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📽️ CRUCIAL VIEWING
George Cukor’s A STAR IS BORN (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Wednesday, 6pm
A STAR IS BORN is a uniquely popular film, as it was remade not once, but three times, each with a stellar actress whose compelling star persona works with and against the narrative to add dizzying complexity to an already self-referential story. Though other actresses excelled in their portrayals, no one (not even Barbra Streisand!) can match the star power and the vulnerability of Judy Garland in the 1954 version of A STAR IS BORN, which entrances with joy, passion, tears, and moments of goofy levity provided by Tommy Noonan (whom some will recognize from GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES). As was often the case with Garland's characters, STAR's Esther Blodgett is an ordinary but talented girl-next-door type who gets absorbed into a fantastic spectacle (c.f. THE WIZARD OF OZ, THE PIRATE). She's discovered by Norman Maine, played with pathetic, sometimes violent pathos by James Mason. Maine falls in love with Esther immediately and does everything in his waning power to help her make it in Hollywood. Their romance intensifies as she becomes wildly successful, but their relationship is doomed by Maine's nihilism and alcoholic depression. His career is waning, and his entire sense of self has been sublimated in his work. A STAR IS BORN offers no pat clichés about anything "fixing" Norman or about true love saving the marriage; indeed, in several monologues, the characters recognize that love is not enough and that Hollywood clichés about love conquering all are manufactured myths of the studio machine. It's interesting to read Norman Maine as a reflection of Judy Garland herself, with Vicky Lester (Esther's stage name) as her public persona and Maine as her private persona. At one point in the film, Garland even delivers a monologue about how sometimes she hates him and doesn't understand why he hates himself so much. Garland delivers the monologue with her typical melodramatic flair and vulnerability, but it takes on greater significance in light of her own troubled private life. A STAR IS BORN was Garland's first film after being fired from MGM in 1950 for her erratic behavior and substance abuse issues. She attempted suicide after her firing, and news of the attempt flooded the gossip columns and fan magazines—her private persona was made public more thoroughly than ever before. As directed by George Cukor—who, as a thinly closeted gay filmmaker, had his own sophisticated understanding of the differences between public and private personas—this 1954 production explores that public-private tension, both through Vicky Lester's stunning and joyous musical performances (most notably the finale) and the tearful, even tragic interactions that precede those performances. Richard Dyer, a queer theorist and film historian who wrote extensively on how viewers experienced films in relation to the stars, wrote a chapter on Judy Garland in his book Heavenly Bodies, emphasizing Garland's appeal for the nascent urban, gay male subculture of the 1950s and '60s. Dyer describes how during this time, when Garland was in severe physical decline from her years of substance abuse, she still sold out shows at the Palladium and Carnegie Hall—shows that were frequented by gay men and, I would add, the larger LGBTQ community (in the late 1960s, Garland was known to sing in a lesbian bar in the Village). Garland portrayed complex, androgynous performances several times in this film and many others; Dyer notes that when she performs, "Garland works in an emotional register of great intensity which seems to bespeak equally suffering and survival, vulnerability and strength, theatricality and authenticity, passion and irony.” Gay viewers read this into films like A STAR IS BORN as an allegory for passing as straight, as being something "in-between." That tension simmers throughout the film; Vicky feels like a failure as a woman for being unable to save Norman Maine, even though she excels as a (sometimes androgynous) star. A queer perspective renders especially poignant my favorite moment from the film: Garland's "live" and "spontaneous" performance of "The Man That Got Away," witnessed by Maine at the beginning of their love affair. The song is a prescient foreshadowing of what is to come: the man does, indeed, go away, and there's nothing Vicky can do to stop him. But what is palpable, arresting, and unmistakable is the utter joy and absorption that Garland emanates as she performs. Unlike Norman Maine, Judy Garland shone brightly, even in her last years, because despite everything, she lived most fully when she performed. Screening as part of the Judy Garland Summer Centennial series. (1954, 176 min, 35mm) [Alex Ensign]
Ely Landau’s KING: A FILMED RECORD… MONTGOMERY TO MEMPHIS (US/Documentary)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Friday, 7:30pm
