:: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1 - THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7 ::

📽️ Crucial Viewing

Stan Brakhage: Imagination and Perception (US/Experimental)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 2:15pm

In the two decades since his death, experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage has been cinematically deified; and from Dogstar to Dante, his filmography has been canonized into an accepted Criterion lectionary for at-home devotees. Not too long ago, Stan's films were debated, disputed, and sometimes deplored. Local film critic and Brakhage scholar Fred Camper has recently released a compilation of his writing on the man and his work called Seeking Brakhage, which provides six decades of meticulous and rich thought on one of the largest looming presences in experimental film history. As the writing in the book was mostly contemporary to the release of the films, you get a view of the sometimes contentious Brakhage, with his complex relation to subjects political, sexual, and abstract. To celebrate the book and to provide a perfect primer on Brakhage's films, this screening covers some generally agreed-upon masterworks and some of Camper's esoteric choices to illuminate his particular reading of Brakhage's lifelong cinematic project and artistic vision. THE WONDER RING (1955) is one of those generally agreed-upon masterworks commissioned by Joseph Cornell to document a soon to be demolished elevated train in New York. THE RIDDLE OF LUMEN (1972) is a playfully inscrutable investigation into objects and light. SOL (1974) is another investigation of light, more abstract this time yet more direct and clear in its subject. MURDER PSALM (1981) is a bit of an outlier with its use of found footage and its pretty direct meditation on aggression and death. ARABIC 1 (1980) and ARABIC 19 (1982) are part of a long series of purely abstract films about which Camper writes, "Whereas Brakhage describes his earlier abstracting elements as attempts to depict things he actually sees—closed-eye vision, spots literally seen in moments of crisis—he calls these films attempts to depict things not yet seen, to plumb deeper strata of the psyche." Throughout his career, Brakhage would incorporate hand painting on the strip of film into his work, but toward the end he created many fully painted films which are achingly gorgeous, and the program ends with three of these: CHARTRES SERIES (1994), SPRING CYCLE (1995), and INTERPOLATIONS 1-5 (1992). It's worth taking any opportunity to see Brakhage's work on film in a theater, but you should especially jump at the chance to see these films with Camper introductions and added insights. (1955-1995, Total approx. 90 min, 16mm & 35mm) [Josh B Mabe]

Hobart Henley’s NIGHT WORLD (US)

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

There are few eras in film history that have more fans than the pre-Code 1930s. It’s easy to go gaga over the most outrageous pre-Code films, from the uber-decadent SHE HAD TO SAY YES (1933) to the ridiculously plotted CORSAIR (1931) and salaciously featherweight Busby Berkeley musicals. That said, not all pre-Coders are created equal, which will be obvious to anyone who checks out NIGHT WORLD. Short even by churn-’em-out Hollywood standards, NIGHT WORLD is a slapdash potpourri of risqué dancing, infidelity, racketeering, alcoholism, murder, comedy, and the redemptive power of love jammed into one location—Happy’s Club, named for its owner, improbably played by Boris Karloff. Hobart Henley and much of his cast spent the majority of their careers making silent movies, so crammed quickies were second nature to them. Mae Clarke, famous for taking half a grapefruit in the kisser in THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931), plays a sympathetic dancer pursued by gauche George Raft and eventually beloved of the film’s star, Lew Ayers. Ayers’ redemption from alcoholic depression comes not only from Clarke, but also from rejecting his unloving mother (Hedda Hopper), whose professed hatred of him did not stop her from looking for him in every club and speakeasy in town. My favorite character is Tim, the Black doorman played by Clarence Muse, who is rightly called a “philosophizer” by a friendly policeman (Robert Emmett O’Connor) who stops by to chew the fat with him each night. The script by P.J. Wolfson, Allen Rivkin, Richard Schayer is well rendered, with this excellent quote from Clarke turning down Ayers’ offer of a drink from his flask: “I’m trying to live long enough to see good liquor come back.” Also of note is a full-on Busby Berkeley dance number, complete with kaleidoscopic and between-the-legs shots, that leaves little to the imagination. Preceded by Albert Ray’s 1932 short ROLLING ALONG (20 min, 35mm), (1932, 58 min, 35mm) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Nagisa Oshima's MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE (Japan/UK)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 7:45pm

