CRUCIAL VIEWING Powell and Pressburger's STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN (Classic Revival)
Bank of America Cinema – Saturday, 8pm
When fighter pilot David Niven is shot down but "accidentally" survives because of an error in Heaven, he has to try to convince a heavenly jury that he deserves to live. Powell and Pressburger outdo themselves (again) with this audacious fantasy. It's so unique and charming you'd be forgiven for failing to notice how scathing and blasphemous the whole thing is (for instance, the sequences in Heaven are in black & white while those on earth are in luminous Technicolor). P & P have fun lampooning British obsessions with tidiness and predilections for bureaucracy. Inventive uses of stop-motion photography and other special effects (love that escalator) make this as delightful to watch today as ever. The original British title was A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, making the film sound more ponderous than it really is. (1946, 104min, 35mm) RC
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More info at www.cine-file.info/venues/lasalle.html.
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THE EXILES (Classic Revival)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Check Reader Movies for showtimes
A major point of reference in Thom Andersen's essay film LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF, this independent production from 1961 provides vivid evidence of California subculture rarely acknowledged by the movies. Or more appropriately, subcultures - it's about the lives of Native Americans who left their reservation for Los Angeles (hence the title) and takes place largely in working-class neighborhoods that have since been demolished. Director Kent Mackenzie, still in film school at USC at the time, encouraged his non-professional cast to improvise so he could most accurately capture their lives. Many critics have compared his approach to John Cassavetes' contemporaneous work in SHADOWS (1959), and Roger Ebert, reviewing this new print over the summer, went as far as to put the film on the same level: "[THE EXILES] would have been a key work of the New American Cinema, the Cassavetes generation, if it had ever been seen. It played three film festivals, never got picked up for distribution, has survived only in a low-quality 16mm print. Now the UCLA Film and Television Archive has restored it, apparently working from the original materials, and it looks like it was made yesterday." Ebert went on to laud to film for its bittersweet depiction of alcoholism. (1961, 72 min, 35mm) BS
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More info at www.siskelfilmcenter.org.
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Films by Peter Tscherkassky (Experimental)
Film Studies Center – Saturday 7pm (FREE)
A sentence, however original, is composed of words. And those words are someone else's—or, even if they are invented words, they have a basis in some idea. And that idea is derived from some preconception which is in turn derived from sense of ordering. You can spend your life dividing statements, like numbers (an invented language), and never reach the bottom. Every division creates two parts which in turn can be divided and divided and divided creating a descending mental staircases that never quite touches reality, always hovering just a little above, one more step to go. An image can be divided, too, either as a set of ideas, or physically. In 1984, a young Austrian named Peter Tscherkassky, a former student of philosophy and journalism, laid three minutes worth of celluloid down in a darkroom in the shape of a film frame and exposed a single still image from the Lumiere's first "actuality" on it, each blown-up microscopic section of the frame creating a new image. Concreteness—"realism"—is something that only exists on the surface, and the moment you begin to divide you find abstraction. Tscherkassky is now three decades into a body of work that has progressed from Super 8 to 16mm to standard ratio 35mm and finally Cinemascope. Like fellow Freudian Martin Arnold and his hidden movements and emotional undertones, Tscherkassky is someone who divides images (taken from obscure films, well-known classics and home movies) and finds the emotional possibilities underneath. This introduction to his work, presented by the Experimental Film Club, covers a roughly 15 year span—starting at the 16mm phase and progressing to his most popular (or at least most written-about) work, OUTER SPACE, made almost a decade ago. The event is free. (1983-1999, 16mm / 35mm, ~80 min) IV
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Watch MANUFRAKTUR, a 1985 Tscherkassky short not included in this program.
More info at www.filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu.
