpose of Rossellini’s neorealist masterpiece . . . The story plays like a gripping thriller.” – Cath Clarke, The Guardian New Restoration!
Rome, Open City (Roma, città aperta)
Italy 1945. Dir: Roberto Rossellini. 103 min. DCP
Rossellini’s masterpiece of neorealism – now newly restored and newly subtitled – is one of cinema’s landmark works, and features the celebrated Anna Magnani in the role that first brought her international fame. Magnani is stirring as proud, working-class Pina, pregnant fiancée of an Italian resistance fighter caught up in the struggle against the brutal Nazi occupation. Aldo Fabrizi co-stars as Don Pietro, a partisan priest. Shot in the war-torn streets of Rome only weeks after the liberation, Rome, Open City stunned audiences around the world with its dramatic intensity and unvarnished, newsreel-like directness. The American critic James Agee was so awed by the film that he publicly proclaimed himself unable to review it! Fellini co-wrote the script and served as assistant director. “All roads lead to Rome, Open City” (Jean Luc-Godard). THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 – 6:30 PM FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 – 8:40 PM SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 – 6:30 PM SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 – 8:40 PM MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 – 6:30 PM
“Bertolucci’s masterpiece . . . Storaro’s accomplishment may be the apex of colour cinematography.” – Michael Atkinson, Village Voice “It’s still a knockout . . . As momentous as the work of Welles & company on Citizen Kane.” –Armond White, New York Press New Restoration!
The Conformist (Il conformista)
Italy/France/West Germany 1970. Dir: Bernardo Bertolucci. 111 min. DCP
Perhaps the supreme achievement of director Bernardo Bertolucci – and of virtuoso cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who supervised this director-approved restoration – The Conformist is one of cinema’s most visually-beautiful works. Jean-Louis Trintignant stars in a searing, psychologically-complex study of sexuality and politics set in Mussolini’s Italy. He plays Marcello, a young man who becomes a Fascist in order to suppress his homosexual tendencies. The noir-like plot has Marcello sent on a mission to assassinate his former mentor. The film, based on Alberto Moravia’s novel, unfolds as series of flashbacks and flashbacks-within-flashbacks. The sheer opulence of the visual design – expressive lighting, lavish Art-Deco decor, sumptuous costumes, elaborate tracking shots – evokes the great Hollywood studio cinema of Sternberg, Ophüls, and Welles. Bertolucci’s next film would be Last Tango in Paris. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 – 8:30 PM FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 – 6:30 PM SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 – 8:30 PM SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 – 6:30 PM MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 – 8:30 PM
4 THE CONFORMIST
NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE
n e e w o Hall SpeciaL
Triple Bills!
Friday, October 31 & Saturday, November 1
Triple Bill Price: $20 Adults/ $18 Students & Seniors Regular single and double bill prices otherwise in effect. Annual $3 membership required. 18+ only.
New Restoration!
Nosferatu the VampYre (Nosferatu - Phantom der Nacht)
West Germany/France 1979. Dir: Werner Herzog. 107 min. DCP
Werner Herzog’s arresting version of Nosferatu was not, he insisted, a remake of Murnau’s 1922 horror classic (“the greatest German film,” according to Herzog) but rather a tribute to it. Klaus Kinski (wearing make-up that replicates Max Schreck’s in Murnau’s original) plays a world-weary Count Dracula, suffering the monotony of eternal life. Bruno Ganz is Jonathan Harker, the young real-estate agent sent to finalize a deal with the mysterious count. Isabelle Adjani is Lucy, Jonathan’s wife, soon the reluctant object of the vampire’s affections. Herzog’s breathtaking, often apocalyptic imagery includes one notorious scene involving 11,000 rats. The kinky Kinski is superbly creepy – the best movie vampire ever, Herzog now maintains! The film was shot simultaneously in English and German versions; the latter, considered far superior, screens here (with English subtitles). THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30 - 8:20 PM FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31 – 6:30 PM SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1 – 6:30 PM SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2 – 4:15 PM & 8:20 PM
35mm Print!
Eraserhead
USA 1977. Dir: David Lynch. 89 min. 35mm
David Lynch’s hair-hoisting first feature is one of those rare movies that genuinely seems to have spilled directly out of the unconscious mind – unmediated, unadulterated, and “carrying bits of brain tissue with it” (Film Comment). Shot on a shoestring, and taking six years to complete, Lynch’s grisly comedy is set in a god-awful industrial wasteland, where hapless factory worker Henry (Jack Nance) learns from girlfriend Mary (Charlotte Stewart) that he has become a father – of a monstrous mutant child. Eraserhead serves up a Lynchian nightmare vision of love, sex, parenthood, and the nuclear family, rendered in remarkably textured black-and-white images and startling, unsettling sound. It has become an enduring classic of both the cult and “culturally significant” varieties. In 2004, it was selected for preservation by the U.S. Library of Congress.
“One of the strangest and most fervently admired British horror movies of all time . . . There’s been nothing like it before or since.” – Jessica Winter, The Rough Guide to Film New Restoration of the Director-Approved “Final Cut”!
