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SPECIAL NOTE: Cine-File would like to acknowledge the remarkable 100th birthday yesterday (some sources list December 12) of the great Portuguese director Manoel De Oliveira, who is still an active filmmaker and is currently working on his next film (!).
Read Cine-File contributor Ben Sachs' coverage of the Gene Siskel Film Center's July De Oliveira retrospective here.
Read Jonathan Rosenbaum's article in Film Comment from earlier this year here.
Read author Randal Johnson's article from Senses of Cinema here.
CRUCIAL VIEWING
IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA (New Spanish)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Friday, 6pm and Monday, 8pm
Quite possibly the best new film of 2008, filmmaker José Luis Guerín's IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA makes a welcome--and timely--return as part of the Siskel's Festival of New Spanish Cinema. Timely because, even though he's Spanish and not Portuguese and less than half the age of Manoel de Oliveira (see above), Guerín's film shares much in common with the 100 year old master. Both men have an uncanny eye for filming cities--imbuing them with as much personality as their characters. And both are geniuses of camera movement. SYLVIA is essentially a film about movement, and not just the literal pursuit of a young woman (whom he thinks he knows) by an unnamed artist through the streets of Strasbourg. Guerín uses simple but elegant tracking shots (and frequently point-of-view shots) to visualize this chase. But it's not just the two protagonists--everyone and everything that moves through the frame seem to have a sense of determination. Likewise, the use of strong horizontals, verticals, and diagonals in the film continually lead the eye away from the "action" to the edges of the frame--almost like directions to nowhere--complimenting the puzzle-like maze of streets and alleys and the quiet mystery of the narrative. These various "lines of force" contrast with Guerín's floating camera and sometimes jarring editing, both of which work to break up space and create a sense of lightness, ungroundedness, and disorientation. But it is just this need by the viewer to untangle the competing visual styles that makes SYLVIA feel so incredibly fresh and vibrant--and alive. (2007, 84 min, 35mm) PF
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More info at www.siskelfilmcenter.org.
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Early Films by Animator Lewis Klahr (Experimental)
White Light Cinema at The Nightingale – Wednesday, 8pm
As our movie watching year closes, White Light Cinema gives Chicago what is probably the most rare and magical screening of 2008. Introduced by University of Chicago Professor Tom Gunning, this screening of Lewis Klahr's early work includes PICTURE BOOKS FOR ADULTS (1983-85, 37 min, Super-8mm) and THE PHARAOH'S BELT (1993, 43 min, 16mm). The latter film is brilliant and shows Klahr coming fully alive in his now well-known style, but is screened easily enough. However, the former title is a very rarely screened work--and it's being shown for the first time in nearly a decade in the original Super-8 format! But, of course, aside from the rarity of the print, the work itself is fantastic and provides a wealth of insight into the artistic development of Klahr's work. Formally, PICTURE BOOKS is an inventory of styles from Larry Jordan style animations to re-edits of television material to violent torn abstractions of found footage. The films are slightly more straightforward than Klahr's newer work--which only hint at narratives and instead moodily riff on the intensity of hidden passions, fears, and violence ready to spring forth. It's an essential show on the highest order, so brave the ice and see it! JM
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More info at www.whitelightcinema.com.
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Joe Dante's GREMLINS (Contemporary Revival/Cult)
Music Box – Friday and Saturday, Midnight
In two of his boldest pieces of auteurist criticism, Jonathan Rosenbaum has argued for Joe Dante (SMALL SOLDIERS, LOONEY TUNES BACK IN ACTION) as a major pop artist, with a distinctive style based around film references and "cheerful contempt for powerful institutions." GREMLINS holds a special place in his filmography, then, for being Dante's most successful acceptance by mainstream culture, an unlikely feat of personal imagination penetrating an unsuspecting audience -- something along the lines of Fritz Lang's Mabuse films or BLUE VELVET. It's been noted that the monsters could be seen as the evil id of Spielberg's E.T., but Rosenbaum suggests that "[w]hat's confusing yet ultimately illuminating is the way his gremlins function as a free-floating metaphor, suggesting at separate junctures everything from teenagers to blacks to various Freudian suppressions." Equally impressive is Dante's visual style, which manages to capture the framing and momentum of Warner Brothers' cartoons while still being scary. Dante has much in common with other American stylists well-received in the 1980s--Alan Rudolph, Brian De Palma, the Coen Brothers--but he's the only one who managed to successfully pass his subversive ideas as family entertainment. (1984, 111 min, 35mm) BS
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More info at www.musicboxtheatre.com.
More Rosenbaum on Dante here and here.
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ALSO RECOMMENDED
David Lean's SUMMERTIME and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (Classic Revival)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Showtimes noted below
SUMMERTIME (Sunday 3pm, Monday and Thursday 6 pm) was David Lean's most intelligent film and his most beautiful. Even Lean thought so. It eschews both the dry (as in dried-out) wit of his Noel Coward films and the self-congratulatory cynicism of his epics and has neither the tastefully "realistic" (as opposed to real) art direction of his early films nor the confusion of grandeur and grand idea of his 70mm images. A city is always more beautiful than a desert. Katharine Hepburn, 16mm camera in hand, arrives in Venice under the most vivid blue skies in the history of Technicolor. She's been saving her money up for a long time to afford the trip and refuses to be disappointed. Like most travelers, she spends as much time meeting new people as seeing new sites, including a handsome (and married) Italian shop owner. The British title, SUMMER MADNESS, is a hint of the film's energy. (1955, 100 min, 35mm) IV
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If there is a single sequence in the history of film that tells you what watching a movie on a big screen really means, and how that larger-than-life way of experiencing a movie can be so important, it's in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (Saturday, 3pm and Tuesday, 6pm). A breathtaking long-shot of the desert. A view extending to the horizon. At first we see nothing more than a shimmer. A mirage. Then a speck. Then, finally, a rider on a horse. Trotting towards us at a deliberate pace. All at once an Arab in the foreground rushes to his own horse, pulls out a gun -- and is shot. His corpse falls to the ground, a streak of blood across his black robe. It lies on the sand. Peter O'Toole looks down at it. After a time, the rider sidles right up to him and undoes his veil. Omar Sharif. They exchange words. The Pinteresque intimacy of their dialog is startlingly paired with the infinite vastness of the desert. It's only one of countless great moments in this truly great film. And when the ten-minute intermission occurs, I dare you not to go to the concession stand and buy yourself a drink. (1962, 216 min, 35mm) RC
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More info at www.siskelfilmcenter.org.
