:: FRIDAY, JULY 19 - THURSDAY, JULY 25 ::

📽️ CRUCIAL VIEWING

Akira Kurosawa's HIGH AND LOW (Japan)

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

Akira Kurosawa’s HIGH AND LOW is a film about the haves and the have nots, the rich and the working class, and the moralities that lie between those distinctions. Kingo Gondo (Toshirô Mifune) is an executive at National Shoes and lives a luxurious life in a nice home on top of a hill that overlooks the city with his wife, son, and servants. In the midst of making a power play that would see him gain majority control of the company’s stock, a kidnapping occurs that leaves him on the hook to pay a ransom of 30 million Yen. The trouble is that money was earmarked to pay for the stock and he’s borrowed against his entire livelihood to obtain it. HIGH AND LOW is primarily told through two vantage points, Gondo’s and the police detectives in charge of tracking down the kidnappers. Kurosawa pointedly displays the distinctions between the two parties’ social class. Gondo is rarely seen leaving his air-conditioned mansion and is clad in fine suits. He lives his life in absolutes and with his own best interests always coming first. Meanwhile the detectives are seen in their sweat-soaked shirts cramped into tiny rooms trying to solve the case for him and to garner him public sympathy. The film provides excellent social commentary on the effects of capitalism in postwar Japan. In addition to all of those points, HIGH AND LOW is also a thrilling game of cat and mouse. The plot devices that Kurosawa employs to ramp up the tension are quite clever; one scene that takes place aboard a train is a masterpiece of editing and shot composition. A movie about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, HIGH AND LOW’s message about social inequality continues to resonate today. (1963, 143 min, 35mm) [Kyle Cubr]

Claire Denis' NO FEAR NO DIE (France/West Germany)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

Claire Denis spent the formative years of her film career working alongside several titans of European arthouse cinema, cutting her teeth as an assistant director on era-defining works such as Jacques Rivette's OUT 1 (1971) and Wim Wenders' PARIS, TEXAS (1984). Wenders himself said that she was "more than ready to make her own films" and it naturally comes as no surprise that even the earliest entries to her filmography are uncompromising and self-assured, revealing themselves as the unmistakable work of the mind that would soon dream up generational masterpieces such as BEAU TRAVAIL (1999) and 35 SHOTS OF RUM (2008). The rarely screened NO FEAR NO DIE, the follow-up to Denis’ semi-autobiographical debut feature CHOCOLAT (1988), is a pitch-black and sorrowful exploration of a dense matrix of racial prejudice and financial exploitation that ranks among the prickliest statements in her catalog. The film principally concerns Isaach de Bankolé (who, I should note, is enjoying a banner year in repertory film between this restoration, the citywide Pedro Costa retrospective, and the meme-fueled reappraisal of Michael Mann's MIAMI VICE [2006]) and Alex Descas as Dah and Jocelyn, immigrants from Benin and the West Indies, respectively, who strike an ill-fated deal with a white business owner named Pierre deep in the Parisian banlieues. Their assignment is to stage illicit cockfights in the back room of Pierre's nightclub for quick and dirty cash. As the film opens, they are crossing the Spanish border with their illegal cargo of fighting birds in tow, notable among them being the titular "S'en fout la mort," an all-star cock whose name might more accurately be translated to "Who gives a fuck about death?" The two men shack up in a basement storage closet, sleeping alongside the caged roosters and waking alongside them at the crack of dawn. Bankolé handles the financial negotiations from a cool remove while Descas, whose past intertwines with Pierre's in an ambiguous and troubling fashion, is responsible for training the roosters for combat. Unfolding in languorous moments of repose punctuated by eruptions of savage violence—all flurries of erratic gallinaceous motion; wild blood spurts and torrents of torn feathers—the film is unique for turning an unflinching gaze towards the bloodsport, featuring cockfights filmed with such verisimilitude that it's often difficult to believe the 'no animals were harmed' disclaimer at the top of the credits. Pierre, something of an archetypical Claire Denis character insofar as he emerges as the very personification of French paternalism and colonial exploitation, begins to demand that the fights become bloodier and more intense. Bankolé realizes that he is in over his head, largely in response to Descas who psychologically disintegrates, drinking heavily as it becomes clear that he is identifying with the caged chickens to the point of total insanity. It is a profoundly ugly film that claustrophobically unfolds in a space of pure capitalist marginalia, staged almost entirely in those cloistered backrooms of capital that are the domain of the most dispossessed: restaurant prep kitchens, storage lockers, back alleys and highway underpasses and trash-filled loading bays. In a body of work filled with iconic needle drops, NO FEAR NO DIE also boasts one of the finest of Denis' career: a breathtaking shot of a drunk and embittered Descas slow dancing with his favorite rooster to Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier." It's a moment of fraught levity and tremulous beauty that ranks among the most arresting images she ever committed to film. (1990, 90 min, New 4K DCP Digital Restoration) [David Whitehouse]

Leslie Buchbinder’s WESTERMANN: MEMORIAL TO THE IDEA OF MAN IF HE WAS AN IDEA (US/Documentary)

Music Box Theatre – Wednesday, 7pm

Cowritten and coproduced by onetime Cine-File contributor Harrison Sherrod, this nonfiction portrait of the postwar American sculptor H.C. Westermann is as visually engaging as it is informative. Let’s start with the visuals, since they’re the main reason to see it in a theater. WESTERMANN: MEMORIAL TO THE IDEA OF MAN IF HE WAS AN IDEA was filmed in 3D, and the format is critical to the presentation of the subject’s work. Taking advantage of the pronounced depth of field of digital 3D, Leslie Buchbinder and company use the format to contemplate how Westermann’s sculptures exist in space; some of the works contain tucked-away nooks or boxes within boxes, and in 3D (and on a big screen especially), you get to really explore the pieces, not just look at them. The filmmakers also take advantage of 3D in decidedly less profound ways that are nonetheless loads of fun—with frequent cut-aways to things like falling pages, billowing sawdust, and acrobats on tightropes, WESTERMANN harkens back to such good-time classics of the format as André De Toth’s HOUSE OF WAX (1953) and Ferdinando Baldi’s COMIN’ AT YA! (1981). The film's carnivalesque aspect has thematic significance, as H.C. Westermann, in addition to his accomplishments as an artist, trained as an acrobat and performed acrobatic tricks for almost all his adult life. He also seemed to regard making art as a kind of spectacle or game; indeed, some of the sculptures on display suggest bizarro world toys. The artist’s playful nature also comes through in his goofy titles and comic book influences, yet his work is marked by a sense of despair as well. Suicide is a recurring theme, and the cartoonish humor often betrays a dark, cynical sensibility. The filmmakers make plain that Westermann’s obsession with death can be traced back to his years of military service, as he was a Marine for two years during WWII and an Army infantryman during the Korean War; however, they never belabor this point, nor do they ever show an interviewee talking about why Westermann was a great artist. Rather, the complicated truths of Westermann’s life and art emerge through carefully selected biographical detail and respectful considerations of his creative output that respond to the work in cinematic terms—in other words, this does what artist biopics are supposed to do. Followed by a post-screening panel discussion moderated by the Steve Prokopy with Buchbinder, editor and producer Brian Ashby, and co-writer and producer Harrison Sherrod. (2023, 91 min, 3D DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]

