:: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24 - THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30 ::

📽️ Crucial Viewing

Terrence Malick’s THE NEW WORLD (US)

Chicago Film Society at the Music Box Theatre – Wednesday, 7pm

One of the most divisive films of the 21st century, Terrence Malick’s fourth feature sparked fierce debates on first release about the writer-director’s merits that have continued unabated to this day. Some viewers considered THE NEW WORLD proof that Malick lost his grip on cinema, haphazardly shooting too much material just so he could play around with it in the editing room. (To those viewers’ point, Malick re-edited the film at least twice after its premiere: once before its wide release in early 2006, then again for a three-hour version that came out on DVD. This revival will be of the original, rarely screened 150-minute cut.) Others saw in THE NEW WORLD a supreme example of spiritual cinema in which every moment was rendered mythic and sublime. One can find plenty of evidence to support either argument—indeed, a quick online search will generate more than enough—yet getting lost in the weeds of Malick criticism has always seemed like a misguided endeavor. As Emerson wrote that Shakespeare is not made by the study of Shakespeare, so too does Malick tower over the various interpretations (both pro and con) that have been brought to his work. This isn’t to say that THE NEW WORLD is without its risible moments. Who can forget Colin Farrell’s anachronistic tattoos, the puppy dog eyes of the movie’s young lovers, or Malick’s chronic reliance on a young woman spinning blithely in an open field to signify spiritual transcendence? At the same time, these things never overwhelm the film’s poetic flow; they’re part of a continuum of sensations that speak to the majesty of being alive. To quote Kent Jones’ 2006 essay on the film (sorry): “A lock and key, an open book, a flash of lightning, a candle, a girl’s face—Malick jumps onto everything and startles us… into looking before placing, comparing, evaluating, or any of the other (largely unconscious) tasks we bring to moviegoing. Malick is the only working narrative filmmaker who devotes entire movies to the wonder of presence.” In THE NEW WORLD, that wonder stems from the first encounters between Europeans and the indigenous people of North America, which are rendered so disorienting as to seem like the stuff of science fiction. Yes, we have Malick’s associative editing to thank for that, but also his inspired use of Wagner, Emmanuel Lubezki’s free-flowing (and often deep focus) camerawork, Q’orianka Kilcher’s force-of-nature performance as Pocahontas, and Jack Fisk’s characteristically immersive production design. On a big screen, all of these will be larger than life, as they were intended to be. Preceded by an 8-minute Malick trailer reel (35mm). (2005, 150 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]

E.A. Dupont’s PICCADILLY (UK/Silent)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Monday, 7pm

This is one of those where the sum of its parts is greater than the whole. A new penny of a film, it’s indeed very shiny. I wouldn’t dare go so far as to say it’s as inefficient as the currency, and I know many others wouldn’t either, considering it’s “a central example of late 1920s British cinema,” per one assessment, “one of the true greats of British silent films, on a par with the best work of Anthony Asquith or Alfred Hitchcock in the period,” per another. But it’s less effective on the whole and more so enthralling for E.A. Dupont and his cinematographer’s ocular finesse and the awe-inspiring star power of Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong. Right off the bat the film distinguishes its visual ingenuity, with its opening credits appearing on the sides of London omnibuses. The titular Piccadilly is in reference to a club, owned by Valentine Wilmot (Jameson Thomas), who’s in a relationship with his star dancer, Mabel (Gilda Gray). Business begins to suffer when Mabel’s dance partner leaves the duo; having seen the lowly worker performing for the others in the restaurant’s scullery, Wilmot plucks young Shosho (Wong) out of obscurity and thrusts her into the limelight as the club’s newest attraction, performing a Chinese dance while clad in a commanding and certainly form-fitting outfit. Wilmot and Shosho develop an attraction to one another, much to the chagrin of Mabel and Shosho’s boyfriend. The hostility inherent to Shosho’s newfound status as an ambitious upstart is balanced by the realities of her social limitations. When Wilmot and Shosho go to a seedy club, an ostensible romance blooming between the two, the film reminds us of why things can’t and won’t ever be smooth sailing. They watch as a drunk young white woman enters the club and begins dancing with a Black patron; the latter is summarily thrown out for the perceived indisgression. Shosho as well as the viewers are reminded of what can never be, a dilemma mirrored by the film’s production. A kiss between Wilmot and Shosho was cut to placate censors in the US, which angered Wong immensely, as it suggested that she’d never be able to play a true romantic lead because of her race. In contrast to the film’s whimsical opening, things take a dark turn when tensions amongst the love quadrangle erupt. The glibness quickly resumes, however, after the affair is settled, resulting in an altogether nihilistic viewpoint of the “that’s showbiz, baby” variety. This being his second film in Britain, the German Dupont brought his national cinema’s aesthetic expressionism to it, resulting in many striking scenes born of fluid camera movements and adumbral compositions. Just as striking is Wong herself, in her last silent film. She obscures everyone and everything in her presence, like a seductive shadow making any scene she’s in all the more arresting. While the film lacks in an overall something that might cohere all the outstanding elements, it makes up for in just how outstanding those bits are; it’s a new penny that’s never lost its shine. Screening as part of the Proto-noir: The Roots of the Film Noir Movement. (1929, 109 min, 35mm) [Kat Sachs]