At the 2014 MCA Chicago exhibition 'David Bowie Is,' there was a small room that held various artifacts from the British superstar's disparate acting career. It led to another room in which several of his performances were being projected in a loop; included was a scene from Nagisa Oshima's MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE in which Bowie, as Major Jack Celliers, a South African soldier who's been sentenced to death for participating in guerrilla warfare, mimes his way through some final "actions" leading up to his execution (which he inexplicably survives). Though Bowie studied miming under the great Lindsay Kemp, the scene is no mere shoutout to one of his (and subsequently Oshima's) more obscure influences; instead, Celliers' disaffected wit is a concise summation of the film's central theme, that of willfulness and Japanese repression of will through order and tradition. Plotwise, the film is about the dynamic among a group of men in a Javanese prisoner of war camp during World War II. More specifically, it's about the dynamic between two Allied prisoners of war and two Japanese prison camp workers. Next to Bowie, Tom Conti plays the titular Mr. Lawrence, a British POW who speaks Japanese and expresses a general understanding of the complex culture that's imprisoned him. The camp workers are Japanese soldiers Sergeant Hara and Captain Yonoi, the former a brutal guard who nevertheless makes friends with Lawrence and the latter a tradition-bound commandant who develops a fixation on the fair-haired Celliers. Much like Bowie the performer, MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE is often cited for its homoerotic undercurrent, an assessment heightened by the casting of Japanese electronic music star Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose androgynous beauty mirrors that of Bowie, as Capt. Yonoi. (In one scene, Sgt. Hara remarks that he had just been awoken from a dream featuring Marlene Dietrich, another high-cheekboned babe known for her transgressive sex appeal.) But just as Bowie's sexuality is often mistakenly taken at face value, so, too, is the film's homoerotic undercurrent often mistaken as its central theme. As Oshima himself has written, "homosexuality is the synthesis of friendship and violence: military men are attracted by their enemies, as men, in compensation for their frustration." Disregarding Oshima's problematic view towards homosexuality and sexual violence (rape is common in his films), it's evident that Yonoi's violent tendencies are brought about by the repression of his attraction to Celliers, which is an attraction that has as much to do with Celliers' willfulness as it does his physical beauty. Yonoi had been part of a coup to assassinate leading government officials and take control of the palace but was spared his life and restored to military standing, albeit at a low level, because he was out of the country during the actual attack. Thus, the repression of his will extends beyond sexuality and relates to both the oppression of his militarist ideology and the guilt he feels over not having been present at the insurgence. The film is widely considered to be one of Oshima's more accessible works owing to the cast, its similarities with other popular POW films (most notably David Lean's 1957 film BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI) and Oshima's use of long shots and symmetrical framing. Based on Sir Laurens Jan van der Post's novel The Seed and the Sower, it differs from other similarly acclaimed POW films in that it's a film made by the "other," reflecting the wartime cruelty of his own people. And even Oshima's use of traditional filmmaking devices lends itself to his alternative viewpoint; long shots allow for all the characters to be equally represented and thus equally contradicted, an element of craft mirrored by Lawrence's assertion that "we are all wrong," and the symmetrical framing in many scenes is meant to reflect the traditionalism that Oshima challenges throughout. (He employed a similar visual motif in his 1971 film THE CEREMONY.) The film's score is another aspect that enhances its subtle unconventionality. Composed almost entirely by Sakamoto, it's a delicate blend of traditional-sounding melodies and his own synth-pop sensibility. Bowie sings a bit in the film, but it's Strafer Jack who's most off tune. Screening as part of the Sounds of Ryuichi Sakamoto series. (1983, 122 min, 35mm) [Kat Sachs]

Frederick Wiseman’s MENUS-PLAISIRS LES TROISGROS (France/Documentary)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

