I have written a feature about the drama both on and off the screen involving this brilliant movie here at the Guardian Film website. The restoration is being shown on an extended run at BFI Southbank. Full details here. Chicago Reader review: The weirdest great movie ever made (1948), which is somehow always
summed up for me by the image of Glenn Anders cackling "Target practice!
Target practice!" with unbalanced, malignant glee. Orson Welles directs
and stars as an innocent Irish sailor who's drafted into a bizarre plot
involving crippled criminal lawyer Everett Sloane and his icily
seductive wife Rita Hayworth. Hayworth tells Welles he "knows nothing
about wickedness" and proceeds to teach him, though he's an imperfect
student. The film moves between Candide-like farce and a deeply
disturbing apprehension of a world in grotesque, irreversible decay—it's
the only true film noir comedy. The script, adapted from a novel by
Sherwood King, is credited solely to Welles, but it's the work of many
hands, including Welles, William Castle, Charles Lederer, and Fletcher
Markle. Dave Kehr
Here is the Barbican introduction to the night's entertainment: This year's Walthamstow Get Together series opens with a screening of Alfred Hitchcock's 1929 silent film Blackmail at the Walthamstow Assembly Hall.
The screening will be accompanied live by the Forest Philharmonic, conducted by Timothy Brock, performing the 2012 score written by Neil Brand, who will also introduce the evening.
Based on the play by Charles Bennett – who also collaborated with Hitchcock on The 39 Steps and The Man Who Knew Too Much – Blackmail
(1929) is acknowledged as the first British sound feature film. Alice
has stabbed to death a man who tried to rape her. Her boyfriend Frank, a
policeman, covers it up; but Tracey, the local petty thief, tries to
blackmail the couple. This leads to Tracey’s attempted arrest and a
spectacular police chase which ends on the roof of the British Museum.
Get
there early (from 5.30) for some great street food and drink from the
Real Food Festivals. Hitchcock was notoriously fond of good food and
drink and, in keeping with his East London roots, there will be street
food trucks including Bell & Brisket (salt beef bagels), Born &
Raised (British and East End themed pizzas) as well as Wondering Wine, a
vintage Citroen H Van wine bar – particularly fitting as -like many of
the characters in his film- Alfred Hitchcock was always partial to a
good drink too... Chicago Reader: Alfred Hitchcock's 1929 masterpiece, his last silent, follows the plight
of a murderer caught between her blackmailer and her detective
boyfriend. For all the experimental interest of the sound version that
followed (the first full-length talkie released in England), this is
more fluid and accomplished. Apart from two suspenseful set pieces—an
attempted date rape in an artist's studio that ends with the murder of
the artist-rapist, and a chase through the British Museum, Hitchcock's
first giddy desecration of a national monument—what most impresses is
the masterful movement back and forth between subjective and objective
modes of storytelling, as well as the pungent uses of diverse London
settings. As someone who's always preferred Lang's treatment of serial
killers to Hitchcock's, I would opt for this thriller over the much
better known The Lodger as Hitchcock's best silent picture, rivaled only by his less characteristic but formally inventive The Ring. Jonathan Rosenbaum
This new film by Philippe Garrel is on an extended run at Cine Lumiere. Details here.
Here is their introdcution to the movie: Written and directed by Philippe Garrel, Jealousy is a wickedly
ironic palimpsest that sketches present-day Paris onto passions of past
decades. Shot in glorious black and white by Willy Kurant (Masculine Feminine),
this sharp, vigorous film, takes a fresh look at the professional and
emotional cross-currents between two romantically entwined theatre
actors, with a beautiful score by Jean-Louis Aubert. Louis leaves his
wife Clothilde and daughter Charlotte for theatre actress Claudia.
Though she can’t get any work, their passion carries them through.
However, it’s not long before the outside world creeps back in…
This classic comedy is on an extended run at BFI Southbank. Details here.
Chicago Reader review: In many ways, the ultimate Billy Wilder film (1959), replete with
breathless pacing, transvestite humor, and unflinching cynicism. Most of
it is hilarious, but there is something disquieting in the way Wilder
dances around his sexual theme—the film never really says what it's
about, which might be just as well. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis are the
two musicians who disguise themselves as members of an all-girl
orchestra in order to escape from gangster George Raft; Marilyn Monroe
is the band's star, um, vocalist. With Pat O'Brien, Nehemiah Persoff,
and Joe E. Brown, who gets the famous punch line. Dave Kehr
This screens as part of the cinema's Classic Films season. Details here.