The Wicker Man
Great Britain 1973. Dir: Robin Hardy. 94 min. DCP
A devoutly Christian policeman from the mainland investigates the disappearance of a child on a remote Scottish island. Christopher Lee presides over a pagan sex cult. Britt Ekland shakes – and slaps! – her booty in lascivious fashion. The Wicker Man, Robin Hardy’s legendary 1973 cult film, has been newly restored in a director-approved “final cut” version. The film was specifically written for Lee by Anthony Shaffer, who also penned Sleuth (both stage and screen versions) and Hitchcock’s Frenzy. Neil LaBute’s 2006 remake, with Nicolas Cage, can’t hold a Burning Man to Hardy’s unhinged original. Britt’s butt, she later revealed, was actually a body double’s! “Troubling, brilliant, and unmissable . . . Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England [and Kill List] reawakened interest in ‘folk horror’; here is the superb precedent” (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian). THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30 - 6:30 PM FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31 – 8:30 PM SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1 – 10:15 PM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31 – 10:15 PM SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1 – 8:30 PM SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2 - 6:30 PM
ERASERHEAD
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TWO-LANE BLACKTOPS The 1970s American Road Movie
Presented with Shivers Film Society
THE GAUNTLET
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e celebrate an Americana idea of freedom and adventure with a selection of 1970s-era road movies – films that, in the post-Woodstock-cum-postVietnam period, society’s underdogs, anti-authoritarians, anti-establishmentarians, counterculturalists, and soul-searching wanderers could identify with – all within a uniquely American cultural context of cars, speed, and the open road! The Old World seemed overcrowded to some, but Antonioni’s The Passenger starkly countered this idea by giving an enigmatic Euro road movie the vastness typically associated with America’s roads, deserts, and wide spaces that seem to go on forever. The open highways of America are inherently cinematic, and the idea that they can provide an unknowable adventure to somewhere, or somewhere else, is what is so alluring both to the characters within these stories and to the audiences taking these images in, whether in the context of reflective meditation or unbridled excitement. There is an idolization of the open road, of travelling, of getting away from one’s roots to experience something entirely different, of simply moving. And there is also the commercial and dangerously capitalistic idolization of the cars themselves. These themes were energetically satirized in both low-budget pictures (the 1975 action-exploitation film Death Race 2000, which skewered American media culture two decades before Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers did) and, in less frenzied, more meditative fashion, slightly bigger studio-produced films (The Passenger, Vanishing Point). Other films are almost journeys of discoveries themselves (Two-Lane Blacktop and, again, Vanishing Point). Some films directly criticized the heavy value placed on cars, money, and status by American consumerist society in the post-1960s (The Driver, Race with the Devil, and Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry) while still offering fast-paced cult thrills. Other cult favourites utilized the road and fast cars for sheer over-thetop excitement and entertainment (The Gauntlet, one of Clint Eastwood’s mid-1970s actioners), with the high-octane fun perhaps compensating for any perceived lack of actual depth. Program notes by Vince D’Amato. Select screenings introduced by Ernest Mathijs and Vince D’Amato
Ernest Mathijs is a Professor of Film Studies at UBC whose areas of specialization include cult cinema and horror cinema. He is the author of The Cinema of David Cronenberg: From Baron of Blood to Cultural Hero and the co-author of 100 Cult Films and Cult Cinema. Vince D’Amato runs Shivers Film Society, a Vancouverbased non-profit film society celebrating and presenting Canadian, Italian, and American cult and genre cinema. www.shiversfilmsociety.com Membership in The Cinematheque or Shivers Film Society will be accepted for this series.
Live Tweet-a-thon – Opening Night!
Vancouver’s The Horror Honeys (www.thehorrorhoneys.com) will join UBC cult-cinema professor Ernest Mathijs in a live tweet-a-thon during the October 23 screenings of Death Race 2000 and Race with the Devil. Audience participation invited! Live tweeting will be restricted to the back row of the cinema and will be non-disruptive to other patrons.
Death Race 2000 USA 1975. Dir: Paul Bartel. 80 min. Blu-ray Disc
Completely zany sci-fi cross-country road-race in which race contestants gain points for every pedestrian they run over! With David Carradine (as top driver Frankenstein), pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone, and Roger Corman fave Mary Woronov (who also starred in director Paul Bartel’s Eating Raoul), this is a dark satire like only Corman and company could do and only the 1970s could bring us. It also features popular DJ “The Real Don Steele” as a loud-mouthed radio personality who riles up the media-hungry citizens of the future. It might look horridly dated, but this satire on celebrity culture is still way edgier – and way wittier – than its 2008 remake. Introduced by Ernest Mathijs THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23 – 6:30 PM
Race with the Devil USA 1975. Dir: Jack Starrett. 88 min. Blu-ray Disc
Warren Oates, Peter Fonda, and Loretta Swit hit the road in their new RV for some much-needed R&R. When they come across a murderous group of small-town Satan worshippers at a Texas campsite, it turns their whole vacation into a race-to-thedeath game of cat-and-mouse and crazy highway chases. Some pretty amazing driving stunt sequences highlight this surprisingly intense thriller. Director Starrett also made Cleopatra Jones. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23 – 8:25 PM
35mm Print!
