:: FRIDAY, MAY 24 - THURSDAY, MAY 30 ::

📽️ Crucial Viewing

Victor Erice’s THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (Spain)

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

Set on the Castilian plateau in 1940 at the beginning of the Franco dictatorship, THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE essentially bookends the regime; director Victor Erice’s first feature film was made in the last years of Franco’s rule as censorship began to loosen. THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE itself features a pre-Code film known for its subsequent censorship: James Whale’s FRANKENSTEIN (1931). Shown as a special event to the children of the small village, Ana (a heartbreakingly impressive Ana Torrent) is particularly struck by the scene in which the creature drowns a little girl. Her sister, Isabel (Isabel Tellería, also remarkable), teasingly assures Ana everything in movies is fake, though the creature does exist as a spirit that call be called upon; Ana eventually finds this presence in an unexpected way. Meanwhile, the adults in her life are trying to find meaning in this post-war moment: her father (Fernando Fernán Gómez) obsesses over his beehives while her young mother (Teresa Gimpera) yearns for a former lover. With its stunning golden-hued cinematography and arresting and painterly imagery, THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE is a relatively quiet—reflecting Ana’s whispered voice—but tremendously affecting coming of age film. Reminiscent of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE itself influenced films that constellate childhood with important historical and cultural moments—most notably Guillermo del Toro’s PAN’S LABYRINTH (2006). Erice’s film is a beautiful representation of the ways the most provoking stories and images can be layered to create something both familiar and entirely new. Its use of FRANKENSTEIN is so perceptively done, drawing not only on the film, but Mary Shelley’s larger themes of consciousness and dreams, connecting them to the inevitability of reality confronting and shaping Ana’s childhood. THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE is an historically grounded story about the indelible mark that cinematic images leave on us as young children and how those images can wholly change our perception. As the adults wander lost through this space, Ana’s story demonstrates that these illuminated worlds are as impactful as the real one, can provide empathy, and help to make sense and meaning of it all. Preceded by a TBD cartoon. (1973, 98 min, 35mm) [Megan Fariello]

Christopher Maclaine’s THE END and Stan Brakhage’s 23RD PSALM BRANCH (US/Experimental)

Block Cinema (at Northwestern University) – Thursday, 6:30pm [Free Admission]

