Capital Celluloid Update
In the last 24 hours there have been announcements of the temporary closures of the ICA, BFI Southbank, Picturehouse Cinemas, Odeon and also Vue. In the current situation with uncertainty surrounding screenings the most prudent thing is to suspend listings other than those still known to be going ahead. Keep safe and look forward to bringing you the best of the repertory London film scene when it’s wise to do so.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 85: Wed Mar 25
REGENT STREET CINEMA HAS CLOSED OWING TO THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK AND THIS EVENT
AND ALL FUTURE SCREENINGS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED OR POSTPONED. FOR FULL
DETAILS YOU CAN CLICK HERE.
Stardust (Apted, 1974): Regent Street Cinema, 7.30pm
This Heavenly Films screening will followed by a Q&A with writer Ray Connolly hosted by Travis Elborough.
Time Out review:
Enjoyable attempt at the impossible task of reflecting the whole sprawl of '60s British pop through the rise and fall of one rock star. Ray Connolly's script for this sequel to That'll Be the Day functions on numerous levels: as a piece of nostalgia for over 25s; as wish fulfilment for David Essex's teenage fans, in which he becomes the greatest rock'n'roll singer in the world; and, God help us, as a would-be art movie, with its central relationship between Essex's singer and roadie Adam Faith more than reminiscent of The Servant. The script is at its best when knocking the stuffing out of the music industry and its myths, less successful when asking us to believe in the fictional achievements of its central character (3,000,000 fans and a Time magazine cover). Best are Adam Faith, Keith Moon's anarchic performance, and Dave Edmunds' music.
Chris Peachment
Here (and above) is an extract.
Stardust (Apted, 1974): Regent Street Cinema, 7.30pm
This Heavenly Films screening will followed by a Q&A with writer Ray Connolly hosted by Travis Elborough.
Time Out review:
Enjoyable attempt at the impossible task of reflecting the whole sprawl of '60s British pop through the rise and fall of one rock star. Ray Connolly's script for this sequel to That'll Be the Day functions on numerous levels: as a piece of nostalgia for over 25s; as wish fulfilment for David Essex's teenage fans, in which he becomes the greatest rock'n'roll singer in the world; and, God help us, as a would-be art movie, with its central relationship between Essex's singer and roadie Adam Faith more than reminiscent of The Servant. The script is at its best when knocking the stuffing out of the music industry and its myths, less successful when asking us to believe in the fictional achievements of its central character (3,000,000 fans and a Time magazine cover). Best are Adam Faith, Keith Moon's anarchic performance, and Dave Edmunds' music.
Chris Peachment
Here (and above) is an extract.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 84: Tue Mar 24
The continuing Coronavirus situation means there are going to be gaps in the schedules and this is one such date when there are currently no repertory screenings scheduled at present. Once films are booked for this particular evening, details will be made available here.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 83: Mon Mar 23
PICTUREHOUSE CINEMAS HAVE CLOSED OWING TO THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK AND THIS EVENT AND ALL FUTURE SCREENINGS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED OR POSTPONED. FOR FULL DETAILS YOU CAN CLICK HERE.
Dune (Lynch, 1984): Picturehouse Central, 6.15pm
This film is being shown at a number of Picturehouse cinemas across London and the rest of the country. Find the details here.
Chicago Reader review:
If this 1984 film really cost $60 million, producer Dino De Laurentiis must be the greatest patron of avant-garde cinema since the Vicomte de Noailles financed Buñuel's L'Age d'Or. Director David Lynch thoroughly (and perhaps inadvertently) subverts the adolescent inanities of Frank Herbert's plot by letting the narrative strangle itself in unnecessary complications, leaving the field clear to imagery as disturbing as anything in Eraserhead. The problem is that the imagery—as Sadean as Pasolini's Salo—isn't rooted in any story impulse, and so its power dissipates quickly. The real venue for this film is either a grind house or the Whitney Museum; its passage through the shopping malls of America was a once-in-a-lifetime anomaly. Kyle MacLachlan is the pallid hero who becomes a messiah to an oppressed desert tribe.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Dune (Lynch, 1984): Picturehouse Central, 6.15pm
This film is being shown at a number of Picturehouse cinemas across London and the rest of the country. Find the details here.
