In town for the long weekend? The Front Row and Olivia Hunter Willke are offering Cine-File readers pay-what-you-wish tickets to the encore screening of Anthony Spinelli’s 1978 film SEXWORLD (90 min, DCP Digital) on Saturday at midnight at the Music Box Theatre. Just use the code MAYDAY at checkout here.
📽️ Crucial Viewing
Su Friedrich at the Gene Siskel Film Center
Conversations at the Edge at the Gene Siskel Film Center – See showtimes below
Su Friedrich’s SINK OR SWIM and RULES OF THE ROAD (US/Experimental)
Thursday, 6pm
By the 1980s and '90s, some people thought that personal filmmaking might be approaching a dead-end. It seemed like diaristic cinema had walked down every formal path—from the flash-frame to the stone-cold long take—and taken advantage of every conceptual frame-work—from the mythopoetic to the militantly political. Then along came Su Friedrich to remind people that there are no tired ideas, just tired people. Friedrich's films were simultaneously more restrained and more spectacular than similar work from the time, paradoxically more literary and also richer in textural, physical beauty. SINK OR SWIM (1990, 48 min, 16mm) consists of 26 vignettes, framed around the alphabet (a nod to Hollis Frampton), that combine to portray a young girl's coming of age and her relationship to her father. Gradually, elliptically, we come to understand how the father's casually cruel remoteness structured the young girl's consciousness. The story is told in voice-over and the images, filmed in beautiful black and white, toggle between synoptic and digressive functions. [Tom McCormack] /// Up to that point her most autobiographical work, Su Friedrich’s RULES OF THE ROAD (1993, 31 min, 16mm) explores an intimate relationship vis-à-vis that most iconic of American symbols: the wood-paneled station wagon. Watching the film made me think of a passage in Dave Kehr’s 1980 essay on Robert Zemeckis’ USED CARS: “The affordable family car once represented the fruit of American life: unchecked personal mobility, the unlimited flow of material goods, the triumph of free enterprise—the chrome-plated proof that every American could live like a king… [i]t is an image that’s at the center of American life.” Readers who are familiar with Friedrich’s work might assume that her stance toward this machine would be vastly dissimilar to conventional ones such as what Kehr espouses above. But, endearingly, it’s not. The car, acquired for Friedrich’s girlfriend by her brother (who was then unaware of his sister’s sexuality), is all of those same things for the two women. It certainly enables ease and mobility, especially in New York City, where a simple errand can become an arduous chore; it also allows for an easier escape from the urban jungle and into more open spaces—spaces that are geographically open but not necessarily more open-minded. In this way the car itself becomes a more personal and even subversive emblem, as the ease and leisure it affords the women takes on a greater meaning both with regard to their intimate relationship and the one they have with society at large. “RULES OF THE ROAD began because I happened to be out walking around my neighborhood and saw a car that I thought was being driven by my ex-girlfriend,” Friedrich said in a 2020 interview. She and her girlfriend were broken up at the time the film was made, although it references the time when they were still together. (The two later reconciled and, as far as I know, are still a couple.) “I freaked out, went home, and started scribbling down notes. That was the genesis of the film.” The couple’s station wagon doesn’t appear in RULES OF THE ROAD, but rather other cars that evoked memories, both good and bad, of what had taken place in their mobile utopia, from stress-free errands to weekend trips outside the city. (This reminded me specifically of Chantal Akerman’s NEWS FROM HOME, where generally impersonal, unrelated tableaus assume meaning via the filmmaker’s gaze.) A motif of a person playing solitaire appears at various intervals, most notably during the opening credits that indicate Friedrich’s loneliness; at times her expository narration is punctuated by bursts of music from artists such as Bob Dylan, Rick James, and Aretha Franklin, with hard cuts between these moments and the resumption of the narrator’s story. The car, the cards, and the music come together to construct a representation not of something at the heart of American life but rather a portrayal of life itself, where the real heart can never be replaced. [Kat Sachs]
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Su Friedrich’s TODAY (US/Experimental)
Thursday, 8:30pm
In her diaristic featurette TODAY, Su Friedrich considers a number of tragedies that occurred between 2016 and 2021, from the Trump Presidency to the deaths of her parents and several friends, yet the tone is generally light and personable. That’s partly because of what Friedrich does and doesn’t include in the film; for instance, we never see Trump, but we do see footage Friedrich shot at the women’s march on Washington that overshadowed Trump’s inauguration. The gentle mood of TODAY also has to do with the gracefulness of Friedrich’s filmmaking, which is always a joy to behold. One of the most gifted editors in experimental cinema, Friedrich condenses five momentous years into just under an hour, and while the montage suggests a stone skipping across the surface of time, the film doesn’t feel brief or insubstantial. Friedrich is always building meaning through her sequencing of sounds and images—you often have to chew on the associations between one shot and the next. In an early example, Friedrich pans up on the dessert case in a diner she stops at during a trip, overlaying the words “I should resist,” then cuts to a shot from behind a window of a man surfing on the ocean. The shot lasts long enough to achieve poetic resonance before the man falls off his surfboard and the words “But I’m on vacation!” appear on screen. Soon after this sequence, Friedrich introduces her longtime friend Diane and shares via text that she’s been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. A sappy R&B song comes up on the soundtrack and the clouds above downtown Chicago appear; another cut reveals the song to be a live performance by a busker at O’Hare Airport, who seems charmingly invested in his work. Next: a few shots on one of the O’Hare people-movers and another sobering title card: “I’ve come to Chicago because my dad is dying.” TODAY is always moving between optimism and despair like this, and in so doing, it achieves a sort of Buddhist wisdom about the inseparability of joy and suffering. Friedrich also addresses the impermanence of all life, as in one sequence shot at the final-ever performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The film contains appearances by Mavis Staples and Gladys Knight as well, but it’s the more modest stuff—a block party in Friedrich’s Brooklyn neighborhood, the antics of her pet cat, the repeated shots of flowers and feet—that grants TODAY its sense of wonder. Friedrich in person at all screenings. (2022, 57 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
William Friedkin's SORCERER (US)
Music Box Theatre – Saturday, 2:30pm
The usual saw about Friedkin's grimy big budget downer was that its underwhelming box office take brought the filmmaker's hot streak skidding to a halt. Period. Aside from that shallow by-the-numbers assessment, until recently few paid much attention to the film itself. Since Friedkin's digital restoration of his film last year, that's certainly changing. Some have even slapped the term "masterpiece" on it. But there's no need to over-praise a movie that as a whole somehow fails to gel. Because there are still many moments stunning in their beauty and sheer oddity. The truck meandering through a Jean Dubuffet-esque landscape. Howling wind and rain overlaid with Tangerine Dream's eerie score. And of course, the celebrated bridge crossing sequence, shamelessly ostentatious but unique and electrifying. Roy Scheider's face creases, filthy hands, and sheer weariness perfectly embody the film's mood of despair, one best experienced on a big screen. Presented by Oscarbate and preceded by a William Friedkin tribute video. (1977, 121 min, DCP Digital) [Rob Christopher]
Martin Scorsese's THE AGE OF INNOCENCE (US)
Music Box Theatre – Tuesday, 7pm