Alfred E. Green’s THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY (US)

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

What THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY lacks in production value, it makes up for in sincerity. It may sound as if I’m damning this compact film with faint praise, but I’m as sincere as that sincerity, endeared as I was to this earnestly stodgy, hastily and independently made biopic about Jackie Robinson, starring the baseball legend as himself. The writing was on the wall as to Robinson’s impact on and subsequent place within the sport’s history, which is to say nothing about his preternatural skill in that and most other sport; in 1947 he became the first Black man to play in the modern era’s major leagues, which the film details in all its guts and glory. Endearing though it may be, it can’t be denied that THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY follows a more idealized trajectory than revolutionary one. Once the film gets to Robinson’s baseball career following his early life as a high school and college sports star, and his brief stint in the military after being drafted as well as his relationship with his eventual wife, Rachel (Ruby Dee in an early role), it focuses primarily on the adversity Robinson faces as the first and then only Black player in a “white man’s game.” Former baseball player and manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers (the team with which Robinson broke the color barrier) Branch Rickey, played in the film by Minor Watson, is the one whose idea it was to sign Robinson and thus kick start the integration of Major League Baseball; he had also asked Robinson to resist responding to racial aggression. Rickey extended this problematic ethos to the film itself, not wanting to implicate anyone who had opposed integration. Per Ron Briley’s book The Baseball Film in Postwar America: A Critical Study, 1948-1962, “the Dodger executive did not want the film to have any type of militant edge. Rather than revolutionary, Rickey perceived the civil rights movement as an evolutionary struggle guided by conservative businessmen such as himself who believed in such basic American principles as equality of opportunity.” Robinson’s biographer Arnold Rampersad later elaborated that, “Baseball would be integral to the story, and Robinson at its center, but ultimately it would be about the triumph of democracy and of Americans of goodwill, including both Robinson and Rickey.” To that end the film can be as frustrating as it is engaging, eschewing as it does the inherently radical politics inherent to race relations—that Robinson had to have such an “exemplary” character in addition to being preternaturally talented is no minor injustice. An affirmed revolutionary, Dee had her concerns surrounding Robinson’s testimony in front of HUAC, where he was compelled to denounce Paul Robeson over some comments he made about it being unthinkable that African Americans would go to war against the Soviet Union. Robinson managed to insert a statement about the fight against racial discrimination, and Dee did say something to the effect of understanding what Robinson may have had to do to survive. The film’s director, Alfred E. Green, was a consummate journeyman but nevertheless serves the subject formidably. Robinson is definitely a better baseball player than he is an actor, but that makes it all the more genuine as a matter of fact versus just entertainment. It may not be the whole story, but what makes the most impact is undoubtedly Jackie’s story. Preceded by Charles L. Tedford’s 1949 short film SPORTS PARADE: DAREDEVILS ON WHEELS (10 min, 35mm). (1950, 77 min, 35mm) [Kat Sachs]

Andrei Tarkovsky's SOLARIS (USSR)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Tuesday, 6pm

In Tarkovsky’s luminescent and beautiful adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s novel, Kris Kelvin, a psychologist, has been sent to a space station orbiting the mysterious planet Solaris, which is covered entirely by a potentially sentient ocean. Kelvin is to take charge of the station and either close it down or take drastic, violent measures against the ocean in order to generate scientific data. When he arrives, though, he discovers that the station is regularly populated with ‘visitors,’ people seemingly generated out of thin air while one sleeps, who are manifestations of one’s own memories and dreams. In adapting Lem’s book, Tarkvosky develops a complex structure of flashbacks, dream sequences, and fantasies that are at times indistinguishable from the ‘actual’ events of the plot, and alternates between color and black-and-white cinematography to further alienate us from the narrative flow. The way he shoots Natalya Bondarchuk, uncannily incandescent in nearly every shot as she ethereally wafts through the sets, is in direct conflict with the staid, weathered and deeply conflicted Donatas Banionis, questioning her very existence. While the novel is set solely on the space station, Tarkovsky developed a crucial prologue set on Earth, in which the philosophical and aesthetic issues are introduced that will later play out in dramatic form. It is there that Burton appears, a retired scientist who is the only one we meet to have actually returned from the mysterious planet. It is Burton who gives voice to a potential thesis of the film, that “knowledge is only valid when it is based on morality,” when he learns of the potentially destructive nature of Kris’ mission. Burton’s shadow hangs low over the film, over the violence that the story heaps on the body of Hari, Kelvin’s lost love reborn. If Burton is right, what are we to make of Kelvin’s own understanding of his relationship with her, which is based on betrayal and pain? What conclusions are we to draw on the apparent attempts by Solaris itself to study the scientists by means of the ‘visitors,’ when their inevitable result is heartbreak? Late in the film, the camera lingers on a print of Breughel’s Hunters in the Snow, a painting that seems to imply that the titular hunters, instead of returning home empty-handed, are instead on the trail of the ice-skating children in the distance. It is an invocation of the untamable nature of violence, which once released can never be controlled. Kelvin’s reaction to his first ‘visitor,’ the first appearance of Hari, is to attempt to destroy her. Breughel’s hunters with their ambiguous target are mocking commentaries on Kelvin’s own predetermined failure as a scientist and as a human being. Like them, his inability to come to terms with his own nature leads him to lash out against those closest to him, and in so doing to destroy himself. When, in the end, he returns to a heavily ironic homecoming with his surely deceased father, it is with a sense not of a journey completed, but of a cycle repeated, with inevitable tragedy and with inescapable loss that he can never come to terms with. Screening as part of the Last Shot series. (1972, 166 min, 35mm) [Kian Bergstrom]

Robert Bresson's PICKPOCKET (France)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Friday, 6pm

PICKPOCKET, a brief, existentialist date movie (filmed in the same Parisian Summer of 1959 as BREATHLESS) is—with its emphasis on glances, gestures, cafés, and other material ephemera—certainly a cinephiliac classic. Constrained by a truly minimal plot (with familiar elements from both Camus and Dostoyevsky), Bresson produces an extraordinary quality of dreamlike estrangement via deliberately awkward stage direction (to the usual assortment of unfamiliar non-actors); shots of doors and other passageways that linger just a little too long before and after the characters' entrance and exit; and (especially) an obsessive attention to sound design which heightens the impact of every slight movement, above a perpetually noisy background of urban clatter. The result is a laid-back erotic thriller (ironically set to the aristocratic Baroque compositions of Jean-Baptiste Lully) that sees everyday life under capitalism—for a movie director, or anyone else—as a sequence of audacious, small-scale robberies whose aggregate karmic debt must ultimately be repaid in appalling tragedy. The "erotic" aspect is, of course, derived from the pickpocket's perpetual state of being: an intimate touching, with or without explicit recognition—like two arms resting by each other in a movie theater. Screening as part of the Last Shot series. (1959, 75 min, 35mm) [Michael Castelle]