Chicago Reader review:
If this 1984 film really cost $60 million, producer Dino De Laurentiis must be the greatest patron of avant-garde cinema since the Vicomte de Noailles financed Buñuel's L'Age d'Or. Director David Lynch thoroughly (and perhaps inadvertently) subverts the adolescent inanities of Frank Herbert's plot by letting the narrative strangle itself in unnecessary complications, leaving the field clear to imagery as disturbing as anything in Eraserhead. The problem is that the imagery—as Sadean as Pasolini's Salo—isn't rooted in any story impulse, and so its power dissipates quickly. The real venue for this film is either a grind house or the Whitney Museum; its passage through the shopping malls of America was a once-in-a-lifetime anomaly. Kyle MacLachlan is the pallid hero who becomes a messiah to an oppressed desert tribe.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 82: Sun Mar 22
THE PRINCE CHARLES CINEMA HAS CLOSED OWING TO THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK AND THIS EVENT
AND ALL FUTURE SCREENINGS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED OR POSTPONED. FOR FULL
DETAILS YOU CAN CLICK HERE.
Gloria (Cassavettes, 1980): Prince Charles Cinema, 8.45pm
This presentation is part of the ‘Cassavetes on 35mm’ season. Full details here.
Chicago Reader review:
John Cassavetes clearly set out to make a commercial film, but, intransigent personality that he was, he turned in a slice of pure avant-garde: this 1980 release makes use of a fascinating discrepancy between dramatic tone and visual style. It's written as a soggy, conventional melodrama, about an ex-gun moll (Gena Rowlands) who tries to protect an orphaned Puerto Rican boy from the mob, but it's directed in Cassavetes's usual style of deflated naturalism. While the script pitches a series of wildly improbable events, the direction remains disruptively attuned to the dark, arrhythmic poetry of anticlimax. Heightened emotion and nagging banal reality fight each other for screen space, doing final battle in a daringly ambiguous ending.
Dave Kehr
Here (and) above is the trailer.
Gloria (Cassavettes, 1980): Prince Charles Cinema, 8.45pm
This presentation is part of the ‘Cassavetes on 35mm’ season. Full details here.
Chicago Reader review:
John Cassavetes clearly set out to make a commercial film, but, intransigent personality that he was, he turned in a slice of pure avant-garde: this 1980 release makes use of a fascinating discrepancy between dramatic tone and visual style. It's written as a soggy, conventional melodrama, about an ex-gun moll (Gena Rowlands) who tries to protect an orphaned Puerto Rican boy from the mob, but it's directed in Cassavetes's usual style of deflated naturalism. While the script pitches a series of wildly improbable events, the direction remains disruptively attuned to the dark, arrhythmic poetry of anticlimax. Heightened emotion and nagging banal reality fight each other for screen space, doing final battle in a daringly ambiguous ending.
Dave Kehr
Here (and) above is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 81: Sat Mar 21
EVERYMAN CINEMAS ARE CLOSED OWING TO THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK AND THIS EVENT AND ALL FUTURE SCREENINGS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED OR POSTPONED. FOR THE FULL DETAILS YOU CAN CLICK HERE.
Leaving Las Vegas (Figgis, 1995): Everyman Screen on the Green, 11.30pm
This film is the highlight of the late-night Nicolas Cage season at the Everyman Islington Screen on the Green. Here are the full details of the season.
Time Out review:
Alcoholic scriptwriter Ben (Nicolas Cage) is blowing his options. Our first glimpse sees his beyond-niceties collaring of an agent friend in a smart restaurant to demand drink money, a symptomatic preamble to what's staring him in the face: a 'sadly, we have to let you go' dismissal from his studio job. Figgis sets the crap game running here: the pay-off finances a one-way ticket to oblivion or, to give hell its name, Las Vegas, city of permanent after-hours. Cash the cheque, burn the past, take the freeway - we're in the booze movie, that most fascinatingly flawed form of the modern urban tragedy. This modestly budget masterpiece pools the Vegas streets with reflected neon and watches Ben drown. Elizabeth Shue is good as the young hooker he falls for, but Cage is extraordinary, producing an Oscar-winning performance of edgy, utterly convincing suicidal auto-destruct. In fact, Figgis makes of him something of an existential saint, a man for whom terminal self-knowledge leads to a kind of grace. If the film lacks the depth and structural sophistication of, say, The Lost Weekend (it was shot fast, with Declan Quinn's saturated Super-16 photography blown up, which may explain its kinetic buzz), it certainly has the courage of its convictions.