Depending on your point of view, this is either one of Martin Scorsese's grandest failures or one of his boldest triumphs. Certainly, it was unexpected for Scorsese to adapt Pulitzer Prize-winning Edith Wharton's novel, set among the high society of 1870s New York. Wharton's style is as reserved as the director's is visceral, and Scorsese approaches the discrepancy as a challenge: How to translate such a literary work, which derives its force from its describing unexpressed emotion, into a wholly cinematic one? Maintaining a placid tone in the performances, Scorsese pours himself into the dressing of the film: decor, positions of extras, music cues, verbose narration. One of the most obvious models here is Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON, a film that Scorsese ranks among his favorites, and it shares with that movie a curiously inverted relationship between surface emotion and dramaturgy. (Indeed, this often seems as much a response to Kubrick as it does to Wharton.) The story is of an illicit affair between the complacent Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his wife's non-conformist cousin (Michelle Pfeiffer), a subject of barely hidden scorn since she walked out on a loveless marriage. Nearly all of the behavior we see is determined (hauntingly, tediously) by a rigid social order and the constant threat of excommunication; for this reason, Scorsese referred to AGE OF INNOCENCE as his most violent film. Presented and introduced by Open Books; Open Books will be in the lounge accepting book donations in good condition before and after the screening. (1993, 139 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
Martin Scorsese's THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 7:30pm
Those of us who are old enough can cast our minds back to 1988 and recall just how controversial was Martin Scorsese’s THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. When not banned outright, the film—an intense, often exhilarating fictionalized life of Jesus based on Nikos Kazantzakis’s 1955 novel—was met with violence, boycotts, and protests on multiple continents from right-wing fundamentalists, who objected to the very notion of investigating the human side of Christ. The idea that he might have had human feelings, including sexual urges and fear of death, was an anathema to the bible thumpers. Angered by this thoughtless reaction, Lou Reed wrote a powerful song about the film, "Dime Store Mystery." "The duality of nature, godly nature, human nature, splits the soul," Lou sang of Christ, concluding, "I find it easy to believe that he might question his beliefs." In 1989, Lou’s New York album, which contained that song, was on heavy rotation in my freshman college dorm room, as was Peter Gabriel’s Passion, his beautiful and exciting soundtrack for LAST TEMPTATION. Scorsese had always wanted to film a life of Christ, not least because of his formative experiences with Biblical epics. Crucially, he burned to make a character study that would help viewers identify with the duality of Christ, who was at once fully divine and fully human. Barbara Hershey gave him the Kazantzakis novel in the early ‘70s, and he spent the next 15 years trying to mount a movie version; after an aborted start in 1983, he finally shot the film in 1987 in Morocco. In an empathetic performance, Willem Dafoe plays Jesus as a tortured Scorsese hero (literally, in this case), torn between the spirit and the flesh, confused about his calling, and human enough not to be above sin. Is he tormented by the voice of God—or is he schizophrenic? In the film as in the book, Christ’s last temptation—which, dreamlike, takes up the last 35 minutes of the film—is to come down from the cross and live the life of an ordinary mortal man: to have a family with Mary Magdalene (Hershey), whom he loved, to grow old and die. As Scorsese was at pains to point out, the film is not a version of the Gospels. Still, it includes key scenes from them: Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist (Andre Gregory); the wilderness temptations; the Sermon on the Mount and the gathering of disciples; the raising of Lazarus, who is later murdered by a pre-conversion Saul (Harry Dean Stanton). The Passion Week events are here, including the casting of the money changers out of the temple and the judgment of Pontius Pilate (David Bowie). As deeply serious a work as this is, its tone can be comic (you can tell Scorsese had seen LIFE OF BRIAN), albeit sometimes unintentionally. Elsewhere, the tone is feverish, nervous. I find the film compulsively watchable and moving, hypnotic, intoxicating even, and strangely shaped. It never drags despite its two-hour-and-44-minute running time. That has to do with the energy of Scorsese’s moving camera, his innovative approach to point of view, and Thelma Schoonmaker's sublime editing, so key to the film’s propulsive rhythm and poetry. The vivid images of bravura cinematographer Michael Ballhaus are in dialogue with the history of religious art. LAST TEMPTATION made the struggle with inner conflict and growth, with faith and doubt, into something urgent for me, a doubter raised Methodist. Here is a Christ to understand our suffering, not a “flesh-colored Christ that glows in the dark,” if I may paraphrase the poet. Scorsese decided to jettison the period language and have his characters speak largely in naturalistic American English. Paul Schrader is the credited screenwriter; what appears onscreen represents substantial uncredited rewrites by Scorsese and Jay Cocks, who refashioned the dialogue in terms of what they felt they themselves would say. It works for me. In fact, Harvey Keitel’s Brooklyn-accented Judas is one of my favorite Harvey performances. The essence of the vision, as Scorsese says, was to do “Jesus on Eight Avenue.” How do you make the message of Christianity work out on the street? The message is love, but how do you actually live it out, live with forgiveness and compassion? How does one go about loving one’s enemy? Seeing the film again made these questions feel personal and alive for me. After all, I struggle with feelings of hatred for the people I regard as my enemies every day. Scorsese hoped to make viewers feel the magnitude of Christ’s sacrifice, the agonizing nature of his decision, the selflessness of his shouldering of responsibility. He made a living, pulsing, flawed work of art that attempts to do nothing less than wrestle with the mystery of life. LAST TEMPTATION is about the struggle to find God, but that can be a metaphor for any spiritual change or personal evolution through which a person must go. Perhaps the line that moves me the most is when Jesus confides to Judas how ashamed he is when he thinks of all the mistakes he’s made—“of all the wrong ways I looked for God.” Such a line speaks to the journey all of us are on. Screening as part of the Contra/Banned series. (1988, 164 min, 35mm) [Scott Pfeiffer]
Andre De Toth’s CRIME WAVE (US)
Chicago Film Society at Northeastern Illinois University (The Auditorium, Building E 3701 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.) – Wednesday, 7:30pm
The characters of CRIME WAVE are archetypes, and the uninviting Los Angeles settings recall dozens of other noirs. But instead of dolling up the familiar elements, the filmmakers—director Andre De Toth, producer Bryan Foy, and screenwriter Crane Wilbur—take the opposite approach, leaning into a cold anonymity that leaves the film open to all sorts of questions and interpretations. Consider the largely unexplored relationship between Steve Lacey (Gene Nelson), an ex-con trying to stay straight, and his angelic wife Ellen (Phyllis Kirk). She loves him devotedly, but why? What brought them together, and how is their bond so strong that it keeps them level-headed even when they’re held hostage by some of Steve’s old cellmates after they break out of jail? And the police detective who’s after the escapees, what’s the source of his determination, which seems to blind him to everything beyond the responsibilities of his job? Jack Warner wanted Humphrey Bogart in the role, but De Toth rejected this suggestion in favor of the comparatively unknown (at the time) Sterling Hayden. Lacking Bogart’s mythology, Hayden disappears into the character the way the character disappears into his work; his performance locks in perfectly to the film’s aerodynamic shape, which allows it to zip from start to finish in just 73 minutes. (Rack it up to art imitating life: Warner granted De Toth creative control over the picture provided he could shoot it in two weeks.) Stripped of exposition and explanatory detail, the story attains a feeling of inevitability, as though Steve and Ellen were doomed to be targeted by violent convicts and Hayden’s detective were simply born into his job. CRIME WAVE isn't a poetic film, but rather a film from which poetry springs. Preceded by Friz Freleng’s 1954 cartoon BY WORD OF MOUSE (7 min, 35mm). (1954, 73 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