There are a few precedents to MENUS-PLAISIRS LES TROISGROIS in Frederick Wiseman’s vast filmography, in that they were all shot in France: LA COMÉDIE-FRANÇAISE OU L’AMOUR JOUÉ (1996), LA DANSE: THE PARIS OPERA BALLET (2009), and CRAZY HORSE (2011). These films are also connected in that they’re all about the arts; in each of them, Wiseman alternates between presenting creative pursuits as joyous ends in themselves and, more characteristically, as time-honored institutions that reflect immortal tendencies of the human experience. MENUS-PLAISIRS, which runs four hours, has plenty of time to cover both approaches (as well as the equally characteristic approach that presents the central location as an intricate system with lots of working parts). On the one hand, the film contains numerous sequences devoted to the art of cooking that verge on pure cinema—Wiseman doesn’t organize these scenes sequentially (to make this recipe, first you do this, then you do that…), but rather flits around the titular restaurant’s kitchen, cutting between different activities based on the texture of the food or the type of utensil that’s being used. On the other hand, MENUS-PLAISIRS often stops to reflect on the meaning of what’s happening, with speeches by the restaurant’s owner and his various employees about the procedures, intentions, and legacy of the business. The film concludes with an especially moving soliloquy about how the owner learned the restaurant business from his father and has passed his knowledge down to his children, who also work there. One of the finest endings the director has ever constructed, it’s a sublime Wiseman moment that asks you to consider exactly how civilization endures. The philosophical underpinnings of MENUS-PLAISIRS make the film so much more than another documentary about a fancy restaurant—given the patience, seriousness, and introspection of the characters, the film ultimately has a lot in common with Wiseman’s early feature ESSENE (1972), which was about a Benedictine monastery. (2023, 240 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

William Friedkin's BUG (US)

Music Box Theatre – Tuesday, 7pm

Multitalented playwright/actor/director Tracy Letts has been most visible lately in smallish, scene-stealing roles in films as varied as LITTLE WOMEN (2019), FORD V FERRARI (2019), and THE POST (2017). Through much of the ’90s and ’00s, however, he spent his time writing plays and acting on stage. His 1996 play Bug was workshopped at Chicago’s A Red Orchid, with the theater’s cofounder Michael Shannon starring, before its world premiere at London’s Gate Theatre. It seems only natural that the Chicago-based Letts and Shannon would turn to another Chicagoan best known for a little horror movie called THE EXORCIST (1973) to turn Letts’ screenplay of Bug into a film. While THE EXORCIST was a shock-and-awe kind of horror film, in BUG director William Friedkin shows his mastery of psychological horror as well. BUG uses an unseen threat to terrorize its female protagonist, Agnes White (Ashley Judd), a depressed, drink-and-drug-addled bartender who lives in a seedy motel kitchenette in Oklahoma. Her days are spent sleeping off the night before, which generally involves partying with her friend R.C. (Lynn Collins). Agnes spends a typical night in her room getting drunk and high with R.C., while a man R.C. brought spends an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom. R.C. leaves. When Agnes learns that the man has no place to go, she invites him to sleep on the couch. In the morning, Agnes wakes to the smell of coffee and an empty room. The shower is going. When she goes to the bathroom to thank her guest, she is greeted by the tattooed, threatening figure of her ex-husband, Jerry Goss (Harry Connick, Jr.), only weeks out of prison. Just then, Agnes’ guest returns with breakfast in hand. Jerry confronts him, slaps Agnes, and leaves. Before doing so, he learns that the man’s name is Peter Evans (Shannon). This is the first time we’ve heard it, too. Agnes sits down to a bran muffin and vodka and coke with Peter, feeling protected and cared for. Her contentment is shattered when Peter announces that people are after him because he is an escapee from military biological experiments and that he has to leave to protect her. Agnes, moved by his desperate story, runs into his arms. They make love in a psychedelic scene, interspersing naked bodies with microscopic views of blood flowing through veins and arteries. Afterward, Peter says he has been bitten by an insect. He examines her sheets with a table lamp and finds an aphid. He instructs her about the power of this tiny bug. We will see exactly how powerful as the film moves through Peter’s paranoia and Agnes’ dependency to a chilling, almost apocalyptic end. Agnes is a borderline personality dealing with a tragedy and is hopelessly lonely, perfect prey for a parasite like Peter. Because of the episodic nature of the film, we don’t watch Agnes move slowly into Peter’s delusions, and this creates the shock Friedkin mined so effectively in THE EXORCIST. But the shock is more like meeting someone you haven’t seen for a while and finding them skeletally thin or filthy and deranged. Letts adeptly taps the mania of American conspiracy theories with some ideas many audience members may wholeheartedly believe or at least find somewhat plausible. Thus, he shines a light on our own gullibility and distrust. Ashley Judd gives this role her all. She looks extremely unglamorous in the beginning, softening upon experiencing some kindness from Peter, and descending into self-loathing and delusion by the film’s climax. Having said that, Letts clearly wrote an actors’ showcase; at times, I felt lost in the zeal with which Judd struts her stuff. Shannon plays his role as an oddball from the word go, but modulates his descent into madness at an even pace. His focus on Agnes is total and mesmerizing, a Svengali for the self-destructive. Lynn Collins and Harry Connick Jr. are both wonderful, creating fully fleshed supporting characters who seem more in control than Agnes, but are in way over their heads when dealing with Peter. And what about us? The ride BUG takes us on is as exhilarating as it is absurd. Watching Peter and Agnes examine their blood for bugs using a toy microscope is ridiculous, but we can’t stop them from seeing what they want to see. Reduced to almost a primitive state at the end, Peter and Agnes horrify us as much as they sadden us. Screening as part of the Who Gives an ‘F’? series. (2006, 102 min, 35mm) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Aki Kaurismäki’s FALLEN LEAVES (Finland)