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Leaving Las Vegas (Figgis, 1995): Everyman Screen on the Green, 11.30pm
This film is the highlight of the late-night Nicolas Cage season at the Everyman Islington Screen on the Green. Here are the full details of the season.
Time Out review:
Alcoholic scriptwriter Ben (Nicolas Cage) is blowing his options. Our first glimpse sees his beyond-niceties collaring of an agent friend in a smart restaurant to demand drink money, a symptomatic preamble to what's staring him in the face: a 'sadly, we have to let you go' dismissal from his studio job. Figgis sets the crap game running here: the pay-off finances a one-way ticket to oblivion or, to give hell its name, Las Vegas, city of permanent after-hours. Cash the cheque, burn the past, take the freeway - we're in the booze movie, that most fascinatingly flawed form of the modern urban tragedy. This modestly budget masterpiece pools the Vegas streets with reflected neon and watches Ben drown. Elizabeth Shue is good as the young hooker he falls for, but Cage is extraordinary, producing an Oscar-winning performance of edgy, utterly convincing suicidal auto-destruct. In fact, Figgis makes of him something of an existential saint, a man for whom terminal self-knowledge leads to a kind of grace. If the film lacks the depth and structural sophistication of, say, The Lost Weekend (it was shot fast, with Declan Quinn's saturated Super-16 photography blown up, which may explain its kinetic buzz), it certainly has the courage of its convictions.
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 80: Fri Mar 20
CLOSE UP CINEMA HAS STOPPED SCREENINGS OWING TO THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK AND THIS EVENT AND ALL FUTURE SCREENINGS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED OR POSTPONED. FOR FULL DETAILS YOU CAN CLICK HERE.
Possession (Zulawski, 1981): Close-Up Cinema, 8.15pm
Chicago Reader review:
Andrzej Zulawski's 1981 masterpiece opens with the messy separation of a middle-class couple (Sam Neill, Isabelle Adjani), then goes on to imagine various catastrophic breakdowns—of interpersonal relationships, social order, and ultimately narrative logic itself. The film can be hilarious one moment and terrifying the next, and Zulawski's roving camera only heightens the sense of unpredictability. Few movies convey so viscerally what it's like to go mad: when this takes an unexpected turn into supernatural horror, the development feels inevitable, as though the characters had been bracing themselves for it all along. Adjani won the best actress prize at Cannes for her dual performance (as an unfaithful wife and her angelic doppelganger), but the whole cast is astonishing, exorcising painful feelings with an intensity that rivals that of the filmmaking. Performed in English and shot in Berlin by an international crew, this also conveys a sense of displacement that's always been crucial to Zulawski's work.
Ben Sachs
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Possession (Zulawski, 1981): Close-Up Cinema, 8.15pm
Chicago Reader review:
Andrzej Zulawski's 1981 masterpiece opens with the messy separation of a middle-class couple (Sam Neill, Isabelle Adjani), then goes on to imagine various catastrophic breakdowns—of interpersonal relationships, social order, and ultimately narrative logic itself. The film can be hilarious one moment and terrifying the next, and Zulawski's roving camera only heightens the sense of unpredictability. Few movies convey so viscerally what it's like to go mad: when this takes an unexpected turn into supernatural horror, the development feels inevitable, as though the characters had been bracing themselves for it all along. Adjani won the best actress prize at Cannes for her dual performance (as an unfaithful wife and her angelic doppelganger), but the whole cast is astonishing, exorcising painful feelings with an intensity that rivals that of the filmmaking. Performed in English and shot in Berlin by an international crew, this also conveys a sense of displacement that's always been crucial to Zulawski's work.
Ben Sachs
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 79: Thu Mar 19
Weekend (Godard, 1969): Genesis Cinema, 6.35pm
Genesis Cinema introduction:
Cult Classic Collactive and Nick Walker present Godard's Weekend in 35mm! Make sure to be in your seats on time as Nick will open the screening with an insightful introduction that will be then followed by a salon discussion for first time viewers and fans of the film alike.
Chicago Reader review:
Jean-Luc Godard's 1967 imagining of the twilight of the Western world, in which bourgeois society is stalled in an endless traffic jam, revolutionaries pass their time slaughtering pigs, and Mozart is played in open fields while the camera tracks in elegant circles. It's funny and grating, seductive and repulsive, by the usual Godardian turns: the paradoxes he loves to spin are emotional as well as intellectual. Though the film teeters on the brink of an icy Maoism, it never takes the plunge.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the original trailer.