Stan Lathan’s BEAT STREET (US)
Music Box Theatre – Sunday, 4:15pm
Hip hop has conquered the world as a force in music, fashion, design, literature, politics, and probably a few other areas I’ve forgotten to mention. It has created offshoots galore and so many artists that it’s hard to realize that it was conceived in bombed-out areas of the Bronx as a more expressive outgrowth of disco music that animated house parties and nightclubs. BEAT STREET, one of the first films to depict the art and culture of hip hop, takes viewers back to its roots. Based on an original story by Steven Hager, who wrote about hip hop culture for the Village Voice in 1982, BEAT STREET focuses on an up-and-coming DJ, Kenny (Guy Davis), his breakdancing younger brother Lee (Robert Taylor), and graffiti artist Ramon (Jon Chardiet) as they exercise their talents on the streets, in the clubs, and on the MTA trains and platforms of New York City. The atmospheric shooting on the streets of the Bronx reminds one of how this urban blight became de rigueur backdrops for self-serious films and TV shows about urban angst for years to come. At the same time, the ingenuity it took to wire an abandoned building to host a dance party or move through the subway tunnels to graffiti a train station is quite a testament to the ethos that says where there’s a will, there’s a way. While the characterizations and plot are rudimentary, we do get a sense of what the need for self-expression meant to the kids who wanted to make their mark on the world despite the long odds. More to the point, we get a look at the pioneers of hip hop musicians in their heyday, including Grandmaster Melle Mele, Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force, Treacherous Three, Tina B, and Us Girls (Lisa Lee, Sha Rock, and Debbie Dee). The dance crews Magnificent Force, New York City Breakers, and Rock Steady Crew put on a great show in a dance battle at the Roxy. Most iconic of all, so-called “father of hip hop” DJ Kool Herc has a small part as the owner of a dance club. Rae Dawn Chong appears in an early role as a composer and Kenny’s love interest. Screening as part of Fresh Films: A Celebration of 50 Years of Hip Hop series. (1984, 105 min, 35mm) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
John Singleton's POETIC JUSTICE (US)
Music Box Theatre – Saturday, 7pm
In his second feature (following BOYZ N THE HOOD), John Singleton pivoted in tone and style while remaining consistent in the themes that recurred throughout his oeuvre as he explored the toll of violence, trauma, and structural racism in shaping a generation of Black Americans. POETIC JUSTICE attracted audiences with the star power and charisma of Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur as the romantic leads, yet the film was almost universally panned by critics upon release for being "undisciplined" and "disappointing" compared with his highly successful debut. Singleton was only 24 when he made his second film, and his youthful perspective lends itself to a gentle and forgiving portrayal of Justice (Jackson) and Lucky (Shakur), two working-class individuals in South Central Los Angeles struggling to achieve their ideals against harsh surroundings. Justice works as a hairdresser, but her true passion is poetry, which she shares with her friends and coworkers, as well as in voice-over that starkly contrasts with the backdrop of violence that erupts periodically in the film. Justice's poetry shares her interior world as she grieves for her mother, grandmother, and, most recently, her boyfriend. Lucky is a postal worker and single parent who fails to win Justice's number when he flirts with her at her salon and mutters rap lyrics to himself as he drives his truck, although he has no way to envision becoming a true musician. Justice and Lucky meet again when they take a meandering-but-still-work-related road trip up the coast of California with two friends. In a supporting role as Justice's best friend, Regina King displays her usual intensity and believability in even the most mundane character arc. Other cameos include Tone Loc, Q-Tip, and Maya Angelou, who wrote all the poetry in the film and advised Singleton on Justice's character development through her poetry. Over time, opinion of POETIC JUSTICE has softened, as the film has gained popularity for portraying an iconic point in Los Angeles history, early hip-hop culture (the film features a cameo by The Last Poets, who also lend several songs to the fabulous soundtrack), and a tender love story with two incredibly magnetic leads. One of the many facets of the tragedy of Tupac Shakur's murder is the loss of an incredible acting talent: Shakur shows a tender, funny, and vulnerable side of himself through Lucky that only gains poignance after the performer’s death. This film feels more like a meandering and wistful road trip movie than it gets credit for, and it can be easily appreciated as such. Don't go into the film with any expectations except to enjoy these larger-than-life actors, brief moments of connection, and beautiful shots of the California coast, with a healthy dose of offbeat humor (the satirical movie-within-a-movie at the beginning, for example, does not get enough credit for skewering a very popular style of thriller of the era). Be prepared, however, to weather moments of casual brutality alongside these characters you grow to love in the short span of the film, which never lets you forget what catalyzed Justice and Lucky's tragedies in 1990s America, and lament just how little has changed since then. Screening as part of Fresh Films: A Celebration of 50 Years of Hip Hop series. (1993, 109 min, 35mm) [Alex Ensign]
📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED
Roberto Rossellini's L'AMORE (Italy)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Friday, 6pm
A deceptively intimate movie that must have looked positively tinny in the wake of Roberto Rossellini’s socio-political frescoes ROME: OPEN CITY and PAISAN, L’AMORE is an anthology film spun around the flimsiest of themes—namely, the virtuosic versatility of La Magnani. The first segment, "The Human Voice," taken from Jean Cocteau’s one-act play, is an exercise in minimalism: a single set, a straightforward premise, and only one character with a speaking part. (It’s no slight to Anna Magnani to acknowledge that her canine companion nearly steals the show.) Magnani sulks around her flat waiting for her lover’s telephone call and becomes no less emotional when the telephone rings. At times the scenario suggests a dusty topical play revived as-is, with the novelty of telephonic communication treated with equal doses of fascination and weariness. No wonder contemporary Italian reviewers dismissed it as something that didn’t quite constitute a movie. We only hear Magnani’s half of the conversation, and Rossellini uses this intermittently intelligible exchange to poeticize silence. Identified by Jonathan Rosenbaum as the first Italian film to be shot with direct sound, "The Human Voice" gains gravity through its ambient soundscape—a mix of creaky floorboards, overheard conversations, and the slightest hint of a world outside. The second segment, "The Miracle," from an original scenario by Federico Fellini, is probably more readily recalled today by law students than by cinephiles. Like THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST some four decades later, "The Miracle" was met with charges of blasphemy because it challenged audiences to take the Bible seriously. After Magnani’s simpleton shepherdess finds herself pregnant after a night with a drifter she believed to be St. Joseph, she’s pilloried by the peasants and the priests alike for her allegedly immaculate conception. What makes these believers so inured to the possibility of a miracle in their own time? A condemnation of small-minded Christianity that moves with the overpowering fleetness of a fable, "The Miracle" truly wound up doing God’s work: Rossellini’s film nudged the US Supreme Court to vacate the Mutual precedent, declare movies a form of expression worthy of First Amendment protections, and rule that "sacrilege" was insufficient and unconstitutional grounds for banning a film. Even after the Supreme Court ruling, the City of Chicago managed to ban it anyway (on the grounds of "immorality," not "sacrilege"), leaving it to Doc Films and the ACLU to screen "The Miracle" for assorted civil libertarians, lapsed Catholics, pinkos, and film enthusiasts. One more thing: due to rights issues that prevented the distribution of "The Human Voice" in the U.S., "The Miracle" was released stateside as part of a different omnibus film, THE WAYS OF LOVE, which also featured Jean Renoir’s "A Day in the Country" and Marcel Pagnol’s "Jofroi." More than sixty years later, it’s still rare to see L’AMORE in its integral form, so make haste. Screening as part of the Contra/Banned series. (1948, 79 min, DCP Digital) [K.A. Westphal]