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ALSO RECOMMENDED
Arnaud Desplechin's A CHRISTMAS TALE (New French)
Music Box – Check Reader Movies for showtimes
Since the release of his first feature, LA SENTINELLE (1992), Arnaud Desplechin has been one of the most compelling French directors of his generation. Like his compatriots Olivier Assayas and Patrice Chereau, Desplechin favors lengthy, highly mobile and richly detailed shots that reflect the ever-changing nature of contemporary life. (Not coincidentally, the three filmmakers share the same gifted cinematographer, Eric Gauthier.) But Desplechin also has a novelist's understanding of character, and his plots boast the twists and turns of great fiction. A CHRISTMAS TALE is his first film in four years and, if recent festival screenings are any indication, likely to be his most popular. It's an epic comedy-drama about an estranged family reuniting at Christmas, starring some of the finest actors in French cinema today, including Desplechin regulars Catherine Deneuve, Matthieu Almaric, and Emmanuelle Devos. The narrative complications are reportedly deeply entertaining but difficult to synopsize. Regardless, the critics have loved it, with Kent Jones labeling it "Shakespearean" and Strictly Film School's Acquarello calling it "the human comedy as theater of the absurd." But J. Hoberman's recent rave in the Village Voice is perhaps the most enticing of all: "Desplechin has invented a form of domestic magic realism. Not unlike this movie, the [family] home is crammed with stuff--including a doll-house model of itself... The place is a kind of theater, both lived-in and uncanny, consecrated to the universal, atavistic belief that the dead return to their families at the New Year season." (2008, 150 min, 35mm widescreen) BS
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More info at www.musicboxtheatre.com.
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Edgar G. Ulmer's THE AMAZING TRANSPARENT MAN (Classic Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Sunday, 7pm
Some auteurists tend to favor late-career works by the great directors, and Ulmer's fantastic final film, THE CAVERN (which Doc showed over the summer), and last week's great western THE NAKED DAWN are evidence that this is valid in his case. Here is an opportunity to further test this idea. THE AMAZING TRANSPARENT MAN is among Ulmer's last works. Party shot on the grounds of the Texas Fairground, and at the same time as next week's BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER, the plot is as silly (a madman creates an invisible army) as it is likely irrelevant. What matters is Ulmer's construction of space in his works—his framing and camera movements are as rich and telling and emotionally resonant as almost anyone's—and his continually baffling ability to spin gold out of the meagerest means. (1960, 57 min, 35mm) PF
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More info at www.docfilms.uchicago.edu.
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Channeling: Invocation of Spectral Bodies & Queer Spirits (Experimental)
The Nightingale – Friday, 8pm
Curated by Latham Zearfoss and Ethan White, this fascinating looking program pushes the continually expanding boundaries and definitions of "queer," accentuating an attitude rather than just sexual identity. While some of the work in the show is specifically GLBT-themed, two artists' videos in particular highlight a more amorphous understanding of queerness. Shana Moulton's hyper-artifice videos deliberately use effect that would have been cutting-edge twenty years ago. Her tales about her alter-ego "Cynthia" (and Cynthia's uncomfortable relationship with the world and her solace in kitsch and self-help) constantly threaten to devolve into mere camp or, worse, post-modernist posturing. Moulton, however, always stays right on the edge and her work benefits from the openness and sincerity that the lack of dogma provides. Similarly, it is the simplicity of Michael Robinson's videos (as opposed to the complex elegance of his films) that invites the opportunity for queer readings. In CAROL ANNE IS DEAD, Robinson's reworking of his family's home-movie version of POLTERGEIST, the then ten year old Robinson seems to have an uncanny understanding of drag and the nature of performance. Also showing are works by Vanessa Renwick, Elliot Montague, Liz Rosenfeld, EMR (Math Bass & Dylan Mira), Aay Preston-Myint, Jillian Peña, and John Di Stefano, most of whom are former Chicagoans. Curators in person. (1990-2008, 83 min, video) PF
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More info at www.nightingaletheatre.org.