The threat of total annihilation seems at once an immediate possibility and a far-off prophecy. A vague statement—do I refer to a historical present or the actual present? To an aspect of fiction or something in “real” life? It’s a disorienting proposition, the hypothetical not so dissimilar from the prudent, and one applicable to various points in history as well as still more various points looming ahead. In the last century, this consideration was epitomized by the creation of nuclear weapons and the subsequent threat of unprecedented cataclysm; existential anxiety has plagued scientists and laypeople alike ever since, with artists standing out among the latter group as those best articulating the resulting spiritual despair. In his book Film at Wit’s End, Stan Brakhage writes about the San Francisco beat poet-cum-filmmaker Christopher Maclaine’s macabre 1953 treatise THE END (35 min, 16mm), stating that “[i]t tackles the atomic bomb—the first handling in art, and as a neurosis, that I know of.” This would position the so-called Antonin Artaud of the Bay Area as the father, symbolically and, perhaps, even quasi-religiously (what is fear of the end times if not the basis of Western theology?), of such creative manifestations. Creative, but in this case, also terrifyingly bleak. The film’s omniscient narration, voiced by Maclaine, tells of six people on the last day of their lives. It may be the last day of everyone’s lives, as the deaths detailed here portend “the grand suicide of the human race” via nuclear obliteration. Suicide is the predominant reason for the deaths, though another involves a young man seeking true love and imminent demise in a leper colony, and in another Maclaine invites viewers to write the story themselves. Compounding the ghoulish tales is frenetic, collage-like editing of images—some connected to and presumably shot for the narrative and some seemingly random archival or B-roll footage—that reinforce the respective tales but also further destabilize the already conspicuous dissonance inherent to Maclaine’s style. Stretches of black with only the narration to ponder suggest a self-awareness of his madness, to which, as Brakhage said, “he worked with a kind of a dedication.” In these moments, with little visually to distract us, the dead-seriousness of Maclaine’s proposition takes effect; that the film largely begins with one of these sequences is the visual (or lack thereof) equivalent of it being called THE END—there’s no escaping the void. It’s hard to believe that this is from 1953. While its bleakness may not be unusual nowadays, thinking of it as coming from the squeaky-clean era of optimism and conformity nevertheless adds an aftertaste of uncanniness. Where THE END contains images and manipulations thereof not before seen (as local critic and filmmaker Fred Camper writes, "Maclaine offers a style of editing unanticipated by previous filmmakers and rarely pursued since: a kind of 'destructive' cutting in which the cut pulls two shots away from each other and pulls the viewer away from both"), Brakhage’s own 1966 apocalyptic opus, 23RD PSALM BRANCH (1967, 69 min, 8mm), part of his 8mm Songs cycle, considers that of which people at the time were seeing too much. It was made in response to the Vietnam War and the proliferation of violent imagery coming out of it. “TELEVISION dumped the implication of monstrous war guilt into my living room,” Brakhage wrote, “and every conceivable hypnotic means of that medium seemed to imply its filthy (striptease/top-seek) pictures originated in ME and that its, thus, prophetic imperialism was/will-be an absolute necessity of my continued living.” Described as his most political film, 23RD PSALM BRANCH combines newsreel footage of war atrocities, footage from Brakhage’s home in Colorado, and some of the first examples of his hand painting directly onto celluloid; like Maclaine’s film, it’s carefully assembled into a corybantic melange of imagery that, as P. Adams Sitney wrote in Visionary Film, “reflects the intensity of the obsession with which its theme grasped his mind.” Like the stretches of black in Maclaine’s film, the silence—common in Brakhage’s films but here ever more appreciable—demands a focus on what’s being said, even if not being orally articulated in the latter work. The newsreel footage seems to be mostly, if not entirely, from World War II, a then still somewhat recent event, yet nevertheless prophetic in how history repeats itself, with the proof of such terror more accessible than ever before. Adams Sitney called it “an apocalypse of imagination”—one, unfortunately, becoming less hypothetical and more realistic than ever before. Per the Block website, 23RD PSALM BRANCH is most often shown in a 16mm blowup made by Brakhage in 1978. For this screening they will be presenting this signature work in its rarely-screened, original regular-8mm format, from a print held at the Austrian Filmmuseum. [Kat Sachs]

Fred Zinnemann's FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (US)

Music Box Theatre – Saturday and Sunday, 11:30am

Taking place in Hawaii in 1941, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY follows Private Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) and his wrongful mistreatments for refusing to join his company’s inter-unit boxing team, while one of his superiors (Burt Lancaster) falls for their captain’s wife. Fred Zinnemann’s film aims to follow the army at a smaller, more personal level as the looming shadow of WWII lingers ominously. Prewitt, and his refusal to box (due to a prior incident in which he blinded his opponent), serves as an analogy for the US' pre-conflict involvement in the war. Despite all instigations and misguided provocations aimed at him, Prewitt (much like America) remains steadfast in his pacifism. Amidst the Korean War that was occurring during the film’s production, Zinnemann’s film takes a pro-war approach. He offers an intimate perspective, which provides an empathetic viewpoint towards the army. Soldiers and those close to them are examined closely in a manner not usually provided during war films. Much like TORA, TORA, TORA, the film truly shines during its scenes depicting the attack that occurred at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Intermixing production footage with actual bombing footage, Zinnemann replicates the horrors of that day in the most realistic way possible. There is a passion that is palpable throughout FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, one that extends beyond the reaches of on-screen romance and fiery tempers. This passion resonates as a form of patriotism and exemplifies the national pride felt during that era. Screening as part of the Liz & Monty Matinees series. (1953, 118 min, 35mm) [Kyle Cubr]

Hong Sang-soo’s IN OUR DAY (South Korea)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