Time Out review: One of Bergman's warmest, and therefore finest films, this concerns an
elderly academic - grouchy, introverted, dried up emotionally - who
makes a journey to collect a university award, and en route
relives his past by means of dreams, imagination, and encounters with
others. It's an occasionally over-symbolic work (most notably in the
opening nightmare sequence), but it's filled with richly observed
characters and a real feeling for the joys of nature and youth. And
Sjöström - himself a celebrated director, best known for his silent work
(which included the Hollywood masterpiece The Wind) - gives an
astonishingly moving performance as the aged professor. As Bergman
himself wrote of his performance in the closing moments: 'His face shone
with secretive light, as if reflected from another reality...It was
like a miracle'. Geoff Andrew
This film, part of the Dennis Hopper season at BFI Southbank, also screens on 25th July. You can find full details here.
Time Out review: From its horrific opening - truck driver Hopper drunk at the wheel with
daughter Linda Manz ploughs into a school bus full of screaming children -
you're left in no doubt that you're in for an edgy experience. The
teenage Manz, in a quite sensational performance under Hopper's
direction, embodies the nihilistic ethos of punk in a way that other
mainstream projects (Foxes, Times Square) couldn't begin
to achieve. Manz impassively (and why not, with mum a junkie and dad an
incestuous paedophile) observes life in small-town America's roadhouses
and bowling alleys, embittered by the death of Elvis and Sid Vicious,
and interested only in the drum kit at which she flails away in her
bedroom. If ever there was a movie about Sex and Drugs and Rock'n'Roll,
this is it, a film of and about extremes, directed by an extremist. Rod McShane
The Rio cinema presents a double-bill dedicated to the late Bob Hoskins. The finale is The Long Good Friday, details of which you can find here, but they start with this much-praised drama.
Chicago Reader review: A film tailor-made for Bob Hoskins, the appealing British
actor who suggests an unlikely cross of James Cagney and Ed Asner. He's
an ex-con who gets a job as chauffeur and protector to an elegant black
call girl (Cathy Tyson); he's awed by her beauty and poise, and when she
asks him to find an old girlfriend from her streetwalking days, he
charges into London's sexual underworld like a knight on a quest.
Director Neil Jordan (Danny Boy, The Company of Wolves)
does a good job of re-creating the dark romanticism of American film
noir, and if the project does feel a little like a hand-me-down, it is
graced by Jordan's fine, contemporary feel for bright, artificial colors
and creatively mangled space. Hoskins delivers a classic star turn,
capitalizing on his instant likability to draw us into a
characterization of unexpected depth and dignity, and Michael Caine
makes the most of a brief appearance as a satanic crime lord. With
Robbie Coltrane and Clarke Peters. Dave Kehr
The venue is the coolest new cinema in town. The movie is a delight: a rare screening of John Boorman's surprising road movie, a mordant and critical look at Britain in the 60s. And an interesting comparison to A Hard Day's Night, re-released at the BFI this summer.
BFI review: John Boorman's first feature touches on mid-60s themes: the commodification of youth culture, the manipulative role of the 'media industry', the all-pervasiveness of images and advertising, and the resulting sense of alienation. Early scenes of youthful energy (the Dave Clark Five running around parks, playing on the rides) suggest a retread ofA Hard Day's Night(d. Richard Lester, 1964), but here the songs are non-diegetic. As stunt man Steve and model Dinah are both in the 'image' business, they drive around London in a E-type Jag to 'groovy' music, just as in the TV commercial 'Let's Go With Shell!'
Shot on location, the film makes skilful use of symbols - Dartmoor ponies, water, the tidal island - compareCul-de-sac(d. Roman Polanski, 1966). The snow-covered Devon landscape is contrasted with the ad agency in Manny Wynn's crisp B/W images.Peter Nichols' screenplay taps into '60s anti-establishment themes - a Utopian quest is destroyed by army and big business. But 'Utopia' is an illusion - there is no 'island' or escape from the media's manipulative influence; materialist Zissell 'walks' to the island. Dinah says, "you arrived - but you missed the journey". Only romantics make 'the journey', and are inevitably disillusioned: a bleak message.