Teo Hernández’s L’EAU DE LA SEINE (THE WATER OF SEINE), Javiera Cisterna's AGUA DEL ARROYO QUE TIEMBLA (WATER FROM THE TREMULOUS STREAM), and Francisco Rojas's SEA OF GLASS (France/Chile/Experimental)

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

These three short films take us down to the river and out to sea on a path to enlightenment, or at least to the light therein. The journey will be unconcerned with asceticism, despite a lineup of all silent films. Our first ferryman is Teo Hernández, the consummate Super 8 pioneer and queer avant-gardist prolific in the ‘60s through early ‘90s. Hernández’s L’EAU DE LA SEINE (1983, 11 min, Super 8 to Digital) presents a vertiginous matrix of light on the Seine River in golden hour Paris. The film beats like fists to a chest, thrashing in and out of figurative legibility—​the lighting of a cigarette, passersby, dock and equipment, branches and railings, an empty bottle. Camera and river’s surface whip a setting sun into ballistic frenzy. As the film’s embodied cinematography lunges forward, there are hints of a blueprint for the sensory ethnography Castaing-Taylor and Paravel would take seaward in LEVIATHAN (2012), cameras tethered to the tumult of bodies, both human and water. Ultimately, L’EAU DE LA SEINE deposits us calmly at the extravagant Pont Alexandre III bridge, which bears the French coat of arms framed by hammered copper nymphs. A maiden coated in blue-green patina is scrawled with names and graffiti fragments as hieroglyphic as the film’s relentless glints. Hovering her etched arm over choppy waters, she extends a metaphor for Hernández’s diaristic inscription of himself onto France, in self-exile from Mexico. These oxidized sculptures are reminiscent of the garden fountains and ornamental basins that wet Kenneth Anger’s baroque reverie, EAUX D’ARTIFICE (1953), in which a figure in drag dashes amongst the spraying waters of Tivoli’s Villa d’Este at twilight. The title—​a play on feu d’artifice, the French for “fireworks”—​rhymes beyond name. These films distantly evoke cruising, foregrounding public water as hurried and phallic exuberance, variously gendered. As Hernández once said, “When orgasm comes I start filming, while the others cut.” Indeed, the works in this program plunge headlong into the ecstasy of light on water. Javiera Cisterna’s WATER FROM THE TREMULOUS STREAM (2021, 10 min, Digital Projection) cues up Chile’s Río Diguillín through an old digital camera, moving as though the filmmaker had pored over dance notations left behind by Hernández (who had a late affinity for dance), canting the river’s shore and convulsing its surface, but soon taking flight in her own improvised ballet. Trained in printing and illustration, Cisterna’s hand is graphical and geometric, but her vision is fluid between a rigorous choreography of datum and a flow of happy lo-fi accidents. Cisterna’s concern with reflection and the materiality of pixels is a pleasant reminder of light’s everyday and cosmic relationship to triangulated information. Fittingly, Francisco Rojas’s SEA OF GLASS (2023, 26 min, DCP Digital) nearly returns the sea to the plasma of an early universe as it renders the water into stars. Close-up yet vast, the water and camera undulate light between blooms and crescents, flares and prisms. Rojas has a remarkable command over his lens while maintaining a sense of curiosity that easily recalls Brakhage. His images crystallize as bubbles, sand, and plant matter before always returning to their swarming trance. Exploring a line between figuration and abstraction that bends toward the latter, the filmmakers of this program have little interest in taking over the representational duties of painting, striving instead to couple with it, ripping both mediums into a new dimension. [Elise Schierbeek]

Nicholas Ray's IN A LONELY PLACE (US)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Friday, 8pm and Saturday, 7pm

Let's set aside for a moment the convention that IN A LONELY PLACE is another of Nicholas Ray's sub rosa memoirs, charting the decline of his marriage to Gloria Grahame; that the apartment complex Bogart and Grahame's LONELY lovers live in is a replica of one of Ray's own early Hollywood residences; that screenwriter Dixon Steele (Bogart) is in some way a stand-in for Ray's own Hollywood disaffection: an "abnormal" man isolated among jocular thieves and pretty louts. What's up on the screen is enough to satisfy us without resorting to biographical criticism: that is, a film whose wit, maturity, and bruised romanticism defy us to subdue or deconstruct them. LONELY is the most perfect sort of romance: one that shows the lover revealed as a "tyrannical detective" (Bogart is Spade even when he isn't); one that squeezes out a little of our own optimism as we watch suspicion roast our heroes alive. It is the most perfect sort of mystery: one that succeeds in making its own solution entirely irrelevant before it's revealed. Finally, it is the most perfect sort of noir: one that isn't. The tropes are here, but LONELY is as much about the impossible hope of shoehorning real and immutable suffering into a Hollywood film circa 1950 as about the gruesome deaths of hat-check girls or the fatality of character. They don't make 'em like this anymore—and, like the man says, they never really did. If anyone's counting, LONELY may be the best Bogart movie ever made, and it certainly contains his best performance. More to the point, it is one of the great American sound films: turning star-power and genre both into deadly weapons for getting under our skin. Screening as part of the Nicholas Ray’s Heyday series. (1950, 94 min, 35mm) [Jeremy M. Davies]

📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED

Deborah Stratman's LAST THINGS (US/Experimental)

Block Cinema (at Northwestern University) – Friday, 6pm

Chicago-based filmmaker Deborah Stratman is one of the most accomplished and diverse experimental filmmakers of the 21st century. Her new film LAST THINGS exists at the edges of possibility, an essay-doc that mostly removes humans from the equation to consider a geological record-sized narrative. The film collects images of chondrules, some of the oldest known geological formations that scientists use to measure the age of the universe itself. They’re primitive objects that haven’t changed since the early solar nebula days. Stratman pairs these rocks with a voiceover that draws from texts by Clarice Lispector and J. H. Rosny as well as nature writing from Eliot Weinberger; they all work together in a speculative sci-fi swirl. The words contextualize the rocks as a link to the past and as maps to other worlds. If other Stratman films have explored the distorting effects of surveillance (IN ORDER NOT TO BE HERE) and the archive (VEVER), this takes passing interest in our systems of observing and categorizing. The full extent of these complicated forms is only conceivable through advanced imaging, augmented technology, and more rudimentary forms of videotaping and drawing. Our relationship to the rocks is always mediated by our present optical and technological means of knowing them. Stratman revels in information, in using these unique and extensive classifications to invent former and future selves. Like the voiceover’s vintage sci-fi narration, the images encourage us to fill in the blanks with our own fictions, expanding our minds regarding what constitutes life, what the core materials that make up our world could do in parallel-world permutations. It’s beautiful work that never gets boring to look at thanks to Stratman’s spoils of colorful and geometrically complicated images. She links diagrams and enhanced microscope footage with more natural settings, including shore lines and homes constructed out of rocks. The beauty exists on a spectrum, it seems, a fluid combination of what we can see and what we can theorize. Stratman’s work is all the richer for these jumping-off points, inviting intellectual flights over the imagery that take the mind in more directions than possible in more straight-ahead narrative work. Though it’s rigorous, it’s likely to be among the most compelling sci-fi this year, period. Screening with two short works by Shambhavi Kaul: SLOW SHIFT (2023, 9 min, DCP Digital) and NIGHT NOON (2014, 11 min, DCP Digital). Presented in conjunction with Rhetoric, Media, and Publics 2024 Summer Institute, “Shared Grounds of Media Aesthetics and Ecology.” (2023, 50 min, DCP Digital) [Maxwell Courtright]

