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📽️ CRUCIAL VIEWING

Vincente Minnelli's THE PIRATE (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Wednesday, 6pm

The Hollywood studio system at its giddy, most imaginative best. Vincente Minnelli and producer Arthur Freed were at the height of their creative powers when they made the film; in the years leading up to it, they created two of the boldest musicals in the Hollywood canon, MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944) and YOLANDA AND THE THIEF (1945). These films, like THE PIRATE, use color and decor in such expressive ways that they may be appreciated on formal grounds alone—which is why Minnelli, despite his mastery as a storyteller, merits comparison with important avant-gardists like Kenneth Anger. Most importantly, THE PIRATE is a testament to the life-changing power of art. Gene Kelly plays a traveling musical-theater performer whose company docks on a small Caribbean island; he falls in love with Judy Garland’s character, Manuela, who has been pledged by her aunt to marry the island’s boorish mayor. Manuela fantasizes about being taken away by the famous pirate Mack the Black, and Kelly, in an effort to seduce her, pretends to be him. Kelly’s make-believe leads to genuine changes in the characters’ lives, which are expressed in wonderful song-and-dance numbers that rank among the best MGM created. (Cole Porter wrote the songs, and Kelly directed the athletic, frequently breathtaking choreography.) THE PIRATE’s production went way over budget, and it lost the studio over two million dollars; at the time of its release, it was regarded as a flop. Yet the movie has aged remarkably well, not only because of its brilliant filmmaking, but also because of its enduring message of art bettering life, a very personal theme for Minnelli, one of the cinema’s greatest aesthetes. Screening as part of the Judy Garland Summer Centennial series. (1948, 102 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]

Charles Swickard and William S. Hart’s HELL’S HINGES (Silent/US)

Chicago Film Society at the Music Box Theatre – Saturday, 11:30am

Though at an ideological remove from the moralistic underpinnings of Charles Swickard and William S. Hart’s HELL’S HINGES—or any of Hart’s righteous Westerns in which he, as the fabled good badman, endeavors to preserve “some of the things in our American life that are being lost in the dust of time,” per the rugged evangelist’s own words—I can’t help but be enthralled by the fervor with which this technically silent but nevertheless thundering film pontificates its oversimplified exhortation. Considered by many to be the pièce de résistance of Hart’s prolific career (late Chicago Tribune critic Michael Wilmington went so far as to call it “perhaps the finest movie Western made before John Ford's 1939 STAGECOACH”), the film centers on Hart’s Blaze Tracy, an impenitent gunslinger who, along with a debauched saloon owner, are the most godless men in a frontier town packed to the brim with saturnalian heathens. When a Reverend named Henley and his sister Faith (Clara Williams) descend upon Hell’s Hinges to spread the gospel, the two ruffians form a tentative alliance to ward off the do-gooders, who aim to build a church and bring organized religion to the wild West. At just over an hour, the markedly austere film is likewise ardently economical in how its plot develops; in addition to experiencing love at first sight, Blaze seems to undergo a metaphysical transformation upon merely seeing Faith, a comely maiden with only goodness in her heart. Faith’s brother, on the other hand, is not as pietistic, thus proving an easy target for the saloon owner to corrupt with his arsenal of vices. Things come to a head when the reverend goes mad following a drunken night spent in the bed of Delilah, after which the town’s two factions—the sinners and the saints—get into a brawl, resulting in the destruction of that which each side glorifies most ardently, the saloon and church, respectively. The sublimely overwrought intertitles of C. Gardner Sullivan, an acclaimed scenarist and a favorite of producer Thomas H. Ince (who gave the writer an uncommon amount of control by demanding that his texts be produced exactly as written), accounts for the film’s near-scriptural severity; like a religious artifact, one can objectively admire its divine beauty and broad allegorical meaning, both reinforced here by a spartan yet assured aesthetic. Preceded by Hart’s 1915 silent short THE RUSE (22 min, 16mm). Both with live accompaniment by Dennis Scott. (1916, 64 min, 35mm) [Kat Sachs]