The US title,Having a Wild Weekend, may have led audiences to expect aMonkees-type romp, rather than a film that shifts into melancholy. It becomes a critique of the vacuity of the opening images. For a 'pop' film, that is radical. Roger Philip Mellor
This film is being shown as part of the Dennis Hopper season at BFI Southbank and also screens on July 28th and 29th. Details here. Chicago Reader review: Dennis Hopper's fourth feature as a director—after Easy Rider (1969), The Last Movie (1971), and Out of the Blue
(1980)—is the first in which he doesn't appear as an actor. It's also
the first that doesn't improve on its predecessor, except perhaps from a
commercial standpoint. Sean Penn and Robert Duvall as a younger and
older cop taking on the LA gangs is the hot subject, and all the
elements—script (Michael Schiffer), cinematography (Haskell Wexler), and
score (Herbie Hancock)—combine to provide a lively, authentic surface
and an aggressively hip attack on the material. But narrative continuity
and momentum have never been among Hopper's strong points, and this
time the choppiness of the storytelling diffuses the dramatic impact
without offering a shapely mosaic effect (as in the previous films) to
compensate for it. Too many thematic strands—the contrast between Penn's
sadism and Duvall's leniency, Penn's courting of a Chicano waitress
(Maria Conchita Alonso), the individual gang skirmishes—get curtailed
before they can bear much fruit, and too much of the energy gets lost or
wasted in the patchwork editing. Considering how good so many of the
pieces of this film are—Duvall is especially fine—it's a pity they don't
add up to more. Jonathan Rosenbaum
This film is brought to you by a new London-based science fiction film club, run by SF specialists The Space Merchants.
Here is their introduction:
Norman Jewison’s dystopianRollerballportrays a near-future in the aftermath of the Corporate Wars, in which nations have crumbled and conglomerates rule. In place of freedom the people are given bread and circuses: material comfort and Rollerball itself. Played on a circular, slanted track by men on skates and motorbikes, this extreme sport is the ultimate extrapolation of the primitive blood lust implicit in many team sports. James Caan is outstanding as Jonathan E, star player with the Houston team.
In the elegant detachment of Jewison’s direction, emphasised by the stark, alienating use of classical music, there are echoes of Stanley Kubrick’s2001: A Space Odyssey. Notwithstanding the brilliantly staged arena sequences,Rollerballis essentially about freedom versus conformity and the corruption of unfettered capitalism, with Caan leading an existential rebellion in the tradition of Ray Bradbury’sFahrenheit 451which leads to a chilling, apocalyptic finale. Certainly the most prophetic film of the 1970s, Rollerballhas an intelligence and power overlooked by those who simply denounce its brutal violence.
Film-maker Carol Morley will introduce the latest in the A Nos Amours film club's complete retrospective of Chantal Akerman's work.
Chicago Reader review: Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman (Jeanne Dielman) made this independent work from a work-in-progress known as The Eighties (the English title of the finished film is Window Shopping).
Forty minutes of videotaped auditions and rehearsals for Akerman's
shopping center musical are followed by three production numbers—in
radiant 35-millimeter—from the film. The subject is first and foremost
Akerman's love of actors and the filmmaking process, and second the
process itself—the intermediary steps between conception and perfection,
from physical materials to cinematic illusions. If you don't know
Akerman's work, this is an excellent place to start: it's a very funny,
very idiosyncratic piece from one of the most sympathetic of modernist
filmmakers. Dave Kehr
Here is the ICA introduction:
Film collective A Nos Amours continues a retrospective of the
complete film works of Chantal Akerman with an exuberant and sparky
musical, at once homage to classic era MGM musicals, and an expression
of a highly European sensibility: satirical, teasing, resigned.
Chantal Akerman devoted enormous energy to this long cherished
project. Not only would she write and direct, but she wrote the lyrics
to the songs. Set in an other-worldly shopping mall called the Toisson d’Or (which translates as The Golden Fleece), perhaps modelled on the mall of the same name in Brussels.
Golden Eighties interweaves tales of love, longing,
disappointment and heartbreak. It offers song and choreographed - if not
quite dance-like - movement. Akerman is working as ever with ordinary
material, arranged and framed with precise purpose.
The musical numbers here touch on economic woes, recession, sexual
positions, and can be catty and sarcastic – far removed from the
sentimental world of MGM musicals, but not so far removed from the
musicals of Jacques Demy or especially Renoir’s odd valedictory song and
dance segment in Le Petit Théâtre de Jean Renoir.
