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📽️ CRUCIAL VIEWING
Kevin Jerome Everson's THE ISLAND OF ST. MATTHEWS (US/Experimental)
Block Cinema (at Northwestern University) – Friday, 7pm
Given experimental cinema's preoccupation with the archive, it can be refreshing and destabilizing to approach films that function as archival materials themselves. This is the case for THE ISLAND OF ST. MATTHEWS, Kevin Jerome Everson’s portrait of Westport, Mississippi. The film fits into Everson’s longer corpus of portraits of Black labor and leisure, with the guiding framework in this case being a short ethnography of the small town. Surviving severe flooding between 1973 and 1979, the town had its wealth and history more or less erased, and the loss is still felt by the town’s remaining survivors. The floods have subsided, but the area’s waters are a constant reminder of what was lost. The town has developed a complicated relationship with this feature; roughly one-third of the film’s runtime finds the residents waterskiing in long takes. Baptisms are staged in the water, and real-time shots of the town’s dam closing give a sense of the water’s importance to the region structurally as well as culturally. The unique culture in the town comes from their living, as survivors of disaster often do, in the ruins of former lives, continuing in part as a way to remember those before them—like the protagonists of Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, they have an inextricable tie to this water now. One gets the feeling that Everson was just in time making this film, where the fading edges of his 16mm photography mirror the mental fog of some of the flood’s survivors. If Everson’s work could be seen as kind of an archive, ST. MATTHEWS is perhaps a meta-justification of that project, both preserving and considering our existential need for preservation. Though it’s not readily apparent, it's one of Everson’s most personal: it was his aunt who brought him to the town, lamenting that their family didn’t have old photos anymore due to the flood. In the face of such a loss, he chose to fight the death of that archive with the life of a new one by creating this beautiful film. (2013, 70 min, DCP Digital) [Maxwell Courtright]
S. S. Rajamouli’s RRR (India)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Wednesday, 8:15pm
వావ్! వావ్! వావ్! If you can read that, chances are you’ve already been eagerly awaiting the theatrical opening of RRR, the latest extravaganza from Telugan director S. S. Rajamouli. If you can’t, you’d better grab a ticket before the Indians who are already hip to this smash hit buy them out. This is a rare chance to see a genuine, large-scale, first-run movie event complete with built-in intermission on the big screen—not that you’ll want to take time out to visit the bathroom or concession stand. RRR is such an exciting, eye-popping, entertaining film that its 183 minutes fly by, leaving you wanting more. RRR is a product of India’s “Tollywood” film industry, centered in Hyderabad, Telangana, which has replaced Mumbia-based Bollywood as the largest center of Indian filmmaking in terms of box office. Director S. S. Rajamouli, Tollywood’s most successful director, trafficks in fantasy, Indian mythology, and period pieces. He brings all three to bear in RRR as he imagines what would happen if two of India’s real-life revolutionaries, Komaram Bheem and Alluri Sitarama Raju, met in the late Raj period of the 1920s and forged a friendship. The film begins in a Gond tribal village, where a middle-age British woman (Allison Doody) is being sung to by a girl (Twinkle Sharma) who is applying a henna design to her hand. Well pleased with the song and design, the woman, who is the wife of the British governor (Ray Stevenson), abducts the girl to serve her at the palatial mansion where she lives. The scene ends in an act of brutal violence against the girl’s mother. Bheem (Jr NTR) is dispatched to find and return her to the village. Raju (Ram Charan), also called Ram, is a member of the British police who we first meet superhumanly capturing an Indian who has smashed a picture of King George VI during a protest of hundreds of Indians at colonial headquarters. Ram and Bheem, the latter disguised as a Muslim, meet as they work together to save a boy from a burning train that has fallen off a trestle into the river below (only one of about a dozen spectacular action sequences in RRR) and become the best of friends. Even as the film shows the joy of their burgeoning bromance, the boldly rhythmic song “Dosti” foretells trouble ahead. Ram has been charged with arresting the man sent to rescue the girl, with a crucial promotion promised to him if he succeeds. When Bheem’s identity is revealed, life will become hell on earth for both of them. The energy and imagination that Rajamouli has infused in this politically charged action-adventure is truly mind-blowing. For example, a sequence in which Bheem and those abetting his mission go into the forest to capture a (CGI) wolf is scary, exciting, and rather touching, as Bheem thanks his captive animal for his help with a scheme he has dreamed up; the payoff is too crazy-good to spoil here. While the film is not wall-to-wall music and dancing, it contains an excellent score by M.M. Keeravani I’d love to have in my CD collection and choreography by Senthil Kumar that tips a hat to Bollywood, as well as Busby Berkeley. The joyous “Naatu Naatu,” a dance number in which the friends show up the snooty Englishmen at a garden party, is a particular standout, but the somber “Komuram Bheemudo,” meant as a paean to courage and inspiration occurs during a grisly torture sequence. RRR is extremely violent and bloody, but by creating Bheem and Ram more as mythological gods than real men (Ram actually finishes the film dressed as the god Rama), the film bathes its violence in fantasy. As usual in Indian films about the Raj years, the