The Passenger (Professione: Reporter)
Italy/France/Spain 1975. Dir: Michelangelo Antonioni. 126 min. 35mm
Antonioni’s thoughtful “what-if” film stars Jack Nicholson, in one of his best performances, as a political journalist working in Africa who swaps identities with a dead man in order to discover what’s on “the other side of the window.” He flies off to Europe, determined to leave old life behind, but discovers his new identity has gained him unwanted attention from dangerous strangers and the BBC. Last Tango in Paris’s Maria Schneider co-stars. The cerebral spiral of the story is perfectly symbolized in the final breathtaking moments – an extraordinary extended tracking shot – of this film. “One of the great films of the seventies” (David Thomson). FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24 – 6:30 PM
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RACE WITH THE DEVIL
The Driver
USA 1978. Dir: Walter Hill. 91 min. Blu-ray Disc
A year before The Warriors, his breakout hit, director Walter Hill gets fast and furious in this high-velocity art-house/action opus about a professional getaway driver. The anti-hero, played by Ryan O’Neil, gets wrapped up with a mysterious woman (Isabelle Adjani) and double-crossing bank robbers while trying to keep his distance from an overzealous cop, played by Bruce Dern, who’s doggedly on his tail. As is usual with director Hill, the violent action sequences still impress. The Driver is a loose but obvious inspiration for the recent Nicolas Winding Refn/Ryan Gosling cult hit Drive. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24 – 9:00 PM
All-Ages Matinees! 35mm Print!
The Great Race
USA 1965. Dir: Blake Edwards. 160 min. 35mm
Bring the whole family! Two daredevils, played by Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis, compete in an early-20th-century automobile race from New York to London in Pink Panther director Blake Edward’s epic Technicolor slapstick comedy – which, released in 1965, dates from an earlier and more innocent time than the rest of the films in our road movie series! The music is by Pink Panther composer Henry Mancini. The cast includes Natalie Wood, Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn, Arthur O’Connell , and Vivian Vance. With the whole production costing $12 million, The Great Race (title in italics) was the most expensive comedy ever made up to that time. It also features “the greatest pie fight ever.” All Ages Welcome Membership not required for The Great Race Introduced by Ernest Mathijs (Saturday only) SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 3:00 PM SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26 – 3:00 PM
Two-Lane Blacktop USA 1971. Dir: Monte Hellman. 102 min. Blu-ray Disc
Cult director Monte Hellman’s claim to fame was this film – and with good reason. James Taylor (singer-songwriter) and Dennis Wilson (Beach Boy) are street racers making their way across America in this simple (but heavily existential) tale of lost youths searching for nothing more than a way to define themselves. That search proves surprising difficult in an early-1970s America of growing self-involvement, particularly for a young generation yearning to remove itself from the traditionalism that had been instilled in America before the Vietnam War and the activism that defined the ’60s. Warren Oates, a ’55 Chevy, and a Pontiac GTO have prominent roles, as does – in this cinematic time capsule from the pre-Interstate era – the fabled U.S. Route 66.
Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry USA 1974. Dir: John Hough. 93 min. Blu-ray Disc
In need of money to finance their auto-racing ambitions, driver Larry (Peter Fonda) and mechanic Deke (Adam Roarke) pull off a supermarket heist (Roddy McDowall, uncredited, is the store manager). Making their getaway, they’re saddled with unwanted passenger Mary (Susan George), Larry’s onenight stand from the previous evening. The local sheriff (Vic Morrow), in hot pursuit of the trio, is happy for a dog-andpony show that will demonstrate he needs a fleet of new, high-powered police cruisers. Loaded with terrific in-camera stunt work, and with one-liners zinging between the leads as they race and crash their way through the countryside, this is one of the wildest B-movie takes on American capitalist culture. Director John Hough happens to be British. Introduced by Vince D’Amato SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26 – 6:30 PM
The Gauntlet
USA 1977. Dir: Clint Eastwood. 109 min. Blu-ray Disc
Clint Eastwood directed and starred in this totally absurd but extremely entertaining (and un-PC) chase story about a not-bright alcoholic cop (Eastwood) ordered to drive a smart, spunky hooker (Sandra Locke) from Vegas to Phoenix so that she can testify in a trial. It turns out to be no routine assignment: the Mafia wants her dead, and Nevada bookies are posting long odds against her getting to Phoenix alive. The non-stop road-movie action has the bickering pair enduring mobsters, motorcycle gangs, corrupt cops, murderous politicians, and a malevolent helicopter. It all culminates in a high-firepower finale featuring the gauntlet promised by the title. Introduced by Vince D’Amato SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26 – 8:30 PM
Introduced by Ernest Mathijs SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 6:30 PM
Vanishing Point
USA 1971. Dir: Richard C. Sarafian. 106 min. Blu-ray Disc
Taking the existentialist notions of Two-Lane Blacktop even further, the enigmatic Vanishing Point has a car delivery driver named Kowalksi (played by Barry Newman) hired to take a 1970 Dodge Challenger across America. His journey shifts along the way from the physical to the spiritual, and he gains the attention of the highway patrol and the on-air support of a blind, black radio DJ (which leads off into a vignette on post-1960s small-town community and racism). The plot delves freely into the anti-establishment and anti-authoritarianism attitudes following Woodstock and with the Vietnam War continuing. As Kowalski moves west towards California, he reflects on his previous life and his now-unknowable future somewhere down the road ahead. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 8:45 PM DEATH RACE 2000
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TICKETS
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First Runs + Revivals
Level Five + La Jetée — 7:00 pm
HOW TO BUY TICKETS Day-of tickets go on sale at the Box Office 30 minutes before the first show of the evening. Advance tickets are available for credit card purchase at theCinematheque.ca ($1 service charge applies). Events, times, and prices are subject to change without notice.
