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đ YEAR-END LISTS
Here at Cine-File we like to wait until the year actually ends to publish our âbest-ofâ lists, which abide by whatever rules the contributor chooses. View them on our blog.
đœïž CRUCIAL VIEWING
Russ Meyerâs FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL, KILL! (US) & Kenneth Anger's SCORPIO RISING (US/Experimental)
Chicago Film Society at the Music Box Theatre â Monday, 7pm
From the opening, itâs clear that Russ Meyerâs FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! is a unique take on the sexploitation film featuring voluptuous women. The narrationâvoiced by frequent Meyer collaborator John Furlongâbegins, âLadies and gentlemen, welcome to violence: the word and the act." Furlong goes unseen, but his voice is visualized with spectrograms. He gives us a warning about sex and violence, then Meyer smash cuts to our three main characters go-go dancing, the camera placed at a low angle. FASTER, PUSSYCAT! puts them squarely in a power position, the men ogling them seen at high angles; this continues throughout the film, with the women always in control of the frame. And no one is more in control than Varla (played by Tura Satana in an iconic performance) as the leader of the gang; her tight all-black outfit, sharp eyebrows, and blunt bangs comprise one of my all-time favorite cinematic looks. Along with Rosie (Haji) and Billie (Lori Williams), they dance by night and drive their sports cars by day. After a violent end to a game of chicken in the desert, they kidnap a young woman and plan to steal some money fast; as Varlaâs scheming and violence ramps up, the three women begin to argue on how best to handle their situation. Meyer and co-writer Jack Moran deliver a dark, funny, and endlessly quippy script. A scene midway through, when the gang and their victims are gathered for an awkward meal of fried chicken, is full of amazing quotes, my favorite being: âI'm of legal age for whiskey, voting, and loving. Now the next election is two years away, and my love life ain't getting much better, so how about some of that one hundred percent!â It's a film that playfully messes with gender roles, seamlessly shifting from sexploitation to camp, all while challenging genres and featuring badass, empowered main characters. FASTER, PUSSYCAT!âs lasting cult status continues, with references still popping in film, television, and music: Quentin Tarantinoâs excellent DEATH PROOF (2007) is the most profound of theseâperhaps responsible for much of the propulsion of the filmâs continuing influence into the 21st centuryâbut homages have appeared in things like teen soap Riverdale and PEE WEEâS BIG HOLIDAY. (1965, 83 min, 35mm)
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SCORPIO RISING, premiering the same year as Jack Smith's FLAMING CREATURES, comes in the 60s heyday of American underground and queer cinema. Kenneth Angerâs classic exploration of biker culture is simultaneously loving and damning, titillating and terrifying. His camera lingers on bikers at work, at play, and at rest, their chrome rides saturating the scenes with bright light, making everything seem overexposed, their spaces also overstuffed with toys, posters, and televisions. Images flash throughout, including those of Marlon Brando and James Dean. It also features visual references to the occult, Christianity, and Nazism. A film as much about iconography as anything else, itâs a byzantine examination of American culture through its depictions of masculinity and violence. SCORPIO RISING is known, too, for its soundtrack, featuring mid-century pop songs; it's an early and revolutionary example of sardonically using pop music on screenâsomething that would become widespread in New Hollywood films. Added to the National Film Registry in 2022, the film had an undeniable influence on the American cinema that came after. (1963, 28 min, 16mm) [Megan Fariello]
Richard Tuggle (& Clint Eastwood)âs TIGHTROPE (US)
Music Box Theatre â Tuesday, 7pm
When considering the large and winding filmography of one Clinton Eastwood Jr., it's wise to remember that the renegade director has remained a fiercely original, sometimes experimental, truly independent-in-every-sense-of-the-word filmmaker since the start of his career. Up until now, Clint has always had the backing of a major studio yet has somehow managed to make his films exactly the way he wants with little to no interferenceâa true oddity in the current Hollywood studio model. However, with TIGHTROPE, Eastwood decided not to have his name featured under the title of director. Instead, he gave the directing reins to Richard Tuggle, a screenwriter known for writing Don Siegelâs ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ (1979), the movie that arguably set Eastwood on his path away from acting and towards directing (he only starred in four movies the next decade). Filmmaking was becoming everything for Clint in the 1980s, with acting fitting in whenever he could find the time. As in the case of his work directed by his sometimes-stunt coordinator Buddy Van Horn (ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN, THE DEAD POOL, PINK CADILLAC), itâs safe to assume Eastwood had his say in a fair amount of what went on with TIGHTROPE. He let Tuggle keep directing credit, even though he took over the duties when he found that the screenwriter worked too slow. What couldâve been the reason Eastwood did the work as director, but didnât want the credit? It's not that the movie is in any way a lesser Eastwood film or even that stylistically distinct from the rest of his body of work. Sure, it employs more color gels than ever before in an Eastwood movie, which gives some the idea that he may have been influenced by the giallo films coming out of Italy in the â70s or at least by filmmakers who had imported that style to the United States, like William Friedkin with CRUISING or Alan J. Pakula with KLUTE (it's hard to imagine Eastwood plunking down in a sticky grindhouse theater to watch THE NEW YORK RIPPER, but Eastwood did get his start shooting spaghetti westerns, so anything is possible). SUDDEN IMPACT, his Dirty Harry rebrand from the previous year, shares some stylistic traits with TIGHTROPE, but if the issue for Eastwood wasnât style, could it have been the filmâs premise or perhaps the traits that made up essential parts of its main character? The story deals with Detective Wes Block, played by Eastwood, a divorced-family man living in New Orleans with his two daughters. In typical Eastwood fashion, his character has to disappoint his daughters by breaking plans to go to a football game in order to help solve the murder of a young woman and catch her killer. Family squabbles, most likely incidents that were taking place in his personal life, were never verboten