Akira Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI (Japan)

Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes

How many artists have created not only canonical works, but works whose style, structure, or theme is imitated for decades, and maybe eventually even centuries, thereafter? And how many of those artists can claim not just one but several masterpieces whose basic elements have been the schema for newer works, many of which garner the same commendation? Akira Kurosawa is indeed one of them; his work is concurrently modern and classic, deriving from personal, cultural, and artistic influences that span decades and oceans. His 1954 epic SEVEN SAMURAI is perhaps the best and most popular example of this, both within his oeuvre and the whole of Japanese cinema. At almost three and half hours long, it’s the outstretched tale of a village in sixteenth-century Japan that hires seven hungry, masterless samurai (otherwise known as ronin) to defend them against bandits. Like many canonical works, its story is relatively elementary, and it’s since been remade outright (THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN in both 1960 and 2016) and less obviously so (a theory about the film’s influence on Disney’s A BUG’S LIFE went viral a few years back). It’s also fiercely entertaining in a way that might remind viewers just how hard it is to achieve that nebulous goal—to amuse as well as to awe. It may be for this reason that it’s referred to as being Kurosawa’s most “Americanized” film, though it could likewise be considered his gift to the West. (1954, 207 min, New 4K DCP Digital Restoration) [Kat Sachs]

Rouben Mamoulian’s CITY STREETS (US)

FACETS Cinema – Saturday, 7:30pm

It may be strange to call a pre-Code film whose plot revolves around violent bootleggers a woman’s film, but such is the oddity of Rouben Mamoulian’s second feature film, CITY STREETS. An emigré from the Russian Empire, Mamoulian was steeped in European avant-garde cinema and was to reveal a deft hand at directing women, as seen in such films as APPLAUSE (1929), BECKY SHARP (1935), RINGS ON HER FINGERS (1942), and SILK STOCKINGS (1957). With CITY STREETS, an adaptation of Dashiell Hammett scenario written specifically for the screen, Mamoulian created a unique look for this standard-issue gangster film and made a star out of Sylvia Sidney in her feature film debut by focusing the story through her point of view. Sidney, a last-minute substitute for Clara Bow, plays Nan, the stepdaughter and occasional accomplice of Pops (Guy Kibbee), a beer bootlegger and mob enforcer. Nan is in love with The Kid (Gary Cooper), a carnival rube handy with a gun who wants no part of her criminal life. However, when Nan takes the rap for holding the gun Pops used in a murder, she comes around to The Kid’s way of thinking; ironically, The Kid gets caught up in the beer racket to make enough money to spring her from prison and finds out he likes it. Mamoulian highlights Nan’s emotions, from her hunger to touch The Kid through the wire separating them in the prison’s visitor room to her internal thoughts and memories while she is in prison, considered the first cinematic voiceover. With cinematographer Lee Garmes, Mamoulian creates comical shots, such as when dialogue between Pops and mobster moll Aggie (a brilliant Wynne Gibson) is shown as a conversation between two figurines—a black and a white cat—that decorate the room. Mamoulian makes use of animal imagery throughout the film, such as stuffed eagles in Pops’ mansion that indicate the predatory nature of the mobster life and a flock of snow geese soaring above the newly liberated Nan and Kid. It was a treat to see the normally comic Kibbee in the role of a liar and killer, and Sidney burst out of the block with the emotional rawness and depth for which she would become famous. While CITY STREETS will seem a little drawn out for many pre-Code films, I welcomed the detours Mamoulian took in making this unique, sexy, and emotionally rich film. Screening as part of Speakeasy Cinema. This cabaret-style screening treats Chicago film fans to Prohibition-era films, craft cocktails, and live jazz vibes. Programmed by Raul Benitez with live jazz tunes by Alchemist Connections. Seating is very limited, tickets include 1 drink token, and non-alcoholic options are available for audience members under 21. (1931, 83 min, Digital Projection) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Michael Curtiz’s THE BREAKING POINT (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 12:45pm

Ernest Hemingway thought this to be the best film adaptation of any of his work. It was the second adaptation of To Have or Have Not, made by Warner Bros. only six years after Howard Hawks’ film of the same name starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (though that’s a looser adaptation of the novel). This time directed by Hungarian-born journeyman Michael Curtiz and starring John Garfield, it’s less any one person’s movie (as Hawks’ film is most definitely a Howard Hawks film) than it is an exemplification of the commonality of its co-auteurs’—in this case, Curtiz, Garfield and, to a degree, Hemingway—their disillusionment with two tenets of then-contemporary American life, post-war malaise and the so-called American dream that was supposedly fulfilled in its wake. It’s appropriate, then, that THE BREAKING POINT is a “sunshine noir,” taking place adjacent to and on dazzling coastal waters. Here the sunshine doesn’t obfuscate (say, by way of an enshrouding glare) but rather illuminates the choking oppression. Garfield stars as Harry Morgan, a WWII veteran trying to make it as a sport-fishing captain. He’s underwater on his boat (pun intended), however, so when he’s swindled by a customer (and left with his fiance, Leona, played by Patricia Neal; Morgan, though, is happily married with two kids and for the most part resists her seduction) he takes an illegal job transporting Chinese immigrants into the states from Mexico for some money. When the job goes bust and Harry falls under suspicion, he finds himself in a downward spiral that threatens to upend the modest life he’s built for his family. What he once hoped to be his salvation, the water, becomes the prison of his consciousness; even the mobility he has there is no further upward than he can seem to get in life. As Harry’s wife, Lucy, Phyllis Thaxter conveys a quiet strength that underlies their unusually solid marriage; that Harry is only momentarily tempted by Leona’s advances speaks to Harry’s base conviction and belief in that most fulfilling of aspirations: love. But the film is more than what one sees on screen. It’s notable also for being Garfield’s penultimate film, suppressed by Warner Bros. because of his involvement after he was included in Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television and subsequently blacklisted under the banner of Hollywood’s Red Scare. Harry is a man frustrated by society, having always been good and realizing it only pays to be bad, but who ultimately has the courage of his convictions. Garfield likely shared that frustration, having been painted as bad in a world obsessed with the illusion of good, which was really a smokescreen for hypocrisy. (Not for nothing, Thom Andersen labeled it as being a film gris, a “grey film,” a more cynical and ultimately more leftist iteration of the film noir. Garfield appeared in many such films.) Harry is lost, and Garfield was, too; the reason for its inclusion in the Last Shot series is evident, wholly separate from its obvious preoccupations but biting nevertheless, an indictment of even a potentially happy-ish ending. Someone, it seems, will always be left behind. Screening as part of the Last Shot series. (1950, 97 min, 35mm) [Kat Sachs]