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First Runs + Revivals
DIM Cinema
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Exhibition – 7:30 pm
A Master Builder — 4:00 pm My Dinner with André — 6:30 pm A Master Builder — 8:35 pm
21 THE CINEMATHEQUE IS RECOGNIZED AS AN EXEMPT NON-PROFIT FILM SOCIETY UNDER THE B.C. MOTION PICTURE ACT, AND AS SUCH IS ABLE TO SCREEN FILMS THAT HAVE NOT BEEN REVIEWED BY THE B.C. FILM CLASSIFICATION OFFICE. UNDER THE ACT, ALL PERSONS ATTENDING CINEMATHEQUE SCREENINGS MUST BE MEMBERS OF THE PACIFIC CINÉMATHÈQUE PACIFIQUE SOCIETY AND BE 18 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER.
IN THIS ISSUE FIRST RUNS + REVIVALS 2
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23 New Restorations
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DOXA Motion Pictures Film Ser
OCT
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Cinema Sunday
My Fair Lady– 1:00 pm
The Films of Bill Morrison – 7:00 pm
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DIM Cinema
DIM CINEMA 13
First Runs + Revivals
The Host and the
Björk: Biophilia Live — 5:00 pm
Cloud – 7:30 pm
FRAMES OF MIND 13
Stop Making Sense — 7:00 pm
CINEMA SUNDAY 14
26
Road Movies
27
Václav Havel
SUMMER VISIONS 14 CLASSICS FROM OUR
Dirty Mary, Crazy
Young Man – 6:30 pm
Larry – 6:30 pm
The Mist + A Report on the
The Gauntlet – 8:30 pm
Party and Guests – 8:30 pm
COLLECTION 15
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Halloween!
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Nosferatu the Vampyre — 4:15 pm Eraserhead — 6:30 pm
ALL AGES EVENT
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Björk: Biophilia Live — 8:45 pm
The Great Race – 3:00 pm
SPECIAL GUEST IN ATTENDANCE
and Awards – 7:00 pm
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ROAD MOVIES 6
VISIBLE VERSE 12
Film Institute Gala Screen
The Conformist — 8:30 pm
Rome, Open City — 8:40 pm
Summer Visions
15th Annual Summer Visio
Rome, Open City — 6:30 pm
The Conformist — 6:30 pm
HALLOWEEN 5
DOXA FILM SERIES 12
Poor Little Rich Girl – 1:00 pm New Restorations
NEW RESTORATIONS 4
VÁCLAV HAVEL 10
Cinema Sunday
Nosferatu the Vampyre — 8:20 pm
The Uninvited Guest + Every
Václav Havel
Who Is Václav Havel... + And The Beggar’s Opera Again – 6:30 pm Leaving – 8:00 pm
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VA N C O U V E R L AT I N A M E R I C A N F I L M F E ST I VA L AUGUST 29–SEPTEMBER 7 V L A F F. O R G
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First Runs + Revivals
First Runs + Revivals
First Runs + Revivals
Level Five + La Jetée — 7:00 pm
A Master Builder — 6:30 pm
A Master Builder — 6:30 pm
A Master Builder — 6:30 pm
Level Five + La Jetée — 9:00 pm
My Dinner with André — 9:00 pm
My Dinner with André — 9:00 pm
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Frames of Mind
Out of Mind, Out of Sight – 7:30 pm
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Summer Visions
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15th Annual Summer Visions
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Film Institute Gala Screenings
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New Restorations
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New Restorations
New Restorations
Rome, Open City — 6:30 pm
The Conformist — 6:30 pm
Rome, Open City — 6:30 pm
The Conformist — 8:30 pm
Rome, Open City — 8:40 pm
The Conformist — 8:30 pm
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and Awards – 7:00 pm
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SEPTEMBER 25–OCTOBER 10 VIFF REPEATS OCTOBER 11-12 V I F F. O R G
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First Runs + Revivals
Visible Verse
Frames of Mind
The Man with a Movie
Björk: Biophilia Live — 6:30 pm
Visible Verse 2014
Crazywater – 7:30 pm
Camera – 6:30 pm
Stop Making Sense — 8:30 pm
Festival – 7:00 pm
Battleship Potemkin – 8:00 pm
Björk: Biophilia Live — 10:15 pm
First Runs + Revivals
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Road Movies
Björk: Biophilia Live — 6:30 pm
Death Race 2000 – 6:30 pm
Stop Making Sense — 8:30 pm
Race with the Devil – 8:25 pm
Václav Havel
The Mist + A Report on the Party and Guests – 6:30 pm Josef Kilián - A Character Needing Support + The Heart above the Castle – 8:30 pm
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Classics from Our Collection
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The Wicker Man - 6:30 pm Nosferatu the
Special Halloween Triple Bills!
Road Movies
The Great Race – 3:00 pm Two-Lane Blacktop – 6:30 pm
The Driver – 9:00 pm
Vanishing Point – 8:45 pm
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Special Halloween Triple Bills!
Nosferatu the
Nosferatu the
Vampyre — 6:30 pm
Vampyre — 6:30 pm
The Wicker Man — 8:30 pm
Vampyre - 8:20 pm
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The Passenger – 6:30 pm
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Halloween!