British are heartless, sadistic bigots whose comeuppance we can’t wait to see; their end in RRR is a cataclysm on a par with the destruction of the White House in INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996). Ram Charan and especially Jr NTR are charismatic and a pleasure to spend three hours with, and the film ensures that the real men behind the ones they play are not forgotten, as their basic actions accord with real events, and Bheem’s slogan, “Water, Forest, Land,” is reiterated in the film. The final credits roll during a charming song and dance featuring images of other champions of Indian independence, including Sardar Vallabhai Patel, a prominent figure in the Indian freedom struggle who became India’s first deputy prime minister and home minister; Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh; and Tangutoori Prakasham Pantulu, an Indian jurist, political leader, social reformer, and anticolonial nationalist who served as the chief minister during the Madras presidency. This multilingual pan-Indian spectacular is a great way to kickstart your summer. (2022, 183 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Vincente Minnelli's MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Wednesday, 6pm
Produced by MGM’s immortal Arthur Freed unit at a time when Technicolor made every shot look like an oil painting come to life, MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS would have looked gorgeous even if Vincente Minnelli hadn’t directed it. Yet he did, and the world is a better place as a result. This is the movie (only Minnelli’s third as director) where the former Marshall Field’s window dresser became the American Max Ophüls; the balletic camera movements invoke, alternately, intoxication with rediscovering the past and a skeptical interrogation of the past. Comparably, the dense mise-en-scène is filled with countless little observations about how people lived in a particular time and place (specifically, an upper-middle-class St. Louis neighborhood in 1903-04), and remarkably, the imagery always feels in harmony with the emotional content, which is Chaplinesque in how it can be appreciated by small children and wizened adults for pretty much the same reasons. The onscreen world of MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS was only four decades old when the movie was made, but given that this was during the worst days of World War II, the rosy images of the past probably seemed as distant then as they do today. (Notably, when the characters speak of different nations interacting, they’re talking about the strictly benign spectacle of the coming World’s Fair.) The film continues to triumph as escapist entertainment: Who doesn’t swoon over the exuberance of “The Trolley Song” sequence, grin beamingly at the expertly timed light comedy of the family interaction, or get misty-eyed during Judy Garland’s soulful rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”? Yet what makes MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS endure as art are the countless ways that Minnelli and company complicate their project of escapism. Consider the anecdotal narrative structure, which recognizes the banality and commonness of life in its focus on everyday events; or consider the film’s groundbreaking integration of songs into the story (before MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, the songs in most American musicals were distinctly separate entities from the narratives), which grants unprecedented depth to familiar emotions. These emotions are not always pretty or easily contained—Minnelli generates a surprising amount of anxiety from the Smith family’s impending move, and the scene of Margaret O’Brien’s Tootie taking her anger out on her snowmen is always more unnerving than you expect. Robin Wood once suggested, only half-jokingly, that MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS could be categorized as a horror movie, with Tootie being the monstrous personification of her family members’ repressed emotions, and no less than John Carpenter took inspiration from the Halloween section of the film in his design of the original HALLOWEEN. Apparently, there’s something about the forced perfection of all-American town life that lends itself to the horrific imagination. (1944, 113 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
Chris and Heather's 16mm Film Festival
FitzGerald's (6615 Roosevelt Rd., Berwyn) – Thursday, 8:30pm
If you're unfamiliar with the beloved Chicago artistic alt-power couple of cartoonist and filmmaker Heather McAdams and musician Chris Ligon, you can rectify that shameful shortcoming with a quick trip out to the 'burbs (it's a short walk from the Blue Line—stop complaining!) for a joyful jamboree of music and movies. This is night two of a once-monthly residency at FitzGerald's in Berwyn (come back July 7 for the final show in this run) and features special guest singer-songwriter Phil Angotti and a Kodak Pageant film projector overflowing with cinematic oddities and treasures. The night will alternate between musical performances and two long "sets" of 16mm super-cuts of musical snippets, commercials, novelties, and rarities. I don't know if Heather will sneak in any of her delightful animations and documentaries, but if she doesn't, you'll soon get a chance to see new prints of those treasures as the Chicago Film Society is busy preserving her contribution to essential Chicago cinema. Regardless of what Heather decides to screen tonight, it promises to be a remarkable cinematic event. [Josh B Mabe]
Tommy Lee Jones’ THE HOMESMAN (US) / Umezaki Yo’s THE SEPPUKU PISTOLS (Japan/Documentary)
Music Box Theatre – Tuesday, 7pm / Gene Siskel Film Center – Sunday, 7pm