Billy Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Thursday, 8:30pm

Drenched in cynicism, Billy Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD ranks up there with Robert Altman's THE PLAYER and David Lynch's MULHOLLAND DR. as one of the best critiques of Hollywood's toxic narcissism and cruelty. The last collaboration between Wilder and screenwriter Charles Brackett, SUNSET BOULEVARD centers on Norma Desmond (played with maniacal intensity by Gloria Swanson), a forgotten silent star who spends her days cooped up in her gothic tomb/mansion, obsessing over her glory days and penning the script which will launch her revival. By chance she encounters Joe Gillis, a down on his luck screenwriter. Their working relationship mutates into a strange sexual dynamic, with Gillis eager to escape; however, he ultimately finds himself contaminated by the greed and disillusionment of Hollywood. Wilder enlisted the help of master cinematographer John F. Seitz, who also photographed DOUBLE INDEMNITY, to lend the film a chiaroscuro, noir-ish look. This is notable during one of the film's most memorable scenes, in which an entranced Desmond watches her celluloid self on the movie screen, the light from the projector flickering over her face creating a kind of literal fusion of reality and fantasy. Look for a cameo from silent film icon Buster Keaton (referred to by Gillis as a "waxwork"), as well as Cecil B. DeMille playing himself. Screening as part of the Last Shot series. (1950, 110 min, 35mm) [Harrison Sherrod]

Wim Wenders’ BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB (Germany/Documentary)

Goethe-Institut Chicago (150 N. Michigan Ave.) – Thursday, 9pm (Free Admission)

German filmmaker Wim Wenders is perhaps best known for PARIS, TEXAS (1984), which won the Palme d’Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, and WINGS OF DESIRE (1987), for which he won the best director prize at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. These and many of his other feature films and documentaries concern the challenges of those trying to belong in a society that may not have a place for them. Thus, his heartfelt documentary BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB, an outgrowth of the hit 1997 album of the same name produced by Ry Cooder, falls squarely in his wheelhouse. The efforts Cooder made to locate as many of the musicians and singers of pre-Castro Cuba as possible and bring them back to a world that had forgotten them proved to be a revelation—first, that they were still alive and active; second, that some were still trying to make a living as musicians; and third, that their artistry not only had not been dimmed by the years, but also that the world would embrace them so warmly. Wenders uses the music and lyrics of their work to introduce us to the Havana of the 1990s, with its crumbling splendor, its vintage cars, and its rough streets and coastline. With difficulty, Wenders locates the former site of the now-demolished Buena Vista Social Club, and then introduces us to the ensemble that shares its name. The brilliant singer Ibrahim Ferrer lays down soulful duets with Omara Portuondo, the Social Club’s only female member. He later gives Wenders a tour of his tenement apartment, sharing his Afro-Catholic religious practice and philosophizing about choosing not to follow the path of materiality. Rubén González, a Juilliard-level pianist, shows he hasn’t lost his touch, and we learn about unique instruments such as the Cuban laúd and tres from the musicians who play them, Barbarita Torres and Eliades Ochoa, respectively. His interviews of each member, situated in places as diverse as a gigantic ballroom and a railway yard, illuminate their lives and musical backgrounds. Clips from their concert in Amsterdam show the ensemble’s dynamic stage presence in front of an enthusiastic crowd. The film ends in New York’s Carnegie Hall, a long overdue debut that we cheer as only their due. (1999, 105 min, Digital Projection) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Oscar Micheaux’s BODY AND SOUL (US/Silent)

Film Studies Center (at the University of Chicago) – Sunday, 1pm (Free Admission)

BODY AND SOUL is a silent "race" film—one of the movies made by and for segregated black audiences in the 1910s-50s. It is a tale of the dangers of blind faith set mainly in a rural Georgia community. In his landmark study Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, historian Donald Bogle, an admirer, writes, "In most cases the Micheaux feature was similar to the Hollywood product, only technically inferior. His films resembled the best B pictures of the time. Lighting and editing were usually poor, and the acting could be dreadful. Still, the standards of the Micheaux feature were far above those of the other black independents." I don't know about the poor editing bit. While the first thing you notice about BODY AND SOUL is the erratic or eccentric editing, to my mind it displays a pretty nimble, if somewhat incontinent, absorption and deployment of Edwin S. Porter's strategies of parallel and contrast editing. The rhythm is jazzy. (Some edits to Micheaux's films, it must be said, were made by the "artists" over at local censorship boards.) In his first screen performance, the mighty Paul Robeson clearly relishes playing the part of a hard-drinking thief passing himself off as a pastor—stealing in the name of the lord, as it were. Bogle seems to feel Robeson is a bit wasted on a silent film: "Robeson without his voice was merely beautiful and mysterious." Still, his famous smile radiates hypocrisy, and there is sly comedy in the play of glances with his hustler frenemies. Robeson also plays the con-man's humble twin brother. This is the man the girl (Julia Theresa Russell) truly loves, but instead she is wrecked "body and soul" by the cruel, corrupt "pastor." Mercedes Gilbert plays the girl's hardworking, devout mother, torn between believing in the "man of god" and crediting her daughter's protestations that he is abusing her. Though a fake, the pastor really does outdo himself with the showcase "Dry Bones in the Desert" sermon, bobbing with the spirit, even hauling off and pasting the deacon a couple times. Bogle notes that "to appreciate Micheaux's films one must understand that he was moving as far as possible away from Hollywood's jesters and servants. He wanted to give his audience something 'to further the race, not hinder it.' Often he sacrificed plausibility to do so." Accordingly, and as is sometimes the case with silent movies, modern viewers must adjust to the film's rhythms and accept some melodramatic plotting and acting. But if you can, you will find moments of great beauty, as well as an elemental, timeless story with near-operatic emotions. Screening as part of the Screening Acts series, a free film series celebrating Black independent cinema. (1925, 80 min, Digital Projection) [Scott Pfeiffer]

Michael Curtiz’s ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (US)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Thursday, 8:30pm