Gustav Machatý’s ECSTASY (Czechoslovakia)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 3pm and Wednesday, 6pm
ECSTASY, a German-language film shot in Prague and Austria by a Czech director with an Austrian star and an international cast, had a movie life that perhaps could have only ended in Hollywood. The film was a sensation all over Europe when it premiered in 1933, primarily because its barely legal star, Hedy Kiesler, played one scene in the nude and appeared to have an orgasm in another. The film’s fortunes varied by country: Hitler banned it, perhaps because Kiesler was Jewish, but it was nominated for the Mussolini Cup at the 1934 Venice Film Festival and found its way into Il Duce’s private collection. The film finally appeared in the United States in 1936 after its nude scenes and insufficiently moral message were “corrected” by the distributor. In 1937, Kiesler, like the character she played in ECSTASY, fled from her controlling older husband, a rich Austrian fascist named Fritz Mandl, and moved to London. There she met MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer, who put her under contract, had her change her name to Hedy Lamarr, and launched her successful Hollywood career. ECSTASY no longer has the power to scandalize as it did in its own time. Nonetheless, the film continues to provoke because it does something that is still something of a rarity today—it offers an honest, unapologetic look at female sexuality from a woman’s point of view. Lamarr plays Eva, a new bride waiting to be carried over the threshold of her new home by her husband Emile (Zvonimir Rogoz), a man who appears to be at least 20 years her senior. Eva is fresh-faced, optimistic youth personified; Emile is plodding, punctilious, and seemingly unaware that his life has altered in the least. Waiting impatiently for Emile to join her in the bedroom, Eva goes into the bathroom where he is engaged in his nighttime toilette. She begs for help with the strap of her slip and then with the clasp of her necklace, hoping that he will be prompted to unwrap her further. Alas, the scene ends with Eva laying alone in bed. The months that follow show no improvement, and Eva eventually begins divorce proceedings. Director Gustav Machatý focuses most of his attention on Eva’s sensual nature and sexual awakening. His countryside is a garden of Eden where Eva swims in the nude and races through the trees and meadow after her runaway horse. Naturally, her young, virile Adam (Aribert Mog) follows her horse’s trail to her. Both Adam and Eva are elemental creatures, emphasized when Adam catches a bee on a flower and offers it to her, a sharp contrast to the domesticated gelding she married. ECSTASY is nearly silent as Machatý lets the camera do the talking, though many shots by his three cameramen seem like trickery for its own sake. Nonetheless, certain scenes stand out for their psychological intensity. After Eva meets Adam, she finds herself unable to sleep. She goes to the drawing room and starts playing the piano, only to break off and start pacing through the shadows. Tormented by her longing, breathing heavily, she moves quickly through the night toward the object of her desire. Adam’s window, isolated in an otherwise dark frame, grows larger and larger in a series of jump cuts until Eva flings open his door. Machatý also shows the particular humor often found in Czech films. On Eva’s wedding night, he cuts between an excited bride waiting in the boudoir and a tired bridegroom lolling in the bathroom. As Eva waits, we see Emile’s slippered feet start to slide along the floor. The longer Eva waits, and the more unhappy she grows, the farther the feet slip. Finally, she gives up, and the feet pop off the floor; Emile has dropped off to sleep on the edge of the bathtub. Running throughout is a thoroughly absorbing, emotionally mature performance by Hedy Kiesler Lamarr. She manages to convey feelings of love for her husband and her sadness at her disappointment with him. She is thoroughly uninhibited in conveying sexual desire and happiness with her lover. It’s hard to believe she was only a teenager when she made this film, yet what better time to access the rich emotions of young love and sexual awakening. Screening as part of the Contra/Banned series. (1933, 82 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Tobe Hooper's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (US)
Music Box Theatre – Thursday, 7pm
Tobe Hooper was not just a prodigious scaremeister; he crafted some of the most intricate mise-en-scene in the horror genre and possessed a sly wit to boot. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 showcases all sides of his talent—equally frightening and hilarious, the film is one of the great funhouse rides of 1980s cinema. (It’s as much a follow-up to Hooper’s 1981 THE FUNHOUSE as it is the original TEXAS CHAINSAW.) Integral to its stomach-churning appeal are the vivid sets and make-up effects, the latter designed by George A. Romero’s regular collaborator Tom Savini (who considered this his best work). The villainous family is memorably grotesque, each member given a distinctive look of decay. And the lair where they trap and torment their victims is a fascinating, expressionistic environment—full of caverns and tunnels, the space seems to grow larger and more unusual as the movie proceeds. Robin Wood and other critics praised the original TEXAS CHAINSAW as a satiric commentary on U.S. values, with the cannibal villains representing a distorted version of the ideal American family: Not only do they stick together no matter what, they’re the ultimate consumers. The sequel pushes that satirical element to the forefront. The humor is broad, even overstated, but it fits perfectly with the exaggerated visual design. The script is credited to L.M. Kit Carson (who also penned Jim McBride’s remake of BREATHLESS), but the comedy is definitely a reflection of Hooper’s sensibility. Perhaps the more valuable collaborators here are producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, the adventurous team behind Cannon Films. In addition to backing this and Hooper’s LIFEFORCE and INVADERS FROM MARS, Cannon also bankrolled Cassavetes’ LOVE STREAMS and Godard’s KING LEAR around this time. All of these exemplify uncompromising personal expression in cinema. Co-presented by Jeremy Wagner, Music Box of Horrors and Cinematic Void. Sponsored by Dead Sky Publishing and Dark Matter Coffee (free coffee for all attendees!). Caroline Williams in person for a post-film Q&A and available for signings. (1986, 101 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
Gakuryu Ishii’s BURST CITY (Japan)
Music Box Theatre – Sunday, 9:30pm
I would be lying if I said that BURST CITY was a film that I had an easy time following. Some words to describe what I witnessed: punks, pigs, and pompadours. Thankfully, the film's clash of rioting gangs, police and cyborgs hits a sweet spot that is infinitely cool and constantly intriguing. Where narrative coherence gets fumbled, a language of speed maintains control as Gakuryu’s camera falls into abstraction with fast paced, blurred movement and a frenetic montage that keeps the pacing electric. My best attempt at summary would be that multiple factions are fighting in a city which, as the title suggests, seems primed to burst. Holding all this together is a handful of rock ballad musical scenes. Some of them, like one near the beginning where we are first introduced to the dystopian city in full, are more intricate and fun than others that take place on a stage and feel like they exude a pent-up and angry energy. These performances by real Japanese punk musicians—The Stalin, Machizo Machida, and The Roosters and the Rockers—gives the film its necessary backbone and provide Gakuryu Ishii ample opportunity to flex his experimental muscles and keep the viewer entranced throughout the 115-minute run time. The first sequence alone will certainly stick in my head for a long while, and any filmmaker this proficient in their craft deserves further scrutiny and revaluation. Programmed and presented by the Front Row. (1982, 115 min, DCP Digital) [Drew Van Weelden]