Modernity is a tricky thing. It’s that which we seek and that from which we stray, sometimes in equal measure. Tommy Lee Jones’ THE HOMESMAN (2014, 122 min, DCP Digital) is one of the finest contemporary Westerns (set though it is in the incorporated Nebraska Territory… it’s a Midwestern, then), as loyal to its antecedents as it is subversive in its handling of the pervaded genre. Adapted from Glendon Swarthout’s 1988 novel and set in the mid-1800s, it centers on Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank), a thirty-something spinster, “plain as an old tin pail” by her own admission, and follows the herculean task she undertakes, out of goodness and godliness, in transporting three mentally destitute women back east. Her life out midwest had been marked by a degree of prosperity but also grueling loneliness and the unrealized desires to wed and have children; in contrast, some of her neighbor women who have the things she wants have been driven mad by the crushing weight of such responsibility, physical and emotional. Right off the bat, modernity is exalted (Mary Bee is prosperous, if alone) and bemoaned (that loneliness, compounded by a strong moral fortitude, ultimately results in her downfall). The character’s foil comes in the way of the titular homesman, George Briggs (Lee Jones, who has a knack for performing such characters with an ear toward language that evokes hints of Shakespeare’s Falstaff; I think Orson Welles would have been a fan), a rowdy but reliable jack of all trades whom Cuddy rescues when he’s left to hang for claim jumping. He accompanies her on the journe, a proud ruffian who’s nevertheless strikingly resilient and even bashedly compassionate toward their strange cargo. The most transgressive aspect of both the source material and the film is the acknowledgment of how difficult trailblazing was for women in particular, along with the representation of Mary Bee as a strong, single woman. The three other women on the journey—a young bride (Grace Gummer), a Scandinavian immigrant (Sonja Richter), and a mother (Miranda Otto) of two (their husbands are played by Jesse Plemons, David Dencik, and William Fichtner, respectively)—face remarkable hardship, from the unceremonious death of children to spousal rape to the general hardship of life in uncultivated societies, where there are few, if any, safety nets against the instability of the elements. Men, who either brought wives with them or returned back east to get them, often came from civilized society and were desperate to stake their claims and establish new societies “out West”; they left already established modernity in pursuit of the opportunity to make it themselves, on their own terms and to their advantage, with little in the way of competition. Mary Bee wants it all, the mad wives suffer in that pursuit (even aided as they are by men), and Briggs rejects it summarily. The end is a sublime reckoning with what came before; Briggs indulges in the idea of modernity but is eventually done in by its inherent deception, and the mad women are perhaps no better off where from whence they came. Like all the best Westerns, the stakes are high but so is the propensity for questioning why and what but never how, the latter an inborn quality of humans to walk toward the emptiness. All this is to say nothing of Jones’ meticulous direction, seen in his several directorial efforts, which seem to be appreciated by those in the know but still do not generate enough opportunities for him to flex those superior skills (for my money he’d be another Eastwood if given the chance). | Umezaki Yo’s documentary THE SEPPUKU PISTOLS (2021, 115 min, Digital Projection) has little to do with THE HOMESMAN, except for how it interrogates modernity. The titular subject, a Japanese Taiko drumming-cum-punk group, embraces the way of Japan’s Edo period, which culminated over 150 years ago. In addition to their music, the band has made living in the style of people during the Edo period a part of their lifestyle. The documentary makes this lifestyle seem idyllic, as they embrace pre-modernization (though, ironically, the Edo period paved the way for aggressive modernization) and practically fetishize the analog ritual (lovers of celluloid and viny may relate), dressing in the style of this period and making bespoke wares, such as sandals, that were custom to the time. The documentary is exhaustive in its depiction of the band members and their predilection for the Edo-period music and culture, which was marked by peace, economic growth, and widespread enjoyment of the arts (strict social mores and isolationist, almost nationalistic, policies were also involved, though the documentary doesn’t touch on thes,e nor do the band members seem to espouse any socially conservative ideologies). Footage of the band playing around Japan and, later, in New York City, are enjoyable. The music is good, and people of all backgrounds seem to enjoy it; the documentary even focuses on a young American who travels to Japan after first seeing the band Stateside. The band’s love of performing and sharing their culture with the world is inspiring, too, emphasizing the importance of such a global community. As in THE HOMESMAN, desire for modernity, lack of it, and the myriad abutments (that the band must travel overseas, to New York City of all places, in order to share their love for a lack of modernity is a notable, if acceptable, hypocrisy), all come into play, making for a thought-starter that leaves an impression. This marks the closing-night screening of the Chicago Japan Film Collective’s 2022 festival; the band may actually be appearing in person at the screening, which makes this not to be missed, especially for fans of Japanese or punk music (or both). [Kat Sachs]
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THE HOMESMAN screens as part of the “Hell on the Homestead: Surviving the Frontier” series. | In addition to the in-person screening of THE SEPPUKU PISTOLS, the Chicago Japan Film Collective 2022 has a collection of films available to stream virtually through Monday. More info on those and the festival overall here.
