CRUCIAL VIEWING
Frank Borzage’s THE MORTAL STORM (American Revival)
Gene Siskel Film Center - Saturday, 3pm and Wednesday, 6pm
One of Frank Borzage’s “indisputable masterpieces” (per Kent Jones’ masterful 1997 essay), THE MORTAL STORM is also one of the first Hollywood films to attack Nazism head-on, opening in the U.S. a full four months before Chaplin’s THE GREAT DICTATOR. The film chronicles a year in the life of a German professor (Frank Morgan) and his extended family, beginning as a moving portrait of family life (one of the opening scenes, of the professor receiving a career achievement award, is among the most touching in Borzage’s monumental career) and evolving into a harrowing story of how that family is destroyed by the Nazis. That the professor is Jewish but his adult stepchildren are not is one of the film’s masterstrokes, as it condemns Nazism as a crime against humanity and not merely the Jews. (It should also be noted that the filmmakers—who included two expatriate German writers, Hans Rameau and George Froeschel—took this position while the U.S. government still claimed neutrality in the European conflict.) But what makes the film endure as something more than a work of propaganda is Borzage’s bottomless feeling for human kindness, not only in his depiction of the central family, but of the love story between the professor’s stepdaughter (Margaret Sullavan) and star student (James Stewart). According to Jones, THE MORTAL STORM builds its ultimate attack on Nazism as “an enemy of love”—perhaps the greatest evil in the eyes of this great Romantic. Jones continues: “More than poverty, more than war (in the abstract), more than physical separation or even death, the phenomenon of Nazism posed a real danger to love because it threatened to overshadow and replace it with a manmade, negative paternalism. But finally even Nazism succumbs to the power of love, blown into the snowdrifts that pile up by the family home…” (1940, 100 min, 35mm restored print) BS
Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) – Saturday, 12:30pm (Program 1) and 3pm (Program 2) (Free Admission)
Curators Alexander Stewart and Lilli Carré again bring us a delightful afternoon of astonishing animation from across the decades. For those who have never been to Eyeworks, former Chicago locals Stewart and Carré have been putting together this potent mini-festival of visual delights since 2010. It's essential viewing every year, with highlights including established classics, premieres, and lesser-known gems brought to light.
Program 1
Robert Breer's FORM PHASES IV (1954, 16mm) is the final film in Breer's early cycle of animations that directly related to his painting practice, with geometric cut-outs dancing in repeating and altering patterns. Kevin Eskew's NOW II (2019) is an oddly ominous candy-colored puzzle-box of a thing. Beer cans, hedge trimmers, bounce houses, dogs, garage doors, and other backyard-dad imagery quiver and collapse in a mystery that edges toward a hand-shake solution, but falls apart into suburban chaos. Laura Harrison's smeary, frazzled animation style perfectly illustrates her fragmented and vulgar characters. In her TEARS FOR NARCISSUS (2013) a cosmetic-surgery-obsessive is faced with a terrible decision that simply doesn't seem to bother her much. Lindsay Packer's MOTION AT A DISTANCE (2018, 16mm) is a clanging, jolting stop-motion documentation of the artist's sound and light installation. Annapurna Kumar's animation features suggestively crackling bits of pop graphics that she seamlessly integrates with hand-processed 16mm imperfections in SOMETHING TO TREASURE (2019). The late Phil Solomon's REHEARSALS FOR RETIREMENT (2007) has become a contemporary classic, a machinima animation using Grand Theft Auto to create a mournful pop hymn. Also showing are Bruce Bickford’s ATTILA (2018), Allison Schulnik’s MOTH (2019), Barbara Hammer and Barbara Klutinis’ POOLS (1981, 16mm), Peter Foldes’ HUNGER (1973), and Klaus Schuster’s FREE CHARACTERS (2017). (1954-2019, approx. 66 min total, Digital Projection except where noted) JBM
---
Program 2
Loïc Kreyden's HIER (2018) is an unnervingly simple-seeming 3D puppet animation featuring an actor performing basic space-work exercises. The mystery created by such effort to illustrate something so simple is very effectively confounding. Speaking of eerie simplicity, Jane Aaron's TRAVELING LIGHT (1989, 16mm) takes a familiar domestic event and topples it with a visual gag. Richard Negre's INTERMEDIATE LANDSCAPES (2018) features landscapes and actions flattened and abstracted to a point of poetic illegibility. TERRACE 49 (2004) by the always-brilliant Janie Geiser uses rephotographed TV cartoon images (with visible scan lines) to create a gripping and foreboding film. The late Suzan Pitt's midnight movie classic ASPARAGUS (1979, 35mm restored print) is a surreal and sexual trip through the garden, bedroom, theater, and—of course—the toilet. Also showing are Sebastian Buerkner’s PURPLE GREY (2006), James Gore’s DREAM OF THE SPHINX (1971, 16mm), Xander Marro’s L’EYE (2004, 16mm), Sara Ludy’s BODY WAVE (2010), and James Lowne’s OUR RELATIONSHIPS WILL BECOME RADIANT (2011). (1971-2018, approx. 68 min total, Digital Projection except where noted) JBM
---
Stewart and Carré in person.