As daunting as it may seem to break into the filmography of the prolific Hong Sang-soo (as of this writing, he has directed over thirty feature films, with at least one new film released annually since the mid-2000s), there is an intentionally casual nature to his filmmaking that makes any journey with him feel breezy and worthwhile. Take his latest experiment in lackadaisical cinema, IN OUR DAY, a tale of parallel artists each faced with a visitor at their doorstep ready to interrogate them about their respective artistic processes. Outside of these chance encounters, there’s seemingly little that unites the to-be-admired actor Sangwon (Kim Min-hee) and the wizened poet Uiju (Gi Ju-bong), though pockets of connective tissue slowly emerge as the film goes on. These conversations—Sangwon with a visiting cousin looking for acting advice, Uiju with an aspiring actor looking for inspiration—are primarily filmed in long single takes that eventually make these ensuing scenes feel more like theater than cinema, the stillness of the image and the bodies onscreen forcing you to wrestle with Hong’s winding conversations about seeking honesty in less-than-ideal work environments or finding love in a world where that isn’t guaranteed. There are few “events” here (a cat goes missing at one point, a promise to remain sober gets destroyed within the running time), but Hong’s focus is less on the larger moments that demolish us than the smaller interactions that chip away at us and reveal what truly lies beneath. Hong’s films are certainly an acquired taste, but as Uiju responds to his visitor’s question about the futility of writing poetry in a less-poetic world, as long as at least one person is watching them, then they’re more than necessary. (2023, 83 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]

📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED

Amei Wallach’s TAKING VENICE (US/France/Italy/Documentary)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

The story of the ascendency of New York City as the center of the international art world is a complex brew of personality, politics, national pride, and marketing that ushered in the hypercommodified art market we suffer today. It started in 1964, at the height of the Cold War. U.S. Information Agency Cultural Commissioner Alan Solomon, Washington insider and Solomon’s co-commissioner Alice Denney, and enterprising art dealer Leo Castelli joined forces to promote the excellence of the democratic way of life by winning the influential Venice Biennale, an international art competition established in 1895. Going along for the ride was their chosen champion, Robert Rauschenberg, an affable mixed-media artist of the vanguard art scene in New York who prepared the way for the pop art of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Marjorie Strider, and other modern artists who emerged during the 1960s. Director Amei Wallach’s third documentary about the art world leaves no stone unturned exploring the life of Rauschenberg and the machinations that brought about his Biennale win. Most of the principals of the story, including Denney, Rauschenberg’s great friend and lover Jasper Johns, and Rauschenberg himself are interviewed, and Wallach includes archival footage and reenactments to show the artist at work and some of the questionable maneuvers that helped the U.S. skirt the competition rules and raised the ire of the other competing nations, most especially France. Although the film runs only 98 minutes, the densely packed presentation can get a bit exhausting. However, those with a keen interest in this subject will definitely appreciate this deep dive into the event and Rauschenberg’s intriguing work. (2023, 98 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

George Miller’s FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA (Australia/US)

Various Theaters

Having gained more relevance throughout the decades for their bonkers approach to a climate-change fueled dystopia, George Miller’s Mad Max series continues to straddle the line of giant blockbuster filmmaking while remaining a distinctly Australian action film. The latest installment, FURIOSA, doesn’t quite pack the dazzling punch of the previous one, FURY ROAD, which saw the series return after thirty years in 2015. Nevertheless, FURIOSA, co-written by Miller and Nico Lathouris, still taps into the same berserk energy. A prequel of sorts, the film focuses on the backstory of Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) and how she, seemingly rare for a woman in this world, becomes Imperator Furiosa, trusted general of wasteland general, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). She is kidnapped as a child (Alyla Browne) from her verdant homeland by warlord Dementus (a fun and frenzied Chris Hemsworth). Ending up in another terribly precarious situation with Immortan Joe, Furiosa eventually makes herself useful as a mechanic and is trained by commander Pretorian Jack (Tom Burke) who comes to believe in her dream of finding a way home. This narrative is reinforced by incredible car and bike chase action sequences, a never-ending visual feast of impressive stunts and effects. It’s hard to categorize this as a conventional prequel because part of the thrill of these films is they never strictly follow traditional cinematic storytelling, more surreal in their narratives despite drawing on action genre tropes. Facilitated by Miller's consistently used sped up frame rate, you’re never fully aware in the desert landscape of where you are, where you’re going, or how you get there. Every gorgeously desolate setting and background character—like all of Dementus’ crew—is fascinating to look at, each with assumedly an entire film’s worth of backstory of their own. Loose on exposition, FURIOSA doesn’t give you much time or space to contemplate before throwing you into the next dynamic moment. This doesn’t mean the film rejects emotion in favor of its unique action; we are very aware that Furiosa as a character is never afforded a moment of peace either, as she learns to rely on silence and combat, making her story one of poignant survival. (2024, 148 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]