Hal Ashby's BOUND FOR GLORY (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Tuesday, 6pm
Described by Roger Ebert as “the most visually accomplished film since BARRY LYNDON," BOUND FOR GLORY tells the story of a young Woody Guthrie as he makes his way through poverty-stricken America and navigates the capital-driven music industry early in his career. At its center, the film is a portrait of an artist finding the balance between having enough to support his family and not sell out his principles as an activist. Based on Guthrie’s autobiography, the film embraces the union solidarity politics central to the singer’s work, and the class consciousness of the artist biopic fits the director like a glove. Ashby, best known for the cult classic HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971), had established his leftwing politics within the Hollywood New Wave as an editor on films like IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967) and as the director of THE LANDLORD (1970). Through his collaboration with cinematographer Haskell Wexler, he creates some of the most stunning images ever put to celluloid of a traumatized country in financial ruin. The film picked up multiple nominations at the 49th Academy Awards and won for its cinematography; it’s important to note this contains the first Steadicam shot in film history. David Carradine, playing Woody, grounds the world of the film. The viewer follows him in a broken America from the turmoil of the Dustbowl to the elegant greed within the recording studios of Los Angeles. It’s a slow burn, but a masterclass in world-building. Screening as part of the Haskell Wexler Centennial series. (1976, 147 min, 35mm) [Ray Ebarb]
Panah Panahi’s HIT THE ROAD (Iran)
Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes
Panah Panahi’s debut as a writer-director bears resemblance to his father Jafar Panahi’s recent feature 3 FACES (2018) in that it’s a seriocomic road movie that considers the difficulties of being a young adult in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The film approaches its concerns obliquely, however, making it an open-ended allegory more in line with certain films by Mohsen Makhmalbaf (THE CYCLIST, THE SILENCE) and Mohammad Rasoulof (IRON ISLAND, THE WHITE MEADOWS). Most of the story follows a family of four on their road trip across a remote, mountainous region of the country. Panahi generates winning humor from the familiar situation of family members trapped with each other’s quirks, and he provides the principal characters with memorable idiosyncrasies. The father, mother, and 20-ish older son each get moments in the dramatic spotlight, but they’re all overshadowed by the family’s six-year-old younger son, a hyperactive brat who goes unpredictably (yet always believably) from being endearing to being obnoxious. Like a lit firecracker, he doesn’t seem to belong inside a moving car—he really ought to be doing sprints up and down the mountains the family keeps passing. The little boy’s liberty stands in sharp contrast to the fate awaiting his older brother, which Panahi starts to intimate around the half-hour mark of HIT THE ROAD, continues to allude to, but never reveals outright. All we ever learn for certain is that the family is delivering him to some group of people—maybe good, maybe bad—in the middle of nowhere. That the character’s future is unwritten brings an air of dread to this superficially pleasant movie, and it inspires alarm about whatever hangs in the balance for all of Iran’s young people. Yet in keeping with the poetic tradition of much Iranian art cinema, Panahi buoys the proceedings with plentiful moments of childlike wonder, most vividly in a late sequence that finds father and bratty tyke literally floating through the cosmos. (2021, 94 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
Kerry Feltham’s THE GREAT CHICAGO CONSPIRACY CIRCUS (US)
South Side Projections and Comfort Film at Comfort Station (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.) – Wednesday, 8pm
Just as the Yippies made a mockery of the Chicago Seven proceedings, so too do the 1970 off-Broadway play Chicago 70 and its film adaptation lampoon the ignominious grand jury trial that tailed those stories riots following the 1968 Democratic National Convention. By intercutting scenes based on transcripts from the later-christened ‘Chicago Seven’ trial with episodes from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, the play (originally conceived by the Toronto Workshop Company) and, subsequently. Kerry Feltham's THE GREAT CHICAGO CONSPIRACY CIRCUS, turn the justifiably ludicrous actions of the defendants into something straight out of the theater of the absurd. As critic Martin Esslin said in his famous essay on the designation, "the absurd and fantastic goings-on… will, in the end, be found to reveal the irrationality of the human condition and the illusion of what we thought was its apparent logic structure." In this sense, the courtroom is a microcosm of the human condition, and the Seven utilized absurdity to emphasize the "irrationality" of the trial and the judge’s contribution to the breakdown of the "apparent logic structure,” further exhibiting the inherent farcicality of the justice system. The juxtaposition with scenes from Alice in Wonderland speaks for itself—we're all mad here, indeed. (1970, 92 min, Digital Projection) [Kat Sachs]
📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED
Wes Anderson's THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (US)
Music Box Theatre – Saturday and Sunday, 11:30am
It seems no accident that Wes Anderson's first film not co-written by Owen Wilson begins with the death of its hero's closest collaborator, and the challenge of soldiering on after the loss of a creative partner hangs over THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU like a dark cloud. Professionally adrift and despondent over his dead mate, Zissou (mid-2000s blank slate du jour Bill Murray) sets his sights on a possibly unrealizable goal and does his best to get fired up about it, but it's clear his heart isn't in it. That the film, too, slowly deflates isn't a misfire—it's just following suit. This is profoundly depressed cinema, all the more poignant for trying to hide it, which it does perhaps too well. Upon its initial release, the line on this was that the auteur had finally become a prisoner in his own dollhouse, despite the fact that Anderson devotes much of LIFE to turning his much-mimicked tropes on their head. All the familiar ingredients are here (intergenerational troupe of star-crossed lonelyhearts, superstar cast, meticulous design, choice soundtrack), but inverted. There's plenty of flirting on this ship of fools, but no couples together at the end. The soundtrack draws from Anderson's usual '60s well, but in the place of infectious, corner-turning montages set to "Alone Again Or" and "Here Comes My Baby," are brief nonstarters like Scott Walker's "30 Century Man" and the Zombies' "The Way I Feel Inside." Even Ziggy-era Bowie is rendered plaintive. And, perhaps most alarmingly, everyone wears the same outfit (thus marking the merciful end of the Wes Anderson character as Halloween costume micro-fad). Like Zissou's attempted suicide mission, LIFE seems to fail by design, which makes its final glimmer of wonder especially moving. (2004, 119 min, 35mm) [Mike King]