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Howard Hawks' ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS (Classic Revival)
Gene Siskel Film Center– Friday & Wednesday, 6pm
ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS is the first mature articulation of themes that Howard Hawks would explore, in endless variation, for the next 30 years. Taking place over a few weeks at a small airport in the Andes, its heroes are the pilots—at once courageous and heedless—who live there between making the most dangerous flights in the world. The dominant attitude is a macho American version of French existentialism, which also found voice in the contemporaneous literature of Ernest Hemingway (one of the director's hunting buddies, incidentally); but Hawks is confident where Hemingway is fatalistic, finding splendor in the friendships and character quirks that blossom on the edge of chaos. The film is brimming with life, as Hawks' long takes suggest a community vibrant enough to speak for itself, though it is unafraid to confront sudden death with grown-up seriousness. In an essay on Hawks' later THE BIG SLEEP, Jonathan Rosenbaum asked if there ever was a better director of naked dread, and his point is amply supported by this film's flight sequences. Rosenbaum will introduce Wednesday's screening of the film as part of his series on World Cinema in the 1930s. (1939, 121 min, 35mm archival print) BS
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More info at www.siskelfilmcenter.org.
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GERMANY IN AUTUMN (Classic Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Monday, 7pm
As long as there is money, every film will be an economic gesture. To buy film stock, to pay actors and crew, to rent an editing room is to direct capital towards a certain goal instead of another. With the huge sums of money involved, cinema inadvertently becomes the most moral, the most ethically-concerned art. To make a painting of a subject is one thing; to spend the equivalent of several years' salaries for a large group of people on it is another. There's a fascinating set of equations in Western culture, something akin to the transfer of energy in physics, wherein monetary capital can be converted into cultural capital. So let's treasure the "political film," where a filmmaker proves they care about something else by making a large sum of money disappear (even a cheap movie costs a lot) in the hope of forcing the public into the difficult conversation it doesn't want to have. Alexander Kluge got a group of Germans together for GERMANY IN AUTUMN, a movie that's like a panel discussion on West Germany's then-active RAF terrorist group, public figures voicing their opinions in turn (through directing, writing, acting) with time for the audience's questions (to themselves) afterward. Thirty years later, two of the film's key voices, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Heinrich Boll, are long dead and the RAF is the subject of a slick thriller that's Germany's entry for the Oscars. (1977, 35mm, 116 min)
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More info at www.docfilms.uchicago.edu.
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Chicago and the Universe (Experimental)
Roots & Culture Gallery – Saturday, 8 & 10pm (FREE, but donations welcome)
Local teacher, filmmaker, and curator Alexander Stewart pulls together some of the best Chicago-made film and video from 2008 in this end of year program of shorts. Diverse in styles and media, CHICAGO AND THE UNIVERSE focuses the lens on some exciting new makers. Jerzy Rose's imaginative THE UNIVERSE AND YOUNG PILOT NELSON is not to be missed. Also represented is new work by some familiar Chicago voices, including Jodie Mack's splendid collage-animation musical, YARD WORK IS HARD WORK and recent work by Jesse McManus, Michael Robinson, Andy Roche, Pizza Dog, Latham Zearfoss (see CHANNELING above), Chelsea Tonelli Knight, Tim Ridlen, George Monteleone, and Christopher Santiago. Many artists in person. (2008, 80 min, various formats) CL
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More info at www.rootsandculturecac.org.
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AUTOPSY (Classic Revival/Cult)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Tuesday, 7pm
Almost all Italian filmmakers working in the 70s tried their hand at at least one giallo. While many one-shot wonders proved to be failures, a few—including this underrated masterpiece—became true sleepers of the genre. Armando Crispino's AUTOPSY (released in Italy under the more appropriate moniker, SUN SPOTS) stars American ex-pat Mimsy Farmer as a mortician who lets her constant proximity to death affect her more than it should. Meanwhile, there has been a great increase in the number of suicides in Rome, which parallels the increased number of observed sunspots. When a young woman is found dead on the beach, her estranged brother (fellow ex-pat Barry Primus) enlists the help of Farmer to determine what really happened to her. While AUTOPSY bears many of the giallo trademarks, Crispino is trying for something bigger than a stylish stalk-and-slash film. In fact, the film could be interpreted as a meditation on death and its effects on the living. It presents characters who are simultaneously stoic and fragile. It's punctuated by a stark Ennio Morricone score that mixes a series of shrill echo-like moans (which sound like a combination of screams and orgasms) with lush classical chords. (1975, 85 min, 35mm) JR
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More info at www.docfilms.uchicago.edu.