Stephen Frears' HIGH FIDELITY (US)

Music Box Theatre – Thursday, 7pm

Now that Stephen Frears has retreated into middle-brow British heritage filmmaking (THE QUEEN, PHILOMENA, etc.), his director credit on HIGH FIDELITY, the all-American Sub-Pop rom-com, is all the more mysterious and unaccountable. Transplanting Nick Hornby's London-set novel to Chicago with the assistance of star/producer/writer John Cusack and his boyhood friends from Evanston, HIGH FIDELITY succeeds largely on the basis of its slippery but firmly committed command of local detail. Cusack's record store, Championship Vinyl, is located at the intersection of Milwaukee and Honore in a Wicker Park that's post-Liz Phair but still pre-gentrification and consequently overrun with over-achieving Charlie Brown crust punks. All the aspiring grown-ups live in one of those lovely old apartment buildings in Rogers Park or Lakeview, where the rain washes away your tears as you stomp through the unkempt courtyards. The hyper-specific observation always wins out, even when it's purely invented. (There's a moment when Cusack hops onto the Purple Line at Armitage. The train enters a tunnel and goes underground. Now, every CTA rider knows that the Purple Line remains elevated for the duration, but that's banal. HIGH FIDELITY implicitly suggests something better: a Purple Line ride that retains the ecstatic promise of coming out again on the other side in a blast of sunshine.) You always feel grounded in the film's crowded chronology, calling up personal memories that are inevitably intertwined with pop signposts: we had that conversation the week that "The Boy with the Arab Strap" came out; we went on that date the same night that THE DREAMLIFE OF ANGELS opened at the Music Box. It's all of a piece with the incessant list-making, the encyclopedic editorializing, the ever-fragile mantle of expertise. "This is a film about—and also for—not only obsessed clerks in record stores," suggested Roger Ebert upon HIGH FIDELITY's release, "but the video store clerks who have seen all the movies, and the bookstore employees who have read all the books. Also for bartenders, waitresses, greengrocers in health food stores..." Yes, HIGH FIDELITY speaks to all these people fine, but let's be real: this is a movie that is deeply, specifically, and unmistakably about the culture of record stores. It uncannily contains a piece of every single record store in which I've ever stepped foot. And if they all vanished tomorrow, the species could be genetically reconstituted purely on the basis of the collected side-eyes, chortles, guffaws, growls, and straight-up asshole moves in HIGH FIDELITY. It's anthropology, but it's also a superlative romantic comedy—an up-to-date ANNIE HALL purged of Allen's misogynistic impulse to crack all the jokes at the woman's expense. No matter how small the role, everybody here from Iben Hjejle to Todd Louiso is a three-dimensional presence. (In the closing reel, Jack Black gets elevated to a crowd-pleasing four-dimensional plateau.) It might not be in my Top 5, but it's damn close. Followed by a post-screening conversation with author Andrew Buss about the movie and his new book Top Five. Co-presented by the Second City. (2000, 113 min, 35mm) [K.A. Westphal]

Martin Scorsese's AFTER HOURS (US)

FACETS Cinema – Thursday, 9pm

AFTER HOURS conveys, like nothing else in the director’s body of work, the sheer joy that Martin Scorsese derives from making movies. It’s funny, playful, and invigorating, with a style that positively whooshes you through the action. Working with cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (best known at the time for his run of films with Rainer Werner Fassbinder), Scorsese executes breathtaking camera movements indoors and outdoors alike, creating a sense of furious activity that betrays the film’s limited playing space. Most of it takes place in the Manhattan neighborhood of SoHo, where Griffin Dunne’s lonely office drone goes to meet the alluring woman (Patricia Arquette) whom he picked up at a cafe. Searching for easy sex, Paul winds up in a nightmare. His long night consists of one misadventure after another, as he gets bounced around the neighborhood (and into other parts of the borough) like a pinball; the story culminates with Dunne getting mistaken for a wanted criminal and hunted down by an angry mob. As twisty and as witty as Scorsese’s direction, Joseph Minion’s script (originally written for an NYU screenwriting class taught by Dusan Makavejev) operates under a calculated illogic that many have compared to the writing of Franz Kafka. And like a Kafka protagonist, Dunne has the misfortune of living in a universe that just doesn’t like him; his bad luck seems almost cosmic in nature. Adding to his misfortune, almost everyone Dunne meets is some kind of kook, and the colorful supporting cast plays those kooks for all they’re worth. Of special mention are Teri Garr, who plays a flaky artist, and John Heard, who reveals a deep reservoir of angst in his brief turn as a bartender. (1985, 97 min, Blu-ray Projection) [Ben Sachs]
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Preceded at 7pm by FACETS Film Trivia, hosted by critic, programmer and Cine-File contributor Raphael Jose Martinez.