for Eastwood (case in point the speed-race stroller sequence from TRUE CRIME [1999]), as he showcases these uncomfortable truths about himself in a naked manner. Could his directorial anonymity have less to do with family matters and more to do with his relationships with women, and possibly men? Wes Block finds himself unable to solve the murder, mostly because he cannot stop laying down the proverbial pipe with many of his female witnesses. At some point in the movie, his character begins to feel like a large child shoving endless sweets down his gullet, leaving the viewer uncomfortably full of Blockâs sexual appetite. In reality, Eastwoodâs personal life doesnât seem that dissimilar to the characterâs onscreen antics, as Eastwood was well-known for his womanizing, having had many affair-driven dust-ups with his wives, ex-wives, and the many women with whom he had brief trysts. Itâs possible that TIGHTROPEâs display of voracious sexual hunger made him uneasy (itâs certainly his sleaziest film until ABSOLUTE POWER [1997]), leading him to remain in the shadows as director. It could amount to the scene where Eastwoodâs character goes to a sex club and gets propositioned by a male patron who scoffs at Eastwoodâs refusal for a good time. The patron exclaims to Eastwood, âHow do you know if you havenât tried?â, to which Eastwood dryly responds, âHow do you know I havenât?â Could Eastwood have been suggesting his character, or possibly he himself, had secretly dabbled in bisexuality? It wouldnât be shocking to discover that Eastwood felt some shame about such manners (the guy was born in 1930, after all, and times were very different then), so itâs possible he felt that certain parts of the story were hitting too close to home. Bisexuality and homosexuality would continue to pop up in Eastwoodâs filmography, usually with characters who cannot admit their sexuality to themselves and certainly not to most of the people around them. Another New Orleans-set film that Eastwood officially directed, MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL (1997), focuses on a man hiding his sexuality from the public during a murder trial, while J. EDGAR (2011) spends a great deal of time homing in on the former FBI headâs closeted homosexuality, with the scenes between Edgar and his longtime, yet secret, partner being some of the most tender Eastwood has ever filmed this side of THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (1995). Even JERSEY BOYS (2014) has a key scene where one of the characters tries to psych himself up for a hotel room orgy by watching TV. Itâs clear from this characterâs hesitancy and silence (along with what we know about the actual person) that he's trying to cover up any traces of what could be perceived as queer in order to make himself seem more manly by watching RAWHIDE on television, specifically a scene starring that showâs main actor⊠Clint Eastwood. The cutting between the characterâs face and the image of Eastwood on screen works like a reflecting mirror, suggesting a possibly hidden confession of a potentially closeted past. Whatever the case may be, TIGHTROPE is more than a curiosity in the directorâs storied career and a major moment for the detective genre as a whole, situating itself between two of Eastwoodâs other fantastic 1980s genre-revisions: SUDDEN IMPACT and PALE RIDER. Screening as part of the January Giallo 2023 series, co-presented by Music Box of Horrors and Cinematic Void. (1984, 115 min, 35mm) [John Dickson]
Alfred E. Greenâs BABY FACE (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Monday, 7pm
Perhaps remembered best for being prolific, Alfred E. Green had a flair for eliciting compelling performances from his lead actors and actresses (witness Bette Davis in DANGEROUS, for one example). BABY FACE is no exception. This sultry Pre-Code Hollywood picture finds Lily Powers (Barbara Stanwyck) fleeing her hometown after the death of her father and heading to New York, where she uses her sexuality to achieve newfound fortune and power. Very early in the film, Lily is given a Nietzsche book by one of the few men in the world she seems to trust, and we can infer most of the filmâs philosophical intentions from there. Be it to sneak aboard a freight train or to land a job as a secretary, Lily has no qualms about manipulating the revolving door of men she comes across to get what she wants, then discards them like pieces of trash once sheâs outgrown their use. The sexual openness, both implied and realized, is shocking even by the lax standards of Pre-Code Hollywood (one year later, with the Production Code in effect, it would have been impossible). Stanwyckâs performance is the filmâs high point, anticipating the femme fatales she would play in the next decade. Upon release, the filmâs original ending was altered to have a more upbeat ending to appease New York State censors; the print showing is a restoration of the original uncensored version, thought lost until 2004. Nine decades later, BABY FACE remains a stirring and timely tale about greed, promiscuity, and the willingness to rebrand oneself in order to get ahead in life. Screening as part of Docâs Monday series, âBaby Face: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck.â (1933, 76 min, 35mm) [Kyle Cubr]
Jafar Panahiâs NO BEARS (Iran)
Gene Siskel Film Center â See Venue website for showtimes
Thereâs a scene in Jafar Panahiâs NO BEARS where the director, playing himself, speaks with an elderly woman in a courtyard. Itâs a long shot, so visible in the frame are two cats that accompany the woman as she approaches Panahi. The cats meow, loudly and indifferent to those around them, providing for a brief sense of levity. But even before they appeared on screen, I had been thinking how Panahi reminds me of a cat: generally heâs unflappable, patient, and metaphorically crouched in wait, while other times heâs loud and heedless. Of course, Panahi isnât those latter qualities in any literal sense. But itâs inarguable that his messages have been heard around the world and that his subversive body of work has sometimes been viewed as heedless, as evidenced by his arrest, along with multiple other Iranian filmmakers, in 2010 and again last year, after which he was condemned to serve the six-year length of his initial sentence. (He was released after two months in 2010.) In between the first and second arrest, Panahi had been forbidden, infamously, from leaving Iran and making films, even though he continued doing the latter in secret and while largely confined to his home. These facts account for some of the plot of NO BEARS. In it, Panahi takes a room in a village near the Turkish border and directs his latest film remotely, communicating with the cast and crew (who are shooting in Turkey) via his digital devices. It would seem that Panahi gets along well