The prolific director Michael Curtiz wholeheartedly leans into the inherent moral thematics of ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, a tale of good men and bad men and how even the smallest circumstances can affect our lives in the grandest of fashions. Two young no-goodniks growing up in their tenement neighborhood effectively stand in as representatives for the duality of man: one grows up to be the kindly priest Jerry Connolly (Pat O’Brien), while the other becomes the scheming, gambling gangster Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney). They zigzag through each other's lives, with Jerry offering Rocky a glimpse at what a better life can look like, only for Rocky to be continuously pulled back into the dark underbelly of the criminal world he’s crafted for himself. You can practically guess where this all ends up, but the familiar story beats are offset by Cagney’s domineering performance throughout, living in a zone between vicious and cuddly, his squeaky tone and baby face equally menacing and inviting. Almost a century on, his performance here cements him as undeniable leading man material, injecting the fairly grounded tone of the picture with notes of surprise, comedy, and heart. Even amidst a film of slowly paced scenes and backstabbing character moments, it’s the final moments with Cagney that will stay with you; all the villainy of the previous ninety-minutes falling away, reverting back to that kid we first saw at the movie’s start, courage swiftly abandoned, eyes drowning in fear. It’s a moment that does away with the good vs. bad messaging of the film and provides a complex man at the end of his rope, wondering at his last possible moment where it all went wrong. Screening as part of the Public Enemy: Cagney on Film series. (1938, 97 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]

John Ford's THE SEARCHERS (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Monday, 6pm

The greatest western ever made is also arguably the greatest American movie ever made. Before filming began, director John Ford described THE SEARCHERS as "a kind of psychological epic" and indeed his complex take on the settling of the West, with its head-on—and daringly ahead-of-the-time—examination of racism, finds an appropriately complex and tragic anti-hero in the character of the mysterious Ethan Edwards (John Wayne in his best and most nuanced performance). Spurred on by an unrequited love for his deceased sister-in-law (Dorothy Jordan), the maniacal, Indian-hating Edwards will stop at nothing to recapture his nieces who have been kidnapped by Comanche Indians. "We'll find 'em," Ethan says in one of many memorable lines of dialogue written by Frank S. Nugent but worthy of Herman Melville, "just as sure as the turning of the earth." The dialectic between civilization and barbarism posited by Ford, with Ethan standing in a metaphorical doorway between them, would have an incalculable effect on subsequent generations of filmmakers—from Martin Scorsese to misguided Ford-hater Quentin Tarantino. If you've never seen THE SEARCHERS, or if you've only seen it on home video, you owe it to yourself to catch it projected on 35mm: both the breathtaking Monument Valley vistas and the minute details of the film's production design (e.g., the "Confederate States of America" logo on Ethan's belt buckle), gloriously captured by Winton Hoch's splendiferous VistaVision cinematography, only really come through on the biggest of big screens. Screening as part of the Last Shot series. (1956, 119 min, 35mm) [Michael Glover Smith]

Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING (US)

Music Box Theatre – Monday, 4pm, 7:30pm, and 10:30pm (Free Admission for Music Box Theatre members only)

Though it had been made famous already by ROCKY, it wasn't until THE SHINING that the Steadicam yielded an aesthetic breakthrough in movies. Garrett Brown's innovation—a gyroscope mounted to the bottom of a camera, which allowed cinematographers to create hand-held tracking shots that didn't record their own movement—became in Kubrick's hands a supernatural presence. The film's justly celebrated Steadicam shots evoke a cruel, judgmental eye that does not belong to any human being, a perspective that's harrowing in its implications. (GOODFELLAS, SATANTANGO, and Gus Van Sant's ELEPHANT, to name just three examples, are inconceivable without the film's influence.) In this regard, the horror of THE SHINING makes manifest one subtext running through all of Kubrick's work: that humanity, for all its technical sophistication, will never fully understand its own consciousness. Why else would Kubrick devote nearly 150 takes to the same scene, as he did several times in the film's epic shooting schedule? With the only exceptions being other movies directed by Stanley Kubrick, no one moves or speaks in a film the way they do in THE SHINING. Everything has been rehearsed past the point of technical perfection; the behavior on screen seems the end-point of human evolution. What keeps it all going? (To invoke another great horror film of the era: the devil, probably.) The demons of the Overlook Hotel may very well be a manifestation of the evil within Jack Torrance, a recovering alcoholic who once nearly beat his four-year-old son to death. They could be, like those Steadicam shots, an alien consciousness here to judge the vulnerabilities of mankind. Kubrick never proffers an explanation, which is why THE SHINING is one of the few horror films that actually remains scary on repeated viewings. Nearly every effect here prompts some indelible dread: the unnatural symmetry of Kubrick's compositions; Shelly Duvall's tragic performance (which suggests that horrible victimization is always just around the corner); and the atonal symphonic music by Bartok, Lygeti, and Penderecki that make up the soundtrack. Reservation required. (1980, 142 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]

Max Reinhardt & William Dieterle's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (US)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Friday, 5pm

“Opulence” is the word at top-of-mind when watching Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle’s stately adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s most enduring comic works. It’s quite bizarre that A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a mainstay of Shakespearean performance troupes the world over, has somehow eluded an excess of cinematic treatments, but perhaps the more grounded settings of Shakespeare’s histories and dramas (alongside their weightier thematic material) have been seen as more ample material for film adaptation than this flighty piece of magical stagework. The film, itself adapted from a successful Hollywood Bowl staging of the material helmed by Reinhardt—​with Dieterle joining the cinematic proceedings presumably as a steady film-literate hand to steer the ship—​is most successful as a marvelous display of production grandeur; early scenes of Athens adorned in twisting columns are populated by leagues of actors in Elizabethan garb, contrasted with the roaming pastoral scenes of the forest where the glittering fairies drown the frame in flowing silk garb. There’s little formal experimentation outside of these design elements, the film remaining a pretty steadfast and true stage-to-screen adaptation, even if the twisting twigs of the Fairy King Oberon’s crown or the horrifying goblin costumes populating the forest call out for a more surrealist take on the material than what’s present. But the sight of hundreds of extras swarming the backgrounds of scenes is sometimes more than enough, certainly making an impression in scenes of fairies cavorting through the forest. Reinhardt and Dieterle wrangle a few noteworthy performances out of this motley crew, most notably James Cagney’s Bottom, a joyfully obtuse piece of comic performance that is, sadly, hidden under a garish donkey mask for half the film. The impish fairy Puck who closes out the play is played here by a fifteen-year-old Mickey Rooney, bloviating an obnoxious energy that threatens to sink the entire affair but is, thankfully, no match for the lush environs that make up this world, alongside the grand balletic fairy sequence near the film’s conclusion that makes this entire Hollywood dream worth it. Screening as part of the Public Enemy: Cagney on Film series. (1935, 143 min, 35mm) [Ben Kaye]

Claire Denis' BEAU TRAVAIL (France)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Friday, 8pm