Road Movies
Eraserhead — 10:15 pm
Václav Havel
NOV
Eraserhead — 8:30 pm The Wicker Man — 10:15 pm
Leaving – 6:30 pm The Uninvited Guest + Every
BACKGROUND IMAGE: THE CONFORMIST
Young Man – 8:20 pm
30 MAY
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The Play’s the Thing: ’
VAclAv Havel, Art and Politics The Uninvited Guest (Nezvaný host)
Czechoslovakia 1969. Dir: Vlastimil Venclík. 22 min. Blu-ray Disc
When a boorish official enters and makes himself at home in a young couple’s flat, it is soon apparent that all the flats in the building face the same dilemma – each has its own intruder. After completing this short parable on socialist living, director Vlastimil Venclík was forbidden to make a film for twenty years. (NGA)
+ Every Young Man (Každý mladý muž)
Czechoslovakia 1966. Dir: Pavel Juráček. 83 min. Blu-ray Disc
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ovember marks the 25th anniversary of Czechoslovakia’s 1989 Velvet Revolution, the non-violent uprising that ended four decades of Communist rule and brought about a rapid transition to democracy. To commemorate the occasion, the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Washington, DC, has organized The Play’s the Thing: Václav Havel, Art and Politics, a film series devoted to one of the central figures of the Velvet Revolution and the artistic and political milieu from which he emerged. All films screen in Czech with English subtitles; many have been translated into English for the first time. “Václav Havel (1936–2011), the dissident and imprisoned dramatist who went on to become a world-renowned statesman as first president of the Czech Republic, changed the course of twentieth-century history by mixing theatre with politics and peacefully ending communism in his country. His plays, filled with metaphor and pointed innuendo, exposed the failings of the system, and Havel became a hero in an epic struggle. This program is based on the places and people that Havel knew, from the influential Theatre on the Balustrade, where his theatrical career began, to his friendships with filmmakers of the Czech New Wave, and to his political ascendancy in Prague.” – National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC) Acknowledgments: This program was curated by Margaret Parsons, Head, Department of Film Programs, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Special thanks to the National Film Archive Prague, Václav Havel Library, Embassy of the Czech Republic (Washington, DC), Mutual Inspirations Festival 2013 (Washington, DC), and Czech Television. Program notes attributed to “NGA” are from or adapted from film descriptions prepared by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Screenwriter-director Pavel Juráček (subject of a Cinematheque retrospective in 2004) was one of the Czech New Wave’s most provocative talents before he was blacklisted by the Communists in the early 1970s and never able to work in cinema again. Juráček’s first feature, an absurdist satire about army life, was based on his own experiences but also pays tribute to novelist Jaroslav Hašek’s anti-authority classic The Good Soldier Švejk. In the first part, a new recruit on the limp is escorted to hospital by a tough, hilariously laconic corporal. Václav Havel appears as a sick soldier smoking at the hospital. The second part follows a group of goldbricking soldiers as they ineptly execute manoeuvres and then try to round up enough young women for a camp dance. “Has bright and witty inventiveness throughout . . . A fresh and winning comedy” (Variety). MONDAY, OCTOBER 27 – 6:30 PM WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5 – 8:20 PM
The Mist (Mlha)
Czechoslovakia 1966. Dir: Radúz Činčera, 28 min. Blu-ray Disc
In the early 1960s, Prague’s celebrated Theatre on the Balustrade was a centre for experimentation, mime, and theatre of the absurd. It is the place where Václav Havel began as a dramaturge and stagehand, and where his plays were later produced. The Mist poetically captures this famous theatre from different perspectives, as well as other Prague landmarks at dawn. (NGA)
+ A Report on the Party and Guests (O slavnosti a hostech)
Czechoslovakia 1966. Dir: Jan Němec. 71 min. Blu-ray Disc
“The most controversial film ever produced by the Czech New Wave” (Peter Hames), this absurdist parable on power relations, ideology, and human behaviour under totalitarianism is the best-known work of director Jan Němec (subject of a Cinematheque retrospective earlier this year). A group of men and women enjoying an idyllic picnic in the woods are accosted and interrogated by several thuggish strangers, then rescued by a genial “host” who invites them to a magnificent outdoor banquet. The cast is made up of noted Czech artists and writers. The film was banned for two years, released during the brief Prague Spring of 1968, then banned again — and later was one of four films declared “banned forever” by the Czech authorities in 1973! MONDAY, OCTOBER 27 – 8:30 PM WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29 – 6:30 PM
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LEAVING
’ - A Character Josef KiliAn Needing Support (Postava k podpírání)
Czechoslovakia 1963. Dirs: Pavel Juráček, Jan Schmidt. 38 min. Blu-ray Disc
This legendary featurette, co-directed by Pavel Juráček (Every Young Man) and Jan Schmidt, offers one of cinema’s finest evocations of Kafka – and of the nightmarish absurdity of totalitarian bureaucracy. Wandering the streets of old Prague, a man comes across a “cat rental” shop and impulsively decides to hire himself a feline. When he later attempts to return the animal, he discovers that the store has vanished, and seeks official help.