Charles Laughton's THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (US)

Music Box Theatre – Thursday, 7pm

Though now considered a classic, at the time of THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER's release in 1955 the American critics and public rejected it; Laughton's wife Elsa Lanchester later remembered, "It just broke his heart." In 1954, the great author and film critic James Agee adapted Davis Grubb's bestselling novel The Night of the Hunter, which is loosely based on a series of actual crimes in rural West Virginia during the Great Depression.  In Laughton's Southern Gothic film, the dangerous Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) meets a condemned man named Ben Harper in prison, who accidentally reveals that he hid $10,000 in stolen money somewhere in his home. After he gets out of jail, the preacher seeks out Ben's widow Willa (Shelley Winters) and her children John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce); he even seduces Willa into marrying him. But Powell shifts his attention to John and Pearl when he suspects they know the money's location, and the children in turn flee in fear from their home. As Laughton crafted his story and its imagery, the work of the American cinematic pioneer D. W. Griffith primarily influenced him. For this new filmmaker, Griffith mastered a heightened, poetic melodrama, and Laughton aspired to recapture the power of his silent cinema. At the same time, Laughton and cinematographer Stanley Cortez also applied the techniques of German Expressionism to render this strange fairy tale of the Deep South. In his review of THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER in the Chicago Reader, critic Dave Kehr specified, "Laughton's direction has Germanic overtones—not only in the expressionism that occasionally grips the image, but also in a pervasive, brooding romanticism that suggests the Erl-King of Goethe and Schubert. But ultimately the source of its style and power is mysterious—it is a film without precedent and without any real equals." Introduced by film historian Foster Hirsch, author of Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties, who will be signing copies of his new book before and after the screening. (1955, 93 min, 35mm) [Candace Wirt]
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John Sturges’ 1955 film BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK (81 min, 35mm) screens at 9:15pm, also with an introduction by Hirsch. 

Ang Lee’s HULK (US)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Wednesday, 7pm

As befits a film about the duality within one’s soul, you could easily define Ang Lee’s HULK simply by what it’s not: it barely resembles our current-day slog of Marvel Cinematic Universe content churn, focused more on emotional storytelling than ever-shifting MacGuffins. It doesn’t contain the whimsical post-9/11 optimism of the previous year’s SPIDER-MAN (2002), helmed by Sam Raimi. And within Ang Lee’s own career, it marks a curious departure from both his previous wuxia epic CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000) and his subsequent bound-for-Oscar-glory intimate queer western BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005). But all this highlights how singular HULK is as a piece of auteur-driven superhero filmmaking, a spectacle less concerned with fighting nefarious villains than investigating emotional trauma. There are plenty of scenes of Hulk smashing to his heart’s content, bounding across deserts, obliterating machinery to pieces, but Lee is less interested in the “what” of Hulk than the “why,” how this anger manifests in someone to bring them to the level of glorified rage-filled transformation. Perhaps most exciting amidst this Freudian reckoning of the mind and spirit is Lee’s aesthetic vision of what a superhero film can be, experimenting to find the most exciting artistic means of translating the visual language of comic books to the silver screen. HULK’s visual aesthetic can be seen echoed in works like SPEED RACER (2008), with characters and scenes overlapping with each other as they transmutate across space and time, or SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (2018), with literal comic-book panels filling the screen to expand the story at hand. It also seems like a cinematic transmission from another universe, where our obsession with caped crusaders can go beyond the inherent spectacle of the genre and be interrogated with earnestness and curiosity. For better or worse, HULK is a film at war with itself, and with the history of the superhero genre as a whole, proving that—in the grandest, most chaotically operatic sense—it really isn’t easy being green. Screening as part of the Films of Ang Lee series. (2003, 138 min, 35mm) [Ben Kaye]

Christopher Harris' STILL/HERE (US/Experimental/Documentary)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Tuesday, 6pm

As STILL/HERE opens, a flurry of black and white images depicting a multitude of buildings in downtown St. Louis is shown. A disembodied voice speaks about how every brick was hand-lain, how each bricklayer had a family, and how many people it took to construct all those places. Christopher Harris' avant-garde documentary is a mournful take on the urban decay that had befallen St. Louis and what that decay means within the context of the city's past, present, and future. In a minimalist style, Harris uses long, static shots of derelict facades interjecting household diegetic sounds such as washing dishes to ruminate on what life was like within those four walls when they all were standing. Harris frequently frames the subjects of his shots behind obstructions (fences, glass cases, etc.) to imply a sense that the city has become a neglected object in some museum of sorts, further endangered by apathy and a lack of resolve to improve it. STILL/HERE's imagery conjures up visions of a run-down Detroit in the post-Recession era, a spiritual predecessor to 2012's DETROPIA. One of the film's most remarkable aspects is its lack of human presence on screen. Relying instead on voiceovers and recorded messages to fulfill this element, an eeriness sets in as the magnitude of the city's indifference towards these structures is realized. STILL/HERE is an abstract observation on finding meaning and beauty in imagery that's anything but. Harris in attendance. Screening as part of Daniel Eisenberg’s fall SAIC lecture series, the Times, the Chronicle, the Witness, and the Observer: Three Decades Of Film/Video Inquiry. (2001, 60 min, DCP Digital) [Kyle Cubr]