Alice Rohrwacher's LA CHIMERA (Italy/France/Switzerland)

FACETS Cinema – Thursday, 6:30pm

For Arthur, there’s little that separates the living from the dead. Played by a steely, towering Josh O’Connor, most often seen sidling through scenes donning a detritus-laden white linen suit, he spends his days wandering about with his merry band of "tombaroli," pilfering the tombs hidden beneath their feet across Italy, raiding a myriad of resting places for long-lost Etruscan treasures that, in their eyes, aren’t doing the dead any good just sitting about. Arthur’s mind wanders about, too, to his long-lost love Beniamina, a figure seen in flickers, dreamlike, perhaps also sitting in that nebulous zone between what we know is gone but what we wish was still here. Indeed, our first glimpse of Arthur is of him riding a train back home after the end of his prison sentence, his own resurrection back into the land of the "living." Alice Rohrwacher’s film tends to navigate various planes of existence, often changing aspect ratios, film stocks, even genres; the story curves through tropes found in heist thrillers, comedies, and romances, employing techniques found within the realms of silent film, experimental essay, and documentary filmmaking. Her collage of storytelling ends up falling somewhere—​spiritually and thematically—​between a fairy tale and a ghost story, weighing the love of the present with the love of that which is long past, of building your life in deference to death, of weighing one’s soul against the thrill of unearthing objects not meant for human eyes. Arthur himself is gifted with an otherworldly spirit of divining, of knowing in his very soul where these underground treasures lie, with Rohrwacher’s camera literally performing revolutions to find Arthur in another visual plane, familiar yet upside-down. What a gift to find a film so brimming with passion, humor, and otherworldly desire brimming from every frame for those curious enough to pull on the threads Rohrwacher leaves lying before us. Perhaps a glimmer of light will shine through after all that digging. (2023, 130 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]

Kim Jee-woon's I SAW THE DEVIL (South Korea)

Alamo Drafthouse – Tuesday, 9:30pm

Shot in borderline-giallo lurid colors, I SAW THE DEVIL is Kim Jee-woon's termitic answer to the revenge films of Park Chan-Wook, complete with protracted torture scenes and Park regular Choi Min-sik—seemingly the most revenged-against actor in film history—as one of the leads. Choi (at his rattiest and badger-iest) plays a cartoonish serial killer who is being tormented by an equally cartoonish government agent (Lee Byung-hun, stoic and skeezily-dressed). Instead of teasing out faux-operatic profundities a la Park, Choi sticks to a brutal, pulpy scuzziness that is more concerned with characters than themes, but ends up honing in on his two leads so intently that the themes, however simple, come through on their own. (2010, 141 min, DCP Digital) [Ignatiy Vishnevetsky]

Jonathan Demme's STOP MAKING SENSE (US/Documentary)

Music Box Theatre – Saturday, Midnight

In nearly every shot, STOP MAKING SENSE makes the case that Jonathan Demme was the greatest director of musical performance in American cinema. It isn't difficult to convey the joy of making music, but Demme's attention to the interplay between musicians (and, in some inspired moments, between the musicians and their crew) conveys the imagination, hard work, and camaraderie behind any good song.  And, needless to say, the songs here are very, very good. By this point (the performances are culled from three concerts from 1983), Talking Heads were the headiest American band to achieve their degree of success, and they made the most of it, doubling their line-up to include back-up singers and a few instrumentalists from the golden years of George Clinton's Funkadelic. It's never openly acknowledged that the five new members are Black and the Heads are white; the sheer creativity of the music, which fuses everything from soul to traditional African rhythms to then-advanced electronic effects, is fully utopian in its spirit. (1984, 88 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

Ethan Hawke’s WILDCAT (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center and the Music Box Theatre – See Venue websites for showtimes