Music Box Theatre – See Venue for Showtimes

The “feel-good” movie is often tossed aside as mere cinematic distraction, something flimsy and fleeting to avoid the ever-constant drudgery, chaos, and misfortune of the modern world. But Finland’s Aki Kaurismäki, assembling what is maybe the most morosely joyous film of 2023, offers up an alternative for how feel-good cinema can operate: stories fully cognizant of the world’s inherent misery, injustice, and destruction, and yet striving to find hope and joy and love regardless. Kaurismäki’s trademark style—deadpan performances navigating brightly colorful, impeccably designed surroundings—presents a droll world of intentionally composed scenarios, transporting us between various bars, small homes, movie theaters, hospitals, and workplaces, where work is fleeting, the pay is never enough, and news of constant warfare and hospital bombings is enough to want to shut yourself off from the world for as long as humanly possible. Within this mess, a familiar romantic-comedy formula emerges: Ansa (Alma Pöysti) is oscillating between various low-paying workplaces run by cruel and incompetent bosses. Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) works as a laborer but can barely function without a flask of alcohol tight in his grasp. These two embittered lost souls of the working class have a delightful meet-cute at an absurd night of karaoke, fall in love, and fall apart due to seemingly irreconcilable differences, but anyone who has seen enough romcoms in their lifetime might be able to guess where things go before the music swells and the credits roll. Kaurismäki’s world is distant yet familiar, the paint a bit brighter and the tone of dialogue a bit stiffer, but the feelings of overbearing dread, and the feelings of humor and passion that arise within that dread, are all too palpable and relatable. The romantic comedy is often bemoaned as a dying object at the multiplex, but here, the genre is brought into the present day, startlingly, heroically, and with life-affirming intensity. (2023, 81 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]

Charles E. Sellier Jr.’s SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (US)

Music Box Theatre – Friday, 10:15pm

If John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN (1978) got stuffed with candy canes, sugar plums, and repressed childhood trauma, you might end up with something like the deranged, verging-on-camp delight of SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, a controversy-laden holiday horror constantly working to live up to the mania promised by its ingenious title. Upon initial release, the film was greeted with mass protests and condemnation—the sight of a blood-soaked, axe-wielding Santa Claus just wasn’t ideal for some parents, apparently—though these concerns for melding the sugary sweetness of Santa’s iconography with the genre trappings of slasher films are likely what caused it to still become a box office smash at the time and a runaway cult success to this day. Beginning on an ominous Christmas Eve in 1971, a dark tale unfolds as a young Billy Chapman, after a fateful visit with his grandfather warning him of the consequences of being “naughty” on Christmas, witnesses the gruesome murder of his parents at the hands of a man dressed as Jolly St. Nick himself. Thus, Billy carries this nightmarish grief with him through life, beginning at a terrifyingly religious orphanage run by the strict Mother Superior and ending up as an employee at a toy store, forever trapped with the perception that ending up on Santa’s Naughty List carries with it dire consequences. A work mishap results in Billy having to don a Santa suit for the store’s Xmas festivities, and Billy soon after takes the responsibilities of Mr. Claus a little too far, resulting in an ensuing bloodbath filled with excessive female nudity, gut-wrenching kills, and Billy adopting the ludicrous catchphrase “PUNISH!” every time he vanquishes an “unworthy” victim. It all builds to a tense and gory finale that all but perpetuates the disastrous cycles of violence at play—a joyful message as ever for the holiday season. Presented by Metal Movie Night. The party kicks off at 8:30pm in the Music Box Lounge with Metal Vinyl Weekend spinning records. The Metal Movie Night pre-show of metal videos and classic trailers starts at 10:15pm, with the feature presentation starting at 10:30pm. (1984, 82 min, 35mm) [Ben Kaye]

📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s MONSTER (Japan)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

For Hirokazu Kore-eda, one of contemporary cinema’s preeminent humanists, people are seldom all bad. If they do something unscrupulous, as in the director’s Palme d’Or-winning SHOPLIFTERS (2018), it is usually not out of malice but symptomatic of systemic inequities beyond their control. Understanding and empathy can be achieved through a change in perspective, which is the overarching theme of MONSTER. The Cannes-laureled script, by Yuji Sakamoto, is structured as a triptych, with each section assuming a different character’s point of view. The first focuses on Saori (Sakura Ando), a single mother raising a surly, taciturn boy named Minato (Soya Kurokawa). Discovering that her son’s erratic behavior could be the result of alleged abuse by his schoolteacher, Saori conducts a heated meeting with the school staff to address the wrongdoing. The film then shifts to the perspective of the accused teacher, Hori (Eita Nagayama), who reveals a different version of events. MONSTER concludes by focusing on the feelings and experiences of those society is often most ill-equipped to understand: children. Through Minato and his burgeoning relationship with an effeminate, bullied classmate named Hoshikawa (Hinata Hiiragi), the film elucidates the truth behind its spiraling dramas, surfacing the social prejudices and repressive cultural attitudes that lead a boy to act out, or a teacher to be vilified, or a parent to pass the blame. Sakamoto’s script risks didacticism in how it preaches the pitfalls of making assumptions; it’s so precisely engineered to elide or disclose perception-shifting information at just the right moments that it can feel overly rigged for effect. On the other hand, we could all use a reminder—especially one as warm as this—that none of us have all the knowledge, and that we’d be wise to interrogate even our smallest judgments before they grow into the real monsters. (2023, 125 min, DCP Digital) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]

Bob Clark’s BLACK CHRISTMAS (Canada)

FACETS Cinema – Saturday, 7pm

Prototypical as an early slasher example while demonstrating the very best of the subgenre, BLACK CHRISTMAS continues to feel timeless. As the holiday season approaches, a group of women living in a sorority house have been receiving unsettlingly obscene phone calls from a man called Billy. On the brink of Christmas break, one sister (Lynne Griffin) goes missing, and subsequent brutal killings occur—Billy is lurking inside the house. Jess (Olivia Hussey), who stays behind with a few of the others (Margot Kidder and Andrea Martin), and the local police work to figure out the disappearances and killings and their connection to the phone calls. BLACK CHRISTMAS works skillfully to create distinct, complex characters in a short time, even as they quickly get killed off. It feels lived in, perhaps also due to its cozy horror aesthetic. Everything is alight with the soft glow of Christmas bulbs, creating a warmth even in the cold and gruesome setting and creating some stunning and memorable shots (Bob Clark would go on to make another film about the trauma surrounding the holiday season, A CHRISTMAS STORY). The costuming here, too, is a sea of immaculate '70s winter-wear—with Jess’ iconic “hand” sweater as the standout. That coziness is not to take away from how terrifying this film remains years and countless mimics later. The obscene phone calls are so disturbing, particularly as Jess is forced to keep Billy on the line so police can trace the call, letting his wild ramblings linger; Billy’s voice, the screams and moans, create much of the tension. What and who Billy is, his motives, are left vague, and POV shots allow the audience to be fully aware of his creeping presence in the house without adding any further information. Much is left vague within the film, like dead bodies that never get found, and the notable ending which features one of the more despondent final girl moments. BLACK CHRISTMAS is so much about the ways women are disparaged and consequently punished for wanting to live independently. This is most clearly seen in a subplot about Jess’ boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea) guilting her for wanting to get an abortion. The frank resolve of Jess and the conversations surrounding her choice still feel wholly radical, particularly in this post-overruling of Roe v. Wade moment. Lynne Griffin in person for a pre-screening meet and greet and a post-screening Q&A. (1974, 98 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
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Richard Ciupka’s 1983 slasher film CURTAINS, also starring Lynne Griffin, screens at 9:30pm, witha pre-screening meet and greet and a post-screening Q&A.