Griffin Dunne’s PRACTICAL MAGIC (US) and Jess Franco’s VAMPYROS LESBOS (West Germany/Spain)

Highs & Lows at the Music Box Theatre – Tuesday, 7pm

In PRACTICAL MAGIC (1998, 104 min, 35mm), a pair of incredibly connected witch sisters struggle to find love while under a curse which prevents the women in their family from finding true love. After the death of her husband—a victim of the curse—Sally (Sandra Bullock), moves her and her two daughters back into the family mansion inhabited by her two aunts (delightfully played by Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest). Meanwhile, Gillian (Nicole Kidman) runs far away from it all but when she falls into a violently abusive relationship, the sisters use their powers to the extreme to keep them all safe—to complicated and dangerous results. PRACTICAL MAGIC is distinctively '90s not only in its cozy October aesthetic—found in its costuming and music choices—but also in its feminism. It does, however, feel radical; a scene toward the end of the film where Sally and all the women in the town—who previously shunned the two witches—gather to save Gillian from her abuser is particularly powerful. Despite the story about finding love, Dunne also generally makes the male characters feel incidental, as either predetermined love interests with little choice or horrifying villains. It’s all about pairs of sisters and the power they find in supporting each other and gathering even more sisters when that support isn’t enough. It’s also a film made even more magical by the effervescent performances of Bullock and Kidman. In VAMPYROS LESBOS (1971, 89 min, DCP Digital) magical connections between women are constantly being interrupted by men. Linda (Ewa Strömberg) has been having erotic dreams about a beautiful woman. When she travels to an island to meet someone about an inheritance, she’s seduced by the woman, a vampire called Nadine (a spellbinding Soledad Miranda). Their passionate relationship is interrupted by a variety of professional men who think they can unravel and control what’s happening. Franco’s psychedelic score is mesmerizing in its eclectic style; it’s been referenced, remixed, and re-released often since. His cinematography, too, is stunning, both in its sparseness and in the saturation of red found in not just images of blood but decor and costuming. His camera also never feels exploitative and often holds extensively on the faces of the women, zooming in to highlight their interiority as much as their naked bodies. But it is extremely sexy, particularly long scenes of Nadine’s erotic, candelabra-assisted performance art. It also feels completely sincere, dreamlike in its exploration of female sexuality. Both PRACTICAL MAGIC and VAMPYROS LESBOS suggest the power and love found in pairs of women, the secondary nature of men in those dynamics, and how fearful and angry it makes men. These films also make it very clear that in these dynamics the women must have distinctively different hair colors. [Megan Fariello]

📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED

Stanley Kubrick's FEAR AND DESIRE (US)

Gene Siskel Center – See Venue website for showtimes

For decades, FEAR AND DESIRE was known only as Stanley Kubrick's suppressed film: embarrassed by its amateurish faults and pretensions, he pulled it from distribution, and the few prints that existed were exhibited against his will, rarely and even furtively. In my youth, Kubrickophile as I was, I had to content myself with a bootleg VHS dupe, so many generations removed from whatever illicit scan produced it that its images glowed, and its soundtrack was little more than a permanent, serpentine hiss. There was no telling what secrets lurked within that impenetrable lacquer of static and NTSC bloodbath. Seeing it now in this beautiful restoration, produced by the Library of Congress, it is clear that Kubrick's first feature wears its influences too much on its sleeves. Often, this clumsy effort, made for too little money and without a single professional crewmember, reads like half-baked Vsevolod Pudovkin, served over a bed of Samuel Fuller, with a watered-down T. S. Eliot dressing. The cuts are severe, alienating, disruptive, confusing and jarring the narrative flow like hiccups. The wartime allegory is forced, the soldiers are a group of penny-ante philosophers, and the drama smothered in atmosphere. The script is laden, wet with languorous monologues dragged out of the post-synchronized voices. And yet, there is more to love here than in many of Kubrick's other early films. The photography, honed by Kubrick's years as a photojournalist, is exquisite, and its roughness and silly, over-ambitious grasps at meaning-with-a-capital-M read less as the work of hapless wannabes, mumblecoring their way to an affected cultural relevance, than as the earnest and terrified work of a filmmaker on borrowed time, going-for-broke on what could be his only chance to make his mark. Kubrick threw everything he had into FEAR AND DESIRE, and much of what stuck ended up tracing forward through to his mature works: the awkward, vicious sexual madness of Paul Mazursky's character as he attempts to seduce his prisoner; the rapid-fire, awful night-time attack on a pair of enemy soldiers just trying to eat their dinner; Frank Silvera's great performance, groaning with the weight of his need to matter to the world. After another, and somewhat more accomplished, self-financed film, Kubrick would enter Hollywood, making a series of increasingly slick and soulless films with James B. Harris and Kirk Douglas, films with infinitely more subtlety and considerably less interest than this, and with the release of DR. STRANGELOVE, he would suddenly emerge as perhaps the finest director of his generation. FEAR AND DESIRE is far from a great film, but its flaws are more telling and moving than the empty successes of the Harris/Douglas productions, showing a Kubrick already fascinated by the power of careful composition and expert control over the timing of images and motion, of the brilliant use of unexpected transitions and visual juxtapositions. Kubrick's first feature makes a grand promise, one his career cashed out in spades. Preceded by Kubrick's 1953 short THE SEAFARERS (1953, 30 min, DCP Digital). (1953, 70 min, New 4K DCP Digital Restoration) [Kian Bergstrom]