Joseph Cornell's ROSE HOBART (US/Experimental)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Tuesday, 6pm
Ever since I first laid eyes on them, I’ve been enamored of the boxes of artist Joseph Cornell. These assemblages of found objects, neatly arranged in glass-fronted or interactive boxes, arouse a wonderful feeling of nostalgia, fun, and creative surprise in me. Cornell extended his assemblages to films, buying boxes of them that were languishing in New Jersey warehouses, cutting and cataloging them according to his interests, and eventually splicing them into a number of short films. The most famous of these films is ROSE HOBART, assembled from the 1931 film EAST OF BORNEO and what looks like a motion study that depicts circular ripples of water. On the rare occasions when he exhibited the silent film, he accompanied it with a recording of “Holiday in Brazil” (1957) by Brazilian composer Nestor Amaral, who contributed a couple of uncredited songs to THE GANG’S ALL HERE (1943) co-starring fellow Brazilian Carmen Miranda. Cornell would project the film at a slowed-down speed through a blue filter, though in later years, he took to using a rose filter. The blue tints suggest night, a perfect complement to the dreamscape Cornell conjures from the remnants of EAST OF BORNEO and an evocation of the feminine. Together with images of an eclipse blotting out the masculine sun and an erupting volcano, evoking the feminine Pele, he pays homage to the Goddess. Here the Goddess is given form as the star of EAST OF BORNEO, Rose Hobart. Cornell’s editing allows for intense observation of the Goddess, who, like the eclipse suggests, is sensed, even desired, but never really known. Our world, he suggests, may be the conjuring of Her own dreams, as She is shown in the beginning of the film reclining behind a mist of mosquito netting. The Goddess inhabits an exotic land of palm trees, servants in sarongs, and luxurious surroundings. Sitting females praise her with clapping and singing. She is entreated by two men, one of the East and one of the West, but neither finds favor. Her most meaningful interaction is with a wild creature—a monkey delivered to Her by a servant that She talks to and pets until it, too, lays down to slumber. Alone, She is most Herself, gathering together Her bag of tricks that includes both a lace handkerchief and a pistol, a reminder that the Goddess responds as often with natural violence as with delicate beauty. The image of the concentric rings of displaced water fascinate Her—the pool of the unconscious and its perfect, circular form. Cornell invites us to enter this pool several times in the film; only the most hard-headed observer will resist. Cornell doesn’t dwell in the lasciviousness of many dream films, for example, those of Luis Buñuel, declaring as he once did that he did not identify with the dark magic of the surrealists. He preferred white magic. That is very plain in his gentle art and films, and the care with which he treated his found objects and reassembled them, like ROSE HOBART, into works of wonder and delight. (1936, 20 min, Unconfirmed Format) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
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Screening as part of the experimental shorts program THE ARCHIVE AND THE IMAGE, which also includes Bruce Conner’s TAKE THE 5:10 TO DREAMLAND (1976, 6 min) and VALSE TRISTE (1977, 5 min), Su Friedrich’s GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM (1981, 14 min), Gunvor Nelson’s TIME BEING (1991, 6 min), and Daniel Eisenberg’s DISPLACED PERSON (1981, 10 min). Unconfirmed format for all. Eisenberg will deliver a lecture, with Friedrich in attendance.
Ernest R. Dickerson’s JUICE (US)
Music Box Theatre – Saturday, 9:30pm
In Changes: An Oral History of Tupac Shakur, professor and author Mark Anthony Neal exclaims, “The thing that really stuck out more so than the music, even twenty-five years later, was his acting ability, particularly his role as Bishop in JUICE. That was the moment I recognized that this is somebody that we should pay attention to. It was an undistilled depiction of Black existentialism. The genius of pulling it off. What we see in this kind of a deep underlying rage, and even self-hatred. For someone that age to be able to play that off as an actor, to tap into this energy at such a young age, is unbelievable.” Neal sums up not just Shakur’s unassailable genius as an actor, on display here in his first film role, but that of the film itself, a treatise on the meaning of life in an environment where that hardly seems to be a consideration. Having previously been the 'eye' for various filmmakers, notably Spike Lee (with whom he collaborated on several of the director’s most iconic films), Ernest Dickerson considers the premise from an especially interesting angle, subtly and sublimely merging aesthetic veracity with the aforementioned existentialism. Shakur stars as Bishop, one of four young Black men who form a dedicated group of friends, not to be mistaken for an actual gang; the others are Q (Omar Epps), Raheem (Khalil Kain) and Steel (Jermaine Hopkins). Their commitment to one another as they skip school, steal records for Q’s blossoming career as a DJ, and eat a disgusting breakfast scramble—marinated in beer from a 40 oz. glass bottle, as one does—is endearing, but it’s also through the latter activity that we begin to see Bishop’s tenuous grasp on reality (or, alternately, his bleak understanding of it, at least as it applies to him and his friends as underserved Black boys on the cusp of adulthood in Harlem). While eating they also watch Raoul Walsh’s WHITE HEAT (1949) on television, and Bishop becomes euphoric as James Cagney’s character, having been shot several times, shoots at a gas tank and sets it ablaze. "Made it, Ma!,” Cagney shouts. “Top of the world!" Violence and even self-sacrifice by way of a disregard for one’s own life, so much so that Bishop does not seem to fear death but actually to welcome it, are indicators of these characters’ perceived value. As Dickerson has noted, the gun that the group attains toward the beginning of the film as their means of holding up a corner store isn’t just a prop, but the prop, a symbol of suppressed pain and the “juice” they so desire—a sense of power and respect not inherently afforded the group by birth. Unlike Bishop, Raheem wants to live; he has a child, who represents the other end of the binary at play here, and, while not necessarily a moral center, Raheem is the one who takes pains to ensure his group doesn’t play fast and easy with their lives. Steel is more of a comic figure, while Q, the ostensible protagonist, toes a line between Bishop and Raheem. He’s driven primarily by his love of music; Dickerson, who co-wrote the script with Gerard Brown approximately nine years before they were able to make the film, has said, “I didn’t want Q to be a rapper, because that just seemed easy. I wanted him to be a musician, and being a young man in Harlem, not able to necessarily afford musical instruments, he made his own instruments using discs and being a DJ. That’s something that I discovered earlier on and I was fascinated by it. The idea [of] coming up with this new type of music through scratching just fascinated me.” The film’s score was created by Public Enemy cofounder Hank Shocklee and his production outfit The Bomb Squad, and he’s referred to it “as the first true contemporary African-American movie score.” Music is a salvation in the film, as it was in life as well, with Shakur writing his debut album as it was being made. For Shakur, much like Q in the movie, music was the real ‘juice,’ the source of meaning and expression in a world filled with noise. The film remains a testament both to the talents of its stars (in addition to Shakur and Epps, Queen Latifah and Samuel L. Jackson make memorable appearances) and the enduring relevance of its themes. Screening as part of Fresh Films: A Celebration of 50 Years of Hip Hop series. (1992, 95 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Ellie Foumbi's OUR FATHER THE DEVIL (US/France)
Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes
A long-time actor, Ellie Foumbi has made it her mission to explore stories of the African diaspora. OUR FATHER, THE DEVIL takes place in provincial France, and follows Marie (Babetida Sadjo), a Guinean immigrant who works as a chef at an assisted living facility. The opening credits communicate a violent past that follows her everywhere. Marie’s mentor, a dying retired chef named Jeanne (Martine Amisse), leaves her cabin to Marie to inherit. One day, Marie arrives at work to hear a familiar voice giving a sermon. She follows the voice and enters the room to find an African priest speaking to a group. Becoming utterly repulsed from recognizing Father Patrick (Souleymane Sy Savane) as the man from her childhood who murdered her family in cold blood, Marie’s nose begins to bleed and she faints. Later, she kidnaps the man, taking him to the remote cabin to interrogate and torture him for his crimes. Does she have the right man? Even if she does, can a body traumatized purify through blood? Without her experience, can anyone understand Marie’s justifications for taking these actions? Foumbi balances a new kind of thriller with commentary on the feminine African immigrant experience in predominantly white countries. The heroine’s alienation moves the story forward; Marie points out to a chair-bound Father Patrick that French police will not care if an African man disappears, and this gives her more time to inflict pain. Foumbi’s politics never feel preachy, but rather enhances a fresh perspective on an old genre. Savane gives a piercing performance as a man trying to move on from his past, and Sadjo presents down to the nitty-gritty detail a woman numbed through years of repression and survival in a foreign land. (2022, 108 min, DCP Digital) [Ray Ebarb]
John Waters' PINK FLAMINGOS (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Wednesday, 8pm
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. Screening as part of the Contra/Banned series. (1972, 93 min, 35mm) [Kyle Cubr]
Jack Cardiff’s THE GIRL ON THE MOTORCYCLE (UK/France)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 5pm
If you’ve heard anything about Jack Cardiff’s whiplash journey of female sexual liberation, it might be this particular tidbit in film distribution history: the film holds the distinct title of being the first movie in the US given the dreaded “X” rating by the MPAA, though the sordid implications of the rating meant very little when next year’s MIDNIGHT COWBOY would win the Academy Award for Best Picture, X rating and all. But THE GIRL ON THE MOTORCYCLE—originally released in the United States under the cheekier title NAKED UNDER LEATHER—likely wouldn't garner that sort of explicit notice today, as its female nudity and eroticism are infrequent and tame by today's standards. Perhaps the very thought of a sexually adventurous female protagonist was enough to drive the MPAA up the wall, with the film's heroine leaving her husband to find sexual gratification representing a daring notion in a post-Hays Code world (even though the topic was common enough on the silver screen). Under the directorial and photographic watch of Cardiff—best known as a frequent collaborator of directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger—the visuals on display are what really shine through, with fast-paced motorcycle cinematography appearing decades before Sam Raimi’s EVIL DEAD series would practically trademark the device, alongside the solarization effect that presents many of the sex scenes in a psychedelic array of multi-colored gaiety that almost reads as a softcore take on the kaleidoscopic “Beyond the Infinite” sequence from that same year's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. No matter where you fall on the explicit nature of Cardiff’s feature, there’s no denying it’s a hell of a ride. Screening as part of the Contra/Banned series. (1968, 91 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
Russ Meyer's BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Sunday, 5:15pm
Perhaps the best sequel ever made, Russ Meyer's love letter to groovy '60s culture triumphs by having nothing to do with Jacqueline Susann's 1966 novel and just a slight resemblance to Mark Robson's 1967 film adaptation. Nominally still a cautionary tale about a group of beautiful young women coming to the big city and being corrupted by fame and fortune, it marries Meyer's lifelong fixation with oversized bosoms to a lurid color palette and a cartoonishly square, moralizing voiceover. The result is like a gleeful episode of The Partridge Family set in a bordello. Viewed with 2023 eyes, it might be tempting to give Meyer credit for open-mindedness in depicting alternate lifestyles and nonbinary presentation, but though his outlook is primarily optimistic, it is still that of a traditional '50s American male. Like touring a safari, this is a chance to get an eyeful of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll from the comfort of staid suburbia. Meyer's true innovation was in owning all his intellectual property. He was a truly independent filmmaker even when working for studios, like he did here. That insistence on controlling his own economic and creative destiny is the lesson he can teach young filmmakers whose careers are imperiled before they even begin by corporations and AI. Meyer's perspective on sexual and broader societal mores are firmly patriarchal. In that way, his work is in line with Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine, in whose pages many of this film's stars were featured. Unlike Hefner, Meyer was self-aware enough not to try to sell his preoccupations as a wholesome lifestyle brand. Like a leering uncle, you wouldn't go to him for advice on how to treat your girlfriend, but you might ask about how he got the house with the two-car garage. Along with FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! (1965), this is Meyer's most successful attempt at quasi-mainstream entertainment. The fetishism is buoyed by a bouncy soundtrack and there's a triple wedding in the end. It's not really a happening and it won't freak you out, but you'll have a good time anyway. Screening as part of the Contra/Banned series. (1970, 107 min, DCP Digital) [Dmitry Samarov]
Paul Verhoeven's ROBOCOP (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Friday, 8pm
One of the most uncomfortable films ever released by a major Hollywood studio, ROBOCOP features a dead man, partially resurrected by capitalist interests as a cyborg badge-wearing mass murderer, on a quest of meaningless revenge. In an urban hellhole tellingly derived from the economically undead metropolis of 1980s Detroit, a police officer named Murphy is brutally killed by a group of giggling and moronic thugs who, inexplicably, rule the local underworld. Brought back by the ominously named Omni Consumer Products, Murphy is set on a quest to eliminate all crime in the city, seemingly through the most violent of possible means. In Verhoeven's realization, the film is a litany of intricate and graceful violations, filled with bodies slamming through shattering glass, blood smearing on lenses, obscenities hurled one after another in machine-gun-like abandon. Murphy himself, in his undead form, is a walking obscenity and is called such by major characters: he is an affront to the tasteful and easy morality that ROBOCOP is dedicated to demolishing, refusing any compartmentalization, whether the literal (he breaks free of his OCP bonds) or the figurative (is he or is he not the police officer who was killed?). Verhoeven collapses these fields of discomfort and rupture—the metaphorical, the visual, the verbal—into a series of brilliant set pieces that demonstrate the inherent internal contradictions that lie at the heart of American society as Murphy, the gun-wielding zombie of capital, journeys from the pettiest of street crimes to the heights of corporate evil. Each cut a slap in the face, each shape out of place, ROBOCOP is one of the major achievements of Verhoeven's Sirk-like mastery of the politics of design, composition, and rhythm. Screening as part of the Contra/Banned series. (1987, 103 min, DCP Digital) [Kian Bergstrom]