Genesis Cinema introduction:
Cult Classic Collactive and Nick Walker present Godard's Weekend in 35mm! Make sure to be in your seats on time as Nick will open the screening with an insightful introduction that will be then followed by a salon discussion for first time viewers and fans of the film alike.
Chicago Reader review:
Jean-Luc Godard's 1967 imagining of the twilight of the Western world, in which bourgeois society is stalled in an endless traffic jam, revolutionaries pass their time slaughtering pigs, and Mozart is played in open fields while the camera tracks in elegant circles. It's funny and grating, seductive and repulsive, by the usual Godardian turns: the paradoxes he loves to spin are emotional as well as intellectual. Though the film teeters on the brink of an icy Maoism, it never takes the plunge.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the original trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 78: Wed Mar 18
BFI SOUTHBANK HAS CLOSED OWING TO THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK AND THIS EVENT AND ALL FUTURE SCREENINGS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED OR POSTPONED. FOR FULL DETAILS CLICK HERE.
The Deep End (Siegel/McGehee, 2001): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.50pm
The film that launched Tilda Swinton’s Hollywood career is a taut, Hitchcockian thriller about a mother in dire straits. The 35mm presentation also screens on March 14th (details here) and is part of the Swinton season at BFI Southbank.
Time Out review:Perhaps inevitably, this suffers in comparison both with McGehee and Siegel's extraordinary debut Suture and with Max Ophuls' The Reckless Moment, of which this is an intelligent, gay-inflected remake. Tilda Swinton gives one of her finest performances yet as the woman whose teenage son gets involved with a gay hustler; when she finds the man's corpse, she tries to hide it, but soon finds herself being blackmailed. Changing the gender of her offspring spices and thickens the brew, rather than creating a whole new flavour, but the film-makers have succeeded in translating the story for the present without the melodrama becoming merely hysterical or camp. Giles Nuttgens' cool, sumptuous shots of the Lake Tahoe settings fit the mood admirably.
Here (and above) is the trailer.
The Deep End (Siegel/McGehee, 2001): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.50pm
The film that launched Tilda Swinton’s Hollywood career is a taut, Hitchcockian thriller about a mother in dire straits. The 35mm presentation also screens on March 14th (details here) and is part of the Swinton season at BFI Southbank.
Time Out review:Perhaps inevitably, this suffers in comparison both with McGehee and Siegel's extraordinary debut Suture and with Max Ophuls' The Reckless Moment, of which this is an intelligent, gay-inflected remake. Tilda Swinton gives one of her finest performances yet as the woman whose teenage son gets involved with a gay hustler; when she finds the man's corpse, she tries to hide it, but soon finds herself being blackmailed. Changing the gender of her offspring spices and thickens the brew, rather than creating a whole new flavour, but the film-makers have succeeded in translating the story for the present without the melodrama becoming merely hysterical or camp. Giles Nuttgens' cool, sumptuous shots of the Lake Tahoe settings fit the mood admirably.
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 77: Tue Mar 17
The Godfather (Coppola, 1972): Prince Charles Cinema, 2.20pm
This Hollywood classic is on an extended run at the Prince Charles Cinema and there are 35mm screenings on March 13th to 15th. You can find the full derails here.
Chicago Reader review:
The ultimate family film. Francis Ford Coppola gives full due to the themes of clannish insularity that made Mario Puzo's novel a best seller, though his heart seems to be with Al Pacino's lonely, willful isolation. This 1972 feature is sharp, entertaining, and convincing—discursive, but with a sense of structure and control that Coppola hasn't achieved since. With Marlon Brando, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, and Diane Keaton.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
This Hollywood classic is on an extended run at the Prince Charles Cinema and there are 35mm screenings on March 13th to 15th. You can find the full derails here.
Chicago Reader review:
The ultimate family film. Francis Ford Coppola gives full due to the themes of clannish insularity that made Mario Puzo's novel a best seller, though his heart seems to be with Al Pacino's lonely, willful isolation. This 1972 feature is sharp, entertaining, and convincing—discursive, but with a sense of structure and control that Coppola hasn't achieved since. With Marlon Brando, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, and Diane Keaton.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 76: Mon Mar 16
The Wind (Sjostrom, 1928): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.15pm
This 35mm presentation is also being screened on March 18th, when the film will be presented by critic Pamela Hutchinson. Full details here.