Bette Gordon’s VARIETY (US)

Chicago Film Society at Northeastern Illinois University (The Auditorium, Building E, 3701 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.) – Wednesday, 7:30pm

There have been two great films about women working in porn theaters to enjoy revival within the past few years: Marie-Claude Treilhou's Paris-set SIMONE BARBÈS OR VIRTUE (1980) and Bette Gordon’s VARIETY (1983), the latter of whose protagonist takes tickets at one of New York City’s porn palaces of a grittier, pre-Giuliani yesteryear. Both are excellent, though the films have only superficial elements in common; where Treilhou's SIMONE BARBÈS is almost Varda-esque in its sexual and sociological whimsy, VARIETY is both more erotic and more alienating with regards to its protagonist’s concupiscent transformation. Sandy McLeod stars as Christine, an unemployed woman who learns of a job selling tickets at a porn theater, called Variety, from her bartender friend Nan (played by Nan Goldin). At first the job seems like an opportunity for bemusing anthropological study, an edgy but still suitable fortuity for Christine, whom it’s hinted at is a writer of some sort. But Variety soon yields an object of obsession for her: a mysterious, wealthy older man, a Michel Piccoli-type per Gordon’s own admission, who takes her to a baseball game only to leave midway through, after which Christine begins following him all around New York and even to Asbury Park, New Jersey. Her interest in the enigmatic businessman—who may or may not be a mafioso taking part in the fishmonger’s union scuffle that Christine’s journalist boyfriend (Will Patton) is investigating—is at once passive and acute, much like the gaze of the men looking at women on or behind the screens at Variety and other such voyeuristic establishments. Passive more so initially, as she quietly follows the man and begins making herself up more provocatively in the confines of her miniscule studio apartment; acutely in bewildering erotic monologues she delivers to her disinterested boyfriend and her increasingly erratic behavior toward this inexplicable object of her desire. Gordon, working from a script by Kathy Acker based on an original premise by the director, doesn’t just reverse the gaze but wholly assumes it, universalizing the elements of desire that compel us in our day-to-day lives and sometimes account for violent outbursts of yearning. It’s in this universalization—this wink to knowing audiences that women can and do have the same sexual impulses as men—that the protagonist is empowered and, by extension, those who identify as women in the audience, all of us satisfied in having reflected back to us our own prurient attraction and its mystifying impact. The cinematography by John Foster and future Jim Jarmusch collaborator Tom DiCillo emphasizes the sordid beauty of live-nude-girl sleaze, and music by John Lurie renders sonically what it means to look, to lurk, and to desire. Cinephiles are undoubtedly aware of how a movie theater can change you; it’s in her ticket booth, compressed between public and private spheres of desire, that Christine begins to realize her own. Preceded by James Benning and Bette Gordon’s 1973 short film MICHIGAN AVENUE (7 min, 16mm). (1983, 100 min, 35mm) [Kat Sachs]

Hou Hsiao-Hsien's FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI (Taiwan/Japan)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Monday, 6pm

Is it surprising that Hou Hsiao-hsien should pivot from a series of films exploring the reverberations of Taiwanese history (CITY OF SADNESS; GOOD MEN, GOOD WOMEN) to one of the most insular, claustrophobic, and beguiling period films ever made? Set in a high-end brothel towards the end of the 19th century, FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI refuses assimilation, refuses any convenient context or trajectory. (To paraphrase Joyce, history is a nightmare from which no one particularly cares to awake.) Perhaps its true place is alongside the virtuoso, set-bound films of earlier era: Sternberg's THE SHANGHAI GESTURE and ANATAHAN, or Fejos' BROADWAY. Despite its languorous obscurity, FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI exercised a profound influence over the festival cinema of the decade that followed: Wong's IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE abandoned the hyperkinetic style of Christopher Doyle for the slow-burning ambiance of cinematographer Mark Ping Bin Lee, the place-bound rigor echoed throughout Tsai's GOODBYE DRAGON INN and Nolot's PORN THEATER, and Bonnello's L'APOLLONIDE was essentially an R&B remix. Viewed today, FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI also seems like a particularly stubborn tribute to the hard physicality of celluloid itself—a delicately choreographed reverie of 19th century wonder with a world of unspeakable sex and violence just outside the frame. Screening as part of 50/50, the Siskel’s year-long series including a film from each year the theater has been open. (1998, 125 min, DCP Digital) [K.A. Westphal]