Claire Denis's BEAU TRAVAIL is a film of sweltering, oppressive heat; a sun-drenched rendering of Melville's Billy Budd that unfurls across the deserts of Djibouti, where a troop of French legionnaires perform a dance of drills and exercises as daily ritual. The men are soldiers, athletes, and the embodiment of physical perfection, and Denis venerates their physique with framing that recalls Leni Riefenstahl's ode to human beauty, OLYMPIA. Day in and day out, they adhere to a strictly choreographed routine, their mechanized motions made downright hypnotic by the operatic overtones of Benjamin Britten. At the center of this tightly wound fever dream is Sergeant Galoup (Denis Lavant), whose own unflappable façade begins to crack upon the arrival of a new legionnaire, whose inherent beauty and goodness marks him as an object of obsession. It's here that the film's stifling (yet eloquent) discipline begins to clash with deeply repressed desire, and Galoup sets events in motion that will bring about his own undoing. Most notable is the unshakable denouement, where one tragic soldier at the end of his rope at last finds his ideal form of expression. Suddenly, Galoup is dancing a very different dance, and as the periodic flashes of local nightlife foreshadow, salvation may just lie in the universal escape of pop music. Screening as part of the Last Shot series. (1999, 92 min, DCP Digital) [Tristan Johnson]

Sidney Lumet's THE WIZ (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 3pm and Wednesday, 6pm

Charlie Smalls and William F. Brown’s The Wiz—a grand retelling of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz infused with the sound and vision of Black artistry—was one in a line of new musicals on the Broadway stage finally centering Black voices and writers. Works like Purlie, Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death, Raisin, and Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope all found relative levels of success, be it financially or critically, but The Wiz outpaced them all in overall performance count, and remains the only work amongst these to find life on the big screen, albeit under the tutelage of director Sidney Lumet, hot off the heels of more dramatic fare like DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975), NETWORK (1976), and EQUUS (1977). Many would assume that Lumet, a white director of intensely realistic social dramas, might not be the best fit to helm a work of magical, fantastical Black empowerment like THE WIZ. And in many ways, they’d be right! Lumet’s adaptation often feels like the Tin Man of Oz: a gorgeous and fascinating exterior filled with character, but with no beating heart found within. Tony Walton’s production design is remarkable in its own right, practically Oz-ifying New York City into a world of Munchkins emerging from graffiti, humanoid crows, and subway stations come to life. But there’s little-to-no dynamism in the camerawork of cinematographer Oswald Morris, preferring static wide shots of the action more so than letting the rhythms of the music dictate the movement of the image. Even the most energetic and toe-tapping numbers like “Ease on Down the Road” find themselves charming to look at but with no true pep in their step. The saving graces therein lie with what has always been an impeccable musical score, alongside an absolutely committed cast. Unsurprisingly, Ted Ross (The Lion) and Mabel King (Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West), the only two actors in the film who originated their roles on Broadway, are the MVPs of the cast, fully committing to the theatricality and playfulness desired of the work. Michael Jackson’s physicality and singing chops as Scarecrow are frequent highlights, and Nipsey Russell’s Tin Man finds moments of delight, even if he’s vocally not as up-to-snuff as his peers. It’s Diana Ross’ Dorothy that remains the most confounding, with Ross insisting she play the role of a teenage girl, here aged up to be a 24-year-old woman (Ross was 33 at the time of filming). Her emotional journey often remains confused throughout the film, yet her final number, “Home,” filmed entirely in an unbroken shot of Ross singing to the heavens, is a musical revelation, a heart breaking and putting itself back together again in musical form. Charlie Smalls’ compositions (from the impassioned “Be a Lion” to the liberatory “Brand New Day”) move and live with such fervor and joy that even in such a constrained context they can’t help but burst from the frame. Lumet and his crew might not have captured the stage spectacle at its best self, but THE WIZ succeeds in spite of itself, constantly tripping itself up at every possible turn but valiantly, heroically standing back up, brushing itself off, and easing down a magnificently entertaining road. Screening as part of the Sidney Lumet Centennial series. (1978, 113 min, 35mm) [Ben Kaye]

Francis Ford Coppola's THE GODFATHER (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 4:45pm

It's tough (or impossible) to summarize the impact THE GODFATHER has had. So, instead, only three points. Gordon Willis's brilliant cinematography—Rembrandt by way of Manhattan—made it acceptable for studio-made color films to be as shadowy and moody as the black & white noirs had been earlier. Where would classic paranoiac thrillers be without that added palette? Its flowing, epic structure, courtesy of Mario Puzo's screenplay and Coppola's subtle, no-nonsense direction, remains a model of classic storytelling. And finally, because of its amazing critical and commercial success, gangster movies have been continuously in vogue ever since. Utterly disgraceful then that, according to a New York Times article, the original negatives "were so torn up and dirty that they could no longer be run through standard film laboratory printing equipment, and so the only option became a digital, rather than a photochemical, restoration." Luckily Robert A. Harris, working with Willis and Coppola, stepped in to save the day. Screening as part of the Last Shot series. (1972, 175 min, DCP Digital) [Rob Christopher]

Wes Craven's SCREAM 2 (US)

Music Box Theatre – Thursday, 9:30pm

The movie app I used to revisit SCREAM 2 this week described the plot as, simply, “Murders result from killer wearing mask.” While this isn’t wrong, it also feels like a dismissive throwaway line about the slasher genre as a whole—a genre that has proven time and again to be worth a second look. Released less than a year after the first film and plagued by production issues (including one of the first online script leaks), SCREAM 2 could easily have been a disastrous sequel. Instead, it builds on the original’s examination of slasher tropes by playing into the film’s complete metanarrative. It opens at a premiere screening of the fictional film "Stab," based on events that happened to Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) during the first SCREAM. After the iconic villain Ghostface returns to murder two people at the theater, Sidney and the survivors of the Woodsboro Massacre, along with a new group of college friends (including a plethora of ‘90s stars, including Sarah Michelle Geller, Elise Neal, Joshua Jackson, with Timothy Olyphant and Portia de Rossi as standouts), become targets in the killing spree. SCREAM 2 is a self-parody analysis of the pitfalls of the slasher sequel while still managing to be a successful slasher sequel. Co-Presented by The Horror House. For one night only, step into the world of SCREAM 2 with an immersive experience that begins when you arrive at the theater. Come in costume and be a character. (1997, 120 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]

Baltasar Kormákur’s TOUCH (Iceland/UK)