Chicago Reader review:
A silent masterpiece (1928) by Swedish pioneer Victor Sjostrom, made during a brief tenure at MGM. Lillian Gish is a Virginia farm girl, brought to Texas and forced to marry a brutish cowboy (Lars Hanson). Sjostrom finds a perfect image for Gish's frustration and discontent in the prairie wind of the title. His strange and effective style might be best described as pastoral expressionism.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
This 35mm presentation is also being screened on March 18th, when the film will be presented by critic Pamela Hutchinson. Full details here.
Chicago Reader review:
A silent masterpiece (1928) by Swedish pioneer Victor Sjostrom, made during a brief tenure at MGM. Lillian Gish is a Virginia farm girl, brought to Texas and forced to marry a brutish cowboy (Lars Hanson). Sjostrom finds a perfect image for Gish's frustration and discontent in the prairie wind of the title. His strange and effective style might be best described as pastoral expressionism.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 75: Sun Mar 15
Horse Money (Costa, 2014): ICA Cinema, 4pm
This film is part of the Pedro Costa season at the ICA. Full details here.
Chicago Reader review:
Portuguese director Pedro Costa returns to the dark, fantastic mode of his first film, O Sangue (1989), while continuing to explore Lisbon's poor and immigrant communities. Ventura, the aging immigrant from Cape Verde who played a fictionalized version of himself in Colossal Youth (2006), does so again here. As the movie opens, he's convalescing in a hospital after an unspecified illness, though one soon realizes that the hospital doesn't exist in the real world: it's always nighttime, nobody's sure what year it is, and ghosts interact with the living. Eventually Ventura wanders into the armed conflict between Portuguese soldiers and revolutionary forces that raged in his home country from the 1960s to the early '70s. Painterly and meditative in Costa's singular manner, this 2014 feature reconfigures traumatic episodes, both personal and historical, into a waking dream.
Ben Sachs
Here (and above) is the trailer.
This film is part of the Pedro Costa season at the ICA. Full details here.
Chicago Reader review:
Portuguese director Pedro Costa returns to the dark, fantastic mode of his first film, O Sangue (1989), while continuing to explore Lisbon's poor and immigrant communities. Ventura, the aging immigrant from Cape Verde who played a fictionalized version of himself in Colossal Youth (2006), does so again here. As the movie opens, he's convalescing in a hospital after an unspecified illness, though one soon realizes that the hospital doesn't exist in the real world: it's always nighttime, nobody's sure what year it is, and ghosts interact with the living. Eventually Ventura wanders into the armed conflict between Portuguese soldiers and revolutionary forces that raged in his home country from the 1960s to the early '70s. Painterly and meditative in Costa's singular manner, this 2014 feature reconfigures traumatic episodes, both personal and historical, into a waking dream.
Ben Sachs
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 74: Sat Mar 14
Showgirls (Verhoeven, 1995): Prince Charles Cinema, 9pm
This film (presented on 35mm tonight) was roundly slammed on release was nominated for film turkey awards in the past but I have always been a big fan. Director Paul Verhoeven is incapable of making a boring movie and this picture with Elizabeth Berkley as a wild-eyed ingénue who takes the Las Vegas exotic-dance scene by storm has energy to spare. It is also a somewhat subversive movie.
Chicago Reader review:
Director Paul Verhoeven and writer Joe Eszterhas's fresh meat market—a sleazy Las Vegas porn show with clunky production numbers that resemble body-building exercises, backed by heaps of big studio money. The story, a low-rent version of All About Eve, charts the rise of one bimbo showgirl (Elizabeth Berkley) at the expense of another (Gina Gershon); alas, the only actor who seems comfortable is Kyle MacLachlan. I must admit that, as with Basic Instinct and Starship Troopers, which I also underrated initially, this 1995 movie has only improved with age—or maybe it's just that viewers like me are only now catching up with the ideological ramifications of the cartoonlike characters. In this case, the degree to which Las Vegas (and by implication Hollywood) is viewed as the ultimate capitalist machine is an essential part of the poisonous package. With Glenn Plummer, Robert Davi, Alan Rachins, and Gina Ravera.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Here (and above) is the trailer.
This film (presented on 35mm tonight) was roundly slammed on release was nominated for film turkey awards in the past but I have always been a big fan. Director Paul Verhoeven is incapable of making a boring movie and this picture with Elizabeth Berkley as a wild-eyed ingénue who takes the Las Vegas exotic-dance scene by storm has energy to spare. It is also a somewhat subversive movie.