John Waters' PINK FLAMINGOS (US)

Music Box Theatre – Thursday, 9:45pm

Even by today’s more desensitized standards, PINK FLAMINGOS retains its shock value. Babs Johnson (Divine) wears her tabloid-branded moniker “Filthiest Person Alive” with great pride. Living in a trailer park with her toddler-like mother Edie (Edith Massey), son Crackers (Danny Mills), and roommate Cotton (Mary Vivian Pearce) somewhere in the sticks just outside Baltimore, Babs is hiding from society and authorities due to her countless crimes, which includes murder. Meanwhile, perverted couple Connie and Raymond Marble (Mink Stole and David Lochary) are outraged by Babs’ title—deeming themselves to be the filthiest—and set out to usurp her dubious designation. In a series of ever-escalating scenes more revolting than the last, the Marbles and Babs and her cohorts engage in a battle of one-upmanship. Waters’ film subverts damn near all societal norms and employs an almost cinéma vérité style of filmmaking, particularly in shots of Babs/Divine walking around town with onlookers gawking. No topic is too taboo here. Besides the infamous dog-poo scene, scenes featuring cannibalism, fetishes of all varieties, and rape also feature. This is a film not for the faint of heart—like a pig rolling around in its own filth and loving every second of it, PINK FLAMINGOS knows that it is trash, but glorious, artful trash. It’s not surprising that this is the film that brought John Waters (and Divine) out of underground cinema obscurity and into a broader collective consciousness. Presented by Ramona Slick and Rated Q - A Celebration of Queer, Camp, & Cult Cinema. Enjoy pre-show drinks and a DJ set in the Music Box Lounge at 9pm. (1972, 93 min, DCP Digital) [Kyle Cubr]

Martin Scorsese's GOODFELLAS (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Friday, 6pm and Sunday, 4pm

This widely favored bildungsroman, which often seems to clasp the key to understanding (second-generation, male) America in an unattainable 1.85:1 crucible, remains a worthy artifact of interrogation in these cold days before, for example, the semi-inevitable Oscar crowning of the comparatively meaningless domestic allegory TRUE GRIT. (This review was originally published in 2011 –eds.) While that latter film's ahistorical confrontation between isolated orphans and arbitrarily evil cowboy bandits might satisfy a sophisticated sixth-grader's definition of justice, GOODFELLAS rewrites the much-maligned "gang" (and its most infamous, yet imaginary superstructure: "The Mafia") into something understandable or even deeply familiar. For Sicilian immigrants were unknown peasants in an alien world. And as it turns out, reciprocal networks of both the threat and implementation of violence can become sustainable—even thriving—subcultures in the absence of feudal tyranny; the requisite decline of state-sponsored physical coercion slowly became a reality in 19th-century Sicily and it was certainly a reality on the streets of Depression-era East New York. The film is a mid-20th-century cross-section of this phenomenon: a charting of the coming to power of one man in this mafioso style (a style that might seem offensive to those who believe that social order is a product of police men). Ray Liotta's Henry Hill holds our hand, seducing us at every stage of (juvenile) development: at first by those things that "fall off of trucks," and then by the preposterous excesses of social capital (after a mythical one-take palm-greasing journey through the back door of the Copacabana, confiding to his girlfriend that he's "in construction"). At maturity, the insatiate id and the hyperrational ego (Joe Pesci and Robert DeNiro) erupt in violent chaos: unable to negotiate with an increasingly juridically-minded state apparatus, our unreliable narrator must race to dispatch his extended family to the gallows. Scorsese's crucial narrative achievement is the meticulous setting of each sequence to diegetically-appropriate pop music as if it were an arranged marriage, and vividly portrays Hill's climactic coke/ziti-fueled breakdown as the ultimate Stones/Nilsson megamix. Screening as part of the Remembering Ray [Liotta] series. (1990, 146 min, 35mm) [Michael Castelle]

