This film is part of the Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger season at BFI Southbank and features an introduction by writer Lillian Crawford. There are further screenings of the movie on December 8th and 23rd. You can find full details here.
Chicago Reader review: After the hostile reception to his 1960 masterpiece Peeping Tom,
Michael Powell was virtually banished from English cinema, and most of
his remaining oeuvre is a scattered assortment of TV commissions and
Australian features. Made in 1963 for West German TV, this rarely seen
one-hour adaptation of Béla Bartók’s only opera, based on a libretto by
Béla Balázs (later known as a film theorist and as screenwriter of Leni
Riefenstahl’s first feature), is a particular standout, especially for
its vivid colors and semiabstract, neoprimitive decor (by Hein Heckroth,
who also designed the sets for The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffman).
The two performers are producer Norman Foster (not to be confused with
the Hollywood actor and director) in the title role and Anna Raquel
Satre as Bluebeard’s doomed wife, Judith. In accordance with Powell’s
wishes, the English subtitles briefly describe and clarify the action
but don’t translate the text. Jonathan Rosenbaum
BFI introduction: Harry Belafonte shines as a mercurial gambler uncertain of bourgeois
respectability, indebted to loan-sharks, who threaten his job as a
nightclub singer. From the streets of Manhattan to a tense climax in
small-town Pennsylvania, this is a neglected noir masterpiece. Belafonte
and Robert Wise both claimed this film was the most enjoyable of their
storied careers. This story is grounded in its commentary on Jim Crow
racism and the trauma of veterans from the Second World War and the
possibility of nuclear annihilation. The pulsating score is by jazz
doyen John Lewis and performed by the Modern Jazz Quartet.
Filmhounds review: 3615 code Père Noël, aka Deadly Games, aka Dial Code Santa Claus, aka Hide and Freak, aka Game Over.
The many named horror thriller about a boy genius vs a psychotic Santa
Claus who play cat and mouse in a mansion gained cult status after its
brief 1990 release in France. Seeing is believing in
this case. You need to see it to understand the sheer insanity and
absurdity of the entire film, let alone what was the Santa's actual
motive. Plus, when you hear the husky tones of Bonnie Tyler singing
‘Merry Christmas' repeatedly, you know you're in for a very bizarre film
indeed. The film follows Thomas, child prodigy, confined to his home on
Christmas Eve with his invalid Grandpa and his beloved dog while his
mother manages a local department store on. While trying to contact
Santa Claus with his high-tech equipment his messages are intercepted by
a deranged vagrant who then claims to be the real Santa Claus. He
manages to find out where the boy lives and proceeds to terrorise the
boy, while Thomas sets traps to try and capture the man, he believes is
the real Santa Claus sent to punish him. Katie Hogan
This is the second night in the exciting 'Last Movies' season at
the ICA Cinema. Full details of all the screenings in the five-month
long repertoire can be found here.
Last Movies remaps the first century of cinema according to what a
selection of its key cultural icons saw just before dying. Conceived and
created by Stanley Schtinter to enable an audience ‘to see what those
who see no longer saw last,’ the ICA hosts a five-month programme to
coincide with the publication of his book of the same title, described
by Alan Moore as ‘Profound and riveting . . . a remarkable achievement,’
and by Laura Mulvey as ‘deeply thought-provoking.’
According to
Erika Balsom, Last Movies ‘abandons all those calcified criteria most
frequently used to organise cinema programmes ... period, nation, genre,
director, star, theme: nothing internal to these films motivates their
inclusion, their ‘quality’ least of all ... Last Movies embraces
chance.’
In this second event in the series, Schtinter is joined in conversation by filmmaker and novelist Chris Petit to discuss the themes of liberty and decline, following a double-bill screening of the pre-Code Hollywood films, 20,000 Years in Sing Sing and Manhattan Melodrama.
American career-criminal John Dillinger was murdered in a panic of police bullets as he left the Biograph Theater in Chicago, having just watched his favourite actor Clark Gable (Fassbinder’s favourite actor too), in Manhattan Melodrama. Fassbinder was found lifeless by his editor Juliane Lorenz, having just watched 20,000 Years in Sing Sing in bed. Though officially unconnected, both films celebrate protagonists bound by the same fate: the electric chair at Sing Sing prison.
Time Out review of 20,000 Years in Sing Sing: James Cagney was Warners' first choice for Tommy Connors, the 'tough bird' who
eventually goes to the electric chair with a touch of cool resignation.