Sidney Lumet and Joseph L. Mankiewicz both turned in uncredited directorial work on this epic documentary, but it seems more fitting to attribute authorship (as the film’s credits do) to producer Ely Landau. Like Landau’s subsequent project the American Film Theatre (1973-’75), KING: A FILMED RECORD seems motivated by the noble intention of bringing serious culture to a mass audience. It was originally released on March 24, 1970, as a one-night-only event, with all proceeds going to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Special Fund; as this was less than two years after King was assassinated, the release plan suggests something like a mass-scale memorial service. Yet the most remarkable thing about the movie may be that its artistry transcends its function as public service. Devoid of narration (though punctuated by short considerations from celebrities ranging from Harry Belafonte to Paul Newman), KING: A FILMED RECORD constructs its narrative from existing documentary material, allowing the history of King’s public work to play out in the present tense. The direct-cinema immediacy has lost none of its power; if anything, it reinforces King’s message that the struggle against bigotry and for equality is always with us. Acting in counterpart to the immediacy of the footage is the historic perspective King invoked in his speeches, some of the most eloquent ever delivered by an American. King invoked not just the historical precedents that shape our present lives, but also the history we are capable of making, and KING: A FILMED RECORD feels designed in part to preserve the awe his contemporaries felt of watching this heroic figure make history. The film recounts his most documented words and deeds as a public individual, often in uninterrupted long-takes that feel refreshing in contrast to the highly edited version of contemporary history we get from TV news. The epic length allows the filmmakers to consider multiple chapters of King’s tragically short life as a public individual, giving as much room to the political radicalization of the last few years of his life as it does to more celebrated moments like the Montgomery bus boycott or the 1963 March on Washington. KING: A FILMED RECORD presents in full statements from the last few years of King’s life where he condemned racism in Chicago, American military might abroad, and economic inequality everywhere. That many of these statements still feel relevant today is one reason why the film remains crucial viewing. (1970, 182 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
Jack Arnold's THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (US)
Chicago Film Society at Northeastern Illinois University (The Auditorium, Building E, 3701 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.) – Wednesday, 7:30pm
The line between science fiction and horror is often breached because humanity’s fear of the unknown has proven fertile soil for the fevered imaginations of sci-fi writers and filmmakers. The 1950s, of course, produced a slew of Atomic Age nightmares, as the science fact of massively destructive weapons merged with the paranoias of the time. This period in human and movie history also was awash in psychoanalysis, with Freudian theories all the rage in films of all types. The 1957 sci-fi/horror classic THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN is firmly rooted in these socioscientific concerns. The plot is propelled by environmental horrors. A radioactive cloud floats toward the boat where the title character, Scott Carey (Grant Williams), and his wife, Louise (Randy Stuart), are relaxing and coats him with a stardust sheen. Scott doesn’t start shrinking, however, until he is exposed to insecticide after they return home. While there is plenty of frightening action ahead, it is in the aftermath of these initial events that the film takes on more psychological and philosophical shading, and makes a pointed critique of a society slipping a straitjacket of conformity and wholesomeness over its citizens following the chaos and lingering malaise of World War II. Scott asserts his privilege as a white man in the very first scene by ordering his wife to get him a beer: “To the galley, wench. Fetch me a flagon of beer,” he jests. Unwittingly, he did the manly thing by saving her from getting dusted, but because his rescue was unintentional and unconscious, we know we are in Freud’s realm of the uncanny. Freud said, “The uncanny is anything we experience in adulthood that reminds us of earlier psychic stages, of aspects of our unconscious life, or of the primitive experience of the human species.” In Scott’s case, his body becomes childsize, reduced to dependence on and an infantile relationship with his wife. When he shrinks to the size of a doll, he takes up residence in a dollhouse, a feminizing situation, with his wife’s face looming over him like the overbearing mother’s in Woody Allen’s segment of NEW YORK STORIES (1989). When he becomes even smaller, he must rely on primitive instincts and strategies to survive in a once-familiar, but now alien and threatening environment. Based on Richard Matheson’s book The Shrinking Man, THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN offers the usual thrills and sexual tension that can be found in many of Arnold’s works. His brilliant use of oversize furniture and props, as well as optical printing to put Scott in the same frame as the enormous beings who surround and threaten him, create a convincing world through which we can empathize with Scott’s struggle. I was particularly taken with the gentle cat for which the Careys show obvious affection; its transformation into a dangerous beast chasing its own master seems the perfect metaphor for the destructive force of nature human beings unleashed upon themselves. With global warming filling our skies with the moisture of melting glaciers that cause mammoth hurricanes and biblical floods, the horror and timeliness of THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN cannot be overstated. Scott’s ultimate end puts the human condition into perspective—we are all doomed to join the cosmic dust from which the universe sprang. Preceded by the 1985 National Geographic Films short WORLD OF PETS: CATS (16mm). (1957, 81 min, 35mm) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Charles Walters’ SUMMER STOCK (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 2pm