Chicago Reader review:
Director Paul Verhoeven and writer Joe Eszterhas's fresh meat market—a sleazy Las Vegas porn show with clunky production numbers that resemble body-building exercises, backed by heaps of big studio money. The story, a low-rent version of All About Eve, charts the rise of one bimbo showgirl (Elizabeth Berkley) at the expense of another (Gina Gershon); alas, the only actor who seems comfortable is Kyle MacLachlan. I must admit that, as with Basic Instinct and Starship Troopers, which I also underrated initially, this 1995 movie has only improved with age—or maybe it's just that viewers like me are only now catching up with the ideological ramifications of the cartoonlike characters. In this case, the degree to which Las Vegas (and by implication Hollywood) is viewed as the ultimate capitalist machine is an essential part of the poisonous package. With Glenn Plummer, Robert Davi, Alan Rachins, and Gina Ravera.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 73: Fri Mar 13
Peter Ibbetson (Hathaway, 1935): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.10pm
‘I first saw it in a hole-in-the-wall cinema in Paris’, remembers Tilda Swinton. ‘Henry Hathaway is best known as a Hollywood western director who made the original True Grit. But his romantic fantasy fable, based on George du Maurier’s 1891 novel, and starring Gary Cooper and Ann Harding, is a total jewel and was the film fetish of the Surrealists.’
Tilda Swinton introduces this 35mm presentation of a remarkable film in the ‘Screen Epiphany’ strand at BFI Southbank.
Chicago Reader review:
Two childhood sweethearts separate, reunite in tragedy, and finally consummate their love in the afterlife. The last person in the world you'd expect to film this gauzy romance is Henry Hathaway, that solid old master of middling westerns and pseudorealism (Call Northside 777). But something apparently clicked: this 1935 drama is a stunner, a complete anomaly in Hathaway's career. With Gary Cooper, Ann Harding, Ida Lupino, John Halliday, and cinematography by Charles Lang (which helps a lot).
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
‘I first saw it in a hole-in-the-wall cinema in Paris’, remembers Tilda Swinton. ‘Henry Hathaway is best known as a Hollywood western director who made the original True Grit. But his romantic fantasy fable, based on George du Maurier’s 1891 novel, and starring Gary Cooper and Ann Harding, is a total jewel and was the film fetish of the Surrealists.’
Tilda Swinton introduces this 35mm presentation of a remarkable film in the ‘Screen Epiphany’ strand at BFI Southbank.
Chicago Reader review:
Two childhood sweethearts separate, reunite in tragedy, and finally consummate their love in the afterlife. The last person in the world you'd expect to film this gauzy romance is Henry Hathaway, that solid old master of middling westerns and pseudorealism (Call Northside 777). But something apparently clicked: this 1935 drama is a stunner, a complete anomaly in Hathaway's career. With Gary Cooper, Ann Harding, Ida Lupino, John Halliday, and cinematography by Charles Lang (which helps a lot).
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 72: Thu Mar 12
Friendship’s Death (Wollen, 1987): Castle Cinema, 7pm
This film by the late Peter Wollen, one of the most significant figures in British cinema in the post-War period, is a Science Fiction Theatre production.
Time Out review:
In September 1970, a British war correspondent (Bill Paterson) is distracted from his coverage of the bloody conflict between Palestinians and Jordanians when he rescues a young lady (Tilda Swinton) from a PLO patrol. Simply named Friendship, she claims to be an extraterrestrial robot sent to Earth on a peace mission and accidentally diverted from her original destination, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Is she insane, a spy, or telling the truth? Peter Wollen's film comes across as a two-set Dr Who for adults, complete with political, philosophical and more pettily personal problems; the use of the alien outsider's way of seeing the world is perceptive and provocative, the plentiful ideas counterbalance the lack of extravagant spectacle. Best of all, the film displays a droll wit (Friendship viewing a typewriter as a distant cousin, or concocting a surreal thesis on the big toe's importance in the oppression of women) and a surprising ability to touch the heart. With two impressive central performances, Wollen at last proves himself able to direct actors, and has made by far his most rewarding movie to date.
Here (and above) is the trailer.
This film by the late Peter Wollen, one of the most significant figures in British cinema in the post-War period, is a Science Fiction Theatre production.