Howard Hawks' SCARFACE (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Monday, 6pm
Howard Hawks' early talkie SCARFACE finds him adapting Armitage Trail's nigh-unreadable novel of booze slinging and unbridled incestuous lust into a free-for-all of cinematic show-offery. The perversely mannered, highly symbolic cinematography and visual patterns Hawks brings to this dirty and unwholesome tale are justly famous: the fortuitous 'X' appearing within the mise-en-scene just as death approaches, the playful long-take of murder the opens the film that's been stolen out of Von Sternberg's UNDERWORLD, the tommy gun that blasts away the pages of a calendar to mark the days of Tony Camonte's mob rule. As Camonte, Paul Muni seems to move through the frame like a caged animal, infinitely furious and simultaneously perpetually calculating, a monster whose body exists only because his desires need physical form to be satisfied. Screening as part of the Contra/Banned series. (1932, 94 min, DCP Digital) [Kian Bergstrom]
Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan’s JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (US)
Music Box Theatre – Friday and Saturday, Midnight
Despite its connection to a larger IP (Archie Comics), JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS feels more closely aligned with the brightly colored, yet darkly satirical teen comedies that came out in the late 90s and early 2000s—movies like DROP DEAD GORGEOUS, JAWBREAKER, SUGAR & SPICE, and DICK. The film has gained cult status not only for its tongue-in-cheek takedown of commercialism in the record industry, but also for its eccentric supporting performances, fourth-wall-breaking humor and genuine sense of fun. After the sudden, tragic loss of DuJour, the world’s most popular boy band, singer-guitarist Josie (Rachael Leigh Cook) and her pals—compassionate bassist Val (Rosario Dawson) and ditzy-but-sweet drummer Mel (Tara Reid)—take their Riverdale band to the next level and snag a record deal. The Pussycats land a contract with MegaRecords, but their friendship is tested by a speedy rise to success. Complicating things further, the record company is not at all interested in the band, but rather in using their music to sell products subliminally. Alan Cumming and Parker Posey scene-steal as the villainous MegaRecords higher-ups with a plan for world domination; another standout is Missi Pyle as Alexandra Cabot, sister to the Pussycats’ original manager, who slyly claims she’s only tagging along because she “was in the comic book.” While not every moment holds up perfectly, JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS’ overarching themes still feel extremely germane, especially in light of contemporary social media and influencer culture. The film also works as a time capsule of early aughties pop culture, which is unignorable in the bold fashions: all asymmetrical hemlines, body glitter, and chunky highlights. Perhaps most importantly, the film sports an authentically catchy soundtrack by its two fictional bands, with Josie’s vocals provided by Letters to Cleo lead singer Kay Hanley. (2001, 98 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
Jennifer Reeder's PERPETRATOR (US)
Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes
For her third collaboration with Shudder, Jennifer Reeder expands the possibilities for stories in the horror genre with PERPETRATOR. The story follows rambunctious teen Jonny Bapiste (Kiah McKirnan), who gets sent to live with her estranged aunt (Alicia Silverstone). She informs the heroine of a supernatural gift passed down through the women in her family and activated upon their eighteenth birthday. While Jonny grows comfortable with her new abilities, the girls at her school face the threat of abduction as classmates go missing. Using her new talent, Jonny must find the culprit. Reeder has stated this is a significant moment for women working in genre filmmaking, a chance to redefine norms set long ago. Borrowing from femme horror queens of the past, PERPETRATOR calls back to JENNIFER'S BODY (2009) and HEATHERS (1988), to name a few; the presence of Silverstone reminds one of teen-centered thrillers such as THE CRUSH (1993). Casting the '90s heartthrob as the cold mother figure opposite high school rebels highlights a unique moment in the forty-six-year-old actor’s career. Silverstone now has the opportunity to play more idiosyncratic roles, having aged out of teen roles; it's comparable to Paul Schrader casting Ethan Hawke in FIRST REFORMED (2017). There’s a yearning in Reeder’s work. Like Silverstone, the writer-director came of age in the late '80s and early '90s; PERPETRATOR’s juvenile characters reflect that time in their mannerisms and behaviors, yet they live with a contemporary American anxiety (mistrust of law enforcement, mistrust of masculine figures, and school shootings). That's not to say that POC, women, and queer folks weren’t previously facing these problems; they simply weren’t addressed in genre film as much before now. The mixture of classic and contemporary gives the work its surrealist tone, a fitting atmosphere for Reeder, whose previous work takes inspiration from Lynch. Kosovan director of photography Sevdije Kastrati creates color temperatures that make the image uncomfortable in all the right ways—a good collaborator for a director who likes to experiment. (2023, 100 min, DCP Digital) [Ray Ebarb]
Satoshi Kon's PERFECT BLUE (Japan/Animation)
Music Box Theatre – Wednesday, 4 & 9:15pm (SUBTITLED VERSION), and Thursday, 4pm (ENGLISH DUB VERSION)
Many consider PERFECT BLUE to be Satoshi Kon's magnum opus—and for good reason. The film’s impact on culture reaches far beyond that of most other anime films, arguably rivaling the work of contemporaries like Hayao Miyazaki and AKIRA creator Katsuhiro Otomo. Those filmmakers regularly utilize the format to explore new, colorful worlds of fantasy and science fiction, which was also true of Kon. However, his work in the late '90s and early 2000s was more grounded in reality, exploring a dreamy aesthetic instead through his characters’ psychoses and fractured senses of self; Kon's approach led him to adapt Yoshikazu Takuchi’s novel of the same name, its story acting as a vehicle through which he could explore these themes. The film introduces us to Mima Kirigoe, a pop singer who leaves her idol group to become an actress. Between disappointed fanboys, mysterious deaths in her agency’s circle, and an acting role that increasingly mirrors her struggle to self-identify, Mima begins to lose herself in the horrors around her. This film would not be the last time Kon used cinema to tackle a character’s identity; he further explored the concept in his next original screenplay, MILLENNIUM ACTRESS, which he penned with frequent collaborator and PERFECT BLUE screenwriter Sadyuki Murai. Where that film uses cinema as a positive additive, heightening a tale of lost love and legacy to dramatic peaks, PERFECT BLUE hones in on the anxiety of performance, depicting an actress who loses herself both on camera and in the public eye. To categorize this film as a great work in anime is to do it a disservice; it's a masterclass in psychological horror that holds its own in one of the latter genre’s most memorable decades. (1997, 81 min, DCP Digital) [Michael Bates]
Jonathan Lynn's CLUE (US)
Alamo Drafthouse (3519 N. Clark St., Suite C301) – Wednesday, 7pm
The term “cult classic” has become somewhat tired over the years as new releases aggressively—and without a trace of irony—market themselves as “future cult classics.” But the term does have an authentic place in film history, one that recognizes the importance that organic fandom culture has on a film’s lasting legacy. Few films embody a “cult” status quite like Jonathan Lynn’s CLUE, which was largely panned upon release and was just shy of its $15 million budget at the box office, but has remained a cultural touchstone for many viewers more than 30 years later. Loosely based on the board game with the same name, CLUE begins with a mysterious dinner party that quickly devolves into a game of whodunit, as blackmail, murder, and criminality bond the guests, all strangers, together. While CLUE features a strong ensemble cast, it’s Tim Curry as the wily butler Wadsworth who steals every scene—effortlessly guiding a plethora of personalities, as well as the audience, through the film’s outlandish twists and turns. It’s a bit all over the place and nonsensical, sure, but it’s a helluva good time regardless. With a seemingly endless arsenal of quotable one-liners, deductions developed at a breakneck pace, alternate endings, and even camp-like sensibilities, CLUE has evaded obscurity because of the passionate fans, old and new, who can’t help but adore its zany appeal. (1985, 104 min, DCP Digital) [Cody Corrall]
Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (UK/US)
Alamo Drafthouse (3519 N. Clark St., Suite C301) – Monday, 12:45pm & 7pm (7pm show is sold out)
For many, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is not simply a masterpiece, but the apotheosis of moviegoing itself. In no other film is the experience of seeing images larger than oneself linked so directly to contemplating humanity's place in the universe. Kubrick achieves this (literally) awesome effect through a number of staggering devices: a narrative structure that begins at "the dawn of man" and ends with the final evolution of humankind; one-of-a-kind special effects, the result of years of scientific research, that forever changed visual representations of outer space; a singular irony that renders the most familiar human interaction beguiling; blasts of symphonic music that heighten the project of sensory overload. It isn't hyperbolic to assert, as film scholar Michel Chion has in his book Kubrick's Cinema Odyssey, that this could be the most expensive experimental film ever made; it's certainly the most abstract of all big-budget productions. As in most of Kubrick's films, the pervasive ambiguity—the product of every detail having been realized so thoroughly as to seem independent of an author—ensures a different experience from viewing to viewing. Much criticism has noted the shifting nature of "thinking" computer HAL-9000, the "star" of the movie's longest section, who can seem evil, pathetic, or divine depending on one's orientation to the film; less often discussed is the poker-faced second movement, largely set in the ultra-professional meeting rooms of an orbiting space station. Is this a satire of Cold War diplomacy (something like a drier follow-up to DR. STRANGELOVE)? An allegory about the limitations of scientific knowledge? Like the "Beyond the Infinite" sequence that makes up most of the film's final movement—an astonishing piece of abstract expressionist art every bit the equal of the Gyorgy Ligeti composition that accompanies it—one can never know concretely what it all means, nor would one ever want to. (1968, 142 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
Stanley Kubrick's FULL METAL JACKET (UK)
Alamo Drafthouse (3519 N. Clark St., Suite C301) – Tuesday, 3:45pm
The inverse of those maudlin male weepies about the terrible things that happen to "our boys" during war, Stanley Kubrick's queasy Vietnam flick is built on the idea that a war movie is just a crime movie without the police. Its famously protracted climax, where soldiers try to kill an enemy sniper, is made with the linear attention to action that defines a good heist scene; the difference is that the protagonists don't just get away—they march through the countryside singing in a scene scarier than anything in THE SHINING. Kubrick is often accused of being a misanthrope, but "disheartened humanist" is much more accurate. This is an exactingly realized work of profound disappointment. (1987, 116 min, DCP Digital) [Ignatiy Vishnevetsky]
Hayao Miyazaki's CASTLE IN THE SKY (Japan/Animation)
Alamo Drafthouse (3519 N. Clark St., Suite C301) – Sunday, 11am
The runaway success of NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND gave Hayao Miyazaki and longtime cohort Isao Takahata the momentum they needed to found their own animation factory, and in 1985 Studio Ghibli was formed. One year later and Ghibli was debuting its first feature, the heartfelt adventure CASTLE IN THE SKY, providing an exhilarating standard for things to come. Taking cues from a long tradition of adventure stories—Gulliver's Travels being the obvious one, but you can feel the influence of Hergé here as well—Miyzaki's third film is certainly his most action-packed, and if it lacks some of the quieter pleasures associated with his later films, it more than makes up for this in the bounty of thrilling set pieces that stretch from the rails of a rustic mining town to the pirate-infested skies far above. Beyond it all is the mythical floating castle of Laputa, sought after by various parties including power hungry Colonel Muska accompanied by a seemingly inexhaustible standing army, tough-as-nails ski-pirate Ma Dola and her rowdy boys, and the two intrepid kids caught up at the center of it all, restless Pazu and the enigmatic girl he rescues, Sheeta. Amidst breathtaking battles with airships and automatons, the film achieves something more than merely introducing Ghibli to the masses; it makes a case for what animation is truly capable of. Released from the live-action burden of special effects, CASTLE IN THE SKY slips more comfortably into the ranks of the timeless adventure stories than just about any film since, retaining today every ounce of wonder that it packed when it launched the celebrated studio more than a quarter century ago. (1986, 126 min, DCP Digital) [Tristan Johnson]
Christopher Nolan's OPPENHEIMER (US
Music Box Theatre, AMC River East 21 and ShowPlace ICON Theatre, et al. – See Venue websites 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 Music Box Theatre) [George Iskander]
🎞️ 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
Uberto Pasolini’s 2020 film NOWHERE SPECIAL (96 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday, 6:30pm, at the Chicago Cultural Center (78 E. Washington St.). Free admission, though advance tickets are no longer available. Please pick up a Rush Card when doors open (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.
⚫ Comfort Film at Comfort Station (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.)
Several Georges Méliès shorts (72 min, Digital Projection) screen Wednesday, 8pm, with a live score by Trash to Kilowatts as part of the Silent Films on the Lawn series. Free admission. More info here.
⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
The 2023 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour (Total Approx. 90 min, Digital Projection) begins and Maite Alberdi’s 2023 documentary THE ETERNAL MEMORY (84 min, DCP Digital) continues. See Venue website for showtimes.
King Donovan’s 1963 film PROMISES… PROMISES! (75 min, DCP Digital) screens Sunday, 3pm, as part of the Contra/Banned series. More info on all screenings here.
⚫ Music Box Theatre
It’s officially Music Box Garden Movies season! See Venue website for films and showtimes.
Also screening this week as part of the Fresh Films: A Celebration of 50 Years of Hip Hop series are Charlie Ahearn’s 1983 film WILD STYLE (82 min, 35mm) on Friday at 7pm, with Ahearn in person for a post-screening Q&A moderated by members of the team behind the documentary MIDWAY: THE STORY OF CHICAGO HIP-HOP; Tony Silver’s 1983 documentary STYLE WARS (69 min, Digital Projection) on Friday at 9:30pm, introduced by members of the team behind MIDWAY: THE STORY OF CHICAGO HIP-HOP and followed by the 2003 short film STYLE WARS: REVISITED (34 min, Digital Projection), introduced by filmmaker Joey Garfield; Craig Brewer’s 2005 film HUSTLE & FLOW (116 min, DCP Digital) on Monday at 5pm, with Brewer in person for a post-screening Q&A moderated by Troy Pryor, founder of Creative Cypher; and Curtis Hanson’s 2002 film 8 MILE (111 min, 35mm) on Monday at 8pm.
Billy Wilder’s 1954 film SABRINA (113 min, 35mm) screens Sunday and Monday, 11:30am, as part of the Nobody's Perfect: Billy Wilder Matinees Part 2 series.
Visions from Elsewhere: A Short Film Screening, featuring 11 short films, takes place Thursday at 7pm. Programmed and presented by Gavin DuBois. 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: September 1 - September 7, 2023
MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Michael Bates, Kian Bergstrom, Rob Christopher, Cody Corrall, Kyle Cubr, Ray Ebarb, Alex Ensign, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, George Iskander, Tristan Johnson, Ben Kaye, Tom McCormack, Scott Pfeiffer, Dmitry Samarov, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, Drew Van Weelden, K.A. Westphal