Shot with distinctive Fujicolor film stock, lit without shadows,
stuck in an interior studio world as if exterior did not exist,
jam-packed with infuriatingly catchy tunes, this is an astonishing work
from an artist who began as a structuralist, albeit a structuralist with
a gift for narrative. Here is the opening to the film.
Voted the greatest Czech film ever made, this dark and passionate medieval epic chronicles the rivalry between two warring clans, the Kozlíks and the Lazars, and the doomed love affair of Mikolás Kozlík and Marketa Lazarová. Adapted from Vladislav Vanèura’s classic novel, this fierce 13th Century epic is a meticulously designed evocation of the period. Impressively ambitious and multi-layered, it is the crowning achievement of Vláèil’s career and is one of the great cornerstones of world cinema.
Chicago Reader review: Czech filmmaker Frantisek Vlacil (1926-'99) may have been eclipsed in
the West by his countrymen Milos Forman and Jiri Menzel, but his body of
work from the 60s and 70s has earned him a solid reputation at home: Marketa Lazarova
(1966), which kicks off a weeklong Vlacil retrospective at Facets
Cinematheque, was recently voted the greatest Czech film of all time in a
national critics' poll. Adapted from an experimental novel by Vladislav
Vancura, it concerns the feud between two pagan clans that have fallen
under the dominion of Christian German overlords in the 13th century.
One clan has converted to Christianity, and its patriarch has pledged
his virginal daughter Marketa (Magda Vasaryova) to a convent; the other,
brutish and superstitious, abducts the young woman during a skirmish
with its rivals. Episodic in structure, the film proceeds like a folk
saga, but its flashbacks, flash-forwards, and abrupt cuts give it a
hallucinatory quality. The iconography recalls Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible, Bergman's The Seventh Seal, and Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress,
and the compositions can be bluntly symbolic and self-consciously arty.
Yet Vlacil shot the film on location, insisting on historical
authenticity, and his raw realism turns the countryside into a bleak
hunting ground where new and ancient feuds settle into a tentative
peace. Ted Shen
Writer Hanif Kureshi will be at this cinema for a Q&A after the screening.
Time Out review: After ‘The Mother’ and ‘Venus’, this is the third collaboration between
‘Notting Hill’ director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi. It’s
their strongest yet, and once again they offer a late-life dash for love
and happiness. ‘Le Week-End’ tells of Nick (Jim Broadbent) and Meg
(Lindsay Duncan), a married couple who head to Paris for a break, but
find themselves facing up to personal and professional ennui. It’s
lightly played, often very funny and shot all over Paris with energy and
wit, and boosted by superb, inquiring turns from Broadbent and Duncan.
It deals head-on with its sad-faced subject without leaning on
sentimentality or misery, or offering easy answers. Michell and Kureishi
insert a winning dose of magic into the realism in the form of Morgan
(Jeff Goldblum), a wealthy old friend that the couple bump into. The
meeting inspires an awkward, near-surreal dinner-party scene and allows
Michell to close the film with an uplifting nod to Godard’s ‘Bande à
Part’. Delightful. Dave Calhoun
This is showing as part of the Dennis Hopper season at the BFI and also screens on 20th July. Here are the details.
Chicago Reader review:
The least that can be said for Dennis Hopper's 1971 drama
is that no other studio-released film of the period is quite so formally
audacious. After Easy Rider, Hopper was given carte blanche by
Universal Pictures to make this disjointed epic in Peru; although it was
given a special prize at the Venice film festival, the film was
withdrawn from circulation in the U.S. after a couple of weeks and has
rarely been screened since. After working in a western directed by
Samuel Fuller (playing himself), during which one of the lead actors
(Dean Stockwell) has been killed, an American stunt man (Hopper) remains
behind with a Peruvian woman. He is eventually drafted into an
imaginary movie being made by the Indian villagers and is also enlisted
in a scheme to find gold in the mountains. The curious thing about this
freewheeling allegory is that it is simultaneously about many things
(the fakery of moviemaking, mutual exploitation, ugly Americans in the
third world, Hopper as Jesus) and nothing at all. Jonathan Rosenbaum
Here (and above) is the opening of The Last Movie.