No Hollywood genre has been as consistently self-reflexive as the musical, particularly the backstage musical, in which the dramatization of “putting on a show” evokes the production process of the film itself. As Jane Feuer has noted, these musicals operate ideologically to present mass entertainment as if it were as spontaneous and communal as folk performance, in effect effacing the capitalist labor conditions behind the work. SUMMER STOCK, the third and final onscreen pairing of Judy Garland and Gene Kelly, exemplifies this paradigm. Garland stars as Jane Falbury, a farmer whose bucolic existence is rudely interrupted by the arrival of a city theater troupe at her property. The troupe, led by Kelly’s Joe Ross, has been invited to rehearse at the barn by Falbury’s snooty actress sister Abigail (Gloria DeHaven). Although Falbury is engaged to the wimpy Orville Wingait (Eddie Bracken) and none too pleased with the hijacking of her farm, she eventually falls for Joe and becomes the star of his revue. With its title cleverly conflating artistic and agricultural labor--and with its valorization of the communal, “amateur” efforts of putting on a show--SUMMER STOCK promotes a romanticized image of mass entertainment as for and by the people. The insidiousness of such an illusion is particularly pronounced here due to the presence of Garland, who knew tragically well the actual costs of working in the industry (Kelly’s retort that her character doesn’t know what it’s like “rehearsing all day, knocking yourself out with the same routines” feels like a grim meta-textual joke). At the same time, the magic and magnetism of Garland and Kelly is very real, evident here as it was in their previous two paeans to show business, FOR ME AND MY GAL (1942) and THE PIRATE (1948). Against the simultaneously rustic and artificial sets by the great Cedric Gibbons, the pair get to perform a range of memorable numbers. Garland rides a tractor while singing “(Howdy Neighbor) Happy Harvest”; Kelly does a solo soft-shoe with some newspapers and a squeaky floorboard; and in the film’s most iconic scene, Garland dons a tuxedo jacket and nylons to belt out “Get Happy” amid a fawning circle of male dancers. SUMMER STOCK would be Garland’s final picture for MGM, as her worsening mental condition and the backstage dramas that compounded it led to the termination of her contract. Keep this in mind while the film asks you to “forget your troubles, come on get happy.” Screening as part of the Judy Garland Summer Centennial series. (1950, 109 min, 35mm) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]
Leo McCarey's MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Thursday, 7pm
MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW has a few champions from Chicago, namely David Kehr, Michael King, and Jonathan Rosenbaum, who has called it "the greatest [American] movie ever made about the plight of the elderly." Frankly, it deserves more. It is astounding that such a movie was even made. As Rosenbaum has pointed out the film bombed at the box office. We are a culture obsessed with youth. And film is a medium that only promotes our obsession by creating several illusions, including one where time has stopped and another where there is allegedly no barrier between the realities of how we look and our photographic representation. Director Leo McCarey ought to be applauded by us all for making a sensitive and honest film about issues confronting the elderly (and one that is likely even more relevant today than when it was made) when most of cinema seems to render them irrelevant or invisible. It is a great accomplishment. (1937, 92 min, 16mm) [Will Schmenner]
Frank Henenlotter's BRAIN DAMAGE (US)
Music Box Theatre – Tuesday, 7pm
Movies like BRAIN DAMAGE give schlock a good name. It’s crass but unpretentious, cheap but resourceful, and sick but imaginative. The film’s gross-out effects are every bit as disgusting as they aim to be, but then, this feels appropriate, as BRAIN DAMAGE is an overt metaphor for the hideousness of drug addiction. It centers on a young Manhattanite named Brian, who unwittingly becomes the host of a talking, phallic-shaped parasite. When the monster, Aylmer, bites Brian on the back of the head, a serum shoots into Brian’s brain that causes him to hallucinate and experience euphoria; in exchange for providing these sensations, Aylmer expects Brian to deliver human sacrifices so he can eat their brains. Brian quickly becomes addicted to Aylmer’s serum, and soon, there’s a trail of corpses all over New York’s late-80s punk scene. Henenlotter allegedly based the story on his own experience of cocaine addiction, and he balances the film’s gruesome horror with telling observations about the behavior of addicts. Note how Brian pushes away his girlfriend and his brother, the two people he loves the most, once he’s hooked on the serum—he can’t stand for them to see him at his lowest. There’s also a genuine sense of menace to the hellacious locales where Brian ends up in the throes of his addiction; the brain-eating scenes, on the other hand, are more disgusting than scary. (One sequence of Aylmer eating a victim’s brain by entering her body through her mouth—which anticipates the misbegotten climax of Tracy Letts’ play Killer Joe—was storied to have sickened even much of Henenlotter’s crew, who walked off the set in protest.) BRAIN DAMAGE is scuzzy and deliberately appalling, albeit in a knowing, authentic, and very New York kind of way; it would pair well with Abel Ferrara’s barely-a-vampire-movie THE ADDICTION (1995). And like much of Ferrara’s work, it delivers a more persuasive anti-drug statement than nearly any educational film with the same message. Screening on a double bill with Ed Hunt's 1988 horror film THE BRAIN (94 min, Unconfirmed Format) as part of Joe Bob Briggs' Indoor Drive-In Geek-Out. More info here. (1988, 86 min, Unconfirmed Format) [Ben Sachs]
📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED
James Fotopoulos’ TIMON (US/Experimental)
Comfort Film at Comfort Station – Wednesday, 8pm
Playing with the legendary, almost mythical character of Timon of Athens, James Fotopoulos' video piece strips everything down to abstraction. Made during lockdown in 2020, this video dances between the pure imagery of near-glitch art landscapes whose images are polarized to metered, measured performances by actors who filmed themselves at home under Fotopoulos' direction. Falling well on the outside of Paul Schrader’s "Tarkovsky Ring," TIMON feels like a museum video installation made without a museum to house it. This is art for the sake of art. We have looped soundscape audio mixed with flickering imagery. The actors' performances are knowingly artificial, often with stunted dialogue peeled from the pages of the classics by Richard Cumberland, Lucian, Herman Melville, William Painter, Plutarch, Thomas Shadwell, and Shakespeare. All of this creates an almost overwhelming artifice that manages to draw the viewer in while keeping them at arm's length. With its mechanical repetition, we almost feel like we’re taking the brunt of the famously misanthropic Timon himself. Are we being punished? Are we being tested by Fotopoulos? Or are we merely onlookers to the growing hatred of man that Timon slowly develops throughout his life? A true art film in every sense of the phrase, TIMON will no doubt alienate some while beguiling others—which is all an artist can really hope for. Screening with a collection of Fotopoulos’ shorts from 2019 – 2021. Free admission. (2020, 52 min, Digital Projection) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Murray Lerner’s FESTIVAL: FOLK MUSIC AT NEWPORT 1963–1966 (US/Documentary)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Thursday, 6pm
In 1958, George Wein, cofounder of the Newport Jazz Festival, invited several folk musicians to appear at his four-year-old festival to accommodate the growing interest in roots music that had been developing during the 1950s. Complaints from jazz fans and greater demand from the folk community led to the establishment of a separate Newport Folk Festival in 1959. Just as Bert Stern and Aram Avakian had done for the ’59 jazz festival by filming JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY (1959), Murray Lerner created FESTIVAL: FOLK MUSIC AT NEWPORT 1963–1966, which samples performances from four years of the Newport Folk Festival. Shot in black and white, FESTIVAL captures that folk revival period at its most vibrant. At the height of their popularity, Peter (Yarrow), Paul (Stookey), and Mary (Travers) are heard singing “Come and Go with Me” as the crowd of mostly young, white fans rush into the festival grounds. Peter, Paul and Mary get a fair amount of screen time, as do other icons of folk music like Pete Seeger and Judy Collins, whose rendition of the haunting “Anathea” is memorable. Joan Baez, the 18-year-old singer/songwriter who made a sensational debut at the first festival, returns the favor by introducing a very young Bob Dylan to the stage in 1963. Called out as the voice of his generation, one of those young people comments that he hopes Dylan will learn to enunciate—but it is said more affectionately than critically. That is not exactly the case when his electrified set in 1965 divides audiences, many of whom feel betrayed by his abandonment of acoustic roots music. After hearing many unforgettable examples of traditional folk music from the likes of Horton Barker, Cousin Emmy, Ronnie Gilbert, and Mimi and Richard Fariña, it’s easy to mourn the simple troubadour legacy from Europe they were carrying forward. Equally revealing are the direct associations to African music represented by Black musicians Odetta, the Georgia Sea Island Singers, the Swan Silvertones, and especially the Young Fife and Drum Corps, not to mention an actual performer from South Africa, Spokes Mashiyane. Delta blues from Son House and Mississippi John Hurt, who treats us to the infectious tune “Candy Man,” mix with the city blues of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and a wide array of protest music that defined the counterculture forming in the early ’60s issues from future teen idol Donovan, the Freedom Singers, and Buffy Sainte-Marie. I have never considered that there was really something called white culture in the United States, but the white roots musicians previously mentioned, Johnny Cash, the Osborne Brothers, and the Blue Ridge Mountain Dancers had me rethinking my position. I started getting nostalgic for my own youthful excursions to Chicago blues clubs when Chicago-born blues musician Mike Bloomfield, who played at the 1965 festival with Dylan and with the Butterfield Band, talked about his experiences at the many blues venues on the city’s South Side. Bloomfield is dismissive of the controversy over Dylan’s electrified performance, aware that music and musicians evolve to fit the times. Folk music and its variations had traditionally been at the forefront of protest movements, but where have all the anthems gone? More than rock music, the bombast of the 1980s splintered the audiences for punk, rap, and perhaps some other possible musical options that could have provided the unifying soundtrack to express our hopes and demands in this challenging time. Here’s hoping we get up and sing together again one day. Screening as part of the In Concert series. (1967, 98 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Bert Stern and Aram Avakian's JAZZ ON A SUMMER'S DAY (US/Documentary)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 7pm
The history of motion pictures is inextricably tied to the field of photography, beginning with the motion studies of English photographer Eadweard Muybridge in the 1870s and moving through the 20th and 21st centuries with such photographer/directors as Agnès Varda, Stanley Kubrick, Gordon Parks, Cindy Sherman, and Robert Frank. Bert Stern, producer/director of JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY, was, like Frank, a commercial and fashion photographer. He’s best known now for his photos of Marilyn Monroe, but in 1958 he was interested in making an experimental film during the simultaneously occurring Newport Jazz Festival and the 18th running of the America’s Cup. Perhaps he was inspired by the entry of the first experimental yachts to be allowed into the Cup competition and the eclectic mix of Dixieland, big band, cool jazz, gospel, blues, and even rock ’n roll artists slated to appear at the festival. Whatever his motivation, he and five other cameramen descended on the elite island getaway and ended up creating, with the expert editing of Aram Avakian, the progenitor of the modern concert film. Dancing reflections in harbor waters are accompanied by the staccato sax of Jimmy Giuffre, the valve trombone of Bob Brookmeyer, and the guitar of Jim Hall playing “The Train and the River” as the credits introduce the talents Stern will feature. Louis Armstrong and Mahalia Jackson get top billing. Gerry Mulligan, Dinah Washington, Chico Hamilton, and Anita O’Day follow, and then other featured performers and a host of expert sidemen. The film warms us to its subject as it tees up preparations for the start of the America’s Cup and the day’s concert. A Dixieland band literally blows their way into town in an antique jalopy and acts as our intermittent guides through the film. The battle on the waves, seen in random geometric formations from the air, is scored with Thelonious Monk’s magnificent “Blue Monk,” making one wish there were more tunes from this jazz pioneer. I wasn’t familiar with Anita O’Day before this film, and she seems a dainty woman here in a feathered hat, frill-bottomed shift, and white gloves. She gingerly negotiates some steps in a pair of Lucite, high-heeled mules, but from then on, there is nothing timid about her ingenious, pitch-perfect renditions of “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “Tea for Two.” Perhaps my favorite act of the film is the Chico Hamilton Quintet, most memorable to cinephiles as the combo that backs Martin Milner in SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957), performing the tribal-sounding, hypnotic “Blue Sands.” I was also thrilled to see Dinah Washington, a favorite singer of mine whom I’ve only known through recordings, smile her way through “All of Me.” Throughout the film, Stern’s directorial and photographic eye finds particular faces among the concertgoers—a man with a long cigar snapping his fingers, a mother and her young daughter enjoying Louis Armstrong’s banter and red-hot trumpeting, four African-American women swaying and snapping to Mahalia Jackson’s jubilant rendition of “Walk All Over God’s Heaven,” a young couple swing-dancing to Chuck Berry. These miniature portraits, as edited by Avakian, become something of a call-response between the musicians and the audience, building a feeling for the event that makes JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY more pleasurable with each viewing. Bert Stern never made another film, but that’s no cause for distress. Perfection’s hard to top. Screening as part of the In Concert series. (1959, 82 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Hong Sang-soo's IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE (South Korea)
Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes
Hong Sang-soo's work ethic is certainly one to aspire to, and his need to create always proves fruitful. IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE is a minimalist film, like much of Hong's work, but that doesn't mean the film lacks complexity or substance. To those unfamiliar with Hong’s oeuvre, it may appear that there isn't a lot going on here. It focuses on a former actress’ visit to her native country of South Korea, and unfolds mainly in two major parts. In the first, the actress visits with her sister to catch up; in the second, she meets with a director who is interested in casting her in a project. It sounds simple enough, but there's in fact a lot at play here. Hong's strength as a filmmaker lies in his ability to elevate everyday occurrences—for example, spilling soup on your pink blouse. This type of sequence could easily occur in any number of films; perhaps a giant, heaping pot of chili gets dumped on a person's chest or someone feels the horror of a stain before the first date. Where Hong excels is in bringing gravity to mundanity, finding a certain joy in the everyday, even in a goofy accident like spilt soup. If there is one blessing I gained from the pandemic, it’s the reminder to appreciate these immensely graceful mundanities, because now that the world has started spinning again it will be hard to stop it. (2021, 85 min, DCP Digital) [Drew Van Weelden]
Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson's SUMMER OF SOUL (US/Documentary)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Tuesday, 6pm
Attended by 300,000 people, the Harlem Cultural Festival was a free concert series held in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park) in the summer of 1969. Performers at the event included Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, Sly and the Family Stone, and Nina Simone. A celebration of Black music and history, the concert series and its cultural magnitude has been largely undiscussed, overshadowed by music festivals like Woodstock—which was held that same summer, one hundred miles away. The series was fully filmed, but footage remained unseen for years. Using that footage, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, in the musician’s debut feature film, directs SUMMER OF SOUL—subtitled …Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised—as part documentary and part concert film. Full performances are combined with interviews of attendees and musicians and archival material detailing the political and social climate in America at the time. Describing the specificity of Harlem as a community and the significance of the event to those participating, SUMMER OF SOUL grounds the vibrant and beautifully shot concert footage in robust context. It lets the variety of acts and musical genres and styles primarily be articulated in the outstanding stage performances and the reactions from the audience in the park. An early and incredibly effective moment in the documentary shows singer Marilyn McCoo of the 5th Dimension becoming emotional as she watches herself performing on the Harlem Cultural Festival stage; she so well expresses the significance of Black musicians playing music for a Black audience, a theme that runs throughout. SUMMER OF SOUL is an important reframing of the history of American 60s counterculture, a jubilant celebration, and a great reminder that music is not always just a reflection of challenging times but can also itself be revolutionary. Screening as part of the In Concert series. (2021, 117 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
Ramon and Silvan ZĂĽrcher's THE GIRL AND THE SPIDER (Switzerland)
Facets Cinema – See Venue website for showtimes
Nine years after their debut, THE STRANGE LITTLE CAT, the Zürcher twins have returned with a second feature. THE GIRL AND THE SPIDER’s first shot shows an architectural blueprint, setting the stage for their clinical yet anxious film. Beginning with Lisa (Liliane Amut) moving out into her own apartment, the first few minutes unfold simply enough, with Lisa's roommate Mara (Henriette Confurius) standing around as Lisa’s mother drops by to help and family, friends, and neighbors haul in a new couch and scrape away mold. But the Zürchers' style stands out. Their camera gets closer to objects than it does to people, who are shown in medium– or long-shot. The relationships between the characters turn increasingly enigmatic. The audience gets more information about them, but the film feels odder as a result. While Lisa and Mara were likely lovers and Lisa’s move spurred by their breakup, THE GIRL AND THE SPIDER never quite spells out their connection. The film repeats costume or makeup details—as different as a blue wig and herpes sore—passing them along from character to character. (A joke about wine pouring from Mara’s pierced lip is made literal through the image of wine spilling out from a cup when a pencil is removed.) The Zürchers’ direction gestures at the Kuleshov effect: one scene is edited to suggest a boy staring a topless woman, even though if one pays close attention, it becomes clear that the actors were filmed apart. THE GIRL AND THE SPIDER could’ve been a simple story of a breakup, but it establishes the difficulty of understanding other people’s emotions as its baseline. It revels in finding mystery and tension in the everyday, denying the audience a fully fleshed-out narrative. (2021, 99 min, DCP Digital) [Steve Erickson]
Mamoru Oshii's GHOST IN THE SHELL (Japan/Animation)
Music Box Theatre – Friday and Saturday, Midnight
Through miles and miles of cables, an unfathomable amount of data is created every day, and the horizon is plastered with copy-and-pasted skyscrapers looming silently above. It's 2029 Japan, and life is getting more complex every day. Take our main character: Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg public-security agent who ponders her identity in between chasing criminals. She’s not only concerned about what she is but also why she is. It's explained she has some sort of brain despite her body having been manufactured by a tech company, but her enhanced strength and senses come at the cost of knowing who she was or even if she was. It's all a bit confusing, frankly—the philosophical dialogue is delivered quickly and can be a bit dense—however, it works perfectly. Mamoru Oshii gets how our minds and bodies are constantly overloaded with work demands, social media blasts, food cravings, car horns, gunshots, and so on. But he offers brief reprieves from all this, like when Motoko takes a serene dip in the water outside the city despite the potential damage she could cause to her “shell.” The film takes such detours between action set pieces and heavy text; in other films, it could all get tiresome, but in this one, the pacing is perfect. The animation is no joke either—every scene is meticulously designed to create something particularly spectacular. After she gets embroiled in a case teeming with mystery and political intrigue, Motoko finds herself down a path that could help answer the questions plaguing her. She may be trapped in a system programming her purpose, but the virus of rebellion propagates slowly, perhaps even offering some sense of freedom. (1995, 83 min, DCP Digital) [Drew Van Weelden]
Phil Tippett’s MAD GOD (US)
Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes
There are passion projects and then there’s MAD GOD. Shot by Phil Tippett over a 33-year period, the film takes place in an enormously detailed apocalyptic dystopia that reflects his background as a special effects artist. Tippett cites Hieronymous Bosch’s paintings as his major influence, and this comes through in images like a diorama of bloodied bodies seen through a building. But cinematically, his vision suggests Alexei German’s HARD TO BE A GOD combined with the avant-garde animation of Jan Svankmajer and the Brothers Quay. Sans dialogue, MAD GOD stays just shy of becoming a narrative film, although the closing credits introduce us to characters like “Last Human,” “The Surgeon” and “The Assassin.” It’s possible to piece together fragments of a story, as the film’s key scene depicts a brutally bloody C-section that destroys the mother’s body and sprays the surroundings with gelatinous gore but retrieves an insectile baby. The world of MAD GOD is populated by humans alongside other creatures both real and imagined. The credits include “newt wrangler,” while jellyfish float past poisonous chartreuse mushrooms. But MAD GOD devotes most of its energy to building a brutal, oft-ugly world one step away from utter collapse. Its cities are made of buildings that are toppling over and turning into flakes of grey dust; the powerful don’t hesitate to crush humanoid figures under their wheels; and a pustule-faced creature watches film of a mushroom cloud exploding. Tippett, now 70, was the subject of a 2019 documentary and has benefited from a lengthy career specializing in stop-motion animation, working on the original STAR WARS trilogy, JURASSIC PARK and STARSHIP TROOPERS. However, MAD GOD has little to do with such mainstream films, even Verhoeven’s. It feels like a strange, impeccably crafted piece of outsider art inspired by disgust with war and environmental destruction, carrying the weight of obsession but made with enough resources to bring its homemade world to life. Even as a brief feature, it’s too grim and unpleasant to be reduced to eye candy. Its imagery transcends the literal tendency of film violence, describing a hellish devaluation of life that alludes to the Holocaust and other historical horrors without directly depicting them. (2021, 83 min, DCP Digital) [Steve Erickson]
D.A. Pennebaker's DON'T LOOK BACK (US/Documentary)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Friday, 7pm
A driving force in the Direct Cinema movement, D.A. Pennebaker made his reputation with this 1967 film about Bob Dylan on the road in England. Taking place almost exclusively in hotel suites, green rooms, and the crowded back seats of taxis, we simply sit in the corner and watch. Since we don't see too much of the streets, it's as if we jump from city to city, and one night is only differentiated from the others by the cast of characters and the choice of liquor. The Star holds court with soon-to-be ex-girlfriend Joan Baez, Alan Price (the Animals), and most iconically, a young Donovan, who is put firmly in his place as a lesser artist when Dylan's insecurity and arrogance manifest themselves on screen. The film takes us along for the ride as the camera rolls without much intervention, and we march towards a final concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Scenes play out slowly, and we often don't notice the tension building as Pennebaker's deft editing makes it seem like real time. It is a simple portrait of the artist at 23, and it gave the public a taste of life on the road with Dylan without shying away from his negative traits. Dylan now claims he was acting throughout the film but eloquently sums up the Pennebaker approach to documenting when he tells a Time magazine reporter, "The truth is just a plain picture." Screening as part of the In Concert series. (1967, 96 min, DCP Digital) [Jason Halprin]
Xavier Giannoli’s LOST ILLUSIONS (France/Belgium)
Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes
One reason why Honoré de Balzac was a great writer is that he described almost all characters in a way that readers across time and place can recognize the behavior in people they’ve met. Not for nothing did Balzac name his career-long project, an encyclopedic study of French society in the first half of the 19th century, The Human Comedy; his ultimate concern was humanity as a whole. Unfortunately, the universal nature of Balzac’s wisdom is difficult to translate to cinema, as the seventh art thrives in specific sights and sounds. This may explain why there are few major film adaptations of Balzac despite the writer's prodigious output of nearly 100 novels and novellas. Xavier Giannoli’s LOST ILLUSIONS is about as good as one could expect from a straightforward Balzac film adaptation. It successfully captures the flavor of the book (one of the author’s most important individual works), re-creating its sociological perspective, cynicism, eroticism, and conservative humor; but Giannoli and his able cast and crew can only hint at the scope and intricacy of Balzac’s novel, which charts the rise and fall of a young writer from southwestern France who goes to Paris in search of fame and fortune. In some of the most compelling scenes, Giannoli simply has a narrator deliver Balzac’s witty, incisive prose in voiceover while the images illustrate what’s being said. These opulent moments get at the book’s portrait of Parisian literary society as a complex network of friendships, pseudo-friendships, rivalries, and sham rivalries—a network in which every public gesture has potentially drastic repercussions. Given this environment, most of the characters are pathologically self-aware, and this provides an opportunity for the actors in any adaptation of Lost Illusions to really George Sanders it up with acidic, blasé performances. Playing two of the hero's enemies, Xavier Dolan and Jeanne Balibar work the best in Sanders mode, while Cecile de France and Salomé Dewaels deliver effective turns as the hero’s naive lovers. Indeed, Giannoli’s LOST ILLUSIONS is basically an actors’ showcase, which isn’t a bad way to represent Balzac’s character-driven writing. Yet the more precise the characterizations get, the more the movie veers from Balzac’s theme of how all creative institutions (if not all creative types) are susceptible to corruption by money and social influence. Still, this Masterpiece Theater-style digest of great literature is exceedingly lively and sexy. (2021, 150 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
David Cronenberg’s CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (Canada)
Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes
David Cronenberg is the most phenomenological of directors. I never feel more aware of being human, more embodied than while watching his films. This is certainly spurred on by his visual body horror, but it’s also found in his fascinating themes about what it means to exist—about consciousness being firmly grounded in the corporeal and whether technology amplifies or obstructs that experience. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE is this Cronenberg at his best, with themes from his previous films coalescing and evolving into something new. Particularly reminiscent of his last true body horror, eXistenZ (1999), where video game consoles are essentially external organs, CRIMES OF THE FUTURE imagines technology as textured and tangible, beautiful and grotesque; with a lot to admire in the film, the viscerally stunning design of the futuristic technologies stands out. It's set in a dystopian future where humans are mutating so they no longer feel pain, surgeries are performed on the streets and new government agencies like the National Organ Registry are founded. Kristen Stewart’s Timlin, an enthusiastic and awkward assistant at that agency, is the highlight in a film of striking and funny performances. But the protagonist here is Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen). He and his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux) are well-known performance artists, sensually using Saul’s body— primarily the unique organs he can grow—as their canvas. They find themselves at the center of a secretive conflict about humanity’s future —will these strange new mutations be stopped or is there a leaning into the evolution? The plot draws heavily on neo-noir, as Saul covertly slinks through the city, trying to uncover secret factions at work. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE is overall claustrophobic; this dilapidated future is rich with dark corners, shadows, and crumbling structures. At one point a character speaks of the interior of the body as "outer space," suggesting the external world is empty compared to what’s going on inside. The science-fiction world of CRIMES OF THE FUTURE is completely realized, but expertly reveals only so much of its secrets, leaving one with the disappointment that it must end and an eagerness to revisit all of Cronenberg’s work. (2022, 107 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
🎞️ PHYSICAL SCREENINGS/EVENTS –
ALSO SCREENING
âš« Cinema/Chicago
Seán Breathnach’s 2021 Irish drama SHELTER (93 min, Digital Projection) screens on Wednesday, 6:30pm, at the Chicago History Museum (1601 N. Clark St.). Free admission with online registration. More info here.
âš« Doc Films (at the University of Chicago)
James Fotopoulos’ 2018 film TWO GIRLS (100 min, DCP Digital) screens on Friday at 5pm and Saturday at 8:30pm. More info here.
âš« Gene Siskel Film Center
Rebecca Huntt’s 2021 autobiographical documentary BEBA (79 min, DCP Digital) continues this week.
As part of the In Concert series, Michael Wadleigh’s 1970 documentary WOODSTOCK: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT (216 min, 35mm) screens on Sunday at 1pm; D.A. Pennebaker’s 1968 documentary MONTEREY POP (79 min, DCP Digital) screens on Monday at 2:30pm; and Bill and Turner Ross’ 2016 documentary CONTEMPORARY COLOR (97 min, DCP Digital) screens on Thursday at 8pm. More info on all screenings here.
âš« Music Box Theatre
The Music Box Garden Movies series continues. See Venue website for list of films screening and showtimes.
Dean Fleischer-Camp’s 2022 film MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON (89 min, DCP Digital) continues, while Christos Nikou’s 2021 Greek film APPLES (90 min, DCP Digital) begins this week.
Stacey and Michael’s Showcase of Shorts screens on Thursday at 7pm. More info on all screenings here.
âš« 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 –
ALSO SCREENING/STREAMING
âš« Video Data Bank
“This Must Be the Space: A Video Conversation on Artist-Run and Artist-Inhabited Spaces,” curated by Emily Eddy, is available to stream for free on VDB TV. The program includes Videofreex’s ME’S AND YOUSE (1971, 4 min) and LAINESVILLE TV NEWS BUGGY (1972, 16 min); Nazli Dinçel’s UNTITLED (2016, 12 min); Glenn Belverio’s BAD GRRRLS (1993, 29 min); George Kuchar’s VERMIN OF THE VORTEX (1996, 22 min); Anne McGuire’s ALL SMILES AND SADNESS (1999, 7 min); and Tom Rubnitz’s FROM THE FILES OF THE PYRAMID COCKTAIL LOUNGE (1983, 6 min). More info here.
CINE-LIST: July 1 - July 7, 2022
MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Alex Ensign, Steve Erickson, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Jason Halprin, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, Raphael Jose Martinez, Will Schmenner, Drew Van Weelden