Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 159: Thu June 8

Mildred Pierce (Curtiz, 1945): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6pm

This blog, as befits the name, has always favoured screenings from celluloid for our daily picks of the best in repertory screenings in London so the four-day festival at BFI Southbank dedicated solely to film presentations is the most exciting season of the year in London as far as we are concerned. You can read about the full programme here. Tonight's screening is sold out currently but do get there early and queue up for returns on the day.

BFI introduction to the season:
BFI Film on Film Festival is a brand new film festival to take place at BFI Southbank, 8 to 11 June 2023 and the first film festival in the UK wholly dedicated to screen works solely on film, spanning film formats including 16mm, 35mm and 70mm as well as rare nitrate. While the majority of films are now shown digitally in cinemas, the experience of film projection from film is a very different one. For contemporary filmmakers like Christopher Nolan (Tenet), Mark Jenkin (Enys Men) or Greta Gerwig (Little Women), the decision to shoot on film is primarily an artistic one on how their film will look to the viewer when projected. BFI Film on Film Festival celebrates this materiality of film, recognising the uniqueness of film as a physical medium. BFI Film on Film Festival will comprise screenings of new and vintage film prints, programmed by the BFI National Archive’s curators from the national collection, giving audiences access to work held in the BFI National Archive which can only be seen on film and which would otherwise never been seen. The full festival programme will be announced in 2023. Like the experience of listening to a great album on vinyl rather than a digital platform, part of the pleasure and meaning of watching a film on a film print comes from the different look and emotional impact when projected. A whole generation of young filmgoers have grown up not seeing film projected on film, the BFI Film on Film Festival is designed to deliver a unique, cinema-based experience enabling audiences to enjoy the physical materiality of film in all its glory, exploring its aesthetics and challenges – and celebrating the skills required to work with it, with expert voices from the BFI’s world-leading conservation and projection teams.

Time Out review of Mildred Pierce (screening from an original 1945 nitrate release print):
James Cain's novel of the treacherous life in Southern California that sets house-wife-turned waitress-turned-successful restauranteur (Joan Crawford) against her own daughter (Ann Blyth) in competition for the love of playboy Zachary Scott, is brought fastidiously and bleakly to life by Michael Curtiz' direction, Ernest Haller's camerawork, and Anton Grot's magnificent sets. Told in flashback from the moment of Scott's murder, the film is a chilling demonstration of the fact that, in a patriarchal society, when a woman steps outside the home the end result may be disastrous.
Phil Hardy

Here (and above) is the trailer.