Here is the cinema's introduction to today's screening: A highly experimental film consisting of no more than 23 camera shots, La Cicatrice intérieure
features Pierre Clémenti (nude) and the Andy Warhol superstar Nico
(dressed in a loose robe) and a few others, including Philippe Garrel.
It resembles nothing so much as one of Warhol’s earlier films, except
that it is more episodic. The people, never more than two at a time,
move through a variety of landscapes, from glacial to nearly tropical –
always in some way deserted. A fascinating and restrained experiment in
visual rhetoric.
Peter Greenaway will be at BFI Soutbank today for a Q&A for his latest film. The movie will also be screened at the BFI in a short run in their Studio screen. Details here.
Here is the BFI introdcution: We welcome one of the most daring British directors – recently awarded a
BAFTA for Outstanding Contribution to Cinema – to discuss his new work.
‘It is a curiosity that every new visual technology in its infancy
seems to gravitate towards erotica and pornography,’ says Greenaway of
his new film – a typically controversial tale that explores the
relationship between art, sex and the printing press.
For those of you unable to make the recent special BFI screening, the much anticipated Boyhood goes on general release today.
Working
with the same actors for over ten years from 2002 onwards, Richard
Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, School of Rock) has
created a unique and captivating film that observes the lives of Mason
(Ellar Coltrane), his man-child father Mason Sr. (Ethan Hawke) and his
single mother Olivia (Patricia Arquette) from Mason’s schooldays to his
first experiences in college. This brave experimental approach in long
form storytelling within a feature film results in a diverting picture
of American childhood accompanied by a soundtrack spanning the years
from Coldplay's ‘Yellow’ to Arcade Fire's ‘Deep Blue’.
This film, which screens as part of the Century of Chinese Cinema season, also screens on 6th July. Details here.
Here is the BFI introduction: The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is the masterpiece of the great director and
fight choreographer Lau Kar-leung, and arguably the greatest martial
arts film of all time. Lau’s godbrother Gordon Liu stars as San Te, who
is drawn into rebellion against the oppressive Manchu government.
Wounded, he flees to the Shaolin Temple and spends years mastering his
martial arts skills... Lau emphasises his discipline and dedication, but
this doesn’t stop the film from being spectacular and riotously
entertaining.
Time out review: The first half hour is standard Shaw Bros melodrama: vignettes
from the Manchu army's subjugation of Canton in the early Qing Dynasty,
following the usual script, staged on the usual sets with all the usual
'guest stars' and extras. But once the wounded hero (Liu) reaches the
Shaolin Temple and - one year of sweeping floors later - starts learning
the monks' secret knowledge of martial arts, the movie becomes
extraordinary. The temple has 35 training rooms, each one dedicated to
the perfection of a physical skill, a mental reflex or a spiritual
insight. Once our boy graduates cum laude the abbot pragmatically
expels him for insubordination, freeing him to rally anti-Manchu
resistance in the province and turn the whole of Guangdong into a 36th
'chamber' of Shaolin. Fine myth making, anchored in a heroic central
performance. Tony Rayns
This film, the highlight of the Century of Chinese Cinema season, starts an extended run at BFI Southbank on June 19. Details here.
Time Out review: The crowning achievement of one of China's finest directors, this unique
film both reflects and dissects the mood of helpless impotence which
afflicted many Chinese in the years after the war. After a 10-year
absence, a doctor visits a married couple living in a bomb-scarred
country town. The husband is a broken man, close to suicide; the wife
was once his lover and they start to drift back into an affair under the
nose of her husband. The sense of frustration and enervation is
palpable, underlined by Fei's brilliant idea to use dissolves within
scenes, but the counter-current of renascent desire (sparked by Wei
Wei's phenomenal performance as the wife) makes this also a very sensual
movie. Tony Rayns
This film, which screens as part of the Gotta Dance! season at BFI Southbank, is also being shown on July 5th. Full details here.
Chicago Reader review: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's Trilby-based ballet film
(1948) has been the cult property of dance freaks for far too long. A
look beneath its lushly romantic surface reveals a dark, complex
sensibility, and that surface, rendered in the somber tones of British
Technicolor, reflects a fantastically rich cinematic inventiveness.