Spencer Tracy, however, is suitably gritty in this taut but somewhat
implausible moral drama which puts its protagonist through riots,
solitary confinement and an escape before he realises that the warden
(Arthur Byron) is a 'swell guy' deserving his trust. Connors' girl Bette Davis
rather overdoes the acid tongue, but the quasi-documentary scenes of
prison life are compelling. Based on a book by Sing Sing's liberal
warden Lewis E Lawes who believed in rewarding good behaviour and
facilitated location shooting inside the walls of the New York prison. Trevor Johnston
Time Out review of Manhattan Melodrama: The last movie John Dillinger ever saw (he was fingered by the lady in
red and shot as he left the cinema), this is an archetypal gangster
movie of the period, a product of the moral backlash instigated by
Hoover and the Hays Office in response to the dangerous ambivalence of Little Caesar and its ilk. Clark Gable
(who was said to resemble Dillinger) is a thoroughly affable kind of
gangster - not averse to a little wager, but essentially a good type who
stumbled on to the wrong track when he was a lad (played by Mickey Rooney).
William Powell is his old pal from those bygone days, now a district attorney.
Clark doesn't think twice about putting his life on the line if it will
help Bill get elected governor. This Oscar-winning scenario inspired a
hail of imitators over the next five years, and was thoughtfully
resurrected by John Gregory Dunne in his novel True Confessions. Tom Charity
Here (and above) is the trailer for 20,000 Years in Sing Sing.
This 35mm presentation from Animus magazine will feature an introduction by Elena Lazic. The film also screens on December 8th and 21st. Details here.
Time Out review: 'Off tacks and main sheet!' commands Russell Crowe's pony-tailed,
gimlet-eyed Royal Navy captain, 'Lucky' Jack Aubrey, in Peter Weir's rousing
1805 adventure, adapted from two of Patrick O'Brian's much-admired
seafaring novels. Aubrey's three-masted frigate HMS Surprise,
cruising the coast of Brazil on the lookout for Napoleon's allies, comes
under splintering fire from the fleeter French privateer Acheron
and lifts off in the fog. The sailing master (Robert Pugh) counsels caution,
but the standfast Aubrey, who fought with Nelson on the Nile, will have
his man, whatever the odds, come hell or high water. Thanks in no small
measure to Perfect Storm designer William Sandell, this handsomely mounted actioner exudes the authentic tang of salt, sweat and gunpowder. Cameraman Russell Boyd gives painterly expression to the ship's 'little world' and, as in Gallipoli,
Weir shows his adroitness at action and the psychology of men at war,
helped by a string of sterling performances, notably Bettany's
Darwin-esque doctor (Aubrey's friend, cello partner and obverse) and
young Pirkis as a heroic aristocratic midshipman. Nice too to hear
English accents in a major US production, especially Crowe's clipped
tones, and a well used classically oriented score stripped of bombast.
If there's a problem, it's the insistence on the warrior/man-of-science
dichotomy, which has the film meander off on a naturalist jaunt through
the Galapagos to tension-slackening effect. But in the main, a fine
old-fashioned Boy's Own yarn. Wally Hammond
This film, on an extended run at BFI Southbank, is a new BFI National Archive restoration for the most underrated film in the Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger canon. It runs as part of the film makers' season at the cinema - full details here
Chicago Reader review: Cut to ribbons by its original American distributor, this
1949 film remains the most elusive of Michael Powell's mature works.
David Farrar stars as a crippled, alcoholic bomb expert who tries to
solve the secret of a new Nazi device—small bombs made to look like toys
that explode when children pick them up. With Kathleen Byron, memorable
as the mad nun of Powell's Black Narcissus, and Jack Hawkins, Anthony Bushell, and Michael Gough. Dave Kehr
This is part of the Stage Projections season (details here) at the ICA Cinema. Stage Projections presents a programme of films about the creation of theatre, celebrating the art of performance and communal creative practices. Each screening focuses on a different aspect of theatre creation, and will be accompanied by introductions, essays and a workshop.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi's rarely screened Intimacies was conceived while the director was teaching at ENBU Seminar. This little seen work is presented in a three-parts combining elements of fiction and documentary. Observational techniques detail the pitfalls and tensions that arise during a production then, the play is shown in its entirety. The screening will be accompanied by a commissioned essay by Iana Murray on the role of theatre in Hamaguchi’s films.
Harvard Film Archive review: Hamaguchi’s first exploration of extreme duration is a fascinating three-part epic following the difficult production and realization of a stage play. Conceived while Hamaguchi was teaching at the ENBU film and theater school, and featuring an ensemble cast of ENBU students and colleagues,Intimaciesblends fiction and documentary, the cinematic and theatrical, in its observational chronicle of the challenging tensions that animate yet also threaten to upend the production.