Ethan Hawke tackles one of the giants of American literature, Flannery O’Connor. Written in collaboration with Shelby Gaines, Hawke’s script follows the life of O’Connor (played by Maya Hawke) at 24, when she's living in New York and trying to break through as a published writer. While working on what would become her novel, Wise Blood, O’Connor occupies her time by prolifically writing short stories. When she returns to Georgia, she gets diagnosed with lupus, the same disease that killed her father. Her mother, Regina (played by Laura Linney) encourages her to write more upbeat prose, to the tune of Margaret Mitchell.  Each moment in the young artist’s journey is followed by a vignette from the author’s work. In many ways, Hawke and Gaines’ script mirrors MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS (1985), a work by Hawke's former collaborator, Paul Schrader. They illustrate an existence absorbed by aggressive mother-daughter dynamics, loneliness, violence, and fascination with death. For O’Connor with her declining health, death becomes an imminent reality that cannot be ignored. O’Connor compares her circumstance to that of Franz Kafka, only requesting she not pay the price he paid for greatness. Eventually, she embraces her solitude and lack of well-being to shock and shape the landscape of American literature for decades to come. Playing opposite one another, Hawke and Linney disappear into each character like seasoned theater actors boldly tackling each persona. Supporting the two, Cooper Hoffman and Vincent D’Onofrio disappear into the masculine entities that reverberate through O’Connor’s work. As the family priest, Liam Neeson leads a touching scene with our protagonist. Hawke’s playful direction brings to life a cinematic portrayal of O’Connor’s short story, "Revelation." His joyful and lively sensibility shines in his direction of this vignette. For an artist as deeply complicated as O’Connor, as much as her work is celebrated, her racist and conservative philosophy would be irresponsible to ignore. Hawke unflinchingly presents characters despite their abhorrent views. When recommended by a white Northern intellectual to use more politically correct language when referring to Black people, Flannery retorts “I prefer not to tidy up reality,” highlighting the difficult circumstances tied to living in the South. (2023, 108 min, DCP Digital) [Ray Ebarb]

Robert Zemeckis' BACK TO THE FUTURE (US)

Alamo Drafthouse – Sunday and Thursday, 3:30pm & Monday, 3:45pm

Back in the mid-1980s, the white, suburban, heterosexual American male was in crisis, threatened on all sides: globally, by the Middle East's control of oil production; culturally, by the emergence of chart-topping R&B and rap that imperiled the perceived hegemony of heavy metal and unspirited blues-rock; and locally, in the unrelenting crime waves of urban gangs, emerging from a dissolved patriarchy and reportedly expanding ever-outwards from the city centers. The successful reconstitution of this masculinity was produced primarily by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale's BACK TO THE FUTURE, an admittedly glorious genre-crossing inversion of the Oedipus mythology (protagonist Marty must overcome not a present, unconscious desire for his mother and rivalry with his father, but instead must overcome his mother's desire for him and actively facilitate the transformation of his milquetoast father into a confident figure of authority). The conflict is enacted in the oneiric space of small-town 1955 California, primarily through the repeated ritual humiliation of the seemingly-invincible Teutonic drive-creature Biff, but also through Marty's requisition—on behalf of wimpy caucasians everywhere—of the heritage of both civil rights (encouraging the local malt-shop busboy to become mayor) and rock n' roll (producing, for Chuck Berry and an audience of bewildered squares, "the sound you've been looking for"). All of this (including the role of the Benjamin Franklin-esque Doc Brown) is then not simply in the service of some trite, individualist Protestant ethic ("if you put your mind to it, you could accomplish anything": murmured mantra-like from start to finish); for those voters still baffled by the persistency of conservative politics, why look any further? (1985, 116 min, DCP Digital) [Michael Castelle]

🎞️ ALSO SCREENING

⚫ Alamo Drafthouse
Richard Linklater’s 2023 film HIT MAN (115 min, DCP Digital) begins this week. See Venue website for showtimes. More info here.

⚫ Block Cinema (at Northwestern University)
Iris Kaltenbäck’s 2023 film THE RAPTURE (97 min, DCP Digital) screens Friday, 7pm, followed by a post-screening discussion between Suzanne Rosenfeld, psychoanalyst and member of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, and Amanda Parraguez, a PhD candidate at Northwestern University, specializing in 20th-century French literature and film. In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, Northwestern University's Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab presents the Chicago Mental Health Film Showcase (May 23 - 24),  two days of films, conversations, and a creative workshop with film consultant and narrative therapist Poh Lin Lee. More info here.