Toshiya Fujita's LADY SNOWBLOOD (Japan)

Alamo Drafthouse (3519 N. Clark St., Suite C301) – Friday, 11:10pm, Tuesday, 5pm and Wednesday, 10:15pm

LADY SNOWBLOOD is an enduring classic within a campy genre of blood-gushing Japanese action films from the 1970s and 1980s. Several factors make LADY SNOWBLOOD stand out among these tales of vengeance that mostly chronicled contemporary Yakuza rivalries: it was directed by Toshiya Fujita, who more typically made soft-core films (called "pink films" in Japan) for a major Japanese studio; it starred actor and singer Meiko Kaji, who had starred in several of Fujita's romances; and it was produced independently, which gave both the director and cinematographer free reign to exercise their creativity. Their only constraint was the shoestring budget, which meant that they shot the entire production on only 20,000 feet of film, or a little under four hours. By contrast, most major Hollywood productions were shot on a 10:1 ratio. Filmed on 35mm in Tohoscope (a response to Cinemascope developed by Toho, a Japanese studio), the kinetic and lush cinematography brings high drama and emotional resonance to scenes full of fake blood and drawn-out deaths. LADY SNOWBLOOD was adapted from manga of the same name and tells the tale of a woman raised from birth to be an asura, a demon trained to balance the karma generated by the murder of her family and rape of her mother. Kaji (who also sings the mesmerizing theme song of the film) delivers a steely performance as an assassin trained to subsume all her feelings into her karmic duty. With gritty determination, she hunts down the men and woman responsible for her family tragedy, an unstoppable force set against the 19th-century Meiji era society and stunning coastal landscapes. Many will recognize the film's theme song and Lady Snowblood's character as clear inspiration (or, as some, including this reviewer, would say, shamelessly pilfered) for KILL BILL, which Quentin Tarantino directly referenced and showed to the cast and crew between takes. In addition to re-igniting interest in LADY SNOWBLOOD for a western audience, KILL BILL revitalized Kaji's musical career and encouraged her to put out her first studio album in three decades. Fans of Japanese cinema, good revenge stories, or gratuitously gorgeous epics in the 2.35:1 ratio must see LADY SNOWBLOOD at least once. (1973, 97 min, DCP Digital) [Alex Ensign]

Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson’s GOING TO MARS: THE NIKKI GIOVANNI PROJECT (US/Documentary)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

In a society where the pursuit of originality is as frenzied as it is a failure, Nikki Giovanni is the real deal. The 80-year-old Black, queer, feminist poet and activist has and continues to put her stamp on America’s consciousness through her words, both searing and loving, her activism on behalf of the oppressed, and her pedagogy at several U.S. universities. It is only right that her remarkable life was finally chronicled in a documentary, belated though it may be, as Giovanni has had several bouts with cancer over the past 20 years that could have ended her story. Brewster and Stephenson open GOING TO MARS with an epigram from Giovanni: “The trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans.” The meaning of this odd statement only becomes clear well into the film, and by then we understand that Giovanni has a fascination with outer space, which in the film’s penultimate scene she hopes will be her final resting place. In between, scenes of Giovanni’s current life giving lectures, making public appearances, and hanging with her family mix with archival footage of her life as one of the foremost writers of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, including her unforgettable one-on-one with James Baldwin that aired on the groundbreaking television program Soul! We get background on her formative years in Tennessee and Ohio, her parents’ difficult marriage, and her struggles to make a living as a poet after her son was born. We learn that the left turned on her when she scorned protests against South African apartheid, reasoning that it was largely a movement by celebrities who risked nothing by supporting a faraway conflict. In her characteristically unapologetic manner, she answered, “My responsibility in my life is to grow,” and “We need to save ourselves” from the apartheid in American communities. And, of course, we get a liberal sampling of Giovanni’s magnificent poetry, mostly read by her. Her savage “The True Import of Present Dialogue: Black vs. Negro,” her cheeky “Housecleaning,” her gentle act of communion “Poetry Is a Trestle,” are among the examples that show off her funny, fervent, confident personality. GOING TO MARS does a reasonably good job of hitting the highlights, though it is somewhat light on probing explanations. Nonetheless, the filmmakers provide a good introduction to this consequential maverick. The 6:45pm screening on Saturday will be followed by a panel discussion around the importance of Black/BIPOC storytelling, featuring Kim L. Hunt, Anna DeShawn and Channyn Lynne Parker and moderated by Jae Rice. (2023, 102 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Andrew Horn’s THE NOMI SONG (Germany/Documentary)

FACETS Cinema – Thursday, 9pm

Klaus Nomi (born Sperber) was a German emigrant to New York City who became a local legend on the performance art scene, had a brush with larger fame, and died of AIDS in 1983 at the age of 39 just as his career was poised to take off. Through the use of current interviews with those who knew Nomi, archival footage of his performances, home movies and photographs, and a filmed interview with Nomi himself, director Horn pieces together a story both familiar and particular, and surprisingly moving. Nomi had grown up in Germany listening to opera. Enchanted, he went to Berlin and swept floors at the Deutsche Oper Berlin so he could see their performances. Leaving for New York, he waited tables and washed dishes as he tried to find himself. We don’t really learn about how his amazing talent came to light among the New York vanguard until actress and performance artist Ann Magnuson recalls an aria he performed spontaneously atop a frozen pile of dirty New York snow. If the opera scene had been more open at that time to countertenors, Nomi might have found his voice in a different arena. Instead, Magnuson urged Nomi to perform in the New Wave Vaudeville Show, where his ethereal rendering of Delilah’s “Mon coeur s’ouver a ta voix” from Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah while wearing kabuki make-up and an angular plastic tunic mesmerized the cynical insider crowd. So odd was his look and his voice that the emcee had to come out every night he performed and assure the audience that he was not lip-synching to a recording. The lark of the vaudeville show moved on to the lark of forming a “band” and staging a show at Max’s Kansas City. Opening with the Lesley Gore song “Lightning Strikes” seemed a good way to ease audiences into the Nomi experience. Indeed, Nomi himself was an artist who found a fusion between pop/cabaret and classical music to suit his interests perfectly. Remarked upon by many of the interviewees is that Klaus’ persona seemed fully formed as early as the vaudeville show. Whatever was done to showcase Nomi either complemented him or clashed with him—nothing ever violated or changed him. The film makes much of how Nomi and his friends thought of themselves as creatures from outer space. I think the emphasis on Nomi’s alien identity is a bit overblown. This type of imagery was part of the era’s zeitgeist, popularized by the band Devo and the great appropriator David Bowie. Bowie, hearing about Nomi’s popularity, asked him and his bandmate Joey Arias to perform back-up for Bowie’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” during which Bowie grabbed Nomi’s style. What to Bowie was just another reinvention was the essence of Nomi. Nomi eventually came to see that his ragtag band of friends and co-conspirators were holding him back. He was a genuine artist who wanted to reach wide, and he got a gold record out of his association with French RCA, wide recognition in Europe and Japan, and a second record that likely would have had great success if Nomi had not died. Although the film concentrates almost exclusively on Nomi’s professional life (personal reminiscences by his aunt are dealt with in voiceover and illustrated with a cardboard diorama), Nomi’s essential sweetness permeates the film. For example, he is shown on a local TV show baking a lemon tart, speaking openly and sincerely about how to do it. Nomi, the most artificial creature one could imagine, was also the most genuine person in this film. I actually cried when the film announced his death. Finally, I am left reflecting on the aria that started it all. From the San Diego Opera’s Operapaedia: “Musicologists and opera lovers have been involved in the ‘oratorio vs. opera’ argument since the work’s first public performances… It is Delilah and her alone that moves this work to be seriously considered an opera. She is three-dimensional, a character of depth whose motivations are more psychological than an oratorio-bound biblical character would normally be allowed.” Although Klaus has a signature “The Nomi Song,” it is this aria that truly is his song. (2004, 98 min, Digital Projection) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
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Preceded at 7pm by FACETS Film Trivia, hosted by critic, programmer and Cine-File contributor Raphael Jose Martinez.

Pablo Larraín’s EMA (Chile)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Thursday, 7pm

EMA is an immersive aesthetic experience in the vein of certain films by Jean-Luc Godard, Wong Kar-wai, or Claire Denis, where to watch it is to get swept up in a swirl of ideas, formal devices, movement, and music. The movie raises provocative questions about love, art, and sexual politics, but you may find it difficult to reckon with them until after it’s over. Pablo Larraín creates the impression that the film is discovering its identity as it goes along, that it’s capable of changing its shape on a whim. You don’t watch it so much as chase after it. EMA is a classical work in that the form mirrors the content: the title character (played by Mariana Di Girolamo in a larger-than-life performance) spends the film in an existential free-fall, and Larraín’s unpredictable filmmaking feels driven by her unpredictable behavior. The film begins with a spectacular passage that introduces the contemporary dance troupe Ema belongs to before it introduces her character fully. Larraín interweaves dance and bits of drama brilliantly, cutting between different kinds of camera movement and multiple choreographed routines. Nicolas Jaar’s electronic score is constant for almost the first 15 minutes; as it does later on in EMA, it guides the flow of the action, making it seem trancelike. Only after the music stops does Larraín reveal the cause of Ema’s unrest: she and her choreographer husband (Gael García Bernal) recently changed their mind about raising an adopted boy after he set fire to their apartment. Ema still loves the boy despite having rejected him; her obsession baffles her husband, and their marriage quickly breaks down along with their creative partnership. Ema responds to the chaos in her life through dance, setting things on fire, and sex, lots of sex, seducing every principal character and is shown making love to them all in a ravishing montage that manages to top the one at the start of the film. Larraín’s depictions of sex are at once frank and highly aestheticized; they also give way to allegorical readings. Is Ema’s sexual quest selfish or is it, like Terrence Stamp’s in Pasolini’s TEOREMA, some magical process by which she radically transforms everyone around her? Could it be both? Screening as part of the In the Club: 90s Electronic Music and Beyond series. (2019, 107 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

John McNaughton's WILD THINGS (US)

Alamo Drafthouse (3519 N. Clark St., Suite C301)  – Monday, 7pm

Sometimes WILD THINGS feels like the id of classic American film noir, presenting brazenly the sorts of things only suggested by the likes of THE POSTMAN ONLY RINGS TWICE (1946), GUN CRAZY (1950), and ANGEL FACE (1952). The story, which revolves around various diabolical characters plotting to steal millions from a rich widow, is rife with archetypal noir elements (reckless behavior motivated by lust or greed, shady lawyers, whodunnit plotting, sharp observations about America’s class divide, expressionist lighting, etc.) but also memorably filthy dialogue and sex scenes so sleazy that only Zalman King’s regular composer, George S. Clinton, could have scored them. The classic noir trope of betrayal between lovers is repeated so many times that the nihilism becomes a self-referential joke; the narrative excess reaches its zenith in the final half-hour, which may set a land speed record for plot twists. Like many a classic noir, WILD THINGS features a stellar supporting cast; the standouts include Theresa Russell (as the widow), Bill Murray (as the lawyer), and Robert Wagner (as some rich douchebag). The scene-stealing performances border on camp, but like the film as a whole, never cross the line. Credit John McNaughton’s steely direction for the control over tone. As demonstrated by HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1986), MAD DOG AND GLORY (1993), and NORMAL LIFE (1996), this native Chicagoan can evoke the toughness of classic noir without grandstanding about it; more importantly, he knows to flesh out major and minor characters alike so that the film doesn’t feel like a mere genre exercise. The twists are effective because McNaughton (directing a script by Stephen Peters) generates enough interest in the characters to create genuine shock when they’re betrayed or bumped off. The movie is plenty shocking before that due to the frankness of the carnality. Prior to any onscreen sex in WILD THINGS, the characters are still all but dripping with it—as in Paul Verhoeven’s BASIC INSTINCT (1992), another major neo-noir of the ‘90s, people talk about sex so much that it seems like one of the only hobbies anybody has. The sensual atmosphere is enhanced by the southern Florida locations and the neon green that dominates the lighting schemes. (1998, 108 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

Robert Wise’s THE SOUND OF MUSIC (US)

Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes

Of all the epic musicals to emerge from 1960s Hollywood, THE SOUND OF MUSIC is arguably the grandest. The much-awarded film (five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Robert Wise) is based on the much-awarded stage production (five Tony awards, including Best Musical) that was the last collaboration between composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein. Of the seven stage-to-screen adaptations of their works, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, shot on location in glorious 70mm Todd-AO color is the most successful transfer. Through the method Rodgers and Hammerstein invented, this film effortlessly tells the story of the real-life Von Trapp Family Singers through songs that advance the story and reveal the state of mind of its characters. The nuns foretell a different life for their lively postulant in “Maria,” Maria earns the trust of the obstinate Von Trapp children in “My Favorite Things,” and the family bids Austria good-bye in “So Long, Farewell.” In between, director Wise makes the most of Austria’s natural and built environments, a soaring opening shot of the Alps affirming the glories of the homeland lovingly proclaimed later in “Edelweiss” and snapshots of Salzburg accompanying Maria and the children as she teaches them to sing in “Do-Re-Mi.” There are wisps of another epic, GONE WITH THE WIND (1939), as Maria makes play clothes for the children out of curtains and war intrudes on a prosperous, aristocratic family. But the villains remain mostly offstage in this family film that seeks to inspire and gently provoke reflection about duty, loyalty, love, and sacrifice. Screening as a "Sing-a-Long" event. (1965, 172 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Sofia Coppola’s PRISCILLA (US)

Multiple Venues – See Venue websites for showtimes

In 1959, rock ‘n’ roll icon Elvis Presley was perhaps the most famous person in the world. It was in that year, during his military service in West Germany, that the 24-year-old superstar met 14-year-old Army brat Priscilla Beaulieu and began courting her. After several visits to Graceland after his discharge, Priscilla would move to Graceland permanently in 1963 and marry Elvis in 1967. The marriage produced a daughter, Lisa Marie, and was dissolved in 1973. It is this period in Priscilla Presley’s life, adapted for the screen from her 1985 autobiography Elvis and Me, that forms Sofia Coppola’s latest entry on the dynamics of fame that confuse the lives of those who are caught up in it, particularly the lives of women who suffer under male domination. Coppola emphasizes Priscilla’s innocence at the beginning, putting her in a ribbon choker from which a silver heart dangles, a subliminal cry for love. The approach of one of Elvis’ Army buddies, who invites her to a party Elvis is throwing, looks like a grown man offering a child some candy. Indeed he is, but her homesickness, excitement about meeting Presley, and the promise of responsible chaperoning eventually overcome her parents’ objections. Coppola handles the romance tentatively, suggesting its creepiness while giving plausibility to the underpinnings of the relationship: the pair’s feelings of disruption and their mutual need for love. The rest of the film proceeds in an episodic way, which works not only to telescope the yearslong action, sometimes to a confusing extent, but also to emphasize the lack of coherent forward movement in Priscilla’s undramatic life. She’s not allowed to get a job to fill her empty hours waiting for Elvis to return to Graceland from wherever he’s working. She’s not allowed to have sex with him until he decides the moment is right, even though the fan magazines are filled with his romantic escapades. She can’t even play outside with the puppy he got her because it would attract attention from the fans who flock at the compound gates. Cailee Spaeny is as good as the buzz surrounding her award-winning performance has made her out to be. She very believably moves from ninth-grader to adult woman, getting increasingly frustrated and frightened by Elvis’ erratic behavior once his drug use is firmly entrenched. Jacob Elordi adopts Elvis’ vocal mannerisms and posture to such a degree that I came to accept him as the man he plays. Coppola focuses on the pair intensely in most scenes, somewhat undercutting the feeling that Priscilla was often alone. She also is far too discreet about Priscilla’s intimate life, from failing to shoot Elvis and Priscilla having sex for the first time to barely suggesting her affair with her martial arts instructor (perhaps concessions to Priscilla Presley, her executive producer). The period detail in PRISCILLA is precise, as is the recreation of attitudes under which women suffered, and her mix of camera stocks to suggest home movies and news footage adds a nice touch. Coppola’s signature use of needle drops throughout the film are fun, if a bit obvious, such as Dolly Parton singing “I Will Always Love You” as Priscilla drives away to a different life. PRISCILLA does not rank with the best of Sofia Coppola’s work, but her meticulous mise-en-scène and excellent direction of actors are sharper than ever. (2023, 113 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Justine Triet’s ANATOMY OF A FALL (France)

Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes

Like John Cassavetes, Justine Triet makes movies that feel like they’re constantly trying to catch up with their own characters; one consistent pleasure of both of their films is never knowing how the tone will adapt to how the subjects behave. Unlike Cassavetes, who started as an actor, Triet began her career making documentaries, so it’s likely that she allows her characters such liberty because she cut her teeth on observing real people. In her fiction features, the sense of directorial fascination extends beyond what the characters do and into the worlds they inhabit—another surprising quality of Triet’s IN BED WITH VICTORIA (2016) and SIBYL (2019) is how they at first resemble bourgeois lifestyle comedies but end up having a lot to say about law and psychoanalysis, respectively. ANATOMY OF A FALL, which won the Palme d’Or at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, also has a lot to say about the law, in addition to fiction writing and marriage; befitting a movie about a novelist, it feels novelistic in its breadth and depth. But that doesn’t mean it ever feels less than cinematic—Triet makes as many engagingly eccentric decisions behind the camera as her characters make in front of it. ANATOMY OF A FALL is noteworthy for its deliberately graceless zooms and pans, which suggest the perspective of a curious insect, and its low-angle closeups, which evoke a sense of nervous intimacy before the characters even do anything. Triet also shifts enigmatically between objective and subjective perspectives, creates chilling ellipses through editing, and covers staggering amounts of emotional territory within individual scenes. If she weren’t such an exceptional director of actors, her ambitions as a storyteller might seem show-offy; yet ANATOMY OF A FALL (like Triet’s previous two features) is worthy of Sidney Lumet in how it glues your eyes to the performances. Sandra Hüller deserves all the praise she gets for her lead performance as a successful novelist who stands trial after her husband dies in a suspicious accident, but the whole cast is mesmerizing, down to the bit players. Special mention goes to young Milo Machado Garner, who plays Hüller’s 11-year-old son and exudes an emotional maturity well beyond his years. Yet another surprise of ANATOMY OF A FALL is how much it comes to be about his character in the final act; his story vaguely recalls Ozu’s early masterpiece I WAS BORN, BUT… (1932) in its stinging evocation of the moment when we realize our parents are flawed individuals like everyone else. It speaks to the effectiveness of Triet’s maximalism that even the revelations of secondary characters carry the weight of entire separate films. (2023, 152 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

🎞️ 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 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 will be projected onto a wall in the mezzanine area of the station and will run day and night through mid-March next year. More info here.