Time Out review:
In September 1970, a British war correspondent (Bill Paterson) is distracted from his coverage of the bloody conflict between Palestinians and Jordanians when he rescues a young lady (Tilda Swinton) from a PLO patrol. Simply named Friendship, she claims to be an extraterrestrial robot sent to Earth on a peace mission and accidentally diverted from her original destination, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Is she insane, a spy, or telling the truth? Peter Wollen's film comes across as a two-set Dr Who for adults, complete with political, philosophical and more pettily personal problems; the use of the alien outsider's way of seeing the world is perceptive and provocative, the plentiful ideas counterbalance the lack of extravagant spectacle. Best of all, the film displays a droll wit (Friendship viewing a typewriter as a distant cousin, or concocting a surreal thesis on the big toe's importance in the oppression of women) and a surprising ability to touch the heart. With two impressive central performances, Wollen at last proves himself able to direct actors, and has made by far his most rewarding movie to date.
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 71: Wed Mar 11
Magnificent Obsession (Sirk, 1954): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.10pm
Shot on Eastmancolor negative and later subjected to the dye-transfer printing process (known as Techncicolor No V), this widescreen film is exemplary of Technicolor’s transition into the 1950s. It will be screened from a vintage 35mm Technicolor print preserved in the BFI National Archive. The film will be introduced by Prof. Dr Barbara Flueckiger of the University of Zurich.
Time Out review:
Douglas Sirk directed a number of films which say an awful lot about '50s America. A European who saw Americans more clearly than most, he found, in the 'women's weepies' producers often gave him, a freedom to examine contemporary middle class values. This one (from a novel by Lloyd C Douglas) has a preposterous plot: playboy Hudson takes up medicine again after being indirectly responsible for the death of a philanthropic doctor and directly responsible for his widow's blindness. Assuming the dead man's role, Rock Hudson starts practising the same kind of secretive Christianity, but has to resort to an alias to win the widow herself. Sirk turns all this into an extraordinary film about vision: sight, destiny, blindness (literal and figurative), colour and light; the convoluted, rather absurd actions (a magnificent repression?) tellingly counterpointed by the clean compositions and the straight lines and space of modern architecture. Sirk's films are something else: can Fassbinder even hold a candle to them?
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Shot on Eastmancolor negative and later subjected to the dye-transfer printing process (known as Techncicolor No V), this widescreen film is exemplary of Technicolor’s transition into the 1950s. It will be screened from a vintage 35mm Technicolor print preserved in the BFI National Archive. The film will be introduced by Prof. Dr Barbara Flueckiger of the University of Zurich.
Time Out review:
Douglas Sirk directed a number of films which say an awful lot about '50s America. A European who saw Americans more clearly than most, he found, in the 'women's weepies' producers often gave him, a freedom to examine contemporary middle class values. This one (from a novel by Lloyd C Douglas) has a preposterous plot: playboy Hudson takes up medicine again after being indirectly responsible for the death of a philanthropic doctor and directly responsible for his widow's blindness. Assuming the dead man's role, Rock Hudson starts practising the same kind of secretive Christianity, but has to resort to an alias to win the widow herself. Sirk turns all this into an extraordinary film about vision: sight, destiny, blindness (literal and figurative), colour and light; the convoluted, rather absurd actions (a magnificent repression?) tellingly counterpointed by the clean compositions and the straight lines and space of modern architecture. Sirk's films are something else: can Fassbinder even hold a candle to them?
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 70: Tue Mar 10
Cathy Come Home (Loach, 1966): Rio Cinema, 6.30pm
Ken Loach will be at the Rio Cinema for a director Q&A after the screening of this powerful film.
Rio Cinema introduction:
Time Out review:
Ken Loach’s history-making 1966 television drama about homelessness. Shot in doc-style, ‘Cathy Come Home’ is the story of a family forced out of their flat when the husband loses his job as a driver after an accident. Suddenly their bright and hopeful future vanishes when they’re evicted. As drama, this was so powerful it led to discussions in Parliament and new legislation to tackle homelessness in Britain. It was also fundamental in the launch of the homeless charity Shelter.
Here (and above) is a clip from the film.
Ken Loach will be at the Rio Cinema for a director Q&A after the screening of this powerful film.
Rio Cinema introduction:
To mark 50 years of tackling poverty, Islington People’s Rights (IPR) is delighted to have organised a special screening of the BBC drama Cathy Come Home, followed by Q&A with the film’s acclaimed director, Ken Loach. First broadcast on television in 1966, it was watched by 12 million people, and had a major impact on its audience. 54 years on, homelessness and poverty continue to be issues worthy of attention and discussion. Islington People’s Rights (IPR) has been offering independent advice on welfare benefits and debt matters to local people since 1969. Today, IPR provides direct help to over 2,500 people a year and supports some of the most vulnerable Islington residents through targeted specialist advice, notably those with mental health issues, other disabilities, addiction issues and ethnic minority groups. The introduction of Universal Credit and years of austerity have served to make IPR’s services more vital than ever.