with the residents of his remote village hideaway; he frequently takes photos of them and even has his host filming local ceremonies. But, as is often the case in Iranian cinema, not all is as it appears. The filmmaker becomes embroiled in a familial conflict, as heâs alleged to have taken a picture of a young couple forbidden to be together. Panahi insists he didnât take such a photo, but this assertion comes with its own issues. With regards to the film that he is shooting, itâs soon made clear that the story concerns a real-life scenario about a married couple attempting to flee Iran with stolen passports. Tension mounts as the film progresses and reveals more about Panahiâs role in the various quandaries and his own possible attemptions at crossing the border. What stands out amidst the uncertainty is a bold self-reflexivity from which several abstracted dilemmas arise. Panahi implicates himself as an artist whoâs frequently exploited the suffering of othersâdoes the presence of his camera, or the nobility of his artistic intentions, absolve him of potential harm? âCinema is the truth 24 times a second,â Godard famously asserted, and Panahi might be questioning that here, contesting the professed implacability of a cameraâs gaze. Considering Panahiâs situation, itâs a genuinely brave examination; it speaks to a broader, more philosophical consideration of art and its impact on those represented in it. The filmâs title comes from a man Panahi encounters in the village, who cautions him from traversing a certain path, claiming that there are bears on it. The same man later refutes his own guidance, insisting there are, in fact, no bears. Should we proceed with caution in life, as if there may be bears on the journey? Or should we forge ahead, heedless of the risk? Ultimately in Panahiâs latest masterpiece, there are some cats, no bears, and many, many such questions. (2022, 106 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Roberto GavaldĂłnâs ROSA BLANCA (Mexico)
Block Cinema (at Northwestern University) â Thursday, 7pm (Free Admission)
In 1960, director Roberto GavaldĂłn and cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa made a splash at the Cannes Film Festival with their allegorical drama MACARIO, making it perhaps the most internationally celebrated Mexican feature since LuĂs Buñuelâs LOS OLVIDADOS (also shot by Figueroa) ten years earlier. For their follow-up, they chose to tell a more realistic story, one rooted in recent national history. ROSA BLANCA takes place in the months leading up to the Mexican governmentâs nationalization of the oil industry in 1937; it delivers a damning portrait of American oil companies' predatory efforts to seize Mexicoâs natural resources in that era. Jacinto Yåñez (Ignacio LĂłpez Tarso) is a proud yet humble farm owner in Vera Cruz who tends to an estate, the Rosa Blanca, thatâs been in his family for generations. When an American company learns that thereâs oil beneath Yåñezâs property, the executives do everything in their power to get him to sell the land. GavaldĂłn isn't subtle in his moral outlookâYåñez is portrayed as a fount of righteousness, while the company men are cynical, deceitful, and ruthlessâyet the film never comes across as simplistic or didactic; rather, it attains a near-biblical intensity. The first act of ROSA BLANCA, which finds company men trying to bribe Yåñez with gold and promises of social advancement, is effectively a modern-dress morality play, with the farmer standing firm in his values and resisting temptation. As the film proceeds, GavaldĂłn devotes more time to the boardroom of the American oil company, and while the executives donât become more sympathetic, thereâs something fascinating about their Machiavellian plotting that makes them more than one-dimensional villains. The photography is extraordinary throughout, as GavaldĂłn and Figueroa execute Wellesian low angles and tracking shots, create exquisite lighting and shading effects, and fashion a general aesthetic that exists somewhere between realism and expressionism. Per Block Cinemaâs program notes, âthe filmâs uncompromising vision of capital's ruthless political intervention and resource extraction led to its being banned until 1972.â Preceded by an introduction by Carloyn Fornoff, assistant professor of Latin American studies at Cornell University. (1961, 105 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
Billy Wilder's DOUBLE INDEMNITY (US)
Music Box Theatre â Saturday and Sunday, 11:30am
Raymond Chandler shepherds his procedural style to the screen in Billy Wilder's quintessential noir, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, helping to bring the genre to a boil. Ironic, given that its placement in the canon of Hollywood cinema is attributable to a chilly murder plot by two frozen-souled conspirators. Telling in flashback from his desk and in a bloody suit, insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) narrates how, while an on a routine sales visit, he falls for Mrs. Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), a femme fatale housewife plotting her husband's demise. Fully seduced, Neff uses his knowledge of his industry to foil investigators and kill Mrs. Dietrichson's husband "accidentally"âinvoking a clause in the policy that pays double. Mrs. Dietrichson's dark past crops up to break the spell on Neffâwho even then stays in it too longâas Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), fellow insurance agent and confidant, sniffs out their scheme. Despite having inspired so many imitators, DOUBLE INDEMNITY shines with wonderful idiosyncrasies: Neff on crutches imitating a broken-legged Mr. Dietrichson, the unabashed sexiness of Mrs. Dietrichson, the authentic bare-bulb dialogue, and so many venetian blinds. Without them, the murder and investigation might become overly flat. But through his methodical telling, Wilder allows us to contemplate the significance of what is essentially a fatalist's cynicismâafter all, we know the ending the whole time. "I killed him for money, and for a woman. I didn't get the money, and I didn't get the woman." Screening as part of the Nobodyâs Perfect: Billy Wilder Matinee series. (1944, 107 min, 35mm) [Brian Welesko]
Trinh T. Minh-haâs SURNAME VIET GIVEN NAME NAM (US/Experimental)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Tuesday, 7pm