Jonathan Kaplan’s OVER THE EDGE (American Revival)
Chicago Film Society at the Music Box Theatre - Monday, 7pm
Jonathan Kaplan has snuck transgressive political messaging into everything from THE ACCUSED (where a brutal portrayal of rape becomes a closing argument in a procedural indictment of patriarchy) to various episodes of Law & Order: SVU (the shrewdest melodrama on major-network television). But this uncommonly sensitive and electric story about teenagers in a late-1970s suburban Colorado town is his only conceivably great film, and quite possibly the aptest portrayal of early adolescence in American cinema. Michael Kramer and a young Matt Dillon (in his debut) star as two teenaged boys living in New Granada, a planned community with tapioca-colored homes and few spots for youth activity aside from a moribund recreational center. The movie follows the various teenagers in town, including a young Vincent Spano, as they commit petty crime, drink and take drugs, and have casual sex. A series of run-ins with the police, the kids’ parents, and a vague coterie of southern businessmen looking to invest in the town culminates in violence and ultimately anarchy. Yet the climactic scene of community destruction feels more like a cathartic response to the pressures of capitalism and conformity than wanton and indiscriminate rebellion. As much as this may seem like a teen exploitation film, it doubles as subtle commentary on the transition from industrial decline to corporate ubiquity. Dillon received all the attention, but the most charming performance is the transitory Tom Fergus as the glue-jawed and drugged-out bumpkin Claude. Adding to the overall magnetism is future THE FUGITIVE director Andrew Davis’ rich cinematography and an eclectic sampling of popular music: Cheap Trick, the Ramones, Van Halen, and even obscure soft-rock singer Valerie Carter. Little seen at the time, OVER THE EDGE gained a cult following after heavy airplay on cable, with Kurt Cobain and Richard Linklater both professing fandom. You can see its reverberations all over 1980s teen movies, from John Hughes’ North Shore reveries to the jaded morbidity of Tim Hunter’s RIVER’S EDGE. Preceded by Friz Freleng’s 1948 cartoon BACK ALLEY OPROAR (7 min, 16mm). Co-screenwriter Tim Hunter in person. (1979, 95 min, 35 mm) TR
ALSO RECOMMENDED
Francesco Rosi’s ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES (Italian Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) — Friday, 7pm and Sunday, 1:30pm
Francesco Rosi excelled at making political cinema for popular audiences. With films like SALVATORE GIULIANO, THE MOMENT OF TRUTH, CHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI, and THREE BROTHERS, he delivered thoughtful analysis without sacrificing the pleasures of visual style or storytelling. Rosi’s are exceptionally balanced films, dividing their love between cinema and politics fairly yet exuberantly. Consider ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES, which has a lot to say about the corrosion of Italian society but which also works brilliantly as a thriller, charting the police investigation of a series of murders with the cool intensity of a Jean-Pierre Melville film. Lino Ventura (one of Melville’s favorite actors) stars as an inspector who becomes obsessed with capturing the murderer of high-ranking judges. In his investigation, he encounters pushback from politicians and other police officers, leading him to suspect a conspiracy. Rosi conveys the character’s paranoia through a combination of imposing compositions, complex sound design, and matter-of-fact dramatization: the world always feels like it’s in peril. “The film is very much a signpost for the late 60s and early 70s,” Ted Shen wrote in the Chicago Reader. “It brings to mind Coppola’s THE CONVERSATION, another intricate study of a society under surveillance, whose citizens are manipulated to accept the government's version of the truth.” There are indeed thematic and stylistic similarities between ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES and Coppola’s masterpiece, but Rosi’s film is rooted in a specifically Italian context, responding to the country’s problems with open corruption and the instability of the postwar government. Notably, Ventura’s hero looks tired, as if he’s been worn down by the constant cynicism that comes with living in Italy and caring about politics. The impressive supporting cast includes Tina Aumont, Alain Cuny, Fernando Rey, and Max von Sydow; the cinematography is by Pasqualino De Santis, who also worked with Visconti and Bresson. (1976, 127 min, 35mm) BS
Ism, Ism, Ism x 3
Three programs in the Ism, Ism, Ism touring series of Latin American experimental films and videos take place this week, two on Friday at Block Cinema, which organized the Chicago-area presentations, and one at Comfort Station. We have brief overviews with highlight films noted below.
Recycled Cinema (Experimental Revival)
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) – Friday, 7pm (Free Admission)
This program features a range of works that use found footage or other media appropriations to present sometimes humorous, sometimes harrowing cultural and political critiques. The strongest work for me is Nicolás Guillén Landrián’s 1969 Cuban film DESDE LA HAVANA ¡1969! RECORDAR (17 min), a dense and freewheeling audio and visual collage of moving images, photos, newspapers, advertising, music, poetry, speeches, interviews, and more, that at first might recall the films of Bruce Conner, but the more overt political content and biting humor and irony quickly shifts comparisons to the great Canadian collage filmmaker Arthur Lipsett and to Landrián’s Cuban compatriot Santiago Alvarez. It is a rapid-fire précis of Cuban history from the early 20th century to 1969, charting the abuses of the Batista government, and providing a scathing comparison between U.S. medical advancements and space exploration and U.S. militarism in Vietnam and interventionist policies in Latin America. It’s not a somber, doctrinaire work, though; it frequently makes its points though darkly humorous and ironic juxtapositions, turning on a dime from serious to comic and back again. The revolutionary message is perhaps muted by the density of the montage and the shifts in tone; it’s perhaps not surprising that Landrián would soon after run afoul of the Cuban government, leading to nearly two decades of incarceration, psychological confinement, and shock therapy before being allowed to move to the U.S. in 1989. Raphael Montañez Ortiz’s 1958 COWBOY AND ‘INDIAN’ FILM (2 min) is as much about process as it is the finished work. Ortiz, who has both Puerto Rican and Yaqui heritage, says that he chopped a print of the Anthony Mann western WINCHESTER ’73 into pieces, placed them in a medicine bag, and randomly drew out pieces to edit, placing them both right-side up and upside down. He viewed the process as a ritual exorcising of evil spirits in the film (presumably a stand-in for all American western films). The result is a punchy, disorienting montage of scenes from the film, peppered with bits of the film’s