+ The Heart above the Castle (Srdce nad Hradem)
Czech Republic 2007. Dir: Jan Němec. 48 min. DVD
In The Heart above the Castle, Václav Havel takes director Jan Němec (A Report on the Party and Guests) behind the scenes of the 2002 NATO Summit in Prague. Travelling into areas normally inaccessible and interviewing people normally unreachable (heads of state, for example), the footage shows a surprisingly “human side” of top politicians, capturing comical commentaries, hesitancies, and small stresses, and bringing the formal world of politics and the grandeur of NATO into the realm of the everyday. (NGA) WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29 – 8:30 PM
’ Who Is VAclav Havel... (Kdo je Václav Havel…)
Czechoslovakia 1977. Dir: Helena Matiášová. 11 min. Blu-ray Disc
Who is Václav Havel… is a short propaganda film, produced for the Communist regime in the 1970s to disparage Havel, his plays, and his supposed wealth. (NGA)
+ And The Beggar’s Opera Again (A znovu Žebrácká opera)
Czech Republic 1996. Dir: Olga Sommerová. 60 min. Blu-ray Disc
Through Olga Sommerová’s creatively intercut film, two productions of Václav Havel’s The Beggar’s Opera reveal the political dynamics of the former Czechoslovakia before and after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The dress rehearsal of the play’s world premiere in 1975 captures the stress of artists who conspired through theatre against the totalitarian regime. The production is contrasted with the relaxed atmosphere of the dress rehearsal of the play performed again in 1995 by the theatrical group Divadlo Na tahu at Havel’s cottage in the village of Hrádeček. Informal dialogue among the artists, Havel, and his wife Olga offers an intimate view of the changing tides. (NGA) MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3 – 6:30 PM
Vancouver Premiere! Directed by Václav Havel!
Leaving (Odcházení)
Czech Republic 2011. Dir: Václav Havel. 94 min. Blu-ray Disc
The only film directed by Václav Havel adapts his own late-career play Leaving, the absurdist, tragicomic tale of a national leader leaving office. The star-studded Czech cast includes Josef Abrhám and Dagmar Havlová, Havel’s second wife. The film was nominated for 12 Czech Oscars (winning for screenplay and editing). “In 2008, Havel returned to the theatre with a new play . . . His film version premiered shortly before his death in December 2011. As the action unfolds on a rural estate, comparisons to Havel’s own life become clear: ‘Before the 1989 Revolution, I had an idea for a character like King Lear, who loses power. It might have been the influence of the 1968 generation – the people who had been party members . . . After ’68 they were thrown out and started to live ordinary lives, and pretended they didn’t mind, but they did’” (NGA). MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3 – 8:00 PM WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5 – 6:30 PM
Embassy of the Czech Republic Washington, DC
EVERY YOUNG MAN
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DOXA Documentary Film Festival’s Motion Pictures Film Series Presents
The Films of Bill Morrison With Vancouver New Music and The Cinematheque
Bill Morrison’s collaborations with composers and musicians as diverse and varied as Bill Frisell (The Great Flood), Jóhann Jóhannsson (Miner’s Hymns), and Simon Christensen (Tributes: Pulse – conceived as a tribute to Charles Ives, Conlon Nancarrow, Steve Reich, and Trent Reznor) have explored the marriage of sound and image in entirely new ways. Decasia, a collaboration with composer Michael Gordon, was described by the Village Voice as “the most widely acclaimed American avant-garde film of the fin-de-siècle.” Director Errol Morris puts it more succinctly, stating: “this may be the greatest movie ever made.” The first film from the 21st century to be selected for preservation by the U.S. Library of Congress’s National Film Registry, Decasia is raw and bubbling with scratches, damage, and acidulous drips, but possessive of a singular and melancholy beauty. DOXA is extremely proud to present Bill Morrison’s masterwork, in partnership with Vancouver New Music and The Cinematheque. Decasia will be preceded by Morrison’s The Film of Her, a docu-dramatic retelling of the fight to preserve film history and the world it contains.
Decasia
USA 2002. Dir: Bill Morrison. 70 min. Blu-ray Disc
Preceded by
The Film of Her USA 1996. Dir: Bill Morrison. 12 min. Blu-ray Disc
B.C. Film Classification Rating – TBA Membership is not required for this screening. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14 – 7:00 PM
The Cinematheque Presents
2014
AGAIN AND AGAIN
BABEL DEATH STAR
BACK TO YOU
WHAT THE FLUTE WANTS TO SING
Visible Verse is The Cinematheque’s annual festival of video poetry, the hybrid creative form that marries verse with media-art visuals produced by a camera or a computer. Local poet, author, musician, and media artist Heather Haley has curated and hosted this celebration since it was first presented at The Cinematheque in 2000 (when the event was known as the Vancouver Videopoem Festival). The 2014 festival will be selected from more than 400 submissions received from local, national, and international artists. The popularity of video poetry has continued to grow. Video poetry and poetry film festivals and sites are popping up all over the world. The Cinematheque’s Visible Verse Festival helped pioneer the form and, we are proud to say, is still North America’s sustaining venue for artistically significant video poetry. For her work in championing the genre, Ms. Haley was honoured with a 2012 Pandora’s Literary Award. Visit thecinematheque.ca for the complete line-up of films screening in the festival. Full details will be posted closer to the date. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18 – 7:00 PM
Curated & Hosted by Heather Haley
The Siren of Howe Sound, poet, author, musician, and media artist Heather Haley pushes boundaries by creatively integrating disciplines, genres, and media. Her writing has been published in many journals and anthologies and she is the author of the poetry collections Sideways and Three Blocks West of Wonderland and a debut novel, The Town Slut’s Daughter. Ms. Haley has directed numerous videopoems, which have been official selections at dozens of international film festivals, and she has toured Canada, the U.S., and Europe in support of two critically acclaimed AURAL Heather CDs of spoken word songs, Princess Nut and Surfing Season.
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A Monthly Mental Health Film Series Presented by The Cinematheque and the Institute of Mental Health, UBC Department of Psychiatry
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he Cinematheque is pleased to join with the Institute of Mental Health, UBC Department of Psychiatry in presenting “Frames of Mind,” a monthly event utilizing film and video to promote professional and community education on issues pertaining to mental health and illness. Screenings, accompanied by presentations and audience discussions, are held on the third Wednesday of each month. Series directed by Dr. Harry Karlinsky, Director of Public Education, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia.
Programmed by Caroline Coutts, film curator, filmmaker, and programmer of “Frames of Mind” since its inception in September 2002.
Crazywater
Vancouver Premiere!
Canada 2013. Dir: Dennis Allen. 56 min. HDCAM
Out of Mind, Out of Sight Canada 2013. Dir: John Kastner. 88 min. HDCAM
The Brockville Mental Health Centre in Ontario is a facility for men and women who commit violent crimes but are adjudged to be “Not Criminally Responsible on Account of Mental Disorder.” Acclaimed documentary filmmaker John Kastner (Life With Murder) spent 18 months at Brockville filming the day-to-day life of four patients, Michael, Carole, Sal, and Justine, as they struggled with their mental illnesses, tried to come to terms with the events that caused them to be institutionalized, and dealt with their mixed emotions about reintegration into a society that for the most part would prefer to forget them. Candid, compassionate, and absolutely unforgettable, the film won the Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award at Hot Docs 2014. Post-screening discussion with Dr. Johann Brink, Clinical Professor and Head of Forensic Psychiatry at UBC; Co-Chair of the Canadian Forensic Mental Health Network; Vice President, Medical Affairs and Research at the Forensic Psychiatric Services Commission; and Adjunct Professor in the School of Criminology at SFU. Moderated by Dr. Harry Karlinsky, Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 – 7:30 PM
In his latest work, shot mostly in Vancouver, Inuvialuit filmmaker Dennis Allen (My Father, My Teacher; CBQM) confronts “the elephant in the room”: the sensitive subject of substance abuse among First Nations people in Canada. A recovering alcoholic himself, Allen shares his own story and those of four others in this unflinching, nonjudgmental account of lives derailed by addiction. Paula, Desirae, Stephen, Alex, and the director bravely tell their own stories, in their own words; their tales of childhood trauma and families long troubled by a history of alcoholism are heartbreaking. But Allen also shows us that recovery is possible, with self-acceptance, family support, and a renewed commitment to Aboriginal traditions the keys to breaking the cycle. Post-screening discussion with Dr. Naomi Dove and Dr. Shannon Tania Waters. Dr. Dove is a Public Health Physician with the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Unit at the First Nations Programmed by Michèle Smith Health Authority. Dr. Dove works with the FNHA overseeing the mental wellness and substance use, early childhood development, chronic disease, and injury prevention areas.
Dr. Waters is Coast Salish and a member of Stz’uminus First Nation on Vancouver Island. Dr. Waters worked for four years as the Director of Health Surveillance at First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, and is now Acting Senior Medical Officer at First Nations Health Authority. Moderated by Dr. Harry Karlinsky, Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15 – 7:30 PM
Moving-image art in dialogue with cinema www.dimcinema.ca
Exhibition
Great Britain 2013. Dir: Joanna Hogg. 104 min. Blu-ray Disc
The third feature from writer-director Joanna Hogg (Unrelated, Archipelago) “reaffirms Hogg’s status as a distinctive, singular, and challenging voice of British cinema” (Mark Kermode, The Guardian). Doyenne of punk Viv Albertine and Turner-nominated artist Liam Gillick play a married couple who decide to move house, a midlife upheaval that awakens dreams, memories, and fears that have imprinted themselves on the home they have shared, as artists and lovers, for two decades. Shot chronologically, with dialogue improvised by the actors, in a modernist house that confounds distinctions between interior and exterior, the film plays with the idea of the house as psyche or unconscious, an arena for encounter and emotion, and tests how private space is created within a relationship, and within a house that is very hard to keep secrets in. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15 – 7:30 PM
Vancouver Premiere!
The Host and the Cloud
France 2009-10. Dir: Pierre Huyghe. 121 min. DCP
DIM Cinema is delighted to present the Vancouver premiere of Pierre Huyghe’s The Host and the Cloud, a feature-length film by the acclaimed French artist (a major Huyghe retrospective was recently presented at the Pompidou in Paris and is coming soon to LACMA in Los Angeles). Combining staged and improvised action, this live film project, shot in a building that once housed the French National Museum of Art and Popular Traditions, follows a group of actors through a series of fragmented narratives, fantastical visions, and dreamlike rituals as they freely interpret three public holidays – Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and May Day. “The film might be Huyghe’s most elaborate, intriguing and, quite possibly, weirdest offering to date” (Naomi Fry, Frieze).
“Huyghe’s strength lies in his understanding . . . [that] images have become masks for universal media ventriloquism.” – Jean Baudrillard THE HOST AND THE CLOUD
MONDAY, OCTOBER 20 – 7:30 PM
The Cinematheque’s Education Department presents
An Afternoon Film Program for Children and Their Families $6 Children & Youths (under 18) $9 Adults (Cinematheque membership not required)
“Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance!” That’s what characters from the wonderful world of movie musicals sing when mere words can’t express their feelings and rhythm takes hold of their feet. The best of these glittering gems appeal to all ages and have inspired our all-singing, all-dancing Cinema Sunday 2014: What A Glorious Feeling! This scintillating selection of note-for-noteworthy musical films will have the whole family dancing on air! Films will be introduced by Vancouver film history teacher, critic, and movie musical maven Michael van den Bos. In-theatre giveaways courtesy of Cinema Sunday community sponsors Videomatica Sales and Kidsbooks.
Poor Little Rich Girl
USA 1936. Dir: Irving Cummings. 79 min. 35mm
In tribute to the late, great Shirley Temple (who passed away earlier this year), we present the iconic child actor’s 1936 musical Poor Little Rich Girl, a remake of sorts of Mary Pickford’s star-vehicle from 1917. Nicknamed “Little Miss Miracle” by then-U.S. President Roosevelt, Temple was the dimple-cheeked, Depression-era powerhouse who brought joy to millions and pulled 20th Century Fox from certain bankruptcy. In director Irving Cumming’s film, she’s pint-sized Barbara Barry, the daughter of a wealthy soap mogul who winds up on the wrong side of the tracks when a trip to boarding school goes horribly awry. Good thing she’s a tap-dancing charmer. A long-loved, family favourite! All Ages Welcome Want to tap like Temple? Join The Rhythm Room’s Artistic Director Jennifer Bishop after the screening for a tap-dance mini-class and performance. For more on The Rhythm Room, visit www.tapdancevancouver.com. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 – 1:00 PM
My Fair Lady
USA 1964. Dir: George Cukor. 170 min. Blu-ray Disc
What does it take to transform a dishevelled Cockney flower girl into a refined British duchess? Why, a lesson in elocution, of course! That’s the premise of director George Cukor’s 1964 adaptation of the massively successful Lerner and Loewe Broadway musical based on Shaw’s Pygmalion. Starring the radiant Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle, the waif-who-would-be-lady, and Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins, her uppity elocution professor, this lavish Hollywood heavyweight – winner of eight Oscars, and celebrating its 50th anniversary this year – is an undeniable film-lover’s classic. The musical numbers include “The Rain in Spain,” “On the Street Where You Live,” and the indelible “I Could Have Danced All Night.” All Ages Welcome After the screening, practice your “proper” British accent in a short elocution lesson with professional voice actor and coach Alison Matthews. For more on Ms. Matthews, visit www.alisonmatthews.com. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19 – 1:00 PM
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Gala Screenings and Awards
he Summer Visions Film Institute is an award-winning digital filmmaking program for youths ages 11-19 offered by The Cinematheque in partnership with Dream Big Productions at Vancouver’s Templeton Secondary. This summer’s program, generously hosted by the SFU School for the Contemporary Arts at the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, saw 120 young filmmakers from across the Lower Mainland working in production teams during one and two-week sessions to write, shoot, and edit their own short videos. Always entertaining, frequently inspiring, and often provocative, these videos will
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premiere at our 15th annual Summer Visions Film Institute Gala. Each evening concludes with an awards ceremony and reception to celebrate this next generation of emerging filmmakers in B.C. Please note: this is an RSVP event. If you are not a Summer Visions participant or an invited guest and are interested in attending, email us at info@theCinematheque.ca. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 – 7:00 PM WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 – 7:00 PM
Classics
THE MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA
FROM OUR COLLECTION
16mm prints from The Cinematheque archive $8 (single or double bill; adults, students, and seniors) $3 annual membership required All Seats “The greatest documentary of all time.” – 2014 Sight and Sound Poll “One of the ten best films ever made.” – 2012 Sight and Sound Poll The Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom)
USSR 1929. Dir: Dziga Vertov. 70 min. 16mm
The greatest documentary ever, according to a poll conducted this year by British film magazine Sight and Sound, is Dziga Vertov’s exhilarating, experimental ciné-poem, first released 85 years ago. A “City Symphony” in the manner of certain other non-fiction films of the silent era, Vertov’s masterpiece offers a dazzling “kino-eye” portrait of a day in the life of a large Soviet city. It is also a radically self-reflexive work, never ceasing to remind us that its actualities are filmed actualities. With extravagant montage, camera tricks, and other pyrotechnics, The Man with a Movie Camera constantly calls attention to the process of its own making. Vertov’s ultimate concern is the relation between film and reality – and the power of the former to transform the latter. Nearly nine decades on, this remains strikingly modern and strikingly sophisticated cinema. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16 – 6:30 PM
Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potyomkin)
USSR 1925. Dir: Sergei Eisenstein. 69 min. 16mm
Eisenstein’s revolutionary masterpiece is one of the cinema’s touchstone works and immortal classics. Commissioned for the 20th anniversary of the failed Russian revolution of 1905, Potemkin centres on a mutiny launched by the sailors of a naval vessel against their Tsarist officers. The film’s “Odessa Steps” sequence, complete with perilously bouncing baby carriage, is one of the most celebrated, analyzed, and imitated in cinema history. The power, excitement, and impact of Eisenstein’s artistry are astonishing; the film is a sensational showcase for his legendary genius at montage. A 1958 jury of international experts voted Potemkin the greatest film ever made; Charlie Chaplin called it “the best film in the world.” THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16 – 8:00 PM
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