The title of Trinh T. Minh-haâs formally daring feature refers to a common joke from the filmmakerâs home country. In it, a young man tries and fails to court a woman, who rebuffs him by saying she already has a husbandâhis surname is Viet and his given name is Nam, she says, effectively professing her allegiance to the state above all else. This story becomes emblematic of female subservience in Vietnamese culture, a tradition that the film unpacks and quietly rails against. Minh-ha delivers her critique through a variety of means, several of which call attention to latent biases of traditional documentary form. Most of the first half of SURNAME VIET consists of testimonies by Vietnamese women, mostly doctors, who speak of institutionalized sexism in their country both before and after reunification. These testimonies were recorded several years before the movie was made; Minh-ha translated them into English and then had these translations recited by Vietnamese women living in the United States. Adding to the sense of distance inherent in these recreations, Minh-ha often presents the texts of the speeches on screen but out of sync with the speech, forcing viewers to engage with the subjects in terms of words and images separately yet simultaneously. These sequences owe much of their power to the way Minh-ha frames her subjects within minimalist tableaus that grant the speakers a certain imagistic intensity; moreover, the strategy blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction filmmaking techniques. The director blurs things even further in the latter portions of the movie, which mainly consist of straightforward documentary portraits of the women who appeared in the first half, who discuss here their experiences of being immigrants. However direct these sequences may appear, they still seem open to questioning, given how thoroughly Minh-ha has upended documentary conventions earlier in the film. What results from all this formal experimentation is that viewers must make a conscious effort to understand the subjects on their own termsâor, put another way, we must break through the barriers (created by sexism, translation, or cinema) that prevent us from regarding Vietnamese women as complex individuals. Screening as part of Docâs Tuesday series, âAsian American Media.â (1989, 108 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
A Sense of Place
Creating a Different Image: Black Womenâs Filmmaking of the 1970s - 90s
Film Studies Center (at the Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., University of Chicago) â Thursday, 7:30pm (Free Admission)
The fourth program of the ongoing screening series devoted to Black women filmmakers is centered on space. The space we inhabit simultaneously shapes us as we shape it; each of the films in this program convey this truism, considering physical and metaphorical parameters in how they sometimes allow for continued growth and other times present barriers to such development. The centerpiece of the program is Kathleen Collinsâ 1982 masterpiece LOSING GROUND. The capsule below, which was published here previously, doesnât touch on the concept of space in Collinsâ film, yet itâs undoubtedly a focal point. The filmâs primary locationsââthe bustling city and the idyllic countryside,â to quote the event descriptionâcome to represent the contrary dynamic between the married protagonists. An unabashed reverence of space is evident in Monica Freemanâs short documentary A SENSE OF PRIDEâHAMILTON HEIGHTS (1977), about the titular Harlem neighborhood. The film profiles several Black residents who express their affection for the location in different ways: one gentleman with a green thumb takes pride in how his landscaping abilities have inspired his neighbors, while a woman extols the virtues of her beautiful brownstone home. Another man details his and his familyâs history in the area, also involving such well-known figures as Langston Hughes. Where A SENSE OF PRIDE is an admiring tone poem, Jackie Shearerâs A MINOR ALTERCATION (1977) advances a more dispiriting viewpoint. Set in the midst of school desegregation in Boston, the short docudrama centers on a fight between two students, one Black and the other white. The fight starts when one of the girls taunts the other over being accepted into a certain class; both are suspended and must tell their families the reason. This shows how such issues affect people other than just the students, thus exhibiting how school segregation is symptomatic of a larger societal problem. The film also details how society fails all of its people, as both the Black and white moms must take unpaid time off work to address the issue. School here is less a space than it is a confine, a microcosm of societyâs ugliest ills. All the films in this program convey how space is more than just a physical framework; often itâs a blank canvas, onto which lifeâs greatest joys and trials may come into being.
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Kathleen Collins' LOSING GROUND (US)
"There's nothing wrong with telling stories." So says one artist when another expresses envy over his ability to work instinctively as opposed to narratively. Director Kathleen Collins' LOSING GROUND is composed of various such oppositions that manifest themselves through Victor (played by Bill Gunn, director of GANJA & HESS) and his wife, Sara (Seret Scott), a professor of philosophy. He's artistic; she's logical. This is the jumping off point from which other dichotomiesâmale, female; creativity, intellectualism; specificity, abstractionâare explored. With regards to race, the film shows rather than tells. Many suspect that it was neglected upon its initial release because it portrays Black characters as well-to-do professionals rather than as victims or thugs. In response to being asked if minority filmmakers have a duty to address their respective struggles, Collins said, "I think you have an even greater obligation to deal with your own obsessions," referencing the filmâs creative concerns. Though LOSING GROUND isn't exactly autobiographical, Collins herself was a professor (at the City College of New York), and the name of the film comes from one of her own short story collections. Sara's almost obsessive study of aesthetic experience parallels the aforementioned oppositions and prompts the changes that occur over the course of the story. "Essentially it's that change is a rather volatile process in the human psyche," Collins said in an interview with James Briggs Murray for Black Visions. "And, that real change usually requires some release of fantasy energy." This last part refers to the dance-centric film-within-a-film that Sara acts in at the behest of one of her students, which she does in an attempt to achieve the same creative ecstasy as her husband and actress mother. (The meta-film also mirrors the central drama of the narrative.) Overall, the film is an astute meditation on a great many things: the academic experience, the aesthetic experience, the Black experience, and Sara's experience as a woman. Collins was also a person of varied interests; in addition to teaching, writing, and making films (this being one of the first narrative features to be directed by a Black woman), she was also a playwright and activist. She once remarked, "I'm interested in solving certain questions, such as: How do you do an interesting narrative film?" LOSING GROUND is an exceptional answer to such an inquiry. There's nothing wrong with telling stories, indeed. (Total Approx. 131 min, DCP Digital and 16mm) [Kat Sachs]
Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes' THE JANES (US/Documentary)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Thursday, 6:30pm (Free Admission)
âThatâs the beauty of Chicago, I think,â exclaims one interviewee early in THE JANES. âItâs a town where people did stuff.â Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes' lamentably very timely documentary tracks the history of the underground collective, known as Jane, which in the 60s and early 70s (pre-Roe v. Wade America) helped those in need secure safe and affordable abortions (eventually going so far as to perform the procedure themselves). Itâs also a film about Chicago and how itâs a particularly befitting site for radical political activism. Archival shots of various women around the city open the film and are interwoven throughout, signaling both that abortion rights are something that affects so many and that THE JANES is a very Chicago story. Told directly by those involved, the film is focused on those stories: the larger one about the groupâs clandestine activities, ones told by the Janes themselves about their own abortions, and the stories of those they helped, which motivated and still haunt them. Itâs a documentary that is historically detailed and thorough but also extremely personal and self-aware. It goes without saying that this is an essential story for the contemporary moment. Itâs terrifying to think about moving backwards, about future generations having less rights and autonomy, and about having to do this work again. By all rights THE JANES should be an educational and uplifting look at a turning point in history; instead, itâs a forewarning for those of us in the current moment, to not stop the fight for rights and to get stuff done. Preceded by a panel with Heather Booth and Marie Leaner, co-founders of the titular underground abortion network, moderated by WBEZ's Natalie Moore. (2022, 101 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
đœïž ALSO RECOMMENDED
Krzysztof Kieslowskiâs DEKALOG (Poland)
Gene Siskel Film Center â Saturday, 11am
One of Polandâs seminal directors, Krzysztof Kieslowski is perhaps best known for his THREE COLORS TRILOGY. Several years prior to those, he had filmed the powerful DEKALOG, a ten-part television miniseries in which each episode corresponds to one of the Ten Commandments. In praise of the series, Stanley Kubrick wrote: âI am always reluctant to single out some particular feature of the work of a major filmmaker because it tends inevitably to simplify and reduce the work. But in this book of screenplays by Krzysztof Kieslowski and his co-author, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, it should not be out of place to observe that they have the very rare ability to dramatize their ideas rather than just talking about them. By making their points through the dramatic action of the story they gain the added power of allowing the audience to discover what's really going on rather than being told. They do this with such dazzling skill, you never see the ideas coming and don't realize until much later how profoundly they have reached your heart.â One: I Am the Lord Thy God concerns 10-year-old Pawel and his father. The pair enjoys life thanks to its quantifiable qualities, and their computer aids them in these discoveries. Pawelâs Aunt is concerned for his spirituality and implores him to open his eyes to God. Two: Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of the Lord Thy God In Vain tells the tale of an older doctor tasked to play God. The wife of one of his patients approaches him to state that she is pregnant but by another man. She wants to keep the child if her husband dies but does not want the baby if he lives. The doctor is asked to tell her what her husbandâs chances are. Three: Keep Holy the Sabbath takes place at Christmas. Taxi-driver Janusz seeks to honor Polish tradition by spending time with his family and going to Church, but he ends up spending the evening with his former mistress, who asks him to help find her missing husband. Janusz must choose between his faith and his desire to do good for others. Four: Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother revolves around a father and his college-aged daughter, Anka. Their connection is very close until Anka discovers a letter from her deceased mother causing her to question her entire relationship with her father. Five: Thou Shalt Not Kill follows an evildoer who commits murder. When he is sentenced to death, the newly barred lawyer appointed to him struggles with his own doubt and empathy. Six: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery is a mostly silent episode about a lonely nineteen-year-old boy who spies nightly on his older female neighbor. When he is discovered, some role-reversal occurs, as her boyfriend becomes aware of the situation. Seven: Thou Shalt Not Steal finds Majka, a college-aged woman, abducting her "younger sister," who is later revealed to be her daughter. Majka wrestles with her inability to cope emotionally while her family becomes frantic over the loss of two of their own. Eight: Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness portrays Polish-American researcher Elzbieta attending a lecture on ethics by Zofia. Afterwards, Elzbieta confronts Zofia and informs her that she was the little Jewish girl Zofia refused safe haven to during World War II. Zofia responds that there were reasons for why she did what she did. Nine: Thou Shalt Not Covet They Neighborâs Wife presents Roman, who recently discovered he is impotent, imploring his wife, Hanka to find a lover who can satisfy her. She resists at first before finally agreeing, only for Roman to become extremely jealous. He swears to kill himself, unaware that she wants to break up with the new lover. Ten: Thy Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighborâs Goods follows two brothers who have inherited their fatherâs valuable stamp collection. Their newfound wealth finds them in some odd situations as they try to wrangle their financial and personal lives under control. Kieslowskiâs impressive saga shows incredible emotional depth (with the exception of the final chapter, which is more of a black comedy). His use of juxtapositionâas in Five, with murder vs. capital punishment as subjectâdemonstrates his frequent questioning of the establishment. Although the subject matter finds its roots in the Bible, the series is not overtly religious. Instead, Kieslowki focuses on ethics. DEKALOG contains subtle and sophisticated cinematography: certain episodes are filmed in full focus while others employ shallow focus or a filter to create a particular ambience consistent with their overall theme. The acting is moving and profound, meshing with the seriesâ other elements to create an encompassing stylistic symphony. DEKALOG is a beautiful cinematic journey that rewards its viewers' prolonged dedication. Screening as part of the Settle In series. (1989, 572 min, New 4K DCP Digital Restoration) [Kyle Cubr]
Jean Renoir's THE RULES OF THE GAME (France)
Music Box Theatre â See Venue website for showtimes
Jean Renoirâs masterpiece remains the gold standard against which all ensemble dramas are measured. Renoir juggles a number of major characters and honors each oneâs perspective, resulting in a group portrait in which every character is sympathetic and poignantly fallible. Adding to the filmâs polyphonic quality is the way Renoir moves so lissomly between tones. Even after multiple viewings, you may have trouble anticipating when Renoir will take a farcical or bittersweet approach to the materialâhis stance often evolves within scenes (or sometimes within shots). The liberty of the filmmaking anticipates the New Wave movements of the 1960s (not for nothing did Renoir dedicate his autobiography to the Nouvelle Vague filmmakers, claiming that their concerns were the same as his), though THE RULES OF THE GAME is also an extraordinary document of French high society on the eve of World War II. The romantic entanglements, the gossip, the general frivolity all have a despairing undertone, creating the sense that the lifestyles portrayed here are not meant to last. (The filmâs tragic conclusion, however surprising, has an air of inevitability about it, which is precisely what makes it so devastating.) For almost two decades after its disastrous premiere, it seemed that RULES too wouldnât last. The French government, claiming the film to be âbad for morale,â banned it a month after it came out; when the Nazis took over France, they banned the movie again. Over 20 minutes of footage were considered lost until 1956, when technicians restored Renoirâs original cut. By the start of the following decade, it rightly gained its reputation as one of the greatest films ever made. (1939, 110 min, New 4K DCP Digital Restoration) [Ben Sachs]
Jean Renoir's THE CRIME OF MONSIEUR LANGE (France)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Wednesday, 7pm
I canât recommend a Jean Renoir film without also recommending his autobiography, My Life and My Films. It puts the auteur in auteurismâhe succinctly reminisces on a lifetime and a career in approximately 50 short essay length chapters totaling just under 300 pages. Early in the book, he discusses his love, realized when he was just five years old, of Guignol, the puppet protagonist of the popular French amusement dating back to the 18th century. Guignol, he wrote, âcaused [him] to fear brutal contrastsâ and âendowed [him] with a fondness for simple tales and a profound mistrust for what is generally called psychology.â This predilection for puppetry is evident in his 1931 film LA CHIENNE, which is a simple, albeit mercilessly abstract, story of a hapless love triangle thatâs framed at beginning and end by a childrenâs puppet show. THE CRIME OF MONSIEUR LANGE is similarly framed by its title characterâs girlfriend, Valentine, telling a gaggle of curious onlookers at an inn to where theyâve run away about the crime in question. Monsieur Lange is a clerk at a publishing company with aspirations of writing Western stories. His life, like that of his abutting compatriots, is simple, though his luck seems to be changing when his boss, the publisher Batala, impulsively opts to print his âArizona Jimâ serial. Batala is a reprobate creep of the Weinstein variety, though itâs undeniable that he is charmingâJules Berry is a superb villain, further evidenced by his performances in Marcel CarnĂ©âs LES VISITEURS DU SOIR and LE JOUR SE LĂVE. After Batala fakes his death following a train crash, Lange and his friendsâamong them the laundress Valentine and her spritely cohorts, the concierge and his family, and even the publishing companyâs financierâs sonâform a cooperative to continue publishing Arizona Jim. Their scheme is wildly successful, though not without some tension: Valentineâs friend, Estelle, who was also the object of Langeâs affection before he discovered the romance between her and the conciergeâs son, becomes pregnant after being raped by Batala earlier in the story. The baby dies, but laughter prevails. It stops, however, when Batala seemingly returns from the grave, dressed as a priest but still as sinister as ever. MONSIEUR LANGE finds Renoir languidly tergiversating the exaggerated contrasts that characterize his early career: Batala is magnetizing (his secretary is passionately in love with him, and he counts Valentine amongst his previous conquests), and even the filmâs tone strays from its ultimately jubilant spiritâsee both the rape of Estelle and subsequent death of her child (the only glaring flaw of the film being that it glosses over these horrific events) and the titular murder, weaved seamlessly into the filmâs rhapsodic fabric. These aberrant junctures evoke childrenâs entertainment that, like Guignol, blends these very elementsâit was co-written by Jacques PrĂ©vert, whose poetic realist discernment recalls a similarly lyrical sense of morality. Critically and commercially successful, the film âplaced [Renoir] in the category of left-wing film-makers, no doubt because it had to do with a workersâ co-operative,â as he details in his autobiography. âI believed that every honest man owed it to himself to resist Nazism,â he continues. âI am a film-maker, and this was the only way in which I could play a part in the battle.â Made in advance of the 1936 election of the Popular Front, it portends then-contemporary events in such a way that LA GRANDE ILLUSION augured World War II. In his earliest iterations, Guignol was a strident social commentator representative of the Lyonnais silk workersâLaurent Mourguet, his creator, began incorporating timely references into the routine in order to amuse his audience vis-Ă -vis ancillary political commentary. THE CRIME OF MONSIEUR LANGE avows a timeliness that, like Guignol, spans the decades. Screening as part of Docâs Wednesday series, âJean Renoir: The Grand Reality.â (1936, 81 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Victor Sjöströmâs THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE (Sweden/Silent)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Sunday, 7pm
Itâs possible that THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE is one of the first proto-horror filmsâif not actually the firstâto beguile audiences and exhibitors alike as to its actual classification. (Recent examples that come to mind are Guillermo del Toroâs CRIMSON PEAK and Trey Edward Shultsâ THEY COME AT NIGHT, both of which were pegged by audiences as being outright horror films but ended up surprising viewers with different generic concerns. Granted, Victor Sjöströmâs ghostly apologue wasnât circumscribed by a deliberately sophistical A24 marketing campaign, but these issues speak to the ultimately imprecise nature of film dubbed to be horror.) âThe film was also known as THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT in the US, and THY SOUL SHALL BEAR WITNESS in the UK,â wrote critic, screenwriter and director Paul Mayersberg in an essay accompanying the filmâs Criterion release. âThe different titles reflect the uncertainty of distributors at the time in identifying its genre: ghost story, horror, thriller, religious fable?â In the immortal words of an Old El Paso taco shell commercial, why not both (or, in this case, all)? Sjöström himself stars as David Holm, whoâs shown to have descended into alcoholism to the broken-hearted chagrin of his once-loving wife and two little children. The filmâs structure is decidedly bold, a key element of its long-lasting influence: it begins with a young Salvation Army worker (Hilda Borgström) sick in bed, requesting that David come to her side. The story largely unfolds in flashback, with David shown recalling the legend of Death and his carriage (and how whoever dies at midnight on New Yearâs Eve must take over the task of charioting souls into the afterlife); the film then details Davidâs transgressions, from terrorizing his wife and children to luring his younger brother into a life of vice to his uncaring treatment of the Salvation Army worker who devotes her life to his unlikely reform, only to fall ill after catching his consumption. The complexity of the filmâs structure (which, in the version titled THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT, was rearranged to be more straightforward and deliver a warning against the perils of alcoholism) illuminates the possibility of storytelling on the silver screenâthe flashback aspect is executed so subtly as to be momentarily confusing, though it ultimately succeeds in that credo of silent film especially and film in general, to show not tellâand the level of sophistication that could sustain viewersâ interest. Sjöströmâs innovative use of superimposition is another complexity rendered crystalline, mimicking the metaphysical inexplicability of ghosts via ingenious cinematic technique. At the time, âdoubleâ exposure was done in-camera rather than with optical printing; cinematographer Julius Jaenzonâs use of multi-layered exposures accounts for the attention given the filmâs special effects. Now taken for granted, the impact of the technique lends itself perfectly to the eerie subject matter, showing the spirits as they exit their corporeal forms while still being present in the physical world. The film is based on the 1912 novel Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness! by Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature and whose books were frequently adapted by filmmaker luminaries in her home country; she was a theosophist with an interest in mysticism, hence the spiritual themes. So, with all that in mind, what exactly is the film? Some might say it is to New Yearâs what A Christmas Carol is to Christmas, with the spooky elements servicing a greater moral lesson. Others may say itâs absolutely a horror film, with scenes of spirits rising from deceased bodies as scary as any other. But itâs undoubtedly a masterpiece, a filmic wraith whose haunting ineffability will confound and impress for eternity. Screening as part of Docâs Sunday series, âFacing Life, Meeting Death.â (1921, 106 min, Digital Projection) [Kat Sachs]
John Carpenter's ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (US)
Music Box Theatre â See Venue website for showtimes
John Carpenter's second feature is often cited as an object lesson in tight, tense low-budget action filmmaking, but Carpenter admitted to extending shots and scenes in order to fill a bare-bones scenario to feature length. Whether by design or necessity, the laid-back exposition generates a seductive air of fateful, impending doom. Viewers may not even notice the deliberate pace due to Carpenter's irresistibly cheesy and astoundingly effective synth score that pumps tension through a simple five note melody or a haunting hanging chord. Carpenter's use of expansive 'Scope frames would seem antithetical to shoestring filming, but it suits the horizontal Southern California expanse: a wild frontier of suburban decay where an ice cream truck in broad daylight can be the site of horrific violence, igniting the film with dread over unlimited possibilities of mayhem. The ensuing climactic shootout of marauding villains fulfills that promise, less in its own right than in the decades of action movie climaxes and video games that followed its explosive precedent. (1976, 91 min, New 4K DCP Digital Restoration) [Kevin B. Lee]
Alice Diopâs SAINT OMER (France)
Gene Siskel Film Center â See Venue website for showtimes
Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Alice Diop (whose non-fiction work I am not familiar with) made her narrative feature debut with this complex and beautiful character study about two women of Senegalese descent living in contemporary France. Pregnant Rama (Kayije Kagame), a successful novelist and professor of literature, attends the trial ofâand becomes obsessed withâLaurence (Guslagie Malanga), a college student of limited means who stands accused of murder after abandoning her baby on a beach at night. The film, which daringly asks viewers to sympathize with a character who has committed a monstrous crime, is based on the true story of Fabienne Kamou, who was arrested for infanticide in 2013 and whose 2016 trial Diop attended. The dialogue is based in part on transcripts from Kamouâs real-life trial, which lends the extended courtroom scenes a rare verisimilitude, but what really impresses here is Diopâs mise-en-scĂšne. Diop shoots Laurence from a different camera angle during each day of the trial, although she never deviates from this angle within each individual scene, lending a near-Bressonian formal rigor to the proceedings. While the technique of shot/reverse shot editing has become synonymous with lazy filmmaking in the modern era (because of how it often removes creativity from the process of shot selection, turning dialogue scenes into simple ping-pong matches), Diop imbues this technique with a fresh relevance: she refuses to show reverse angles when viewers are most likely to expect them, a strategy that eventually pays emotionally devastating dividends during a climactic exchange of glances where one character smiles while another silently weeps. Diopâs final masterstroke is to end the film before the verdict is reached, an unusual touch that recalls the denouement of Fritz Langâs M (1931). Diop is wise enough to know that hearing a judge proclaim âGuiltyâ or âNot guiltyâ would put viewers in the position of agreeing or disagreeing with the judgment, when her real interests have lain elsewhere all along. As Jonathan Rosenbaum remarked on his website, the director has generated enough questions by the end in order âto make a verdict seem either impossible or superfluous.â (2022, 122 min, DCP Digital) [Michael Glover Smith]