⚫ 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 March 15, 2026. More info here.

⚫ Chicago Filmmakers
An Open Screening takes place on Friday at 7pm. Works in progress welcome. More info here. 

⚫ Chicago Public Library
View all screenings taking place at Chicago Public Library branches here.

⚫ Chicago Reel Film Club
Alonso Álvarez’s 2023 Mexican film THE WINGWALKER (127 min, Digital Projection) screens Tuesday, 7pm, at the Instituto Cervantes de Chicago (31 W. Ohio St.) with a pre-screening reception at 6pm catered by Quiroga College and a post-screening conversation with actor/co-writer/co-executive producer Max Arciniega. More info here.

⚫ Cinema/Chicago
Maryna Er Gorbach’s 2022 Ukrainian film KLONDIKE (100 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday, 6:30pm, at the Chicago History Museum (1601 N. Clark St.) as part of the free summer screenings. Free admission with RSVP. More info here. 

⚫ Comfort Film at Comfort Station (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.)
Ondi Timoner’s 2022 documentary LAST FLIGHT HOME (106 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday, 7pm, followed by a brief discussion of Medical Aid in Dying, including information on the End-of-Life Options Act (SB3499) that has been introduced in the IL Senate. Hosted by Compassion & Choices. Free admission. More info here.

⚫ Doc Films (at the University of Chicago)
Doc Films presents a 24-minute silent film created by the Documentary Film Group consisting of footage from a 1969 two-week student sit-in at a university building on Friday, 7pm, with a speaker from University of Chicago United for Palestine and live accompaniment by Christian. More info here. 

⚫ FACETS Cinema
Full Spectrum Features presents Disorderly Conduct, a shorts program curated by Henry Hanson, on Friday at 7:30pm and 10pm. The 7:30pm screening features a post-screening Q&A with filmmaker Milo Talwani and there’s music at 9pm by easygoingtech, both with interstitial video art by Franz Murder.

Jean Ho’s animated documentary series Invisible People screens Sunday, 11:45pm, followed by a post-screening Q&A with Ho and the series’ crew.

Open Space Arts/Pride Film Fest presents Onir’s 2023 film PINE CONE (100 min, Digital Projection) on Wednesday at 7pm. More info on all screenings and events here.

⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
Nicolas Philibert’s 2023 documentary ON THE ADAMANT (109 min, DCP Digital) begins screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes.

The 2024 National Theatre Live production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, called Vanya, directed by Sam Yates and starring Andrew Scott, screens Saturday and Sunday at 2pm. More info on all screenings here. 

⚫ Music Box Theatre
Pamela Adlon’s 2024 comedy BABES (109 min, DCP Digital) begins screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes.

Margreth Olin’s 2023 documentary SONGS OF EARTH (91 min, DCP Digital) screens Friday at 2pm and Saturday and Sunday at 11:45am.

Tommy Wiseau’s 2004 cult classic THE ROOM (99 min, 35mm) screens Friday at midnight. 

Metal Movie Night presents Ted Kotcheff’s 1982 film FIRST BLOOD (93 min, 4K DCP Digital Restoration) on Sunday, 9:30pm, featuring a pre-party in the Music Box Lounge at 7:30pm with Metal Vinyl Weekend spinning records and summoning spirits, the Gilty Pig food truck, plus Terror Vision and Tone Deaf Records pop-up tables. The Metal Movie Night pre-show of classic trailers and metal videos starts at 9:15pm.

Mickey Keating’s 2024 film INVADER (70 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday, 9:15pm, with Keating in person for a post-screening Q&A. More info on all screenings 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
Filmmaker-choreographer Sarah Friedland's feature-length trilogy Movement Exercises, presented in conjunction with Friedland's participation in the Visual Studies Workshop (VSW) Project Space Residency, screens for free on VDB TV. More info here.

CINE-LIST: May 17 - May 23, 2024

MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs

CONTRIBUTORS // Michael Castelle, Kyle Cubr, Ray Ebarb, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Ben Kaye, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, K.A. Westphal