Claire Denis' CHOCOLAT (France/Cameroon)

Alliance Française de Chicago (810 N. Dearborn St.) – Thursday, 6:30pm

Claire Denis would have had an amazing resume even if she’d never directed a feature film, spending the 1970s and '80s assistant-directing for the likes of Jacques Rivette, Costa-Gavras, and Wim Wenders. It’s no surprise, then, that Denis’ first feature, the autobiographical CHOCOLAT, was so well-formed, becoming a Rosetta stone of sorts for the rest of her filmography, focusing as many of her films would on peri- and post-colonial French subjects. The film is largely told in flashback, with the present-day France (Mireille Perrier) returning to Cameroon in adulthood and reminiscing about her childhood in Mindif, where she lived as the child of a French civil servant in the late 1950s. The young France (Cécile Ducasse) has little to do on the family estate besides spend time with their house servant Protée (Isaach de Bankolé), a calm and capable man who nevertheless deals with daily indignities from the racist colonizers. France’s mother Aimée (Giulia Boschi) has a more complicated relationship with Protée, where tensions sexual and otherwise cycle depend on mood. As France perceives this longing in her mother, adult desire and nascent confusion are stacked, both women looking for an escape from an oppressive position in the arms of the oppressed. Protée, it should be said, fits into some unfortunate trends when it comes to mythologizing “magical” Black people. But this case feels especially self-probing since, like Sentain in BEAU TRAVAIL (1999), Protée presents more as a hazy, idealized figure than a real person in a way that feels purposeful; his hyper-dignified qualities in France’s memory make him statuesque, a human symbol. France knows this is an incomplete picture, but it’s the only one she has, forever tarnished by a colonial family and environment that will color her perception no matter how she tries to compartmentalize it. Denis approaches this story, like her later postcolonial missives, from an irreconcilable position; her read on French colonialism carries a sticky nostalgia particular to someone who grew up with (and directly benefited from) it. But what makes Denis one of our greatest living filmmakers is her awareness and sense of duty towards this position, her acceptance of the fact that distance from one identity does not give one ownership over another. Her skill lies not just in teasing out these ideas, but doing so visually in a way that explores political positionality sensually, the camera savoring each texture and the contrasts between bodies and their surroundings. It’s trademark Denis, the quality that sets her aside from other didactic-political filmmakers and places her in a category of her own. Screening as part of the French Women Filmmakers series. Comes with a complimentary glass of Bourgogne Louis Jadot. Wine is served at 6pm and the program starts at 6:30pm, with a post-screening discussion with Nick Davis, Associate Professor of English and Gender Studies at Northwestern University. (1988, 105 min, Digital Projection) [Maxwell Courtright]

Pedro Almodóvar’s HIGH HEELS (Spain)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Monday, 8:30pm

The fashions in Pedro Almodóvar’s films are always extraordinary, but those in HIGH HEELS stand out. At the beginning, Victoria Abril as Rebeca, the daughter of famed torch singer Becky del Páramo (Marisa Paredes), waits at the Madrid airport for her mother to finally come home after a 15-year absence. She wears a gorgeous Chanel suit, accessorized with a red Chanel purse and red Chanel sunglasses. In Almodóvar’s films, fashion is more than what the characters are wearing, but instead conveys who they are as people. In this case Rebeca is clearly overcompensating, attempting to appear as if she has her life together in anticipation of her mother’s return; the exacting structure of the Chanel and Armani suits she dons throughout create a illusion that’s betrayed by her obsessiveness with those she loves but in doing so reveals her neuroses and the masking she’s done to appear well-adjusted. As flashbacks show us, she was responsible for the death of her stepfather, who we see was keeping her mother from fulfilling her ambitions. À la women’s pictures and melodramas such as STELLA DALLAS, Michael Curtiz’s MILDRED PIERCE, Douglas Sirk’s IMITATION OF LIFE, and Ingmar Bergman’s AUTUMN SONATA, which is directly referenced in the film, the central dynamic is between mother and daughter, the former having virtually abandoned her daughter despite clearly loving her, the latter in turn developing obsessive and jealous tendencies. This strain is epitomized by Rebeca having married a former lover of Becky’s; after her return all three go to see a performer who’s modeled her drag persona after the singer. Rebeca’s husband reveals his desire to divorce her and again pursue Becky, while backstage, her daughter and the drag queen have a passionate encounter. A month later Rebeca’s husband has been killed, and both she and Becky, who’s since resumed an affair with him, are suspects; the investigation is being led by Judge Dominguez, who, it turns out, is Rebeca’s drag queen lover. All this is the usual stuff of Almodóvar’s oeuvre, but this proved to be an especially divisive offering; the film seriously emulates the melodrama more than spoofs it, as many of his other films do to a degree. But in doing so, the strength of the mother-daughter dynamic here—powerful not in spite of its emotional force but because of it—is centered, and elements such as costumery that in other films may seem superfluous or even superficial instead serve to enforce the respective characterizations. Another telling scene at the beginning involves a flashback of Becky purchasing pairs of matching earrings for her and her daughter while on vacation; Rebeca wears them to meet her mother, trying to jog her memory of when they were acquired, which Becky fails to recognize. They aren’t just earrings, and in positioning them as such Almodóvar reveals meaning where most would fail to find it. The titular footwear are given a similar poignancy toward the end, echoing this exchange at the beginning. The late, great Ryuichi Sakamoto composed the score, though Almodóvar reportedly did not like it. Screening as part of the Sounds of Ryuichi Sakamoto series. (1991, 112 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]