Hirokazu Kore-edaâs BROKER (South Korea)
Gene Siskel Film Center and the Music Box Theatre â See Venue websites for showtimes
Japanese writer-director Hirokazu Koreeda puts the âhumanâ back in human trafficking with this quiet, gently comic road movie about the little family that forms around two men who sell abandoned infants on the black market. In South Korea some charities maintain âbaby boxesâ where reluctant mothers can anonymously abandon their newborns; Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won), a young volunteer working the night shift at a Christian church in Busan, swipes the occasional baby thus left and, with the help of his friend Ha (Song Kang-ho), brokers its sale to some eager married couple. Kore-eda works overtime to sentimentalize this criminal enterprise: Dong-soo steals only those infants whose mothers have included notes promising to come back for them, because he knows such a promise condemns a child to grow up in an orphanage, as he did. (Of course, all he needs to do to spare a child this fate is to destroy the note.) Caught red-handed by Moon So-young (Lee Ji-eun), a young sex worker who dropped her baby to the church, the men are forced to cut her in on the sale and bring her along as they drive from town to town vetting prospective parents. Completing the crooks' nuclear family is a wisecracking seven-year-old urchin who's stowed away on their van during a stop at Dong-sooâs old orphanage, and Kore-eda adds another poignant stroke in the form of a lonely police detective (Bae Doona) closing in on the traffickers. (2022, 109 min, DCP Digital) [J.R. Jones]
Charlotte Wells' AFTERSUN (UK/US)
FACETS Cinema â See Venue website for showtimes
Thereâs something about the quality of DV home-movie footage that feels particularly, singularly fragile. Maybe itâs the tendency of the image to pixelate at relatively slight movements, or the fact that the format now exists in hindsight as a consumer video relic that experienced only the briefest of heydays before being usurped by HD and smartphones. Whatever the case, writer-director Charlotte Wells employs DV to poignant effect in her debut feature. The film opens in the low-resolution format, presented as video taken by 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) of her father Calum (Paul Mescal). The pair, whom we soon learn are sharing a motel room near a resort in Turkey, are spending one last summer vacation together before Sophie heads back to live with her divorced mother in Scotland. Wells will return to the girlâs video diaries throughout, although it takes one a while to situate them in time: are they sweet documents of the present or fragmented representations of the past? Whatâs the difference? Such temporal indeterminacy gradually reveals itself to be central to the meaning and effects of the film, which regards memory as always a hazy refraction of the then, now, and never-quite-was, an equation that, as it so happens, finds expression in the ontology of moving images. Not unlike the work of Wellsâs compatriot Lynne Ramsay, AFTERSUN comes at its characters and events from oblique angles that delay or preclude our apprehension. In visual terms, this sometimes manifests as a darkness in which figures are barely or fleetingly perceptible; at other moments, Wells composes shots using various reflective surfaces, such as when we see Sophieâs live video playing on a tube television in front of a mirror, the source of the action never glimpsed directly, just as Calumâs unspoken inner turmoil remains elusive to Sophie. Based on Wellsâ relationship with her own father, who passed away when she was an adolescent, AFTERSUN both diegetically depicts the splintered, wistful process of remembrance and evokes it through a nonlinear, diaphanous formal construction. During the climax, an outsize emotional crescendo set to âUnder Pressure,â the film snaps into focus as a kind of spiritual bridge from daughter to father, through which their âlast danceâ leaves a perpetually echoing afterimage. (2022, 101 min, DCP Digital) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]
đïž PHYSICAL SCREENINGS/EVENTS â
ALSO SCREENING
â« Doc Films (at the University of Chicago)
Todd Louisoâs 2002 film LOVE LIZA (90 min, 35mm) screens on Friday, 7pm, as part of the Philip Seymour Hoffman: A Retrospective series.
Gina Prince-Bythewoodâs 2022 film THE WOMAN KING (135 min, Digital Projection) screens on Saturday, 7pm, as part of the New Releases series. More info on all screenings here.
â« FACETS Cinema
Jack Hillâs 1975 exploitation film SWITCHBLADE SISTERS (91 min, DCP Digital) screens on Thursday at 9pm. Preceded by FACETS Film Trivia at 7pm, hosted by critic, programmer and Cine-File contributor Raphael Jose Martinez and local programmer Mike Vanderbilt. More info here.
â« Music Box Theatre
Lyle Edward Ballâs 2022 horror film SKINAMARINK (100 min, DCP Digital) continues. See Venue website for showtimes.
Jim Sharmanâs 1975 cult classic ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (100 min, 35mm) screens on Saturday at midnight, with a shadowcast of the film performed by Midnight Madness.
Dice Media presents Brad Kofmanâs 2022 film THE BIG LIE (85 min, DCP Digital) on Saturday at 9:45pm, followed by a stand-up show from the cast.
Great Lakes Clinical Trialsâ presents James Keachâs 2014 documentary GLEN CAMPBELL: IâLL BE ME (104 min, DCP Digital) on Thursday at 2pm. Great Lakes will be available before and after the movie in the lounge to discuss current research opportunities for those battling memory loss and other diseases. More info on all screenings and events here.
đïž LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS â
ALSO SCREENING/STREAMING
â« Video Data Bank
TJ Cuthand's NDN Survival Trilogy, comprised of EXTRACTIONS (2019, 15 min), LESS LETHAL FETISHES (2019, 9 min) and RECLAMATION (2018, 13 min), is available to stream for free on VDB TV. More info here.
CINE-LIST: January 20 - January 26, 2023
MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Kyle Cubr, John Dickson, Megan Fariello, J.R. Jones, Kevin B. Lee, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, Michael Glover Smith, Brian Welesko
FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL, KILL! Illustration // Alexandra Ensign