Time Out review:
Ken Loach’s history-making 1966 television drama about homelessness. Shot in doc-style, ‘Cathy Come Home’ is the story of a family forced out of their flat when the husband loses his job as a driver after an accident. Suddenly their bright and hopeful future vanishes when they’re evicted. As drama, this was so powerful it led to discussions in Parliament and new legislation to tackle homelessness in Britain. It was also fundamental in the launch of the homeless charity Shelter.
Here (and above) is a clip from the film.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 69: Mon Mar 9
The Arrangement (Kazan, 1969): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.30pm
This 35mm presentation, which is also screned on March 13th, is part of the Elia Kazan season at BFI Southbank. You can find the full details here.
BFI introduction:
Adapted from his own bestselling novel, Elia Kazan’s most experimental film – complete with fragmented non-linear narrative, flashbacks, fantasy sequences and sudden shifts in tone – is also partly autobiographical. It chronicles, sometimes seriously, sometimes satirically, the chaotic mid-life crisis of a Greek-American advertising executive (Kirk Douglas) torn between his wife (Deborah Kerr) and mistress (Faye Dunaway), while trying to come to terms with his feelings about his father.
Here (and above) is the trailer.
This 35mm presentation, which is also screned on March 13th, is part of the Elia Kazan season at BFI Southbank. You can find the full details here.
BFI introduction:
Adapted from his own bestselling novel, Elia Kazan’s most experimental film – complete with fragmented non-linear narrative, flashbacks, fantasy sequences and sudden shifts in tone – is also partly autobiographical. It chronicles, sometimes seriously, sometimes satirically, the chaotic mid-life crisis of a Greek-American advertising executive (Kirk Douglas) torn between his wife (Deborah Kerr) and mistress (Faye Dunaway), while trying to come to terms with his feelings about his father.
Here (and above) is the trailer.
Capital Celluloid 2020 — Day 68: Sun Mar 8
Opening Night (Cassavetes, 1977): Prince Charles Cinema, 8.45pm
This 35mm presentation is part of the John Cassavetes season. Full details here.
Chicago Reader review:
For all of John Cassavetes's concern with acting, this 1977 film is the only one of his features that takes it on as a subject; it also boasts his most impressive cast. During the New Haven tryouts for a new play, an aging star (Gena Rowlands), already distressed that she's playing a woman older than herself, is traumatized further by the accidental death of an adoring teenage fan (Laura Johnson). Fantasizing the continued existence of this girl as a younger version of herself, she repeatedly changes her lines onstage and addresses the audience directly, while the other members of the company—the director (Ben Gazzara), playwright (Joan Blondell), costar (Cassavetes), and producer (Paul Stewart)—try to help end her distress. Juggling onstage and offstage action, Cassavetes makes this a fascinating look at some of the internal mechanisms and conflicts that create theatrical fiction, and his wonderful cast—which also includes Zohra Lampert as the director's wife, assorted Cassavetes regulars, and cameos by Peter Falk and Peter Bogdanovich as themselves—never lets him down.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Here (and above) is the trailer.
This 35mm presentation is part of the John Cassavetes season. Full details here.
Chicago Reader review:
For all of John Cassavetes's concern with acting, this 1977 film is the only one of his features that takes it on as a subject; it also boasts his most impressive cast. During the New Haven tryouts for a new play, an aging star (Gena Rowlands), already distressed that she's playing a woman older than herself, is traumatized further by the accidental death of an adoring teenage fan (Laura Johnson). Fantasizing the continued existence of this girl as a younger version of herself, she repeatedly changes her lines onstage and addresses the audience directly, while the other members of the company—the director (Ben Gazzara), playwright (Joan Blondell), costar (Cassavetes), and producer (Paul Stewart)—try to help end her distress. Juggling onstage and offstage action, Cassavetes makes this a fascinating look at some of the internal mechanisms and conflicts that create theatrical fiction, and his wonderful cast—which also includes Zohra Lampert as the director's wife, assorted Cassavetes regulars, and cameos by Peter Falk and Peter Bogdanovich as themselves—never lets him down.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Here (and above) is the trailer.