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Peter Sís in Person (Animation)
Facets Cinémathèque – Sunday, 12pm
Facets' latest "CinEvent" brings children's book author, illustrator, and filmmaker Peter Sís to Chicago. Though best known for his allegorical, masterfully drawn children's books, Peter Sís first came to attention in his native Czech Republic for his animated films, which won him several awards in both Western and Eastern Europe. In 1982, Sís was sent to LA to produce an animated film for the 1984 Winter Olympics. When the Eastern bloc boycotted the Olympics, he sought asylum in America and began looking for work, eventually finding himself employed by a children's book editor in New York City. His new career did not see Peter completely abandon animation, however, as he has since made two pieces: one a music video for Bob Dylan's 1983 single "You've Got to Serve Somebody," and the other an interpretation of the Rumpelstiltskin story narrated by Kathleen Turner. Peter Sís' three animated films -- rarely shown despite his literary popularity -- THE HEADS (1979), PLAYERS (1982), and WE ALL HAVE TALES: RUMPELSTILTSKIN (1992) will be screened, followed by a discussion with Sís. Peter Sís will also be signing copies of his latest book, the semi-autobiographical The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain. DM
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More info at www.facets.org.
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Also Playing in the Festival of New Spanish Cinema
Gene Siskel Film Center – Showtimes noted below
The intriguing-sounding ME (2007, 100 min, 35mm; Sunday, 5pm and Thursday, 8pm), is about a man working in a small island town who becomes obsessed by the previous tenant of the home where he's staying; as his dark fantasies overtake him, the film becomes increasingly surreal. First-time director Rafa Cortes won a critic's prize for this work at Rotterdam, usually a sign of confidence. SEVEN BILLIARD TABLES (2007, 113 min, 35mm; Saturday, 8pm and Wednesday, 6pm) is a more down-to-earth story of a woman inheriting her gangster father's billiards parlor. And Shortmetraje (2007-2008, 90 min, 35mm; Friday, 7:45pm and Wednesday, 8:15pm) is a collection of noteworthy Spanish short films from the past year. BS
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More info at siskelfilmcenter.org.
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Robert Wise's THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL (Classic Revival)
Bank of America Cinema – Saturday, 8pm
The filmography of Robert Wise reads a bit like one of those American Film Institute Top 100 lists: editor for THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (William Dieterle, 1939) and CITIZEN KANE (Orson Welles, 1941), and director for THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951), WEST SIDE STORY (1961), THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) and countless other cherished films. A director renowned for his willingness to take on a wide variety of projects, Wise moved freely between science-fiction, thrillers, musicals, comedies, and melodramas. His 1951 film THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL, most certainly falls into the "thriller" category. Concentration camp survivor Victoria Kowelska assumes the identity of her dead friend to gain entry to America, and must now take care of her "son" who was sent to the US to live with his wealthy aunt, who, incidentally, has recently died. Gender-role inversions (the rare homme fatal), child heirs, mistaken identities, and scheming lovers--all well-worn tropes in of themselves--here combine to make an interesting suspense film, one well worth seeing. (1951, 100 min, 35mm) DM
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More info at www.cine-file.info/venues/lasalle.html.
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While We Were Working: a YouTube curatorial endeavor (Special Event)
The Nightingale – Sunday, 7pm (FREE)
Curators Robert Snowden and Eric Fleischauer have combed through who-knows-how-many-hours of YouTube videos and have assembled this program which features works by artists who "create bizarro worlds of displacement and repetition." They rationalize their internet-browsing procrastination (in lieu of doing "real" work) by stating that they are creating an on-going "archive" of their best finds (organizing=value) and by spending time doing the dirty work so you don't have to. Share in the fruits of their labor. It's free and likely to be fun (and you can claim an interest in the social and cultural role of new technology if you need a "reason"). PF
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More info at www.nightingaletheatre.org.
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MORE SCREENINGS & EVENTS:
Also at the Music Box this week is the continuation of WERE THE WORLD MINE and A CHRISTMAS TALE; MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS in the weekend matinee slot; and THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW Friday and Saturday at Midnight.
Facets Cinémathèque gives the new documentary THE END OF AMERICA, which follows author Naomi Wolf on a national tour discussing her new book on the atrophying of democracy in the U.S., a week long run. The Festival of New French Cinema continues through Sunday. IFP/Chicago and Facets' Meet the Makers monthly series presents SOMEPLACE ELSE, a documentary on funk-blues-soul musician Vance Kelly, with co-director Kai-Duc Luong in person.
Also at the Film Center for a week run is Hiroshi Teshigahara's ANTONIO GAUDÍ (1985). This documentary about the famed architect's work has become an unlikely holiday staple for the Film Center.
December Gallery presents Chicago artist Tim Ridlen's "essay film" installation works A Sound Separated from Its Source and Studies for a Film Nausea, opening Saturday and running through December 31: www.twelvegalleries.com.
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