National Theatre Live presents Arthur Miller's A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE (UK)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Sunday, 2pm
Eddie lives in Red Hook, an Italian-American neighborhood of Brooklyn. He works as a longshoreman and lives with his wife Beatrice and orphaned niece Catherine. The arrival of Catherine’s Italian immigrant cousins, Rodolpho and Marco, sparks conflict—for the first time, there is more than one masculine entity in the house. As romance sparks and sexualities are questioned, relationships are irreparably damaged when immigration services are called on the undocumented immigrants; an event that creates an environment so hostile, family violently attacks family. Before our characters’ can learn from their mistakes, the play ends as a tragedy. Like any of Arthur Miller's great dramas, A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE requires personal reflection and assessment. Western culture has labeled Miller, like the classic Greek writers, a messenger of eternal truth. His plays speak to the times across decades and show no sign of stopping; his work will always feel contemporary. BRIDGE is a tale of xenophobia, homophobia, and breaking patriarchal norms—issues seldom discussed in mainstream art when the play was first staged in 1955. The playwright always pushed neglected social problems to the forefront with his dynamic characters and gripping stories. International sensation Ivo Van Hove directed this 2015 production, in which the play is staged in a thrust space. Van Hove, a lover of Greek plays, has made a career of making classic works feel cutting-edge. He has said, "Every play is contemporary, even the Greeks'." In 2016, he directed another Miller play on Broadway, a production of The Crucible with Saoirse Ronan as Abigail Williams (I was fortunate enough to experience this production as a high schooler unfamiliar with Flemish theatrical techniques). The collaboration between the director and the late writer feels fitting, and it yields a dramatic experience that continues to blow away audiences in a recorded cinematic format. When this production ran in New York, it won Tony Awards for Best Lead Actor (Mark Strong), Best Direction, and Best Revival. (2015, 170 min, DCP Digital) [Ray Ebarb]
Francis Ford Coppola's THE CONVERSATION (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Friday, 7pm
If Francis Ford Coppola only made films between 1972 and 1979, he would still be considered one of the greatest American directors of the second half of the twentieth century. And THE CONVERSATION would still be (arguably) his crown jewel. Made in between his landmark first two GODFATHER films, THE CONVERSATION still stands as Coppola's most fully realized project of his heroic era. Conceived in the ‘60s but not realized until the richly paranoid Watergate era, there’s a prescience to this film that made it hit harder on its release than Coppola could have imagined. THE CONVERSATION, loosely inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni’s BLOW-UP (1966), is about San Francisco surveillance expert Harry Caul. An incredibly taught, genuinely terrifying paranoid thriller, it revolves around a job Caul takes on to record a couple’s mid-day conversation in a busy public downtown square. Caul is the kind of guy who takes a job but doesn't ask questions. He’s into the work, the technology, how to get the job done, not who's hiring him and why. Unfortunately, the realities of wiretapping and surveillance don't lend themselves to such clean-cut separations; also, Caul’s Catholic guilt begins to eat away at him and affect his work. This is a masterful mystery thriller that goes deep into the American psyche of paranoia that was so prevalent at the time it was made. But it holds an even more interesting view on privacy and surveillance culture in our present times, when we live in a world with no expectation of privacy. Once there was a time when a man like Caul, who made sound recordings of people who never expected it, was a rarefied expert. Now, we happily turn the cameras on ourselves, and everyone behind us is collateral surveillance damage. The irony of THE CONVERSATION lies in the fact that, while its main character snoops on people for a living, he tries to maintain as private a life as possible. He goes so far as to not even have a phone in his house, using only public payphones to communicate when not face-to-face. This makes the ending of the film ever more delicious. Just as Caul inadvertently captured a conversation with implications beyond what he expected, the film itself inadvertently anticipated the zeitgeist of 1974. It was released just a few months before President Richard Nixon’s resignation, an event bound up in wiretaps and surveillance. To Coppola’s shock, some of the actual equipment and techniques used in the film were used by the Nixon administration. Because of this, Coppola had to deny any real-world influence by pointing out that the film had been written before Nixon was in office and completed before his paranoid transgressions were made public. But besides the strange real-world coincidences and the weaving, mysterious plot, THE CONVERSATION is one of the most technically inspired films ever made. The sound editing here is beyond brilliant. In our age of YouTube clickbait-oriented “film criticism,” the term masterclass gets thrown about to the point of it being near meaningless. But when confronted with what may be the pinnacle of sound design in film, I’d say it's actually appropriate in this case. The sound was created by Walter Murch, who would later be the first person ever to be credited as sound designer on a film (for APOCALYPSE NOW). It is no exaggeration to say that sound itself not only plays a key role in this film; it's actually a character. Perhaps the main character. Seeing this film on a new 35mm print will only show off how insanely ahead of its time and, yes, masterful it really is. In our world of doorbell cameras, red light cameras, ATM cameras, ShotSpotter, and those super creepy Facebook recommendations that seem to come just minutes after you mentioned to a friend how you were thinking of maybe getting some Thai food later, THE CONVERSATION distills our still deep-seated paranoia of being watched (even if now we know we are) into a powerful, timeless, piece of art. Screening as part of the Haskell Wexler Centennial series. (1974, 113 min, 35mm) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