Moira Shearer is the ballerina who, following the outlines of a Hans
Christian Andersen tale, trades her life for her art; Anton Walbrook, as
her impresario, is perhaps the most forceful embodiment of the shaman
figures–magical, outsized, sinister–who haunt Powell and Pressburger's
work. The Red Shoes remains the best known of Powell and
Pressburger's 18 features, yet it's only the tip of the iceberg–beneath
it lies the most commanding body of work in the British cinema. With
Marius Goring and Robert Helpmann. Dave Kehr
This is part of a Woody Allen season at Prince Charles. Details here.
Time Out review: Allen's neurosis is not to everyone's taste, but this movie - based on
his own stage play about a film critic with seduction problems who takes
Bogart as a role model - shows him at his best, exploring the gap
between movie escapism and reality. It's not really as pretentious as
that, and anyway, in contrasting his chaotic life with the Bogart image,
Allen forgets the contrast between his chaos and our prosaic lives. No
doubt someone somewhere takes Woody as his mentor and fails to be funny,
just as Woody here stumbles after Bogey's cool. Still, the working out
of the parallels with Casablanca are masterly, and there are plenty of good sight gags and one-liners. Much better than Allen's previous self-directed effort, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex.
Steve Grant
This film, showing as part of the Dennis Hopper BFI Southbank season, also screens on July 12. Full details here.
Time Out review: An earlier Corman picture, The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, had
uncannily predicted the rise and fall of a Timothy Leary-type hero,
whose desire to see beyond human limits was punished by humiliation as a
sideshow freak and by self-inflicted blindness. The Trip, a definitive commercial for acid scripted by Jack Nicholson,
is in contrast boundlessly optimistic. Its advertising director hero,
Fonda, takes a trip with no retribution at all: no death, no
disillusionment, but much bikinied girls on sea shores, swirling
psychedelia, and mumbling of 'Wow!' by the obligatory Dennis Hopper
in the land of a thousand visual clichés. Despite the hedonistic
panache, its lack of a comeuppance means it now lacks credence (as it
once lacked a censor's certificate). Rich pickings for the pathologist
of '60s life-styles, but it took Coppola to work out that the best
movies were about bad trips, not good ones.
The film debut of the Beatles is back for an extended run at BFI Southbank. Full details here.
BFI introduction: Though A Hard Day’s Night was initially conceived merely as a vehicle to
exploit the staggering success of the Fab Four, Richard Lester’s
kinetic direction – partly influenced by the French New Wave – and Alun
Owen’s witty, Oscar®-nominated script ensure that the film endures as a
scintillating blend of marvellous music and gently satirical comedy.
Made at the peak of Beatlemania, it chronicles a couple of days in the
life of the band as they leave Liverpool for London to perform on a TV
special; prisoners of their own celebrity, beset by hysterical fans,
clueless hacks, uncool toffs, a perpetually fretful manager and the
regrettable presence of Paul’s ‘clean’ but meddling grandfather (the
great Wilfrid Brambell), all they want is some time for themselves...
The dry Scouse humour is spot-on (‘I fought the war for your sort’ – ‘I
bet you’re sorry you won!’), the cameos are many and delightful, and
John, Paul, George and Ringo ooze youthful irreverence and utterly
unforced charm. A joy. Geoff Andrew
This Royal Albert Hall presentation of the classic musical proved so popular that it's back for another run until July 6. All the details of the five screenings are here.
Time Out review: This beautifully restored fiftieth anniversary version of ‘West Side
Story’ is being re-released ahead of the BFI’s major survey of the
Hollywood musical this autumn. Re-heating ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in the distressed, red-brick pressure cooker of late-’50s New York City, cine-chameleon Robert Wise and choreographer Jerome Robbins made a fine fist of transplanting the Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim
Broadway behemoth to the screen. Set in a world populated by
finger-clicking, stoop-dwelling greasers, a senseless turf war between
rival gangs, the Sharks and the Jets, complicates a star-crossed romance
between Maria (Natalie Wood) and Tony (Richard Beymer). The
sins of the father take a back seat to race and gender tensions, as
this version examines the notion of dangerously overzealous family pride
via the internal dynamics of roving street gangs. A mercurial opening
salvo delivers ominous aerial shots of the NYC skyline that are worthy
of Antonioni. The camera then dips down on to a basketball court and
introduces a beef between Russ Tamblyn’s charismatic Riff and George Chakiris’s highfalutin Bernardo (replete with dodgy Shinola suntan). Although
it’s impossible to fault the euphoric dance sequences and ultra-melodic
tunes, the dramatic scenes linking the big numbers all fall flat and
the illicit affair at the film’s core remains fatally underdeveloped
until its fudged finale. Special mention, though, should go to Boris Leven’s neo-expressionist production design and Daniel L Fapp’s forceful cinematography: the crooked angles, pointed shadows and great swashes of red all heighten the mood of rabid fury. David Jenkins
This film (also being screened on July 5) is being shown as part of the BFI Southbank Dennis Hopper season. Full details here.