⚫  FACETS Cinema
Join Room to Read Chicago for its annual Giving Tuesday fundraising event on Tuesday, 6:30pm, featuring a free private screening of She Creates Change, a multi-media storytelling initiative created by Room to Read—spanning animated and live-action films, books and audio stories—that centers girls' voices in the pursuit of gender equality. Food and drinks will be provided by Willow Room. 

Indie Discovery LA In Chicago takes place on Wednesday with three film screenings: Pierre Guillet’s 2022 film BRISTOL FASHION (103 min, Digital Projection) at 5pm, with Guillet in attendance for an introduction and post-screening Q&A, along with other special guests; Raphael Sbarge’s 2022 documentary ONLY IN THEATERS (94 min, Digital Projection) at 7pm, with Sbarge in attendance for an introduction and post-screening Q&A; and Sujewa Ekanayake’s 2023 film COSMIC DISCO DETECTIVE (90 min, Digital Projection) on 9pm, with Ekanayake, in attendance for an introduction and post-screening Q&A, along with other guests. More info on all screenings and related events here.

⚫  Gene Siskel Film Center
Kaouther Ben Hania’s 2023 documentary FOUR DAUGHTERS (107 min, DCP Digital) begins screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes. 

Mat Rappaport’s 2021 documentary TOURISTIC INTENTS (76 min, DCP Digital) screens Monday and Thursday at 6pm. Rappaport; Jonathan Mekinda, Architecture and Design Historian at the University of Illinois Chicago; and Sara Hall, Associate Professor of Germanic Studies and chair of the Minor in Moving Image Arts at the University of Illinois Chicago will be in attendance at the Thursday screening.

On Tuesday, 6:30pm, Matt Singer will read from his new book, Opposable Thumbs, about Siskel and Ebert, followed by a conversation with Chicago Tribune film critic Michael Phillips, and a presentation of iconic clips from At the Movies. More info on all screenings and related events here.

⚫ Music Box Theatre
Alexander Payne’s 2023 film THE HOLDOVERS (133 min, DCP Digital) continues this week. See Venue website for showtimes.

The theatrical cut of James Cameron’s 1991 film TERMINATION 2: JUDGMENT DAY (137 min, DCP Digital) screens Friday and Saturday at 11pm.

Roberta Findlay’s 1975 film ANYONE BUT MY HUSBAND (71 min, DCP Digital) screens Sunday at 9:45pm. Presented and programmed by The Front Row and Olivia Hunter Willke. 

In partnership with the Chicago International Film Festival and 93XRT, Alec Basse’s 2023 concert film FRANCIS COMES ALIVE: THE MOVIE (90 min, DCP Digital) screens Monday at 7pm. Followed by a post-screening Q&A with Neal Francis and Alec Basse moderated by Ryan Arnold of 93XRT.

Alison’s live-music film MONO: LIVE PILGRIMAGE TO MADRID (84 min, DCP Digital) screens Tuesday at 7:15pm. More info on all screenings and events here.

⚫ Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (915 E. 60th St.)
Sisters in Cinema and Full Spectrum Features present OUR RIGHT TO GAZE, a touring film anthology featuring original narrative short films by emerging Black artists, on Thursday at 6:45pm. The theme for this year's second edition of OUR RIGHT TO GAZE is “Heart of the Matter.” The screening will be preceded by a live pre-show featuring music from Jasmin Taylor and special appearances from filmmakers Charlene Carruthers and Gabriella Wiltz, hosted by Sisters in Cinema's own Sarah Oberholtzer,  and followed by a reception with free food and beverages sponsored by Marz Brewing. More info here.

⚫ School of the Art Institute
Another job opportunity—actually two! The Department of  Film, Video, New Media and Animation (FVNMA) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is conducting a double search—two tenure-track positions hiring concurrently this year. They are jointly listed for artists with an expertise in "experimental film and video." The priority application deadline is January 8, 2024. More information about the role and how to apply here. 

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

🎞️ ONLINE SCREENINGS/EVENTS

⚫ VDB TV
As VDB welcomes the Eiko & Koma and Eiko Otake collections, they are presenting a three-month series of programs that highlight representative works from them. Eiko & Koma (1976-2012, Total approx. 45 min) screens for free on VDB TV. More info here.

CINE-LIST: November 24 - November 30, 2023

MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs

CONTRIBUTORS // Kian Bergstrom, Kyle Cubr, Alex Ensign, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Ben Kaye, Candace Wirt