Stanley Kubrick's FULL METAL JACKET (UK)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Saturday, 7pm and Sunday, 3pm

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, 35mm) [Ignatiy Vishnevetsky]

Dario Argento's DEEP RED (Italy)

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

Dario Argento’s seminal giallo, both for its style and the great structural contributions it made to the genre, DEEP RED stars David Hemmings as a British composer in Rome who starts investigating the murder he accidentally witnesses. In doing this, he discovers he may be in line as the killer's next victim. DEEP RED solidifies Argento’s love of classical forms such as painting and classical music, but it’s also one of the first true slasher films. (Note, however, that the gore on display here is substantive, not exploitative.) Argento’s particular affinity for painting is strongest in this film: one can’t help but note the striking similarity between the bar outside the first victim’s apartment complex and Hopper’s Nighthawks; more important, paintings turn out to hold clues to the killer’s identity and motive. It might not be fair to call DEEP RED the best giallo ever made, but it would be an understatement to call it anything less than the most important. (1975, 98 min, DCP Digital) [Joe Rubin]

Douglas Sirk's WRITTEN ON THE WIND (US)

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

On their bright, Technicolor surfaces, the films of Douglas Sirk can appear as so many reiterations of the well-worn genre of the classical Hollywood melodrama. Lush domestic interiors, weeping women, maudlin mothers, betrayal, and heartbreak all make their obligatory appearances; all are familiar markers of a predictable narrative structure that will inevitably deliver the triumph of heterosexual union and affirm the solidity of the patriarchal family. This, however, is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg, with vicious currents stirring underwater. WRITTEN ON THE WIND, undoubtedly one of Sirk's strongest films, demonstrates precisely why the director underwent significant critical reevaluation in the 1970s, leaving behind a reputation of glitz and fluff to become the darling of cinephiles, feminists, and Fassbinder alike. Working within and against the conventions of genre, Sirk's over-the-top excess forces the recognition of fissures and cracks that lurk within the dominant ideology the film superficially endorses. The glossiness and artificiality of Sirk's surfaces gives way to a complex meditation on the contradictions of gender, class, and sexuality. Dave Kehr sees the film as "a screaming Brechtian essay on the shared impotence of American family and business life... that draws attention to the artificiality of the film medium, in turn commenting on the hollowness of middle-class American life." The film stands as an excellent introduction to Sirk for those unfamiliar, but repeat viewings do not disappoint: as Pedro Almodóvar said, "I have seen WRITTEN ON THE WIND a thousand times, and I cannot wait to see it again.'' Screening as part of the Amour Fou series. (1956, 99 min, DCP Digital) [Erika Balsom]

Greta Gerwig's LITTLE WOMEN (US)