Chicago Reader review: Dennis Hopper had his first starring role in this odd and arresting
black-and-white mood piece about a young sailor who falls in love with a
carnival worker who may be a mermaid. Made in 1960 but not released
until 1963, it was the first feature of Curtis Harrington. A poetic,
low-budget independent effort, it can't be called an unqualified success
but certainly deserves to be seen. At moments it evokes some of the
early magic of Jacques Demy, and as with Demy's first feature, Lola, it's questionable whether Harrington ever topped it in his subsequent, more commercial efforts. Jonathan Rosenbaum
This is the first night of the Duke Mitchell Film Club fest. More details of the full weekend here.
Here is the Duke Mitchell introduction to this 30th anniversary screening: What
do you get if you cross a time-travelling cryogenically frozen
hypnotist , evil Nazis, musical songs, the internet and small-town folk
from America who want to cure the homosexuals, the punks, the gamblers
and the prostitutes?
A forgotten masterpiece that’s what!
Forget the brilliant charms of ‘The Room’ , leave behind the
eye-watering excesses of ‘The Apple’ – this Summer the ONLY film you
need to see is the 30th Anniversary Screening of ‘Strangers in Paradise’
proudly brought to you by The Duke.
Film director Ulli Lommel (yes, that Ulli Lommel!) stars as Jonathan
Strange, a hypnotist with the power to control the minds of men! When he
finds himself hunted down by Hitler and his cronies, wanting to exploit
his powers for the good of the Nazi party, Jonathan has himself
cryogenically frozen – only to be revived in the 1980s by others who
want to use his unique powers…
Combining musical brilliance with outrageous scene-chewing acting, this
under-appreciated film is a mind-boggling experience just begging to be
re-discovered.
Only ever released on VHS in any country, this screening is THE official
UK 30th Anniversary Screening of an overlooked classic which you may
never, EVER see again at the cinema!
This is part of the Prince Charles Cinema's Classic Film season. Details here.
Chicago Reader review: An appealing mess. Director Tim Burton joins forces with writers Michael
McDowell, Warren Skaaren, and Larry Wilson, and a cast headed by
Michael Keaton as the eponymous lead—a scuzzy miniature
"bio-exorcist"—to create a rather original horror comedy out of what
appears to be a strong first-draft script and a minuscule budget (1988).
Faces stretch like Silly Putty and a ghost couple (Alec Baldwin and
Geena Davis) try to oust a yuppie couple (Jeffrey Jones and Catherine
O'Hara) from their New England mansion. The pasteboard special effects,
which have a special charm of their own, make up in verve and
imagination what they sometimes lack in polish, and Keaton has such a
time with his extravagant turn as a demonic hipster bum that one can
forgive the less inspired contributions of Glenn Shadix, Sylvia Sidney,
and Dick Cavett, among others.
Jonathan Rosenabum
This is part of the Passport to Cinema season at BFI Southbank. The film also screens on 29th June when Dominic Power will be introducing the movie. Details here.
BFI introduction:The Song of Songs marks a (temporary) break in the relationship between
Dietrich and director Josef von Sternberg. Dietrich plays Lily Czepanek,
an orphaned country girl who comes to Berlin and is caught between an
artist (Brian Aherne) who cannot commit himself, and a ruthless
aristocrat (Lionel Atwill) bent on possessing her. Rouben Mamoulian’s
erotic, psychological melodrama provides Dietrich with one of her most
complex and satisfying roles.
Are you ready to meet Jonah? Then get ready as The Duke brings you face-to-face with the most mysterious icon ever to emerge from New York in the European Premiere of ‘My Name Is Jonah’. At once a portrait and a gateway into the weird and wonderful world of Jonah this film tells the story of the man who’s a martial artist, an adventurer, a vigilante and an internet icon! You will be hard pressed to believe your eyes as Jonah’s story slowly reveals a man who has been dressing as Punisher, Robin Hood, Sinbad, Highlander and more to create the most outrageous holiday cards found on the face of the Universe, all the while living a life that most of us dream of involving swords, karate, Russian brides and much, much more. Charismatic, mysterious, unpredictable and just a little quirky, Jonah is a true wonder – as are the people who surround him. So this June, do not miss your one and only UK chance to meet Jonah, to enter his world and who knows maybe even hear a masterful song from his harmonica!
