CRUCIAL VIEWING
Seijun Suzuki’s EIGHT HOURS OF TERROR and LOVE LETTER (Japanese Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Tuesday, 7pm (Eight Hours) and 8:45pm (Love Letter)
Doc Films’ “Rare Films of Suzuki Seijun” series is undoubtedly one of the most exciting cinephilic events happening in Chicago right now, with movies so rare that there’s almost no information available about them in English texts concerning the maverick auteur. Adding to the excitement is that all of them, with the exception of TOKYO DRIFTER, are on 35mm, courtesy of the Japan Foundation Film Library. I waited to see the first of the veritable rarities (TOKYO DRIFTER, while a masterpiece, is one of his more well-known works) before committing to write about the others for this site—HARBOUR TOAST: VICTORY IN MY HANDS and SATAN’S TOWN (both from 1956), Suzuki’s first and third film, respectively, exhibit an impressive command of the form at such an early stage in the filmmaker’s development, the progress made between them an auspicious intimation portending similar leaps and bounds in his later career. This week’s pairing, EIGHT HOURS OF TERROR (1957, 77 min, 35mm) and LOVE LETTER (1959, 40 min, 35mm), is an a propos array of the dynamism required of a so-called “studio hack” at the Nikkatsu Company (Japan's oldest major movie studio, under which Suzuki was making these films). The former, allegedly a pastiche of John Ford’s STAGECOACH, is a thriller, while the latter is, as the title would lead one to believe, more romantically oriented. Neither particularly stands out in his early career, though EIGHT HOURS seems more closely aligned with the themes that delimit his enduring reputation. Summarizing them would be pointless—the plots of these rare Suzuki films are inconsequential inasmuch as their stylistic amelioration steals the show. KS
Canyon Cinema 50: Associations (Experimental Revival)
Film Studies Center (at the Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., University of Chicago) - Friday, 7pm (Free Admission)
The Film Studies Center continues with their month-long celebration of Canyon Cinema's 50th anniversary with this screening of clever, metaphorical, allusionary, sometimes punny, sometimes chatty film work spanning many decades and forms. For those unfamiliar with Canyon Cinema, our own Kyle Westphal does an excellent job detailing their importance in last week's list. This week's offerings include Barbara Hammer's rolling sweeping bounding bodily chant DYKETACTICS (1974)—a lovely "commercial" for lesbianism! It's easy to see why Robert Breer is such a towering figure in the experimental film world considering films like SWISS ARMY KNIFE WITH RATS AND PIGEONS (1981), which combines live-action and animation in exploding objects, shapes, and suggestions. The images are simplistic and straightforward, but the skill and forms are endlessly complex. Phil Solomon's THE SNOWMAN (1995) is gorgeous, and wistfully evocative, showcasing his earlier manipulations of celluloid. Curt McDowell’s CONFESSIONS (1971) is supremely confident, funny smut. Abigail Child's MERCY (1989) is a twisting, hulking found-footage stomp, featuring bodies made mechanized and bodies at the mercy of mechanization. Sara Kathryn Arledge's WHAT IS A MAN? (1958) is a pioneering, ahead-of-its-time satire. Stephanie Barber's FLOWER, THE BOY, THE LIBRARIAN (1997) is a tiny film, but by no means minor. It's a bewitching and mysterious poem featuring the titular items, presented in order, with little intrusion. A commonplace composition that is colorfully compelling. Also showing are RELEASING HUMAN ENERGIES (Mark Toscano, 2012), ASSOCIATIONS (John Smith, 1975), HOT LEATHERETTE (Robert Nelson, 1967), THINE INWARD-LOOKING EYES (Thad Povey, 1993), and AKBAR (Richard Myers, 1970). (1958-2012, 90 min total, 16mm) JBM
Jacques Rivette’s LA BELLE NOISEUSE (French Revival)
Gene Siskel Film Center - Check Venue website for showtimes
In Jonathan Rosenbaum’s 1977 collection of interviews and texts by Jacques Rivette, he points out in the introduction that one of the main interests of Rivette’s work is “to combine prefigured elements with relatively unpredictable and uncontrolled ones, and see what occurs. This invariably places the work in a state of perpetual suspense (and suspension) where the spectator’s uncertainties are not at all unrelated to those of the director’s.” There is an overarching tendency to move towards the inherent mysteriousness found in his films, but how much of that mystery is meant to create meaning and how much is meant to dispel meaning? The director’s undying thirst for capturing the process of his production, rather than solely valuing the end result, is what gives his films an aura of unpredictability. LA BELLE NOISEUSE, his first film of the 1990’s, is fully engaged with the idea of process and creation, casting eyes on two different generations of artist, while mixing elements of melodrama that fold-in on themselves and create clusters of difference at odds with their usual results. The plot deals with a young artist (David Bursztein) and his wife (Emmanuelle Béart) who go to meet an older artist (Michel Piccoli) and his wife (Jane Birken), after their shared agent (Gilles Arbona) sets up the meeting. Upon arrival, the young artist’s wife senses danger approaching, as they journey from the airy exterior of the country, to the hermetic interior of the older artist’s studio. It is here where the older artist and agent suggest that the younger artist should have his wife pose nude for the older artist, so the impotence of the older generation can find its stamina again in the young. The painting being conceived by Piccoli’s character is a work he gave up ten years ago, with the creation of the work going in a direction he’d never planned, leading to its own abandonment, much like the director’s own earlier unfinished film tetralogy (of which he only made two). As in all of Rivette’s work, a conspiracy may be in the midst. Why is this young couple even here in the first place? At the start of the film, the younger couple plays a game of false identities, harkening back to the actresses that made up the director’s 1970’s work, suggesting a mirrored effect between the older and younger couple. The young artist eventually, possibly reluctantly, tells the older artist that his wife will pose for his painting, without any consent from her (in a subplot that unapologetically calls back to Piccoli’s own character in Godard’s 1963 film CONTEMPT, which deals with the dissolution of a very similar marriage). Béart’s character angrily resents her husband, but decides to take it upon herself to go through with the modeling, engaging her own ideas and plans for what is to take place. The film simultaneously shifts the balance of power between artist and model, resulting in a very unexpected series of choices and consequences too ethereal to be anything like the melodrama we’re expecting to ensue. Parts of LA BELLE NOISEUSE recall a similar film from that same year by Godard, the masterful NOUVELLE VAGUE. Both films deal with doubles, art vs. industry, older & younger generations, ambiguous source materials, the beauty and overwhelming magnificence of nature, plus a shared reverence for those magical years of bursting creativity the two filmmakers once shared together; the dawning and subsequent twilight of that most adored of cinematic eras, the French New Wave. Yet neither film is ensconced in nostalgia the way films like Bernardo Bertolucci’s THE DREAMERS or Michel Hazanavicius’ mind-numbingly dull REDOUBTABLE are; they operate on a sea of memory loss, where the realities of a bygone era fade into the ether of the modern, their work taking new shapes and directions, while staying on the same path they set out on from the start. They hum with decades of film consumption, synthesizing their lessons and influences into work that still remains light-years ahead of all the generations that have followed. LA BELLE NOISEUSE is but one step towards a hive of creativity so alive, it could require full regression for the uninitiated, back to that blank slate where premature and interchangeable ideas about the cinema are first imprinted. To engage with what is so uniquely and seductively Rivette’s own realm of supernatural cinema, is to float into the unknown and find a surprisingly familiar world embedded in the buzzing cosmos of its hypnotic images and sounds. (1991, 237 min, 4K DCP Digital Restoration) JD
ALSO RECOMMENDED
Spike Lee’s CROOKLYN (American Revival)
The Chicago Film Society (at Northeastern Illinois University, The Auditorium, Building E, 3701 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.) – Wednesday, 7:30pm
CROOKLYN is Spike Lee’s contribution to a rich cinematic subgenre, the autobiographical memory film. Like Tarkovsky’s THE MIRROR, Fellini’s AMARCORD, and Davies’ DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES, the film is based on the director’s childhood, and, like them, it’s designed to feel less like a story than a series of memories. It takes place in Brooklyn over the spring and summer of 1973, and for the first half-hour or so, Lee (who collaborated with siblings Cinqué and Joie Lee on the script) just rejoices in recreating this time and place. The weather is nice, kids play in the street, the music on the radio is killer, and people of all races more or less get along (the white neighbor played memorably by David Patrick Kelly is at worst an uptight weirdo). Lee’s filmmaking is as exuberant here as it was in SCHOOL DAZE, with the director trying out all sorts of cinematic devices as though he were a kid first discovering the medium. At the same time, CROOKLYN is as vivid a depiction of poverty as you’ll find in mainstream American cinema of the 1990s—one memorable episode revolves around the main character (a nine-year-old girl presumably based on Joie) experiencing embarrassment over having to pay for groceries with food stamps. Alfre Woodard and Delroy Lindo play the parents of five children, and they do a good job of playing parents as children see them—their performances are warm and a little larger than life. Critics writing about this are all but forced to mention that Lee shot one scene in widescreen without anamorphically adjusting the image to create a disorienting effect. Used to convey the young heroine’s feelings of disorientation when she visits her religious, socially aspirational cousins in suburban Virginia, the device is—at least from this writer’s perspective—one of the more successful formal experiments in the director’s accomplished body of work. Preceded by Ross Lowell’s 1970 animated short THE BALLOON TREE (10 min, 16mm). (1995, 115 min, 35mm) BS
Wong Kar-wai’s 2046 (Hong Kong Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Sunday, 7pm
When it was in production (for what felt like a decade), swarms of rumors surrounded Wong Kar-wai’s 2046, the most popular being that the film would be Wong’s first foray into science fiction. That’s a plausible notion, given the film’s title, which refers to the final year that China promised to let Hong Kong remain as it is before the mainland government assumed greater control over the island. But while the finished film does contain passages set in the year 2046, for the most part it’s a period piece set in the mid to late 1960s. Moreover, the film that Wong completed turned out to be a sequel to his beloved IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000), with Tony Leung reprising his character of Chow Mo-wan. The previous film ended with Chow leaving Hong Kong for a job in Singapore, where he hoped to forget about his longing for the married Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung); this one opens with him returning to Hong Kong and resuming his work as a newspaper writer there. Whereas Chow was a quiet introvert in LOVE, in 2046 he’s a bon vivant and ladies’ man, proceeding through a succession of one-night-stands with blithe indifference. Wong seems to be saying that unfulfilled romance and unfulfilling sex are two sides of the same coin—both result in feelings of melancholy and loneliness. Chow channels his feelings into a sci-fi serial he writes about the year 2046, where people have romantic relationships with androids and high-speed train lines unite the globe. These stories about connection betray Chow’s feelings of disconnect from most other people, which are ameliorated through fleeting relationships with women who are just as lonely as he is. The film is divided into episodes centered on different women, who are played magnificently by Carina Lau, Zhang Ziyi, Faye Wong, and Gong Li. (As in LOVE, the women are magnificently dressed too.) This was Wong’s first film in widescreen, though he shot most of it in medium close-up—the film transpires in an intimate space where it seems that sex (or, possibly, a deeper connection) is only a breath away. (2004, 129 min, 35mm) BS
Gabe Klinger's PORTO (New American/International)
Music Box Theatre – Saturday, 11:30am
PORTO, the first narrative feature directed by Chicago’s own Gabe Klinger, is a striking love story between Jake (Anton Yelchin), Mati (Lucie Lucas), the city of Porto, and celluloid (it was shot on 35mm, 16mm, and Super-8mm). PORTO presents the events of one night in three parts: the first segment is Jake's story, second is Mati, and third is Jake and Mati's shared experience. With each chapter, the viewer learns a little more about the story and each character, in a way breaking the frame of the script and opening it up to multiple truths, perspectives, and consequences. Klinger doesn't present much information on the lead characters, allowing the viewer to make decisions about Jake and Mati's paths leading up to the day that they experience together. The audience is also given the responsibility of deciding if this love story is at all realistic, or if it's a clouded and limited by the characters’ own perceptions. Moments of danger in the relationship shown towards the beginning of the film linger with the viewer, writing multiple outcomes for this romance that are not all happy endings. Similarly, the film utilizes time in a very interesting way; it shows us glimpses of events in each chapter, which we are tasked to add up, building a narrative in zigzags. As the film starts, quick cuts and glances show us little details of this story. By the final chapter, the camera lingers on every moment, long tracking shots capturing every breath and lust filled shameless confession. Exceptional performances from both Yelchin and Lucas bring this story to life, and stunning cinematography covers the film in an otherworldly haze. Although there are moments which bring up a sweet but perhaps clichéd honey-coated nostalgia, the camera work is varied enough to create changing moods throughout the film, keeping it timeless. As much as PORTO is a love story about two characters, it is a love story about the possibilities of cinema, both for the old classics and for the new and experimental. (2016, 76 min, 35mm) EE
Paul Thomas Anderson’s PHANTOM THREAD (New American)
Music Box Theater - Check Venue website for showtimes
More often than not, modern movies are endlessly clogged with flimsy and cardboard cutouts of the “classic love story,” a trend hopefully being seared away entirely, given that they seem more offensive in a cavernous last year of cynicism and bitterness. The genre has been in desperate need of a refurbishing to allow for a better understanding of what’s embedded inside its own fragile construction. Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest and possibly greatest achievement isn’t without a mind of its own; it is a wonderfully conceived cinematic dream, wrapped in the lush, evergreen imagination of an artist working closely within the inner representation of his creations, much like Daniel Day-Lewis’ dress-making main character, Reynolds Woodcock. Anderson achieves something much closer to the actual emotions and feelings that echo throughout a relationship between two people, avoiding many of the stale and dry trends found in the modern romance movie. These lifeless morality lessons, usually soaked in a pale blue sadness, seem too bitter and lazy to have much real purpose and functionality, allowing Anderson to spin a delightedly deceptive chamber piece instead. Given the film’s advertising, championing PHANTOM THREAD as a brooding sure-fire contender in the race for awards-season gold, you might be surprised to discover a strange rom-com hiding in the lining of its framework. The plot involves a dressmaker (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his closely-curated daily home and work life, right as another of his romantic relationships is beginning to dim out. As another unfulfilled and lifeless relationship goes, Woodcock decides to retreat to one of his favorite restaurants (it is here I’d like to heavily underline the film’s ideas about taste and hunger, given new literal and metaphorical life in a way that is shockingly unpretentious). It is at this place of dining that he meets Alma, played by newcomer Vicky Krieps, that leads to an intimate portrayal of love’s inherent mystery, built inside an almost hermetic world of imagination that conjures up visions of the classical Hollywood era, while simultaneously managing to subvert the work of “tradition.” straddling the lines of the modern and classical film structure/form with the skill of a master operating at the height of their creative abilities. Despite taking place in Great Britain, this is far from the British-ness on display in BBC dramas and endless droves of Oscar bait. Beginning with its suggestive point-of-view, then unwinding between not two points of view, but a shared point of view, the personal nature of this film for Anderson is evident, with Anderson not only writing the script, but also shooting nearly every frame of film himself (though he appears uncredited in that role). The everyday gestures, glances, embraces, arguments, and alluring atmosphere between two people seeps through every frame, delivering unexpected surprises carefully yet unabashedly. This is one of the few films in recent years that is really essential to witness in 70mm. The projection’s colors and light are captured in spellbinding luminosity, the sounds and images pushing forth the relationship of one woman and one fragile male ego, across a tapestry of sensual pleasures with hardly a hint of on-screen sex in sight. The results trace the lines around eroticism, rather than circling it directly, letting them blossom into a rare achievement in recent American cinema, a precious gift inside the fabric of it’s own design; one to keep close through the next several years. (2018, 130 min, 70mm) JD
Gareth Evans’ THE RAID: REDEMPTION (Contemporary Indonesian)
Music Box Theatre – Friday and Saturday, Midnight
THE RAID: REDEMPTION is, by and large, an extremely action packed film and a ripe example of a culmination of one shift in aesthetic tastes in contemporary cinema, an increased and more explicit level of violence. Here, an Indonesian SWAT team is tasked with taking down a crime lord who lives in a fifteen story apartment complex that is both a safe haven for criminals and a fortress designed to keep rivals out. Floor by floor, this police squad must fight their way to the top to take down their prime target. THE RAID features some of the finest fight choreography in recent memory with roughly two-thirds of the film depicting some form of combat. Gareth Evans’ blocking maximizes the brutality shown on screen and the imagery recalls ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 as well as STARSHIP TROOPERS. The storyline is fairly straightforward, but the frantic pacing and high tempo editing makes for an enthralling viewing experience. THE RAID: REDEMPTION belongs near the top of the pantheon of contemporary Pan-Asian cinema and is a modern action classic. (2011, 100 min, DCP Digital) KC
Andrei Tarkovsky's THE SACRIFICE (Swedish Revival)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Friday, 7:45pm, Saturday, 5:15pm, Monday, 6:30pm, and Wednesday, 6:30pm
Critic Wesley Morris observed of our collective cultural habits, "I think everybody might have a handful of books or movies that they happily return to because they honestly don't remember the plot--they just remember the mood or the experience." Similarly, I think everyone has movies they return to solely for a particular moment or scene. These moments can be so singular that everything around them fades slightly into the background. This isn't to make a virtue of flawed memory, but rather to highlight those directors with the rare gift to sculpt a mood or moment that hovers above a film. Andrei Tarkovsky's cinema is rife with these exalted moments: Capt. Kholin's acrobatic embrace of Masha over a trench and her limp surrender in IVAN'S CHILDHOOD; a floating candelabrum and a chandelier's subtle jangle in SOLARIS. Tilda Swinton encapsulated this phenomenon in a speech referencing STALKER: "I saw an image of a dream that I have been visited by all my life made real ... A bird flying towards the camera dips its wing into the sand that fills a room. Did I imagine this? I haven't seen the film for years. Can somebody tell me?" Released in 1986 and garnering Tarkovsky his second Grand Prix at Cannes (Roland Joffé's THE MISSION took home the Palme d'Or--a banner year for Christendom) THE SACRIFICE is considered by some to be a challenging, ancillary work by the Russian master. With time though the debates over 'slow cinema' and the film's relationship to Tarkovsky's legacy have faded, and what remain are some of the most haunting moments of the director's career: The sudden and uncanny desaturation of the film's image--courtesy of master cinematographer Sven Nykvist--as Erland Josephson roams his estate in a nuclear daze; the flickering TV test pattern reflected on the family in tableau; the film's breathtaking denouement, which never ceases to terrify me. These are the images I return to again and again, echoing Swinton's disbelief: Did I imagine this? (1986, 142 min, DCP Digital) JS
Roberto Rossellini's JOURNEY TO ITALY [VOYAGE TO ITALY] (Italian Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Friday, 7 and 9:30pm and Sunday, 1:30pm
This perplexing film, the fourth of six collaborations between Rossellini and lover Ingrid Bergman, catches a British husband and wife (Bergman and George Sanders) on a trip to Naples at the brink of their marriage's collapse. Alex (Sanders) defines cruel logic with his complete lack of sentimentality and constant cutting words while Katherine (Bergman), sympathetic only by comparison, spends much of the trip muttering discontentedly to herself on lonely tours through museums, catacombs, and volcanoes. Where other films about failed marriages let us grow attached to the characters before rending them apart, JOURNEY TO ITALY thrusts us into the dysfunction practically from the beginning, forcing us to accept the direness of the situation at face value, or be left behind. The marriage seems so thoroughly beyond hope that, for much of the film, there is a disquieting lack of drama, until the coldness and the cruelties finally reach a critical mass and the sadness and pain behind them begin to appear like the secret picture in a magic eye. Panned on its original release, the film was subsequently championed by Truffaut, Rivette, and other members of the New Wave. (1954, 86 min, DCP Digital) ML
Carl Th. Dreyer's THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (Silent French Revival)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Check Venue website for showtimes
Praised effusively upon its release by critics who instantly regarded it as a belated vindication for the whole art of cinema (do seek out Harry Alan Potamkin's review), THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC was also recognized as the capstone of an expiring medium. This is a proudly silent movie, one that integrates the intertitle into its rhythm better and more comprehensively than any other example I can name. (Astonishingly, rather than interrupting the flow of Dreyer's breakneck montage, the titles actually serve as graphic punctuation.) It's also a perverse one--stripped down to essentials, focusing on faces even though Dreyer's investors paid for enormous and authentic sets barely glimpsed in the finished film. When we see a man in very modern-looking glasses in the final sequences, this possible anachronism registers as something else: Dreyer and Falconetti have truly created a living Joan, larger than liturgy and beatification and indeed, larger than her own time. The film itself was not so lucky. Its original cut lost in a fire, with a subsequent recut lost in another fire, PASSION played for many years in a version cobbled together from outtakes. (Appropriately enough, an original print of the first Danish version turned up in a mental hospital in the 1980s.) Now cited by Sight and Sound as one of the ten greatest films ever made, it may be difficult to treat PASSION as the radical film that it is. Live accompaniment by David Drazin at the Sunday 3pm screening; all others feature a recorded music track. (1928, 82 min, DCP Digital) KAW
MORE SCREENINGS AND EVENTS
Cinema 53 presents An Evening with Judy Hoffman on Thursday at 7pm at the Harper Theater (5238 S. Harper Ave.). The long-time Chicago documentary filmmaker will be screening excerpts of her solo and collaborative work as part of a conversation with University of Chicago historian and filmmaker Tracye Matthews and University of Chicago film scholar/Cinema 53 curator Jacqueline Stewart. Free admission.
Black Cinema House (at the Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative, 1456 E 70th St.) screens Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis’ 2017 documentary WHOSE STREETS? (103 min, Video Projection) on Friday at 7pm. Followed by a discussion. Free admission.
At the Northbrook Public Library (1201 Cedar Lane, Northbrook) this week: Mary Mazzio’s 2017 documentary I AM JANE DOE (99 min, Video Projection) is on Sunday at 2pm, followed by a panel discussion; and Elia Kazan’s 1952 film VIVA ZAPATA! (115 min, DCP Digital) is on Wednesday at 1 and 7:30pm. Free admission. www.northbrook.info/events/film
Also at the Gene Siskel Film Center this week: Brett Morgen’s 2017 documentary JANE (90 min, DCP Digital) begins a two-week run; Marc Meyers’ 2017 film MY FRIEND DAHMER (108 min, DCP Digital) plays for a week; Andres Veiel’s 2017 German documentary BEUYS (107 min, DCP Digital) is on Saturday at 3pm and Tuesday at 6pm; Cristina Herrera Borquez’s 2017 Mexican documentary NO DRESS CODE REQUIRED (92 min, DCP Digital) is on Sunday at 5pm and Thursday at 7:45pm; and a 90th Academy Awards Nominations Panel is on Tuesday at 4:30pm.
Also at Doc Films (University of Chicago) this week: Darren Aronofsky’s 2017 film MOTHER! (121 min, DCP Digital) is on Saturday at 7 and 9:30pm and Sunday at 4pm; John Sayles’ 1984 film THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET (108 min, 35mm) is on Monday at 7pm; Henri Verneuil’s 1963 French film ANY NUMBER CAN WIN (118 min, 35mm) is on Wednesday at 7 and 9:30pm; Aki Kaurismäki’s 1990 Finnish film THE MATCH FACTORY GIRL (68 min, 35mm) is on Thursday at 7pm; and John Fawcet’s 2000 film GINGER SNAPS (108 min, 35mm) is on Thursday at 9:30pm.
Also at the Music Box Theatre this week: Alexandra Dean’s 2016 documentary BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY (90 min, DCP Digital) opens; James Franco’s 2017 film THE DISASTER ARTIST (98 min, DCP Digital) continues; and Kaspar Astrup Schröder’s 2017 Danish documentary BIG TIME (93 min, DCP Digital) is on Wednesday at 7:30pm.
At Facets Cinémathèque this week: Eshom Nelms and Ian Nelms’ 2017 film SMALL TOWN CRIME (91 min, Video Projection) and Brian Taylor’s 2016 film MOM AND DAD (83 min, Video Projection) both have week-long runs; and the Winterfilm Collective’s 1972 documentary WINTER SOLDIERS (96 min, Video Projection) is on Monday at 6:30pm as one of Facets’ Teach-in screenings. Followed by a discussion led by University of Chicago professor Mark Bradley.
The Chicago Cultural Center screens the WTTW-produced documentary A LEGACY OF HOPE (no info available) on Saturday at 2pm, followed by a discussion. Free admission.
Sinema Obscura presents Sinema Musica on Monday at 7pm at the Logan Bar (2230 N. California Ave.).
ONGOING FILM/VIDEO INSTALLATIONS
PRESENT ABSENCE, a five-channel video installation by Salome Chasnoff and Meredith Zielke that honors the lives of individuals killed by Chicago Police is on view at Hairpin Arts Center (2810 N. Milwaukee Ave.) during public events in January and early February. Viewing times include (but may not be limited to): Tuesday, January 23, 6-9pm; Friday, January 26, 6-10pm; Saturday, January 27, 12-5pm; Tuesday, January 30, 6-9pm; and Saturday, February 3, 6-9pm.
Pseudo- & Hetero-: A Dual Exhibition by Tao Hui and Barry Doupé is on view at Lithium (1932 S. Halsted, Ste. 200) through January 26. On view are Tao’s videos TALK ABOUT BODY (2013) and THE DUSK AT TEHERAN (2014) and excerpts of Doupé’s animated feature films PONYTAIL (2008) and THE COLORS THAT COMBINE TO MAKE WHITE ARE IMPORTANT (2012). The full version of Doupé’s COLORS (118 min) screens on Friday (January 19) at 6:30pm.
DIGITAL FOUNTAIN, a video installation by Jarad Solomon, is on view continuously through the windows at Comfort Film at Comfort Station Logan Square (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.) through Sunday, February 18 (ending at 6pm).
Currently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago: Elizabeth Price’s 2015 video installation K (7 min loop) in Gallery 186; Frances Stark’s 2010 video installation NOTHING IS ENOUGH (14 min loop) in Gallery 295C; and Nam June Paik’s 1986 video sculpture FAMILY OF ROBOT: BABY in Gallery 288.
CINE-LIST: January 19 - January 25, 2018
MANAGING EDITOR // Patrick Friel
ASSOCIATE EDITORS // Ben Sachs, Kathleen Sachs, Kyle A. Westphal
CONTRIBUTORS // Kyle Cubr, John Dickson, Emily Eddy, Mojo Lorwin, Jb Mabe, James Stroble