George Cukor’s A STAR IS BORN (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 2pm

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]

Michael Glover Smith's RELATIVE (US)

Chicago Filmmakers – Saturday, 7pm

In his writing on movies, both here at Cine-File and elsewhere, Michael Glover Smith has advanced an acute understanding of how the framing of performers in narrative cinema can underscore the emotions they express and how camera movement (or, put another way, the re-framing of performers in time) can develop viewers’ relationships to onscreen characters. Smith’s features as writer-director seem to grow directly out of his insights in this area—deceptively “dialogue-driven,” they express their greatest eloquence not with words but with mise-en-scène. It matters in RELATIVE whether the principal characters are together in the same shot or whether they’ve been individuated by close ups; it matters whether we can distinguish who’s in the background of a shot or whether those characters have been obscured. These things matter because the film is ultimately about the competing forces of community and individuality that shape our identities in 21st-century life and how we navigate between them almost constantly. The action in RELATIVE covers a few days before, during, and after a young man’s college graduation party on Chicago’s far north side, a celebration that draws his two older sisters from out of state and his older brother (a divorced Iraq War veteran who’s been slowly self-destructing for the past four years) out of seclusion in their parents’ basement. Smith gracefully interweaves the lives of all four siblings, their liberal Baby Boomer parents, and a handful of other characters as they come together amiably and unhurriedly, employing the time-honored scenario of the big family gathering to consider how many of us live at the dawn of the 2020s. Not surprisingly, the internet factors into things (though thankfully not too much); so too do food co-ops, queer-straight alliances, and the social normalization of weed. Yet Smith has more on his mind than enumerating aspects of the zeitgeist; RELATIVE is also concerned with the legacy of the Baby Boom generation and, more generally, how each generation honors the previous one while taking a seemingly opposite approach to life. Yasujiro Ozu is an obvious reference point for this sort of laidback family portrait, though I was reminded more of critic-turned-filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier’s A SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY (1984) in the low-key sociological thrust of the drama and of the first episode of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s recently rediscovered miniseries EIGHT HOURS DON’T MAKE A DAY (1972-’73) in the polyphony of the extended graduation party sequence. For all its international flavor, however, RELATIVE is a local production first and foremost, reflecting its maker’s deep affection for the neighborhoods he calls home. Followed by a Q&A with Smith and actress Elizabeth Stam, moderated by critic Cati Glidewell. (2022, 97 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

Jonathan Demme’s NEIL YOUNG: HEART OF GOLD (US/Documentary)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Thursday, 6:30pm

In interviews for his concert film HEART OF GOLD, Neil Young made clear that he sought out Jonathan Demme to direct it because he considered Demme’s Talking Heads concert film STOP MAKING SENSE (1984) the greatest movie of its kind. Dave Kehr rightly praised the earlier film for advancing an “enlightened humanism” that “neither deifies the performers nor encourages an illusory intimacy, but presents the musicians simply as people doing their job and enjoying it.” That sensibility remains evident in HEART OF GOLD, which demonstrates again how much you can learn about a musician by simply watching them play their instrument. Demme lingers over each of the many players here with great affection, whether famous pros like Ben Keith and Spooner Oldham or the stagehand who creates a cinematic effect on “Harvest Moon” by rhythmically sweeping a broom. Barring a brief prologue, there are no interviews or other interruptions to the flow of songs; nonetheless, that prologue dramatically shapes everything that follows. We learn that Young recorded the album Prairie Wind (whose songs form the bulk of HEART OF GOLD) in the week before he underwent surgery for a brain aneurysm, fully aware that he didn’t have a 100% guarantee of surviving the operation. The songs on Prairie Wind confront aging and mortality in the vulnerable, plainspoken manner for which Young is renowned; yet the lush country arrangements (which harken back to earlier Young LPs Harvest and Harvest Moon) lend the sentiments an epic sweep. A recurring theme in the lyrics is finding comfort in tradition and community; the performances represent the winning fulfillment of that theme, as most of the musicians here (who at one point number a couple dozen) have known Young for decades and perform with him to express their friendship. Demme never overstated his themes, and HEART OF GOLD succeeds as a paean to the life-saving power of music because it shows, simply and incontrovertibly, how this group of people stay alive through their songs. Screening as part of the In Concert series. (2006, 103 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]

📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED

Leo McCarey's MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (US)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Friday, 8:30pm

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]

D.A. Pennebaker’s ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS (UK)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Friday, 9pm

In 1973, David Bowie would give his last performance as Ziggy Stardust on the final stop of his world tour in London. D. A. Pennebaker successfully captures the show, along with backstage moments that reveal a tired yet cheerful Bowie. I feel that a good concert film rises above merely emulating or reliving a show. It's hard to put a finger on what exactly separates something like Pennebaker’s film and a YouTube live stream of Lollapalooza, but what he put together is truly great. (This is no easy feat and my criteria for grading is pretty high; STOP MAKING SENSE is a film that I revisit multiple times a year.) With ZIGGY STARDUST, Pennebaker reflects what Bowie was about in 1973, his flamboyant outfits and unbound creativity on full display. Pennebaker emphasizes this by cutting between the audience and tight shots of Bowie’s intense gaze as he sings. The crowd is either pulsating in fervor or hypnotized by the alien band before them, like during one particularly amazing moment where a hanging disco ball reflects off a young man's glasses while Bowie performs "Space Oddity." The tight shots of Bowie, a byproduct of poor lighting in the venue, are perhaps what elevates the film from a mere documentation to something more intimate. By the end, you’ll feel like you know Bowie in a way that you couldn't gain from a talking head interview. Of course, even if the film was a static wide shot of a stage, it would be worth watching. David Bowie was just that good. Screening as part of the In Concert series. (1979, 90 min, DCP Digital) [Drew Van Weelden]

Mel Stuart's WATTSTAX (US/Documentary)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 7:30pm

Nominally an archival documentary of the Wattstax Music Festival in 1972, the best sequences have nothing to do with the musicians on stage. Yes, there's Isaac Hayes, bedecked in a vest of golden chains, singing a languid version of "Theme from Shaft" to a filled Los Angeles Coliseum. And there's a fire-eyed Rufus Thomas performing "Do the Funky Chicken" before conducting the crowd back to their seats. But these performances act as a platform for a thematic distillation of black identity during the Black Power movement, seven years after the Watts Riots. Between freewheeling concert footage, Stuart (FOUR DAYS IN NOVEMBER, WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY), or more likely his black cameramen, ventured into Watts to interview its residents about their thoughts on love, the blues, language, style, and life in the neighborhood after the riots. The interviews feel as if they hit each touchstone of stereotypical black culture: a man's afro is preened in a barbershop while another discusses the power of Christ. One particularly gripping and frantically shot sequence features churchgoers brought to tears and delirious convulsions by The Emotions' rendition of "Peace Be Still." At the concert, Stuart's use of the zoom lens isolates women's curves and intricate Black Power handshakes from across the Coliseum, as if studying a new breed with a new language. All this might be unseemly were it not for WATTSTAX's purposed assertion that "Black is Beautiful." It is a refrain heard in Jesse Jackson's recitation of "I Am – Somebody" and rounded by Richard Pryor's withering, humorous critiques of the stereotypes portrayed. Screening as part of the In Concert series. (1973, 103 min, DCP Digital) [Brian Welesko]

Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat’s OFFICIAL COMPETITION (Spain)

Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema and the Wilmette Theatre (1122 Central Ave., Wilmette) – Check Venue websites for showtimes