credits and leader, that, despite the random assembly, has a sense of rhythm, albeit a jarring one, and a strange, lingering visual coherence that continues to evidence Mann’s greatness as a director and cinematographer William H. Daniels’ talents. Instead of an entirely transformative, re-appropriative film, Ortiz has created a synthesis that is equally his and Mann’s. Also showing are NO D.R. (Alfredo Salomón, 2002, Mexico, 1 min), NEWSREEL NO. 49 (Institúto Cubano de Artes e Industrias Cinematográficas, 1960, Cuba, 1 min), THE BOMBING OF WASHINGTON (Luis Ospina, 1972, Columbia/US, 1 min), THE BIG WACK (Ricardo Nicolayevsky, 2002, Mexico, 3 min), PRAYER FOR MARILYN MONROE (Marisol Trujillo, Miriam Talavera, and Pepín Rodriguez, 1983, Cuba, 8 min), APOOHCALYPSE NOW (Artemio, 2002, Mexico, 8 min), PINOCHET’S WOMEN (Eduardo Menz, 2004, Canada/Chile, 12 min), THE RUINS OF BAHIA BLANCA (Nicolas Testoni, 2012, Argentina, 6 min), POBRE DEL CANTOR (Taller Independiente de Cine Experimental, 1978, Mexico, 2 min), and SLOPPY WORK (Enrique Colina, 1987, Cuba, 11 min); (1958-2012, approx. 72 min total, Digital Projection) PF
---
Estrellas de Ayer: Latin Camp (Experimental Revival)
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) – Friday, 8:30pm (Free Admission)
The key film in this program is the only one not available for preview: José Rodriguez Soltero’s 1966 U.S. film LUPE (49 min, 16mm). My memory of my single viewing, twenty-plus-years ago, is fuzzy, but the film’s reputation is strong, and has been growing. Like the previous Soltero film in the series, DIALOGUE WITH CHE, it owes much to Andy Warhol—who made his own film about actress Lupe Velez, starring Edie Sedgwick, the same year. Here, though, Warhol favorite Mario Montez plays the Mexican-born Hollywood star who came to a tragic end. Soltero’s vision of Velez’s life and death are played hot compared to Warhol’s cool detachment. Author Juan Suarez describes the film’s look as “baroque” and the extreme saturated colors, the casting of Montez, and the overt queerness of it all hews much closer to a traditional, original definition of camp than does Warhol’s more ironic presentation. Camp, as its heart, requires a love of its objects of fascination, and that quality seems in evidence. Mexican born Teo Hernández, who lived and worked in France, also takes on iconic Hollywood actresses as the subject of his 1969 film ESTRELLAS DE AYER (9 min), in which he films the memorabilia collection of a friend, showcasing photos, advertising items, and other publicity material featuring Greta Garbo, Dolores Del Rio, Joan Crawford, Lupe Velez, and others, but especially Marlene Dietrich, who is heard on the soundtrack singing two songs. Hernández’s casual filming of these items, as framed and on display in their owner’s home, or loosely scattered on the floor, sometimes accompanied by stray flowers, provides a sense of intimacy and reverence. This is not the archness and exaggerated emotionality of camp, but the more unassuming side, the tenderness and bittersweetness that is often lost among the outré. Also showing are ENCUENTROS IMPOSIBLES (Eduardo Solá Franco, 1959, Ecuador/Spain, 8 min) and A OLGA (Horacio Vallereggio, 1975, Argentina, 7 min). (1959-1975, approx. 73 min total, 16mm and Digital Projection) PF
---
Altered Surfaces: Psychedelia and Abstraction (Experimental Revival)
Comfort Film at Comfort Station Logan Square (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.) – Wednesday, 8pm (Free Admission)
The standout film in this program focused on abstract films and films that abstract the world is Teo Hernández’s 1981-82 NUESTRA SENORA DE PARIS (22 min), which fragments and transforms into pure light and color Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, inspired by, or at least sitting alongside, films by Stan Brakhage and, more particularly, Marie Menken. Shots of the ornate building frame only parts of the structure, isolating details, but only briefly, before Hernández’s gestural camera work sharply moves away, blurring the image in the process. This process repeats, over and over, in quick bursts of in-camera editing, never letting the viewer settle on anything, never providing a firm grounding. As the daytime shooting passes to nighttime, the focus shifts from recognizable images to ones that are fully abstract. Lights and stained-glass windows become swirls and streaks of luminescence and color, as Hernández whips the camera around. Substance becomes immaterial. Eduardo Darino’s brief 1964 Uruguayan animation COCKTAIL DE RAYAS (2 min) is a vibrantly colorful, graphically minimal work of lines that recalls Len Lye. Enrique Pineda Barnet’s 1964 Cuban film COSMORAMA (5 min) is a dynamic documentation of Sandú Darié Laver’s kinetic sculptures, which, again, recalls another earlier artist’s work: László Moholy-Nagy’s LIGHTPLAY: BLACK-WHITE-GRAY. Also showing are VADI-SAMVADI (Claudio Caldini, 1981, 7 min, Argentina), EL AUILPO SUENA CATARAS (Pablo Mazzolo, 2012, 11 min, Argentina), BECKY’S EYE (Willie Varela, 1977, 3 min, US), and AS WITHOUT SO WITHIN (Manuela de Laborde, 2016, 25 min, Mexico/USA/United Kingdom). (1964-2016, approx. 75 min total, Digital Projection) PF
Andy Warhol’s BEAUTY #2 (Experimental Revival)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Tuesday, 6pm
People in Andy Warhol’s circle sometimes referred to the visionary artist and filmmaker as “Drella,” a portmanteau combining the names Cinderella and Dracula, because it distilled the two sides of Warhol’s personality—naïf and vampire—into a single essence. The short feature BEAUTY #2 also represents a concentration of Warhol’s dual nature; the film is at once predatory and detached, presenting the harassment of Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick in affectless, static long takes that evoke the presence of a drugged-out voyeur. In an unchanging composition, the film presents Sedgwick in bed with her current boyfriend Gino Piserchio; both of them are in their underwear for most of the run time. Two offscreen figures, Gerard Malanga and Sedgwick’s ex-boyfriend Chuck Wein, talk to the performers in a nastily sarcastic way and ask invasive questions. Warhol’s “direction” consists of sitting back and recording as the situation turns ugly; in doing nothing to stop the brutishness of the offscreen participants, he effectively doubles it. BEAUTY #2 speaks to a number of eternal questions about cinema, namely, does the camera bear any moral responsibility for what it observes? And are the pleasures of cinema inherently voyeuristic? In keeping with Warhol’s naïf persona, BEAUTY #2 seems to innocently embody these questions rather than answer (or even raise) them. As in many of his films, the stubbornness and seeming randomness of the camera set-up gives the work the impression of found art. Preceded by Stan Brakhage’s 1972 short THE RIDDLE OF LUMEN (14 min, 16mm). Critic and artist Fred Camper lectures at the screening. (1965, 66 min, 16mm) BS
Chicago International Children’s Film Festival
The Chicago International Children’s Film Festival opens on Saturday and continues through November 10.
Flowing Through Wonder (Shorts program, Ages 11–13)
Facets Cinémathèque – Saturday, 5pm
This generally somber, all-animation program focuses on memory and loss. Pierre Grillère’s LIVELY AIR (France, 2017, 3 min) is a futuristic adaptation of a poem by Paul Éluard that shows how long absences can cause rifts with those we love. The protagonist, an astronaut, continually leaves his wife to go exploring. Only after she throws him out does he realize that he should have put their relationship first. ABIGAIL (France, 2019, 5 min), a beautifully drawn and scored film by Nicolas DeBray, makes rueful comment on the longing for youth. A magic cat can cause a person to age or grow young depending on which direction they pet its fur. Elderly Daniel (voice of Charles Suberville) can’t resist returning to his vigorous, younger self, losing his beloved wife, Abigail (voice of Anita Rutili), in the process. Kévin Gachet-Thai’s HOLD THE LINE (France, 2018, 3 min), adapted from Claude Roy’s poem “Ne Coupez Pas,” is another magical tale in which an elderly man is able to phone his younger selves. “It’s another me / the same and not the same,” he reflects as he learns when he was happiest and at his lowest. CYNEFIN (Wales, 2018, 7 min) is a collaborative effort of students of The Welfare, a community arts team in the town of Ystradgynlais. It tells the true story of Josef Herman (voice of Michael Sheen), a Polish artist who fled the Holocaust that obliterated his entire family and lived for 11 years in the community. The story and art inspired by Herman’s work tell a moving story of a forced migrant who found friendship and community in the Swansea Valley. Muh Chen’s FINAL CHAPTER (Taiwan, 2018, 7 min) uses paperlike figures in a sort of book of life to tell one man’s story from childhood through to its end. Although he tries to turn the pages back, there are no do-overs in life. The importance of living well and in harmony with others is powerfully communicated in this gorgeous, beautifully directed film. The music by Annie Lo and popular Taiwanese group Mayday is majestic. Lee Jonghoon has created a phantasm about love in the atmospheric film THE STARRY NIGHT (Korea, 2017, 10 min). An elderly man sets off with his dog for an island village where his connection with a former lover becomes stardust itself. The simple guitar score by Lim Mika is breathtaking. The contemplative, sad WINTER’S BLIGHT (New Zealand, 2019, 15 min), a stop-motion animation from Claire Campbell, shows how a desperate old man living in isolation is forced to chop down his last remaining tree to keep warm during a brutal winter. An animated pinecone from the tree tries to stop him, but ultimately saves his life in gratitude for being given life. Thus, the cycle of birth, death, and renewal is poignantly illustrated. Joanna Lurie’s FLOWING THROUGH WONDER (France, 2018, 14 min) is an almost hallucinatory exploration of loss, as the people in a small village in North Africa set sail with a boat filled with yellow petals to a particular part of the ocean. The metaphorical quality of the experiences they endure—doldrums, violent weather, frightening sea creatures—are a meditation on life and its end. The costs of “progress” and war on a small, bustling village on a river are explored in the imaginative, but ultimately grim THE BRIDGE AT THE BROGS from director Jérôme Boulbès (France, 2018, 17 min). (2017-19, 82 min total, Digital Projection) MF
---
Gender Journeys (Shorts program, Ages 14+)
Facets Cinémathèque – Sunday, 3:30pm
The cultural shift that has made the experiences of the LGBTQ community more visible and more accepted is a welcome one, but one that still is incomplete and fraught with challenges. Therefore, this program of extraordinarily accomplished animated and live-action shorts that affirm the lives of transgender and gay children and their families and offer them another way to validate their emotions is a fantastic addition to the CICFF line-up. Fabien Corre and Kelsi Phung’s animated LES LÈVRES GERCÉES (France, 2019, 5 min) depicts a familiar scene—a morose boy listening to his (off-camera) mother prattle on about the tasks of daily life when he really wants to ask her an existentially important question. When the question comes, it hits like a bolt of lightning—a moment of truth as only a child can express it. Géraldine Charpentier’s animated RÉCIT DE SOI (Belgium, 2018, 5 min) illustrates the voiceover narrative of a transgender man’s gradual awakening to his true identity. Every part of his story is a roadmap, from realizing that just as there are varieties of birds—amusingly illustrated here—there are varieties of genders, and mentioning that Céline Sciamma’s TOMBOY (2011) helped him identify as transgender. Beautifully realized in line drawing and watercolor, this honestly told memoir is a short gem of a film. Cynthia Calvi’s animated MODEL PORTRAIT (France, 2018, 3 min) is an adaptation of French poet and essayist Claude Roy’s “Le Portrait modèle” (“I enter and I leave real mirrors They will have kept nothing of me The night erases on the blackboard the appearance which thinks me myself / But the hand on the smooth page reflects better than the water tin the true profile of this accomplice who supports my destiny”) in which a boy regards himself in the mirror as he tries on different identities and finally finds something that fits. Jorge Yudice’s live-action CROCODILE (Spain, 2019, 5 min) is a moving and clever look at how a mother uses the internet to keep up on her estranged gay son’s life and how she finds the courage to connect with him. SOMETHING ABOUT ALEX (The Netherlands, 2017, 19 min), the real standout in this program, is a tour de force directorial effort by Reinout Hellenthal. He skillfully directs his cast, particularly lead actor Maas Bronkhuyzen, to help us experience what is means to be transgender before transition. I was mesmerized by the strong performances of the entire cast, who communicate the anguish Alex and his family feel at this error of nature. The epigraph as the ending, “What you see in the mirror is just part of your inner self,” is reminiscent of the previous short, MODEL PORTRAIT. Marie-Louise Damgaard Nielsen’s live-action directorial debut THE CONFIRMATION (Denmark, 2019, 18 min) shows that even the most supportive parent messes up. Susanne (Ellen Hillingsø) has to field the disapproval and confusion of her mother, a minister, and guests to the confirmation of her transgender son Mathias (Xean Peake). Her fierce defense of him ends up embarrassing him. In the end, she pleads for his understanding in a thoroughly human and generous conclusion. (2017-19, 56 min total, Digital Projection) MF
Andrei Tarkovsky’s NOSTALGHIA (Soviet/Italian Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) - Sunday, 7pm
Though not Andrei Tarkovsky’s most personal film (that distinction belongs to his 1975 film THE MIRROR, which is the most blatantly autobiographical), NOSTALGHIA is certainly his second-most personal endeavor, considering that it’s about men torn between their native countries and the outside world. His first film made outside the U.S.S.R. (it was shot in Italy), it explores, in addition to the titular theme of nostalgia or homesickness, the consummate themes of boundaries—both literal and figurative—and alienation, specifically from one’s homeland, that tinge most of Tarkovsky’s films, a consistency united even more by the director’s distinct visual style. Tarkovsky wrote the script with Tonino Guerra, who, with Michelangelo Antonioni, co-scripted L’AVVENTURA, BLOWUP, and ZABRISKIE POINT, as well as films by Federico Fellini, Francesco Rosi, and Theo Angelopoulos. As much as a Tarkovsky film can be said to follow anything, NOSTALGHIA follows a Russian writer called Andrei Gorchakov (Oleg Yankovsky, who appeared as the father in THE MIRROR) as he travels from the U.S.S.R. to Italy to research the life of fictional 18th-century Russian composer Pavel Sosnovsky, whose own, more dire travails resembled those of Andrei’s. Accompanying him is a beautiful, young translator, Eugenia (Domiziana Giordano), who desires Andrei as much as she needles him. At the beginning of the film, the two visit Piero della Francesca’s Madonna del Parto fresco in Tuscany. Andrei declines to enter, and, in what sounds like a voiceover rather than direct dialogue, says, “I am fed up with all your beauties.” Both the sentiment and its ambiguity set the tone for the film, which is teeming with beautiful but cryptic imagery. After visiting the fresco, Andrei and Eugenia go to stay at a hotel next to a hot mineral bath, where they meet Domenico, a local eccentric who’d once kept his family locked away for several years in order to shield them from the fabled ‘end of the world.’ After being released from an asylum, he tells Andrei, he became obsessed with trying to cross the pool with a lit candle. Throughout, there are enigmatic flashbacks, shot in a grayish black-and-white as opposed to the muted color used in the rest of the film, depicting a family in the Russian countryside, presumed to be Gorchakov’s wife, children, and dog. These and other asides—including interludes featuring the release of Domenico and his family from their home-prison and some featuring Eugenia, with Andrei’s wife and her boyfriend—succeed in imbuing the film with a dreamlike quality and in alienating it from its tenuous narrative, a strategy that drives home a sense of nostalgia or homesickness, which are ultimately forms of alienation derived from real or imagined boundaries. After completing the film, Tarkovsky and his wife made the decision to defect West, convinced that he’d no longer be able to make films in his home country; his resolve was likely solidified by the fact that the Soviet delegation campaigned against his being awarded the Palme d’Or. Yet even in retrospect, Tarkovsky did not consider it an “emigration” film. In an interview, he asked in reference to it being about nostalgia, “How can someone live normally, fully, if he breaks with his roots? In Russian, ‘nostalghia’ is an illness, a life-threatening disease.” Ultimately, the film is a simple transference of internal feeling to an external source, the screen, one boundary in all this that could be said to have been successfully traversed. In another interview, Tarkovsky said, “I had not expected my psychological state to be capable of such clear embodiment in a film.” The final shots culminate with an almost nine-minute take of Andrei, instructed by Domenico, successfully carrying a lit candle across the baths, now empty; what follows is a scene of Andrei with his family in the countryside, which ends with the camera pulling back to reveal some Italian ruins surrounding it—bringing us into and pulling us back from Andrei. It’s not Tarkovsky’s most personal film, but rather something broader and more significant, a light, like the candle, that could be said to, as Tarkovsky put it, “display an entire human life...from beginning to end, from birth to the very moment of death.” (1983, 125 min, 35mm) KS
Michael Gordon’s PILLOW TALK (American Revival)
Music Box Theatre — Saturday and Sunday, 11:30am
Bright, exuberant, and winning (and a big enough hit to inspire two more Rock Hudson-Doris Day vehicles), PILLOW TALK will always be of historical interest because it was about as open as a Hollywood movie could be about sex in 1959. As such, it tells us a lot about the sexual mores of that time—people’s turn-ons and hang-ups, what general audiences did and didn’t consider permissible. The essay-filmmaker Mark Rappaport cites it as a key text in his ROCK HUDSON’S HOME MOVIES (1992), which advances the argument that the closeted gay movie star dropped hints about his sexual orientation in many of his Hollywood films. Consider a critical narrative digression in PILLOW TALK. Hudson’s character, a New York songwriter and serial seducer named Brad Allen, is pretending to be a Texas gentleman named Rex Stetson to get even with/have sex with the schoolmarmish single professional who shares his party line, Jan Morrow (Doris Day). After a few happy dates between Jan and the fictional Rex, Brad instills homophobic panic in his victim when talking to her over the phone as himself, suggesting that Rex hasn’t made a move on Jan yet because he’s gay. The next time Brad-as-Rex meets Jan, “Rex” drops the very hints that Brad told her to look out for (asking people for recipes, mentioning his close relationship with his mother). Hudson plays the farce so expertly that the developments seem all in good fun, even though (knowing what we know now about the actor’s history) he represents here a complex web of act upon act upon act. It speaks to the quality of Michael Gordon’s sharp direction that PILLOW TALK survives as more than a socio-historical document. Gordon (who directed the underrated Abraham Polonsky-scripted drama I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE) makes clever use of CinemaScope and split-screen effects, generates plenty of power between his stars, and maintains an agreeably brisk pace. Between the inventive visuals and hyperbolic color schemes, the film suggests the work of a more debonair Frank Tashlin. Where Tashlin generally limited his social inquiry to America’s sexual neuroses, Gordon and company also show interest in how people attain pleasure. (1959, 102 min, 35mm) BS
Preston Sturges' SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (American Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) - Wednesday, 7 and 9:30pm
Despite often being cited as his masterpiece, SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS is Preston Sturges' most deeply ambiguous and contradictory film. Though much of his work subtly underscores the discrepancies between varying levels of the socioeconomic strata, SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS explicitly centers on issues of upper crust naiveté and class guilt. John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) is a Hollywood director who desperately wants to divorce himself from the frivolous comedies that have made him successful and exclusively produce socially conscious films; however, Sullivan believes that he must live the life of a vagabond before he can accurately comment on the struggles of the impoverished. By the end of the film Sullivan discovers that comedy is a more valuable gift (one might say opiate) to the masses than social realism, but it's unclear whether Sturges feels the same way. A conventional reading might posit that Sturges has struck a balance in keeping with Brecht's belief that a story doesn't have to sacrifice entertainment value in order to provide social commentary, but this interpretation is contradicted by the fact that Sullivan ultimately admits the futility of helping the less fortunate. Furthermore, the film features a disconcerting streak of racism (not uncommon for Sturges), which further complicates its message. (1941, 90 min, 35mm) HS
Brett Story’s THE PRISON IN TWELVE LANDSCAPES (Contemporary Experimental/Documentary)
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) – Thursday, 7pm (Free Admission)
To borrow a time-tested contrivance from my lazier college days, a landscape is defined by the dictionary as being both “the landforms of a region in the aggregate” and “a portion of territory that can be viewed at one time from one place.” In her documentary THE PRISON IN TWELVE LANDSCAPES, director Brett Story examines the prison-industrial complex in the context of both definitions. It tells a holistic story through twelve vignettes that likewise demand individual consideration, rejecting a more conventional episodic structure in lieu of something more suitable to its subject matter. While the topic of prisons as industry, privatized or not, is a hot-button issue, Story instead focuses on the industries in, around, and related to prisons rather than the prison industry itself. In an interview with writer and filmmaker Astra Taylor for Filmmaker magazine, Story says that “[t]he political impact of [most films about prison and those in it] is then tethered to the sympathy that they might or might not generate from an audience.” Her film boldly abandons the dichotomy so inherent to the genre, instead using her art to convey facts and create connections that might otherwise go overlooked. My favorite vignettes encapsulate this rather strategic approach: one goes inside the Quicken Loans headquarters in Detroit, and the other is about a man who’s made a business out of selling prison-approved items to people looking to send goods to their incarcerated friends and family members. The former is inherently exploitative regardless of its tenuous connection to prisons, while the latter is an arguably mercenary industry born of circumstance and ingenuity. In another vignette, Story exposes how many rural areas rely on prisons as a source of jobs for its economically distressed occupants. With a PhD in geography and a background in journalism, on top of impressive filmmaking chops, it’s no wonder that Story is able to objectively merge facts and images in such an artful way. We need films like this more than ever. We have the stories and the feelings they arise, but we must also have the facts, and Story combines these seemingly antithetical entities into a cohesive work that has as much power to sway as it does to awe. With Story in person. (2016, 87 min, DCP Digital) KS
Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s LINDA RONSTADT: THE SOUND OF MY VOICE (New Documentary)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Check Venue websites for showtimes
During the 1970s, Linda Ronstadt was the most popular female singer in the United States. More than that, she changed the face of rock and roll, brought together musicians in her back-up band who would later form the Eagles, and busted through every barrier the niche marketers of the recording industry tried to put in her way to sing every style of music she wanted to tackle. Folk, country, rock, pop, R&B, mariachi, classics from the American songbook, operetta, opera—she did it all, and did it well. The round-faced phenom from Tucson deserves a great documentary, and she gets one with LINDA RONSTADT: THE SOUND OF MY VOICE. The Telling Pictures co-founders and co-directing team of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (THE CELLULOID CLOSET [1995], PARAGRAPH 175 [2000], STATE OF PRIDE [2019]) have frequently told stories about the gay community since they began collaborating in 1987. A documentary about Ronstadt may seem a bit of departure for them, but in both collaborative and individual directorial efforts, they have ventured wide, from their Oscar-nominated documentary short about the frontiers of medicine, END GAME (2018), to a feature film centered on porn star Linda Lovelace (LOVELACE [2013]). The challenge Ronstadt’s story posed was to show the progression of her career and artistry by making the right choices from among the vast expanse of her performances and archival interviews. From early footage of her gigs with the Stone Poneys at the Troubadour in Los Angeles to her performance as Mabel Stanley in director Wilford Leach’s film adaptation of Joseph Papp’s stage production of The Pirates of Penzance, Epstein and Friedman have covered a representative sample of her genre-hopping excellence and even some of her poor choices, such as her cover of Lowell George’s “Willin’.” The sound quality is variable, but generally quite good, and watching her learn how to sing in Spanish from Rubén Blades in clip from THE RETURN OF RUBEN BLADES (1985) shows her dedication to her art. Her friendships and collaborations with women—Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Bonnie Raitt, Anna McGarrigle, all of whom are interviewed for the documentary—are shown to have formed a bedrock for her in the masculine world of rock, which she said in a filmed interview was a lonely place for her. We get short sketches of her upbringing and personal life, including her highly publicized romance with California Gov. Jerry Brown, but the overwhelming focus of the film is where it should be—her singing legacy. I wanted to know more about her musical training (not much, apparently), but Epstein and Friedman had to leave a lot out from this fully packed life. Their film, narrated by Ronstadt herself, shows her to be a pioneer and a woman in charge of her own destiny, at least until her story links with the directors’ AIDS-focused films—her affliction with Parkinson’s disease, which robbed her of her career and a big chunk of life as she knew and loved it. After watching and listening to all of the wonderful performances Ronstadt gave over the years, the silencing of her voice is like a death in the family. (2019, 95 min, DCP Digital) MF
Jean Cocteau’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (French Revival)
Alliance Française (54 W. Chicago Ave.) - Saturday, 1:30pm
One of the most widely known fairy tales thanks to its plethora of adaptations, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is a timeless story about inner beauty. Jean Cocteau’s 1946 film version is visually lustrous and richly marked by stunning costumes, elaborate set design, and imaginative use of practical effects. Jean Marais’ dual roles as the unsightly Beast and the blonde, pretty boy Avenant, both of whom are determined to win Belle’s (Josette Day) hand in marriage, are juxtaposed against one another to represent France versus Germany during World War II. Cocteau possesses a fascination for eyes in this film with the implication that they are the windows to the soul. Repeated images of doors, windows, and mirrors all lend themselves to a metaphorical sense of discovery about the inner workings of a person’s mind. When mirrors are present, a self-reflection occurs, the introspection frequently taking on negative connotations. When an observer peers through a window or an enchanted door magically opens, extrospection is often employed, leading to a hidden trait being revealed about a character. The film’s romantic yet semi-tragic tone draws influence from the works of Shakespeare and Greek tragedies: Romeo and Juliet and hubris leading to a downfall serve as signifiers. For a film about surface appearance, two production asides seem appropriate: various film stocks used due to a post-war shortage produces textures in the image can be noticeably different from one scene to another, and a debilitating skin disease that Cocteau developed during the shoot is an ironic mimicking of the repulsiveness of the Beast. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is ultimately one of the most haunting and dreamlike films ever to grace the silver screen. (1946, 94 min, Video Projection) KC
MORE SCREENINGS AND EVENTS
The Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema opens on Thursday and continues through November 17 and various venues. More info at https://israelifilmchi.org.
The Film Studies Center (at the Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., University of Chicago) presents a double feature of William Crain’s 1972 film BLACULA (92 min, DCP Digital) and Crain’s 1976 film DR. BLACK, MR. HYDE (87 min, 16mm) on Friday at 7pm. Introduced by UofC professor Allyson Nadia Field; and Kimberly Pierce’s 1999 film BOYS DON’T CRY (118 min, 35mm), with Pierce in person, is on Thursday at 7pm. Free admission.
The Conversations at the Edge series (at the Gene Siskel Film Center) presents An Evening with Hiwa K on Thursday at 6pm, with Iraqi-German artist Hiwa K in person. He will screen a selection of his works (2006-19, approx. 60 min), including PRE-IMAGE (BLIND AS THE MOTHER TONGUE) (2017) and A VIEW FROM ABOVE (2017).
South Side Projections and Columbia College’s Hip-Hop Studies Minor and Hip-Hop Club present Charlie Ahearn’s 1982 film WILD STYLE (82 min, Blu-Ray Projection) on Friday at 7pm at Columbia College (1104 S. Wabash Ave., Conway Center). Preceding the film, at 6pm, is a selection of student-produced shorts and music videos; and after the film there will be a Q&A with graffiti artist Gabriel “Flash” Carasquillo. Free admission.
Filmfront (1740 W. 18th St.) presents Noé Martinez: Hacer cosas con palabras (Doing Things with Words) on Sunday at 7pm, with artist Martinez in person. The event includes short video works by Martinez along with vinyl field recordings from the artist’s ongoing language and music project, Hacer cosas con palabras.