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JCVD (New Narrative)
Piper's Alley – Check Reader Movies for showtimes
A rare accomplishment, Mabrouk El Mechri's JCVD is a piece of accessible postmodernism that isn't weighed down by bitterness or flip, ironic gestures. Yes, it begins with the in-joke premise of action star Jean-Claude Van Damme playing himself as a desperate burn-out, but El Mechri builds on it sincerely, creating both an exciting genre exercise and a plausible story of redemption. The film centers on Van Damme stumbling into a bank robbery while visiting his parents in Brussels and the predictable media circus that follows. The film leads up to the event from multiple perspectives (à la RASHOMON), allowing for detours into Van Damme's painful battle for custody of his daughter and humiliating meetings with his agent. The latter scenes are reminiscent of Olivier Assayas' great IRMA VEP (1996), and El Mechri occasionally channels that film's awareness of how movie-industry cynicism poisons real life. Even with all the comparisons one could make to other films and filmmakers (though, surprisingly, few of them would be Van Damme vehicles), El Mechri shows great promise as an original filmmaker. JCVD contains some of the year's most ambitious tracking shots, and the film maintains an exciting balance between action-movie escapism and psychological observation. (2008, 96 min, 35mm widescreen) BS
MORE SCREENINGS & EVENTS:
The Film Studies Center at the University of Chicago presents An Evening with Cheryl Dunye (Friday, 7pm). The director of the influential lesbian feature THE WATERMELON WOMAN screens a program of her early short films.
Chicago Filmmakers hosts an Open Screening Saturday at 7pm. Bring work to screen (up to 20 minutes worth) or just go watch. It's free, so what do you have to lose?
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) screens Kon Ichikawa's 1956 classic THE BURMESE HARP Friday at 8pm.
Also at Doc Films this week is fare for the highbrow and the lowbrow: Steven Spielberg's take on pulp serials, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (Friday, 6:30, 9, & 11:30pm; Sunday, 1pm), and Ingmar Bergman's take on Mozartian pulp, THE MAGIC FLUTE (Wednesday, 7 & 9:45pm). We'll let you figure out which is which.
The Film Center's David Lean series continued with the Dickens adaptation GREAT EXPECTATIONS (Saturday, 3pm and Tuesday, 6pm) and the less well known romance THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS (Saturday, 5:15pm and Monday, 6pm). In the Jim Henson series we find the strange David Bowie-as-bad-guy fantasy LABYRINTH (Sunday, 2pm and Tuesday, 8:15pm) and the compilation program The Art of Puppetry and Storytelling (Sunday, 4pm), which includes a classic episode of The Muppet Show . Local filmmakers Ed M. Koziarski and Junko Kajino's tale of a Japanese woman taking the son of one of her rapists hostage, THE FIRST BREATH OF TENGAN REI, has three screenings (Friday, 8:15pm, Saturday, 8pm, and Monday, 7:45pm).
Facets Cinémathèque gives a weeklong run to the slacker drama RUNNING FUNNY ; continues to host the Polish Film Festival (which screens at additional venues as well); and presents Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST (Sunday, 10am) in its Facets Seminar Series, with an introduction and discussion by U of C Philosophy professor Ted Cohen.
Also at the Music Box this week is JAKE'S CORNER (Saturday & Sunday, 1:30pm), about a small town uncle who must care for his young nephew and Guillaume Canet's thriller TELL NO ONE . The Saturday and Sunday matinee screenings are Wong Kar Wei's ASHES OF TIME REDUX (for those who procrastinated during its regular run) and William Powell and Myrna Loy in the 1934 THE THIN MAN . Midnight Friday and Saturday is THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (natch) and MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE. |