The film community loves nothing more than gazing upon itself. Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat’s droll comedy, OFFICIAL COMPETITION, makes that narcissism literal with a gallery of mirrors in most scenes reflecting the all-star cast of Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, and Oscar Martínez back at themselves. Cruz plays director and film festival darling Lola Cuevas who has cast actors with decidedly different viewpoints on their craft in her latest film—acting snob Iván Torres (Martínez) and mainstream Hollywood action star Félix Rivero (Banderas). The trio is rehearsing an adaptation of a novel by a Nobel Prize winner commissioned by a pharmaceutical mogul (the magnificent José Luis Gómez) who wants to leave a lasting legacy of cultural significance. The rivalry between the popular and pretentious actors, as well as the psychologically obscure exercises Lola puts them through (the experiment with sound is a telling and hilarious gag) make this comedy both knowing for cinephiles and accessible for the average film fan. I especially enjoyed how Cruz plays with the image created for her in so many of her collaborations with Pedro Almodóvar, as well as the kind of nepotistic casting her character endorses for personal reasons. In addition, the film makes hilarious commentary on faux sincerity and power awards that filmmakers and stars covet to legitimize their personae. The production design by Alain Bainée creates a luxurious, hermetically sealed world in which the characters bump against each other professionally and intimately. (2021, 115 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

D.A. Pennebaker's DON'T LOOK BACK (US/Documentary)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 5:30pm

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]

Apichatpong Weerasethakul's MEMORIA

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Friday, 5pm and Saturday, 8:30pm

I generally don’t like to talk about presentation and distribution when reviewing films because it’s generally a secondary, or even tertiary, aspect of the film that merits no discussion. Yet I feel that here these things not only need to be addressed, but they're so crucial to MEMORIA that they need to be mentioned at the top. For those who don't know, this film was originally released as a kind-of roadshow museum piece. The plan was for MEMORIA to have a single print circulate through the US as a “never-ending” release; it would be available to see at only one city at a time. This idea was met with both intrigue and ridicule, though I would fully recommend that people see this in the theater—after all, the entire distribution system is intended to create a viewing experience that's unique to each screening. At the same time, there's a cynical side to me that wonders whether the whole thing was a P.T. Barnum-esque grift to get eyes on the kind of slow cinema that 99% of moviegoers wouldn't usually care about. After only two January stops on its “never-ending release,” the distributor, Neon, pulled the plug on this high art concept and decided in April that MEMORIA would have a standard multi-city, multi-screen release. Was this a kowtow to public perception of elitism? A tacit admission of failure? Or simply the re-evaluation of the desire to get MEMORIA in front of as many eyes as possible? I can’t say and won’t speculate. All this being said, I’ll let people decide for themselves what they think of the plan and simply move on to the film itself as a story, not as artifact or performance. In MEMORIA, we have Weerasethakul’s methodically meditative take on slow cinema that's so much warmer than many other filmmakers in this style. Tilda Swinton, naturally, gives a spectacular performance. As a Scottish emigre living in Colombia, Swinton's Jessica finds herself slowly questioning her sanity; it seems that she is the only person who can hear a loud, booming sound. In an attempt to explain the sound, she calls on a sound engineer, Hernán, to artificially recreate it. The two manage to approximate it, but when Jessica goes to see Hernán afterward, no one at the sound lab seems to have heard of him. Between this and her straining relationship with her sister, Jessica leaves the city for the countryside where she meets a quiet fisherman that also happens to be named Hernán. From there, things get weird. For such a slowly paced film, Weerasethakul took a giant risk taken by making so much of it sound-based. With Jessica’s mystery boom being the engine of the story, much of MEMORIA revolves purely around sound, or the lack thereof. As in such movies as THE CONVERSATION (1974) and SOUND OF METAL (2019), sound plays a character itself. There are more than a few scenes where sound is practically the only thing that moves. The frame will be stock-still, actors looking almost artificially frozen, and the sound design carries the story. It’s a simple idea but executed brilliantly. With this in mind, I can see why the distributor wanted to have this be approached as a heightened theatrical experience. The wind, the sound of memories, birdsong—all these things begin to overwhelm you as the movie progresses. Eventually, all you really have left is sound and you have no choice but to give in fully to it. It really is a beautiful thing. MEMORIA commands submission to one’s ears in a way that film rarely does. People talk about the immersive quality of action films, as if the average person has ever found themselves anywhere near an actual explosion, as opposed to a film like that draws you in so totally with your senses, seducing the eyes and ears as opposed to pummeling them relentlessly. You’ll find yourself lured in without recognizing that it happened. To find yourself in a dark room, slowly getting lost in another world is what any good movie should do. And this film does it far better than most. Knowing the story of this film, and the weird hype it’s created, it’s so satisfying to see that MEMORIA lives up to all its accolades. (2021, 136 min, DCP Digital) [Raphael Jose Martinez]

Phil Tippett’s MAD GOD (US)

Music Box Theatre – Friday and Saturday, 11:45pm, and Saturday, 11:45am

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 gray 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]

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]

🎞️ PHYSICAL SCREENINGS/EVENTS –
ALSO SCREENING

⚫ Block Cinema (at Northwestern University)
“To Trouble, Escape & Exceed - Curated by the Concerned Black Image Makers [CBIM]” screens on Saturday at 2:30pm and includes short films by Madeleine Hunt Elhrich, Shala Miller, Darol Olu Kae, Cameron Granger, and Chelsea Odufo. Following the screening, members of the Concerned Black Image Makers will join Miller in conversation. Free admission. More info on CBIM and the screening here.

⚫ Cinema/Chicago
Eric Barbier’s 2020 French film SMALL COUNTRY: AN AFRICAN CHILDHOOD (111 min, Digital Projection) screens on Wednesday, 6:30pm, at the Chicago Cultural Center (78 E. Washington St.). Free admission with online registration.  More info here.

⚫ Comfort Film at Comfort Station
“Films of Irving Gamboa,” featuring several works by the Chicago-based filmmaker, screens on Wednesday at 8pm. Free admission. More info here.

⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
Phil Alden Robinson’s 1989 film FIELD OF DREAMS (107 min, 35mm and DCP Digital) screens on Saturday at 4:30pm and Tuesday at 6pm, as part of the Remembering Ray [Liotta] series. Note that due to an equipment issue, it will be shown digitally on Saturday and 35mm on Tuesday (previously both 35mm).

The Maysles Brothers and Charlotte Zwerin’s 1970 rock documentary GIMME SHELTER (91 min, 35mm) screens on Sunday at 2pm as part of the In Concert series. More info on all screenings here.

⚫ 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 Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine’s 2022 documentary HALLELUJAH: LEONARD COHEN, A JOURNEY, A SONG (115 min, DCP Digital) begins this week. See Venue website for showtimes. 

Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 film THE ROOM (99 min, 35mm) and Jim Sharman’s 1975 classic ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (100 min, 35mm) screen at midnight on Friday and Saturday, respectively. 

The MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL QUOTE-A-LONG (1975, 91 min, DCP Digital) takes place on Sunday at 2pm. Each admission comes with a pair of coconuts with twine and tag, a pamphlet with quotes, glow sticks, and stickers. 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 –
ALSO SCREENING/STREAMING

⚫ Block Cinema (at Northwestern University)
As a companion to the “To Trouble, Escape & Exceed - Curated by the Concerned Black Image Makers” in-person event listed above, “5 Stages of Nile with Miles Reuben & Darryl DeAngelo Terrell,” which includes Reuben’s 2020 short film NILE: A VISUAL EMBODIMENT OF A SONIC EXPERIENCE and a pre-recorded conversation between Reuben and CBIM member and curator Darryl DeAngelo Terrell, is available to stream for free through next Friday. More info here.

⚫ 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 8 - July 14, 2022

MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs

CONTRIBUTORS // Michael Castelle, Kyle Cubr, Alex Ensign, Steve Erickson, Marilyn Ferdinand, Jason Halprin, Raphael Jose Martinez, Will Schmenner, Drew Van Weelden, K.A. Westphal, Brian Welesko