Chicago Filmmakers (5720 N. Ridge Ave.) screens Arielle Nóbile’s 2018 documentary BELONGING IN THE USA: THE STORY OF MICHAEL D. MCCARTY (59 min, Digital Projection) on Saturday at 7pm, with Nóbile in person. Followed by a discussion.
Cinema 53 (at the Harper Theater, 5238 S. Harper Ave.) screens Jonathan Demme’s 1998 film BELOVED (172 min, Digital Projection) on Thursday at 6pm. Followed by a discussion with Charlene Carruthers, author of Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements, and UofC professor Kaneesha Parsard. Free admission.
The Midwest Independent Film Festival (at the Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema) presents Advertising Community Shorts on Tuesday at 7:30pm. Preceded by a producer’s panel at 6:30pm.
The Rebuild Foundation at the Stony Island Arts Bank (6760 S. Stony Island Ave.) screens the 1989 documentary short POWER TO THE PEOPLE (26 min, Video Projection) and the “A Nation of Law?: 1968-1971” episode of the 1990 television series Eyes on the Prize (58 min, Video Projection). Followed by a discussion. Free admission.
Also at the Gene Siskel Film Center this week: Alice Waddington’s 2019 Spanish film PARADISE HILLS (94 min, DCP Digital) and Feras Fayyad’s 2019 Syrian/Danish/German documentary THE CAVE (103 min, DCP Digital) both play for a week; and Arthur Ripley’s 1944 film VOICE IN THE WIND (85 min, DCP Digital) is on Friday at 4pm and Saturday at 5pm.
Also at Doc Films (University of Chicago) this week: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s 2018 Japanese film ASAKO I & II (119 min, DCP Digital) is on Saturday at 7 and 9:30pm and Sunday at 4pm; Chadi Abdel Salam’s 1969 Egyptian film THE MUMMY [aka THE NIGHT OF COUNTING THE YEARS] (102 min, DCP Digital; Free admission) is on Monday at 7pm; Erick Zonca’s 1998 French film THE DREAMLIFE OF ANGELS (113 min, 35mm) is on Monday at 9:30pm; Louis Malle’s 1975 French/West German film BLACK MOON (95 min, 35mm) is on Tuesday at 7pm; Howard Deutch’s 1986 film PRETTY IN PINK (97 min, 35mm) is on Thursday at 7pm; and Kathryn Bigelow’s 1987 film NEAR DARK (94 min, 35mm archival print) is on Thursday at 9:30pm.
Also at the Music Box Theatre this week: Robert Eggers’ 2019 film THE LIGHTHOUSE (109 min, DCP Digital) and Todd Phillips’ 2019 film JOKER (122 min, DCP Digital) both continue; Found Footage Festival: Volume 9, hosted by Joe Pickett (The Onion) and Nick Prueher (The Colbert Report), is on Friday and Saturday at 9:30pm; and Stewart Raffill’s 1994 film TAMMY AND THE T-REX (91 min uncut version, DCP Digital) is on Friday and Saturday at Midnight.
MUSEUM AND GALLERY SHOWS/EXHIBITIONS
The exhibition Andy Warhol—From A to B and Back Again is on view at the Art Institute of Chicago through January 26. The show features a wealth of Warhol’s short films (fifteen “Screen Tests” and other early shorts, which are all showing on 16mm), videos, and television commercials, including some very rare items. A complementary exhibit, Cinema Reinvented: Four Films by Andy Warhol, will showcase four films over the course of the Back Again show’s run, all in 16mm. Up first is his 1966 double-projection film OUTER AND INNER SPACE (33 min), which will be on view daily from Sunday to November 17, screening at the top of each hour starting at 11am.
---
The 16mm short films (1963-66, approx. 4-5 min each) showing are: ELVIS AT FERUS, JILL AND FREDDY DANCING, EDIE SEDGWICK (SCREEN TEST 308), ANN BUCHANAN (SCREEN TEST 33), PENELOPE PALMER (SCREEN TEST 255), BIBBE HANSEN (SCREEN TEST 128), NICO EATING HERSHEY BAR (SCREEN TEST 246), ME AND TAYLOR, MARIO BANANA #1, JOHN WASHING, JACK SMITH (SCREEN TEST 315), RUFUS COLLINS (SCREEN TEST 61), BILLY NAME (SCREEN TEST 194), MARCEL DUCHAMP (SCREEN TEST 80), and SALVADOR DALI (SCREEN TEST 67); and the three television commercials are: THE UNDERGROUND SUNDAE (1968, 1 min, Digital Video), CADENCE [STANDING WOMAN] (1965, 1 min, Digital Video), and CADENCE [BOTTLE] (1965, 1 min, Digital Video).
Re:Working Labor, a multi-media exhibition curated by SAIC faculty members Ellen Rothenberg and Daniel Eisenberg, is on view at SAIC’s Sullivan Gallery (33 S. State St.) through November 27. Included in the show are a ten-screen installation of Harun Farocki and Antje Ehmann’s LABOUR IN A SINGLE SHOT, Carole Frances Lung’s four-hour-plus video FRAU FIBER VS. CIRCULAR TUBE SOCK KNITTING MACHINE, and a series of five video programs curated by Aily Nash and Andrew Norman Wilson.
CINE-LIST: November 1 - November 7, 2019
MANAGING EDITOR // Patrick Friel
ASSOCIATE EDITORS // Ben Sachs, Kathleen Sachs, Kyle A. Westphal
CONTRIBUTORS // Kyle Cubr, Marilyn Ferdinand, JB Mabe, Tal Rosenberg, Harrison Sherrod