Alamo Drafthouse (3519 N. Clark St., Suite C301) – Saturday, 11am

As one of literature’s greatest hits, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women has been an endless source of identification for generations of girls. But do the four March sisters still have something to offer to modern women who live comfortably in a gender-fluid, marriage-optional world that is far removed from the types of constrictions Alcott’s characters faced? Perhaps we haven’t come as far as we think, if the considerable appeal of Greta Gerwig’s version of LITTLE WOMEN is any indicator. Gerwig has done a masterful job of scrambling the timeline of the story, beginning with Jo (Saoirse Ronan) selling her first story to a Boston newspaper, thus announcing a fresh take on the familiar story for a new generation. Gerwig creates an energetic, teeming mise-en-scène in which the sisters’ actions are much more relatable and real. Meg (Emma Watson), for example, is much less the staid and proper sister in this version, even voicing her frustration with her marriage to a man of modest means. The biggest shift Gerwig, as screenwriter, has made is moving Jo into a less commanding position and focusing more attention on Laurie (Timothée Chalamet) and Amy (Florence Pugh). I surmise this was done to play to Chalamet’s fan base, but it also downshifts the message of independence Jo has always represented to wallow in the excess of Downton Abbey-style riches. Also jarring was a Friedrich Bhaer played with a pronounced French accent by dreamy Louis Garrel, son of French director Philippe Garrel. Was the good professor Alsatian after all? And not to quibble, but could Gerwig not have found a single American actress to play the American March sisters? While Gerwig’s LITTLE WOMEN has not dislodged Gillian Armstrong’s emotionally resonant 1994 version from my heart, it is a worthy adaptation by one of our most gifted filmmakers. (2019, 134 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

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]

🎞️ 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.

⚫ DANK Haus German American Cultural Center (4740 N. Western Ave.)
Tobias Wiemann’s 2022 children’s film DER PFAD (THE PATH) (100 min, Digital Projection) screens Saturday, noon, at the DANK Haus German American Cultural Center (4740 N. Western Ave.). Presented by the Goethe-Institut Chicago, DANK Haus German American Cultural Center, and the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center. Preceded by a light pizza lunch. Free admission. More info here.

⚫ Doc Films (at the University of Chicago)
Ishiro Honda’s 1964 films MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA (89 min, DCP Digital) and GHIDORA, THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER (93 min, DCP Digital) screen Saturday starting at 2pm. Sponsored by the Brothers Valauskas. A companion feature to the exhibit Bibliosaurus!, exclusively at Special Collections in the Regenstein Library, opening January 2, 2024, and going through April 26.

Nora de Izcue’s 1983 film THE WIND OF AYAHUASCA (85 min, DCP Digital) screens Sunday, 6:30pm, as part of the Open Veins: Postcolonial Cinema of the Luso-Hispanic World series. More info on all screenings here. 

⚫ FACETS Cinema
Larry Charles’ 2023 film DICKS: THE MUSICAL (86 min, DCP Digital) screens on Friday at 7pm and Sunday at 6pm.

Giallo Gelato presents a matinee of Mario Bava’s 1974 film HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON (88 min, Digital Projection) at 11:30am, preceded by Dean Gold's 2016 short film DEAD DAY REVOLUTION: VAMPIRE BLUES (12 min, Digital Projection). Gold in person. More info on all screenings and events here.

⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler’s 2023 documentary BAD PRESS (98 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday at noon and Sunday at 12:30pm. 

Cynthia Martinez’s 2023 documentary FIRST VOICE GENERATION (80 min, DCP Digital) screens Wednesday, 6pm, with Martinez in attendance. More info on all screenings here.

⚫ Music Box Theatre
Jim Sharman’s 1975 cult classic ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (100 min, 35mm) screens Saturday at midnight with a shadowcast of the film (that’s actors acting in front of the screen during the film) performed by Midnight Madness. 

Kenneth J. Hall’s 1989 film LINNEA QUIGLEY’S HORROR WORKOUT (57 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday at midnight. Programmed and presented by the Front Row and Terror Vision. 

The original theatrical version of William Friedkin’s 1973 horror classic THE EXORCIST (122 min, 35mm) screens Sunday at 6pm. More info on all screenings here.

⚫ Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (915 E. 60th St.)
Jacqueline Stewart, professor in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies and Director and President of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, will deliver the inaugural Mitchell Cobey Lecture on Cinema, titled "Film History as Public History: Notes from the Academy Museum,” on Friday, 6:30pm, in Room 201. More info here.

⚫ School of the Art Institute
Two job opportunities! 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

⚫ Media Burn Archive
Join Media Burn for a discussion about a new environmental justice podcast, Help This Garden Grow, with cohosts Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger, and activist Cheryl Johnson, on Thursday, 6pm, as part of their ongoing Virtual Talks with Video Activists series. Free with registration. More info here.

⚫ 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: December 1 - December 7, 2023

MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs

CONTRIBUTORS // Erika Balsom, Maxwell Courtright, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Ben Kaye, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, Josh B Mabe, Joe Rubin, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky