:: FRIDAY, AUGUST 4 - AUGUST 10 ::

📽️ CRUCIAL VIEWING

Kathleen Collins' LOSING GROUND (US)

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

"There's nothing wrong with telling stories." So says one artist when another expresses envy over his ability to work instinctively as opposed to narratively. Director Kathleen Collins' LOSING GROUND is composed of various such oppositions that manifest themselves through Victor (played by GANJA & HESS director Bill Gunn) and his wife, Sara (Seret Scott), a professor of philosophy. He's artistic; she's logical. This is the jumping off point from which other dichotomies—male versus female, creativity versus intellectualism, abstraction versus specificity—are explored. With regards to race, which is a de facto theme owing to its being one of the first fictional features to be directed by a black woman, the film shows rather than tells; many suspect that it was neglected upon its release because it portrays Black characters as well-to-do professionals instead of as victims or thugs. (In response to being asked if minority filmmakers have a duty to address their respective struggles, Collins said, "I think you have an even greater obligation to deal with your own obsessions.") Though LOSING GROUND isn't exactly autobiographical, Collins herself was a professor, and the name of the film comes from one of her own short story collections. Sara's almost obsessive study of aesthetic experience both parallels the aforementioned oppositions and prompts the changes that occur over the course of the narrative. "Essentially it's that change is a rather volatile process in the human psyche," Collins said in an interview with James Briggs Murray for Black Visions. "And, that real change usually requires some release of fantasy energy." This last part refers to the dance-centric film-within-a-film that Sara acts in at the behest of one of her students, which she does in an attempt to achieve the same creative ecstasy as her husband and actress mother. (The meta-film also mirrors the central drama of the narrative.) Overall, the film is an astute meditation on a great many things: the academic experience, the aesthetic experience, the Black experience, and Sara's experience as a woman. Collins was also a person of varied interests; in addition to teaching, writing, and making films, she was also a playwright and an activist. Collins once remarked, "I'm interested in solving certain questions, such as: How do you do an interesting narrative film?" LOSING GROUND is an exceptional solution to that dilemma. There's nothing wrong with telling stories, indeed. Preceded by Julien Temple's music video for Sade's "Smooth Operator" (1984, 4 min, 35mm). (1982, 86 min, 35mm) [Kat Sachs]

John Boorman's POINT BLANK (US)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Friday, 7pm and Saturday, 4pm

Lee Marvin, patron saint of American cool, was never more iconic than as Walker, a disgruntled, double-crossed criminal who, honest to goodness, only wants his ninety-three thousand dollars back. Released mere weeks after BONNIE AND CLYDE, John Boorman's POINT BLANK reworks the American crime genre with similar panache, and though both movies now rank among the seminal works of the '60s, Boorman's thriller had a much longer road to acceptance, having just barely scraped its budget back at the box office. Rhythmic, rapid action sequences and brusque crosscutting set the pulpy pace, and Marvin takes it from there as he plays an exterminating angel to the San Francisco underworld. Along the way he matches wits and fists with a host of shady characters—the backstabbing John Vernon, the defiant Angie Dickinson, the enigmatic Keenan Wynn—all filling in pieces of the puzzle that will eventually lead him back to the scene of his original betrayal, the ominous post-prison-years Alcatraz. Slick, sexy, and just plain cool, POINT BLANK is a remarkably confident piece of filmmaking (especially for a director's second feature), the influence of which can still be felt today, whether emanating from Nicolas Winding Refn's DRIVE or surfacing in small bursts in Mad Men. A masterpiece of off-the-rails machismo. Screening as part of the Some Dreamers of the Silver Screen: L.A.'67-'76 series. (1967, 92 min, DCP Digital) [Tristan Johnson]

Rob Christopher's ROY'S WORLD: BARRY GIFFORD'S CHICAGO (US/Documentary)

Chicago Filmmakers – Saturday, 7pm

If the name Barry Gifford rings a bell to Cine-File readers, it’s likely for his contributions to what you might call “David’s world”: David Lynch, that is. Lynch’s WILD AT HEART (1990) was an adaptation of a Gifford novel, and they co-wrote LOST HIGHWAY (1997) together. Until I saw ROY'S WORLD: BARRY GIFFORD'S CHICAGO, a dreamy, immersive documentary by Cine-File contributor Rob Christopher, I was unfamiliar with his Roy stories, myself. Roy is the character Gifford invented as an alter-ego for himself as a boy/young man, a movie-loving street kid whose coming-of-age adventures Gifford has been chronicling in works of autobiographical fiction for nearly 40 years now. “Roy’s world” is a specific time and place—Chicago, mostly, in the 1950s and early ‘60s. This documentary celebrates these writings by adhering to a strict no-talking-heads policy. Christopher eschews entirely the standard on-screen interviews in favor of voice-over narratives: reminiscences from Gifford himself provide context for readings from the work. For these, Christopher and producer Michael Glover Smith (also a Cine-File contributor) scored a coup: they got Willem Dafoe, Matt Dillon, and Lili Taylor to read, and their distinctive timbres and tough-but-tender personas embody the texts. Gifford/Roy’s Chicago is a wintry, working-class world. His father ran an operation called Lake Shore Pharmacy, across from the old Water Tower. It was a 24-hour kind of joint, ostensibly a drug store; showgirls would drop by on their breaks and repair to the basement, where he’d administer some kind of pep shot. The people who hung around the store, including Gifford’s own family, were “not people to mess around with”; some had been gangsters during Prohibition. The film pulses with the seamy romance of the town’s jazzy nightlife, enhanced by a cool, atmospheric score by jazz vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz. Still, a young boy experienced the corruption of organized crime, and the intertwined iron fist of Richard J. Daley’s machine, as just a part of the atmosphere. Hard boiled as it was in attitude, the town nevertheless seems like it must have been a hell of a place to grow up. Gifford’s mom was from Texas, a former beauty queen, 20 years younger than his dad. The marriage didn’t stick, and her struggles—during an era when being a “divorcee” was still rather a scandal—are poignant. In fact, Gifford confides in us that one of his chief motivations for creating Roy was to remember the time he had with his mother. The story “Chicago, Illinois, 1953” recalls a humiliating incident when a shopkeeper mistook his mom, bronzed from a season under the tropical sun, for a Black woman, and refused to serve her. It is illustrated by shimmering black-and-white animated drawings. When young Roy later asks his shaking mom why she didn’t simply tell the man she was white, she replies, “It shouldn’t matter, Roy.” The story “Bad Girls,” set during the early ’60s and illustrated by rotoscoped footage from Graceland Cemetery, nicely evokes the feeling of teenage discovery, as Roy and a new female friend roam our fabled “city of neighborhoods.” Christopher’s design also includes found footage in striking black-and-white and eye-popping saturated color, and archival materials ranging from Gifford’s home movies to neighborhood newspapers. Zooming carefully into photographs from a bygone world, patiently waiting for them to reveal their secrets, Christopher encourages us to imagine the individual lives and stories spilling outside the frame. For locals, the film transforms Chicago into a fascinating palimpsest, allowing us to trace the former lives of buildings and neighborhoods behind our everyday cityscape. While the film is deliberately unhurried, its open-all-night vibe will cast a spell on anyone open to its urban jazz-noir mood. Gifford’s Roy stories work as history and as autobiography, but above all they’re a form of make-believe. It required almost an equivalent act of imagination for Christopher to conjure up a world that opens up as richly as his inspiration, but that’s what he’s done with ROY’S WORLD. I emerged from this sensory experience as if from a waking dream, blinking and momentarily disoriented, though with a heightened alertness. It was as if I’d visited a land of phantoms—but of course, these were really only the shades of men and women just like us. ROY’S WORLD made me feel as if the past never really went anywhere, if only we look closely enough. Followed by a post-screening Q&A with Christopher moderated by Grace K. Schuler. (2019, 75 min, DCP Digital) [Scott Pfeiffer]

Tsui Hark’s THE BLADE (Hong Kong)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Monday, 6pm

Tsui’s remake of the Shaw Brothers’ THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN (1967) follows the orphaned Ding On (Wehzhuo Zhao) once he’s appointed the master of a sword factory. He leaves on a quest not long after to hunt down the bandit who murdered his father. During his travels, he loses part of his right arm to outlaws in a skirmish. Compensating for his disfigurement, Ding On trains himself in a modified version of martial arts. His friend Ti Dao (Moses Chan) and love interest Siu Ling (Song Lei) try to dissuade his quest but his vengeance perseveres. Photographed by Kwok-Man Keung, few Kung Fu films illuminate faces and use colors to express mood like THE BLADE. Tsui elicits great intensity from long zoom lenses in the battle sequences, disorienting audiences to make them feel as if they were in the confusing haze of war. At the same time, the harmony between actor and camera movement makes each frame commanding. Through Tsui’s editing, the cut dictates the action. In one sequence later in the film, Ding On cuts through bamboo poles and the pieces continuously hit his tailing opponent. To communicate this image in a Hollywood studio film, they would need to book a rig of actors, hire a CGI effects team, and provide overtime for the props department. Tsui has actors repeat simple gestures and aptly cuts the action to deliver a superhuman piece of action. Cinephiles refer to Tsui as the Steven Spielberg of Hong Kong, and like Spielberg, Tsui grabs hold of an audience through expert command over decadent set pieces, armies of extras, and filmmaking technique, only to release them when the credits roll. Screening as part of the Hong Kong Summer series. (1995, 100 mins, 35mm) [Ray Ebarb]

Maksym Menyk's THREE WOMEN (Germany/Documentary)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Monday, 6:30pm

In a remote Ukrainian village in the Carpathian mountains that borders Poland and Slovakia, an elderly farmer, a middle-aged postal worker, and a middle-aged biologist struggle through a season that doesn't augur a bright future. Filmed just ahead of Volodymyr Zelenskyy's improbable election as the country's president, this deeply humanist portrait of three ordinary women is impossible to watch without seeing the overwhelming shadow of Russia's invasion gathering over this bucolic land. And yet the way that Melnyk and his unnamed German cameraman ingratiate themselves into the women's lives fills a viewer with the hope that simple personal connection and empathy can help overcome virtually any obstacle. The farmer is the clear star of the film. Left widowed and alone after the deaths of her children, she admits to keeping her animals mostly to feel less isolated. The postwoman rues the imminent closure of her post office and the lack of even a sure supply of stamps, yet she happily treks from house to house to deliver the meager pensions of the village's aged and largely female population. The biologist, who spends her days scouring the countryside, cellars and attics for animal droppings, when not battling her ever-failing automobile, seems the least in need of companionship. But even she is happy to have Melnyk's eyes and ears. You get the feeling that these women have not been given this kind of focused attention in a very long time. This film is a testament to what a long way simple care can go in making a stranger into a friend—a lesson that seems obvious but is all too often forgotten or ignored. Followed by a post-screening discussion with Melnyk. (2022, 85 min, DCP Digital) [Dmitry Samarov]

📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED

Steve James’ A COMPASSIONATE SPY (US/Documentary)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

A sort of companion piece to Christopher Nolan’s OPPENHEIMER, albeit unintentionally so, Steve James’ latest is an expressive documentary-fiction hybrid that focuses on a smaller player among the heavies at Los Alamos. There’s a local connection in that the referrent, Ted Hall, attended the University of Chicago, where he not only finished his Master’s and obtained a PhD in physics, but also met his wife, Joan, who features prominently in the film. Years prior to his time in Chicago, however, he had been the youngest physicist (at 18 years old) to work on the Manhattan Project. His role wasn’t insignificant; a prodigy who had been recruited to the project from Harvard, Hall worked directly on both the Little Boy and Fat Man bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. He confided to Joan about his work as well as his eventual decision to pass information about the weapons to Soviet Intelligence, this latter action spurred by his belief that it was no longer needed for its intended purpose (Germany was actively losing the war) and that it was of grave concern for the United States to have a monopoly on such information. (Klaus Fuchs is the spy most commonly identified amongst those working on the Manhattan Project, though it’s speculated that the Soviets used Fuchs’ information to verify what Hall had previously given them.) Joan describes the scenario of his revealing this to her while a reenactment of it unfolds on screen, the actors looking uncannily similar to their real-life counterparts. James, renowned for his sprawling documentaries about a variety of subjects, hasn’t worked in a mode like this before, having always favored unalloyed reality over any fictive representations of it. These sequences feel out of place at times, perhaps because James is so unfamiliar with the approach. In interviews he said he was motivated by the lack of photographs and other documentation around certain, intimate exchanges (though there is much in the way of archival assets utilized in the film); in recreating them, however, they assume a mythos that’s better suited to narrative cinema in its totality, as Nolan, for example, exhibits with OPPENHEIMER. Take, for example, the love triangle between Ted, Joan and his best friend Saville Sax, who served as a liaison between Hall and the Soviets. Sax is positioned as a lamentable figure who loses his girl to Hall and falls behind in every other way possible, achieving neither the occupational success nor the quaint family life that Hall did. Certainly, this perspective feels inconsequential compared to the film’s larger subject. Sax, however, figured as more of an average person next to Hall’s wunderkind spy, didn’t actually work on the bomb, raising questions of what it means to be great when having contributed to such devastation. This is well-trod territory in film, to be sure, but James is approaching it from a more modest perspective here—his film is less a totemic blockbuster than it is like flipping through a photo album and finding out that Grandpa Ted had worked on the atomic bomb and, oh, had also been a spy for the Soviet Union. In something like OPPENHEIMER, the subject’s brilliance seems awesome and terrifying and singular; A COMPASSIONATE SPY makes one think of all those on the fringes, grappling with their own moral compass and the impact their actions might have on their loved ones as well as society at large. It’s an altogether smaller world in James’ film, with Joan as our de facto guide through it. And from her perspective, it’s a love story as well, adding to the film's nuances, if sometimes flimsy in their effect. Whatever questions one might consider on a grander scale when thinking about such moral dilemmas, James’ film endeavors you to ask about yourself. Followed by a post-screening Q&A with James on Sunday after the 1:45pm screening and Monday after the 8:15pm screening. (2023, 101 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]

Christian Petzold’s AFIRE (Germany)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

When I worked as a professional film critic, I met a lot of people like the main character of AFIRE: slovenly, socially graceless, self-important, and overly defensive. I’ve probably presented as such myself. Is there something about being a critic (or, really, any kind of writer) in the 21st century that predisposes or conditions a person to these traits? And does it have anything to do with the increase of catastrophic natural disasters brought on by climate change? AFIRE may be a comedy (albeit a very bitter one), but Christian Petzold isn’t joking when he raises these questions—the film’s final moments, which foreground the thematic concerns to the point where they become inescapable, have an intensity and moral seriousness comparable to the endings of Petzold’s JERICHOW (2008) and TRANSIT (2018). Before then, however, AFIRE plays like a dry, Germanic take on one of Eric Rohmer’s comedies of the bourgeoisie on vacation, charting the interpersonal and sometimes romantic tensions that develop when fussy novelist Leon (Thomas Schubert) and his artist friend Felix (Langston Uibel) are forced to share a summer home with free-spirited Nadja (Petzold regular Paula Beer) and her partner Devid (Enno Trebs). Like the off-putting protagonist of Rohmer’s LE RAYON VERT (1986), Leon spends his whole vacation complaining, mostly about how he’s unable to concentrate on his writing when everyone around him is trying to have fun. But where Rohmer led his heroine on a path to enlightenment, Petzold has less pleasant things in store for Leon, who would come off as a caricature if he weren’t written and performed with such specificity. Leon is so nearly sympathetic—his worst behavior is clearly the product of a classic inferiority complex—and this is why his comeuppance carries the sting that it does. Petzold’s ruthlessness with his characters recalls Vladimir Nabokov’s fiction; so does the intricate narrative game he plays with them in the last 15 minutes. Like Nabokov, Petzold invites ridicule on his characters to draw attention to the foibles of certain times or human types. Unlike Nabokov, Petzold always conveys his morals as clearly as his medium allows—a predilection he inherited from his mentor Harun Farocki. The moral of AFIRE? The pursuit of exacting aesthetic standards does seem like folly given that the planet is literally burning. Followed by a pre-recorded Q&A between Petzold and Cine-File co-managing editor Kat Sachs. (2023, 102 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

Christopher Nolan's OPPENHEIMER (US)

Music Box Theatre, AMC River East 21, ShowPlace ICON Theatre and the Logan Theatre, et al. – See Venue website for showtimes

Christopher Nolan’s mid-career masterpiece OPPENHEIMER embodies not just a welcome return to form but new possibilities for the filmmaker. After an unceremonious divorce from Warner Bros., Nolan's first picture with Universal Studios leapfrogs through various settings in 20th-century history as he traces the life and legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of Los Alamos Laboratory and chief scientist of the Manhattan Project. Frequent Nolan collaborators Cillian Murphy, Kenneth Branagh, and Gary Oldman (in a surprise appearance) return with an entourage of A-list talent too long to list (but standouts include Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Matt Damon, and Robert Downey, Jr.). Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, fresh off Jordan Peele’s NOPE (2022), returns for his fourth Nolan collaboration and finds himself at home among grand vistas of the American Southwest, the idyllic campuses of Princeton and Berkeley, and claustrophobic Washington Senate hearings. Ludwig Göransson recorded the film’s score in a mere and frankly unbelievable five days. If there’s one reason to see OPPENHEIMER in 70mm, the score is reason enough. Nolan, for his part, turns in a career-best film that leans heavily on the style that has made him such a prominent contemporary filmmaker. To say he’s has always been obsessed with time and nonlinear narrative would be to understate the matter; even in OPPENHEIMER, based on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s exhaustive biography, Nolan manages to shed the trappings of linear narrative in favor of an achronological structure that maintains tension throughout the film’s three-hour runtime. And tense it is. We all know what happens when the Trinity test goes off, but it’s this scene that’s perhaps the film’s most nerve-racking. Nolan follows Oppenheimer from young adulthood to his twilight years, highlighting some of the more well-known events of his life as well as events that have gone under the radar in pop culture. You know the “destroyer of worlds” line had to be in the film, but you’ll be hard-pressed to guess where it makes its first appearance, and you might even have a chuckle. As miasmic as the film is, it’s lit up with moments of levity, sometimes unexpected, which often come as a welcome respite—the film rarely leaves the chance to breathe or catch up until the credits roll. Nolan brings justice to the story of “the most important man who ever lived,” in his own words. The only question now is, where does he go from here? (2023, 180 min, 70mm and DCP Digital [at the Logan Theatre]) [George Iskander]

Hayao Miyazaki's SPIRITED AWAY (Japan/Animation)

Alamo Drafthouse (3519 N. Clark St.) – Saturday, 10:45am and Sunday, 11am

For evidence that Hayao Miyazaki works from a different playbook than his Disney counterparts, look no further than the dynamic, kaleidoscopic world of SPIRITED AWAY. In this coming-of-age story set in a modern-day wonderland, the animation grandmaster creates a detail-rich realm of the spirits where the only rule seems to be that the rules can always change. Here, physiologically impossible characters shape shift through various forms, villains quite suddenly prove themselves to be friends, and the plot itself refuses to settle into a groove, redefining the boundaries the moment we become aware of them. What begins as a spectral plunge down the rabbit hole takes an abrupt shift the moment young Chihiro lands on her feet, and it's not long before she is neck-deep in the politics of the magical bathhouse at the center of this world. She is tugged at in all directions by the denizens therein, including the disproportioned governess, Yubaba, the dragon-boy, Haku, and the ghostly No-Face, whose part in the story temporarily takes us into horror movie territory, and lest we think the world of SPIRITED AWAY is confined to this singular, vibrant location, the final chapter opens the world even further, allowing neither Chihiro nor the viewer to grow too complacent. The film, like any great imagination, knows no bounds, and its scope and soaring ambition have rightly marked it as Miyazaki's masterpiece. (2001, 125 min, DCP Digital) [Tristan Johnson]

🎞️ PHYSICAL SCREENINGS/EVENTS –
ALSO SCREENING

⚫ Chicago Film Archives
The Chicago Transit Authority, in partnership with the Chicago Film Archives (CFA), presents a new, one-of-a-kind temporary art installation now playing at the Cicero Green Line station (4800 W. Lake St.). The installation, called we love, is a filmic exhibition of home movies and amateur films selected from collections housed and preserved at CFA. The video, which has a runtime of approximately 48 minutes, will be projected onto a wall in the mezzanine area of the station. The video will run day and night through mid-March next year. More info here. 

⚫ Cinema/Chicago
Luke Cornish’s 2022 Australian film KEEP STEPPING (90 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday, 6:30pm, at the Chicago Cultural Center (78 E. Washington St.). Note that advance tickets are no longer available. Please pick up a Rush Card when doors open at 5:45pm to reserve your place for a last-minute ticket. Open seats will be made available to Rush Card holders 15 minutes prior to showtime on a first-come, first-served basis. Admission is not guaranteed. More info here.

⚫ Doc Films (at the University of Chicago)
Noel M. Smith’s 1925 silent film CLASH OF THE WOLVES (74 min, 35mm), starring Rin Tin Tin in his first comedic role, screens Friday, 4pm, and Saturday, 7pm, as part of the Programmers’ Picks series. More info here.

⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
D. Smith’s 2023 documentary KOKOMO CITY (73 min, DCP Digital) begins screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes.

Vin Arfuso’s 2023 film WALLED OFF (90 min, Digital Projection) screens Thursday at 8pm. (The screening, however, is sold out, with no additional seating available or standing room allowed.) Followed by a panel discussion hosted by the Chicago Palestine Film Festival. More info on all screenings here.  

⚫ Leather Archives & Museum (6418 N. Greenwood Ave.)
Mark Rosman’s 2000 film LIFE-SIZE (101 min, Digital Projection) screens Saturday at 8:30pm. Screening as part of an event with the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives around their new exhibition “A Dreamhouse of Our Own: An Examination of Dolls, Play, and Queer Identity.” Note that the pre-screening cocktail reception is sold out but that tickets are still available for the screening. More info here.

⚫ Music Box Theatre
It’s officially Music Box Garden Movies season! See Venue website for films and showtimes. 

D. Smith’s 2023 documentary KOKOMO CITY (73 min, DCP Digital) begins screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes. 

The CatVideoFest 2023 (73 min, DCP Digital) compilation screens Saturday and Sunday at 11:30am and Tuesday at 7pm. 10% of all ticket proceeds will be donated to Red Door Animal Shelter. 

Paul A. Brooks’ 2023 horror film HUNTING FOR THE HAG (86 min, DCP Digital) screens Wednesday at 7pm, with cast and crew in attendance for a post-film Q&A. Programmed and presented by Into the Night Motion Pictures. More info on all screenings and events here. 

⚫ Sideshow Gelato (4819 N. Western Ave.)
The Sideshow Gelato shop presents Sideshow Sinema!, during which they will screen films connected to the shop theme, every Thursday. More info here.

⚫ Sweet Void Cinema (3036 W. Chicago Ave.)
Find information on the Humboldt Park microcinema, including its screening and workshop schedule, here.

CINE-LIST: August 4 - August 10, 2023

MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs

CONTRIBUTORS // Ray Ebarb, George Iskander, Tristan Johnson, Scott Pfeiffer, Dmitry Samarov