Chicago Reader review: Released in 1975, near the end of Arthur Penn's most productive period (which began in 1967 with Bonnie and Clyde),
this haunting psychological thriller ambitiously sets out to unpack
post-Watergate burnout in American life. Gene Hackman plays an LA
detective tracking a runaway teenager (Melanie Griffith in her screen
debut) to the Florida Keys while evading various problems of his own
involving his father and his wife. The labyrinthine mystery plot and
pessimistic mood suggest Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald, and like
them screenwriter Alan Sharp has more than conventional mystery
mechanics on his mind. One of Penn's best features; his direction of
actors is sensitive and purposeful throughout. With Jennifer Warren,
Susan Clark, Edward Binns, Harris Yulin, Kenneth Mars, and James Woods. Jonathan Rosenabum
Time Out review: Made, incredibly, under the noses of the military police during the
Colonels' regime, Angelopoulos' film examines, with a passionate
radicalism, the labyrinth of Greek politics around that country's
agonising civil war. This is done through the eyes of a troupe of
actors, whose pastoral folk drama Golfo the Shepherdess is
continually interrupted as they become unwitting spectators of the
political events that ultimately polarise them. This slow, complex,
four-hour film will obviously provide problems for people raised on
machine-gun cutting techniques. Editing is very restrained, and some
takes last up to five minutes, but the stately pace of the film soon
becomes compulsive; and the shabby provincial Greece of rusting railway
tracks and flaking facades which the slow camera examines is visually
beguiling. The closing passage, when one of the actors is buried after
being executed, and his colleagues spontaneously raise their hands above
their heads to applaud not a performance but a life, is an incredibly
moving moment. David Perry
The Days Are Numbers film club are hosting this event.
Chicago Reader review: Peter Fonda's first venture as a filmmaker (1971) is close in spirit to
his father's pastoral dramas. Seven years after he abandoned his wife
and son to become an outlaw with Warren Oates, Fonda returns home and
takes a menial job on what was once his own ranch. The back-to-the-land
sentiments often have a dilettantish, posthippie feel, but Verna Bloom
has great authority as the wife and Fonda's direction is appealingly
modest and lanky. Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader review: Gripping 1977 American thriller from Wim Wenders that turns back on
itself with deadly European irony. Dennis Hopper is an international art
smuggler, Bruno Ganz is a Hamburg craftsman. Together they commit a
murder and briefly become friends. The film has a fine grasp of tenuous
emotional connections in the midst of a crumbling moral universe.
Wenders's films (Kings of the Road, Alice in the Cities) are about life on the edge; this is one of his edgiest.
Dave Kehr
This film also screens on June 4th, 25th and 27th and, on the first of those dates, director Hany Abu-Assad will be present for a
Q&A. Details here. BFI Southbank introduction: Omar, a young Palestinian activist, finds himself in a ‘catch-22’
situation: he’s arrested by Israelis in the wake of a soldier’s death
and released on condition that he will inform on his friends. At the
same time he has to deal with a love triangle, and fight to keep his
childhood friendships alive in a dangerous climate of mistrust,
providing a heady mix of political thriller and stormy romance.
Introduced by Observer film critic Mark Kermode, and followed by a Q&A with psychoanalyst Margot Waddell and film theorist Laura Mulvey. Chicago Reader review: Love is measured in devotion, and devotion in the minutes and hours of
suffering, in this harrowing and moving romance from Austrian master
Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon, Cache). Jean-Louis
Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva play a long-married couple trying to
adjust as the wife, a piano teacher, suffers a series of strokes that
leave her paralyzed and finally bedridden. Anger, humiliation, and
despair all take their toll, but Riva, extraordinary in the role, also
communicates the class, intelligence, and beauty that the husband still
sees. His tireless attention to her as her body breaks down and her
spirit wilts is a thing of wonder to Haneke, who has put his finger on a
very particular kind of heartbreak: seeing a lover give up not on you
but on the life you've shared. JR Jones