John Woo’s HARD BOILED (Hong Kong)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Friday, 9:15pm
Somewhere between silly and sublime, the pièce de résistance of John Woo's Hong Kong career turns pulp cheese into pop ballet—fluid, extravagant, and totally enamored with its own sense of cool. Chow Yun-Fat stars as Tequila (a name that only John Woo—or a ten-year-old boy—could love), a clarinet-playing cop who teams up with an undercover loner (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) to take down a triad boss (Anthony Wong), shoot a lot of people, and rescue some adorable babies. Woo's worldview—overwrought, slightly homoerotic, with some entry-level metaphysics and psychology thrown in for good measure—may be reductive, but damn if it doesn't have a certain brutal grace to it; the way he turns the characters into bodies in motion—charging at one another, leaping through space, getting showered with shards of glass—is engrossing and often just plain beautiful. Screening as part of 50/50, the Film Center’s year-long series including a film from each year the theater has been open. (1992, 126 min, 35mm) [Ignatiy Vishnevetsky]
Wong Kar-wai’s FALLEN ANGELS (Hong Kong)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Friday, 7pm
Released on the heels of his international breakthrough, CHUNGKING EXPRESS, Wong Kar-wai’s FALLEN ANGELS was initially envisioned as a section of the earlier film. Expanded into its own exploration of loneliness and longing in the neon-colored and noir-inspired cityscape of Hong Kong, FALLEN ANGELS follows two intersecting stories of chance encounters. The first concerns a detached hitman (Leon Lai), who’s ready to quit killing for good, and his associate (Michelle Reis). They’ve never met, but she cleans for him and sends him his next assignments—she’s also completely infatuated with him, fantasizing about this mysterious partner as they exchange secret messages. The second story has a lighter and more comedic tone and features the partner’s cheerful neighbor (Takeshi Kaneshiro), a mute delinquent who still lives with his father. He roams the city at night breaking into various businesses, pretending to be the proprietor to unwitting customers in order to make money. He ends up helping—and falling for—Charlie (Charlie Yeung), who he meets after her boyfriend dumps her for another woman, leaving her heartbroken and out for revenge. The two stories spiral around each other as characters intersect in the neon-lit nightscape. Wong uses kinetic camera movements and canted wide-angled close-up shots to drive emotion and intensity—in one scene, blood drips down the lens. The camera traps the audience in the visual maze of the city while still whimsically expressing the characters’ sense of isolation and aching for connection. It is clear how the film is both an extension of CHUNGKING EXPRESS while still standing on its own as a noirish, melodramatic departure; the world of FALLEN ANGELS is simultaneously dark yet sweet, cool yet funny, where it’s always night and everything—including love—has an expiration date, though that doesn’t mean it is without significance. Encore screening, originally part of Doc’s Friday series: In the Mood for Wong Kar-wai. (1995, 99 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
John Sayles' MATEWAN (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 7pm
“You work, they don't. That's all you got to know about the enemy.” That's a striking line from Chris Cooper in his debut role as Joe Kenehan, a union organizer for the United Mine Workers of America. While Joe and other characters in the film are fictionalized, the struggles depicted in John Sayles' MATEWAN are far from make believe. The film covers the 1920 Battle of Matewan, which culminated in a shootout between coal miners and the Stone Mountain Coal Companies’ hired guns. Along the way, Sayles introduces us to all kinds of people, with various quirks and ways of life that cause friction. Some have their roots firmly planted in the area for generations, while others are immigrants looking for a new life or even scabs brought in by the coal company to undermine the striking workers. Though none of the conflicts in the film are unsurmountable, all it takes is some perspective to see we are all alike despite what they want you to think--again, “You work, they don’t.” The film is wonderfully crafted, every actor disappears into their role, and the ambience set for the particular period in West Virginia is perfect, with camp fires, folk songs, and the hum of cicadas. The cinematography from Chicago native Haskell Wexler, brings everything to life. The camera is placed in the right nooks and crannies to make a cramped mine feel alive with a spark strong enough to ignite the coal dust. This same energy isn’t particularly foreign to contemporary American audiences; just last month, we witnessed the first successful organization of Amazon employees by the Amazon Labor Union. The battle might not be waged with guns and explosions, but it is still ongoing, and films like MATEWAN will remain important as reminders that “You work, they don’t.” Screening as part of the Haskell Wexler Centennial series. (1987, 135 min, DCP Digital – New 4K Restoration) [Drew Van Weelden]
Joel Coen's THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH (US)
Facets Cinema – See Venue website for showtimes
With THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH, Joel Coen approaches the play in the moody and dark way I always imagined it. The film has killer performances from Denzel Washington as Macbeth (proving he's still at the top of his game) and Frances McDormand as a sinister and plotting Lady Macbeth. And then there’s the interesting tightrope that Coen walks with his choices; the film feels like it has one foot in the realm of theater and the other in film. There is a certain minimalist refinement to everything—sometimes a giant, empty room in a castle has more to say than one that is extravagantly decorated—and a sense of dread looms over everything, so you can really feel the weight of the Weird Sisters’ prophecy hanging over Macbeth. While other takes on the material have had these elements, Coen’s vision is certainly different than, say, the crazed long takes in Bela Tarr’s version. When giant budgets and availability of screens to show these films are thrown into the mix, I realize this conversation becomes more nuanced, but Coen shows that with a genuine vision, a new take on old material can be great even if we've already seen it adapted before. Perhaps it's a fate cast on me by the Weird Sisters, but if I’m doomed to see Macbeth's tragedy repeated time and time again, I can’t say I really mind. (2021, 105 mins, DCP Digital) [Drew Van Weelden]
Dušan Makavejev's WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM (Yugoslavia/West Germany)
Facets Cinema – Friday, 7pm
In addition to being a joyous articulation of Dušan Makavejev's radical politics, the free-form aesthetic of WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM conveys a sense of limitless possibility rarely felt in narrative film outside of musicals. Beginning as a documentary about the radical theorist Wilhelm Reich—a heretical student of Freud's who championed free-flowing sexual energy as a revolutionary force—the movie goes off in several directions that ponder how his ideas have resonated in the real world. These directions include documentary profiles of a transsexual named Jackie Curtis and Screw magazine publisher Al Goldstein, a guerilla musical starring Tuli Kupferberg of the Fugs, a cartoonish fictional story about sexual relations in Makavejev's native Yugoslavia, and (a constant in the director's work) satirical re-appropriations of Stalin-era propaganda. Makavejev, one of the most imaginative editors in cinema, intercuts between these elements so playfully it seems like he's making it up as he goes along. In actuality, the film is filled with rhymes, contradictions, and a symphonic sense of counterpoint. It's a near-inexhaustible work of art, forever young; whether this is the first or the tenth time you've seen it, you're guaranteed to pick up something new. Screening as part of the Milos’s Picks series in conjunction with Facets’ 47th anniversary celebration. (1971, 85 min, Digital Projection – Unconfirmed Format) [Ben Sachs]
Robert Eggers’ THE NORTHMAN (US)
Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes
Vikings are having a moment in pop culture, but Robert Eggers is less than thrilled. Saying that "recent television, film, and video game representations of Viking mythology and Old Norse culture are romanticized and made to look flashy and cool," he decided to make the ultimate Viking film, aiming for historical accuracy. But THE NORTHMAN plays more like an '80s action movie, full of macho masochism à la Mel Gibson and sporting a revenge-driven plot influenced by HAMLET that could be set in the present day—of course, with some major details changed. Prince Amleth (played by Alexander Skarsgard as an adult) watches his father (Ethan Hawke) murdered by his uncle Fjolnir (Claes Bang), leading to a lifelong vow of revenge. Years later, he disguises himself as a slave and arranges to be sold into servitude in Iceland, where Fjolnir rules. Toiling on Fjolnir’s farm, he bides his time till he can enact his revenge. But that conflict takes place in a world where reality and fantasy blend together and the worlds of humans and animals seem very close. For all the period research that went into it, THE NORTHMAN, like Eggers’ THE LIGHTHOUSE (2019), boils down to a conflict between two men; and like the earlier film, it risks succumbing to making the extensive world-building a background for that struggle. Yet THE NORTHMAN has a far more seductive look, embracing blatant artifice—if the crows in the first scene aren't CGI, they're giving the film's best performances—and monochrome tones through which a fire’s golden glow bursts. (Tinted silent cinema is a touchstone for this film's cinematography.) Like Eggers’ first two films, both period pieces, THE NORTHMAN combines a trippy tone with extremely detailed production design. It’s most intriguing when Eggers’ direction hints at a world where reality and fantasy blend together, with the style rejecting the rationalist tendencies of contemporary Europe. THE NORTHMAN tries to embody Viking culture instead of merely depicting it. The sound design is purposefully overwhelming, with music blending into foley effects. Eggers still hasn’t topped his debut, THE WITCH (2015), but he’s made the leap from A24 folk horror to a $90 million studio project without watering down or changing his aesthetic. (2022, 136 min, DCP Digital) [Steve Erickson]
🎞️ PHYSICAL SCREENINGS/EVENTS –
ALSO SCREENING
⚫ Block Cinema (at Northwestern University)
The opening night of “Like Water Through Stone: Celebrating Hamid Naficy” is on Thursday starting at 5:30pm with opening remarks, followed by a screening of Maryam Sepehri’s 2017 documentary MOUTH HARP IN MINOR KEY: HAMID NAFICY IN/ON EXILE (62 min, Digital Projection) and culminating in a keynote address by anthropologist and professor Michael M.J. Fischer. More info here.
⚫ Cinema/Chicago
Giuseppe Bonito’s 2021 Italian film A GIRL RETURNED (110 min, Digital Projection) screens on Tuesday at 6:30pm, at the Chicago History Museum (1601 N. Clark St.). Free admission with online registration. More info here.
⚫ Doc Films (at the University of Chicago)
Sean Ellis’ 2016 film ANTHROPOID (120 min, DCP Digital) screens on Saturday at 2:30pm as part of the two-part “Assassinating the Butcher of Prague: 80 Years since Operation Anthropoid” special event series.
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s 2022 film EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (146 min, DCP Digital) screens on Saturday at 7pm as part of the “New Releases” series.
Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 film WAITRESS (104 min, DCP Digital) screens on Sunday at 7pm as part of the “Food, the Common Tongue: Loves, Rages, and Delights of Gastro-Cinema” series. Check for updates and see more info on all screenings here.
⚫ Facets Cinema
Jill Godmilow’s 1978 documentary THE POPOVICH BROTHERS OF SOUTH CHICAGO (60 min, Digital Projection) screens on a loop during business hours through Sunday. More info here.
⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
Simon Curtis’ 2022 narrative film DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA (124 min, DCP Digital) and Stefan Forbes’ 2021 documentary HOLD YOUR FIRE continue this week. See Venue website for showtimes.
Chicagoland Shorts Vol. 8 screens on Sunday at 1pm and Tuesday at 8pm with featured filmmakers in-person for post-screening Q&As.
Andrew Davis’ 1993 film THE FUGITIVE (130 min, 35mm) screens on Monday at 6pm as part of 50/50, the year-long series including a film from each year the theater has been open.
The Wachowskis’ 1999 cyberpunk thriller THE MATRIX (136 min, 35mm) screens on Thursday at 7:30pm as part of the Control.Alt.Delete series, presented as part of Science on Screen, an initiative of the Coolidge Corner Theatre. More info on all screenings here.
⚫ Music Box Theatre
Alex Garland’s 2022 horror film MEN (100 min, DCP Digital) continues this week. See Venue website for showtimes.
Hsin-Yi Chang’s 1981 Taiwanese film THRILLING BLOODY SWORD (89 min, DCP Digital [new 2K preservation from the only known 35mm print]) screens on Friday and Saturday at midnight.
Brad Kofman’s 2022 mockumentary JAMBON ET FROMAGE (85 min, DCP Digital) screens on Sunday at 7pm, immediately followed by stand-up performances from the cast.
The Music Box Garden Movies series begins this week. See Venue website for list of films screening and showtimes.One night only, Philipp Virus’ 2021 documentary FREAKSCENE: THE STORY OF DINOSAUR JR. (82 min, DCP Digital) screens on Tuesday at 9:45pm.
David Cronenberg’s much-anticipated 2022 film CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (107 min, DCP Digital) formally opens Friday, June 3, with early screenings on Wednesday at 7pm and Thursday at 9:45pm. More info on all screenings here.
⚫ South Side Home Movie Project
The South Side Home Movie Project is participating in the Key/Change exhibition at the Weinberg/Newton Gallery (688 N. Milwaukee Ave.), ongoing through July 16. The exhibition centers on housing; per the event description, “silent home movies and idiosyncratic sculpture subsequently suggest that housing is a productive place in which intimate moments, lifelong memories, and nurturing meals are made and shared.” More info here.
🎞️ LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS
Sergei Loznitsa’s DONBASS (Ukraine)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
DONBASS is acutely aware of its existence as a thoroughly partial, mediated depiction of war in the east of Ukraine. The opening scene shows a woman having makeup applied, followed by another woman directing a cast of extras to run outside as a fake explosion goes off. The director’s commands have a military ring; like a drill sergeant, she shouts, “Follow my orders! Get a move on!” Is this a vision of the making of DONBASS itself? Only when the film’s final scenes return to the makeup trailer does the audience get a firm grip on the level of reality at work. DONBASS looks upon journalism as the most insidious version of fiction, showing camera crews shoot repeated takes and change camera angles to get traumatized people to play the most convincing versions of themselves. Since DONBASS is a narrative film, it feels freer than Loznitsa's documentaries to engage with our “post-truth” world. It's composed of 13 segments, sometimes connected by recurring characters, each introduced by an onscreen title relating the location. A woman accused of taking bribes barges into a meeting to dump a bucket of shit over a politician’s head. In the next scene, nurses protest the hoarding of food, medicine, and diapers in the hospital where they work while a slimy suit lies to them. Loznitsa risks caricaturing the separatists: for example, a scene where a helpless old man is crowded and beaten by young men would play quite differently if he were a macho soldier capable of fighting back or if we saw the graphic effects of the landmines he’s accused of planting. (The film features a great deal of onscreen cruelty but no gore.) Even in scenes with no physical threats, bullying is constant, as are people on opposing sides speaking at cross purposes. The fact that almost no characters are given names enhances the mood of dehumanization. Loznitsa mixes long takes (with the final scene taking this style to its limit) with cramped widescreen framings of crowds. DONBASS feels rooted in the dark satire and pissed-off mood of Vera Chytilova or Kira Muratova’s late films. The end offers no respite, just a withdrawal into a bird’s eye view of the media’s exploitation of terror that hints at an indictment of DONBASS itself. (2018, 121 min) [Steve Erickson]
🎞️ LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS –
ALSO SCREENING/STREAMING
⚫ Video Data Bank
“Spring with Mike Kuchar” is available to stream for free on VDB TV. The program includes Kuchar’s SUNLIT SORCERY (2022, 34 min), composed of his works ECHO’S GARDEN (2010), A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHTMARE (2008) and THE VERNAL ZONE (2008), and Oscar Oldershaw’s AN AFTERNOON WITH MIKE KUCHAR (2014, 32 min). More info here.
CINE-LIST: May 27 - June 2, 2022
MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Maxwell Courtright, Ray Ebarb, Steve Erickson, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Mike King, Josh B Mabe, Raphael Jose Martinez, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, Drew Van Weelden