AMC Theatres – See Venue websites for showtimes

What might have been. A person reaching the end of their life would have to be extremely lucky not to have regrets about roads not taken. For Kristófer (Egill Ólafsson), the main protagonist in Baltasar Kormákur’s romantic drama TOUCH, memories of a lost love have haunted him for most of his life and discouraged him from having children with his now-dead wife Inga (Maria Ellingsen). Facing an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, Kristófer decides to try to find his great love, Miko (Kôki), the daughter of the owner (Masahiro Motoki) of Nippon, the sushi restaurant in London where he worked when he was a student. Kormákur, who based his screenplay on a novel by writer and former Sony executive Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson, tells his story in flashback, charting the experiences of young Kristófer (Palmi Kormákur, the director’s son), an idealistic student at the London School of Economics who quits his studies initially to live his proletarian beliefs and then to be near Miko. Kormákur takes his time developing the relationship between the lovers, as Kristófer learns Japanese, earns the respect and love not only of Miko, but also of her father and the entire restaurant staff, and tries his hand at making a traditional Japanese breakfast as a prelude to a time when he might surprise Miko with breakfast in bed. The film’s atmospheric settings really bring Kristófer’s memories to life, as do the sincere performances of all of the principal actors. The supporting actors who play Kristófer’s Icelandic classmates offer youthful energy as well as a reality check for Miko that Iceland would not be a welcoming place for her. The tragedy that finally pulls the couple apart—the aftereffects of the bombing of Hiroshima—doesn’t quite make sense in the year 2024, but vividly illustrates the trauma that persists for those who survived the blast. In the end, TOUCH affirms the enduring power of love in a sweet and satisfying way. (2024, 121 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Alex Cox's REPO MAN (US)

FACETS Cinema – Thursday, 9pm

Before he made Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen into the punk rock Romeo and Juliet (and incurred Johnny Rotten's lasting wrath in the process), British director Alex Cox directed this cult classic comedy about an LA punk turned car repossessor. Emilio Estevez is convincingly apathetic as the title character in his first starring role, but it's the other repo men who steal the show (particularly Harry Dean Stanton and Sy Richardson) with their grizzled looks, erratic behavior, and desperation to impart wisdom. The first half of the film has some really authentic moments, some nice surreal touches, and great music (including a hilarious cameo by The Circle Jerks as the washed-up nightclub band). The second half devolves into a more typical everything-but-the-kitchen-sink '80s romp which either is your thing or isn't, complete with the paranormal HAZMAT team from E.T. and dull-witted, machine gun-toting, mohawk-sporting bad guys in the Bebop and Rocksteady mold. (1984, 92 min, Digital Projection) [Mojo Lorwin]
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Preceded by FACETS Trivia at 7pm, hosted by critic, programmer, and Cine-File contributor Raphael Jose Martinez.

Mike Cheslik's HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (US)

Music Box Theatre – Saturday, Midnight

A largely silent film that draws on Looney Tunes aesthetics as well as video game logic, HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS balances slapstick, sight gags, and sound effects with a genuinely arresting visual aesthetic, combining live action with animated elements. While all the features are familiar, together they create an imaginative modern approach and clever take on cinematic comedy. Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, who also co-wrote the film) is a popular applejack salesman, but when he loses his business in an explosion, he’s forced to find a way to survive in the snowy Midwestern wilderness. Desperate to find food, Kayak must learn the ways of a northern fur trapper, receiving help from some locals, though mostly struggling on his own to succeed; his goal to earn better equipment—and ultimately the hand of a local merchant’s daughter—​by selling pelts is where HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS draws on a video game style, including recognizable sound cues, animations of how many pelts earn him which tools, and Kayak’s sneaking into the beavers’ hideout; it all adds to the uniqueness of the film’s storytelling. The cunning animals themselves are an annoying barrier to Kayak’s success. Larger creatures (such as the titular beavers) are performed by actors in mascot costumes, but director and effects designer Mike Cheslik also rounds out the animal residents with animation, puppets, and stuffed animals—​which themselves are filled with stuffing guts; there’s a constant concurrence of the adorable, the gross, and cartoonish violence. Shot in black and white in both Wisconsin and Michigan, the film also looks striking, the backdrop of the forest landscape grounding the silly antics that ensue. Due its silent nature, the jaunty score by Chris Ryan is also an important driving force in the film, demonstrated in its first few moments with a catchy theme song about Kayak’s popular applejack. (2022, 108 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]

John Carpenter's STARMAN (US)

Alamo Drafthouse – Wednesday, 7pm

After the fallout from THE THING's disappointing box-office performance (which had the now-legendary misfortune of going up against E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL on opening weekend) and grueling production schedule, John Carpenter explicitly wanted to next make a film that wasn't nihilistic or about evil, which would redeem him in the eyes of the audience he felt had turned on him. And so STARMAN, a script that had languished for five years in development at Columbia Pictures—​missing the boat on the feel-good, new-agey kind of story that audiences flocked to for E.T.—​found its way into Carpenter's hands. Carpenter loved the classic Hollywood road-movie that was the emotional core of a film about an alien (Jeff Bridges) crash-landing on Earth and inhabiting a cloned body of a woman's (Karen Allen) recently deceased husband. In Carpenter's best films, he places normal individuals in extreme situations against a ticking-clock--Snake Plisskin has 24 hours to escape New York, Mike Myers has to be stopped before the end of Halloween night, Precinct 13 must hold until reinforcements at dawn—​and in STARMAN, our star-crossed heroes have three days to make it from Wisconsin to Arizona. But in this film, Carpenter leans back a bit with the ticking-clock structure, and in its best moments, STARMAN uses its hokey, new-agey story to gaze out upon and muse on the American countryside. So the film's portrait of the American mid and south-west in the 80's takes on a documentary quality, similar to TWO-LANE BLACKTOP in the early '70s. It also has, you know, like, Jeff Bridges, man. Screening as part of the Alamo Time Capsule 1984 series. (1984, 115 min, DCP Digital) [Max Frank]

Peter Strickland's THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY (UK/Hungary)

Leather Archives & Museum (6418 N. Greenview Ave.) – Saturday, 7pm

THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY is the most sumptuous of director Peter Strickland’s visually arresting films, all of which feel like they fit into the same world—familiar but so incredibly strange. This is, in part, due to Strickland’s visual language, one inspired by European genre films of the 70s. THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY pays homage to Jess Franco’s sensual films, including A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD (1973); the film features Monica Swinn, a Franco regular who hadn’t appeared in a film in over thirty years. Set in her stately home surrounded by nature, Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen) is an expert in lepidopterology (the study of moths and butterflies). She is in a romantic relationship with younger student Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna), who is in a subservient sexual position to Cynthia’s dominant taskmaster role. The film follows the recurring routine and growing tensions of their relationship as expectations, needs, and bodies change. It all unravels in a dreamy unhurriedness; Strickland’s camera is sultrily voyeuristic, illuminating the true care between the two even through the shifts in their relationship. Color and textures reign here, predominantly the tactility and power of fabric, something Strickland would revisit more directly in his follow-up, IN FABRIC (2018). This is reflected in the wings of the insects they study—repeating shots of diagrams of their anatomy. Sounds as communication, too, are just as important for the insects as it is for the women, particularly the echoing dialogue of their recurrent sexual encounters. Pop duo Cat’s Eyes provides a melancholic autumnal score. Worth noting, too, is that THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY features only women on screen, even in the few crowd scenes—turning their complex internal world into unwavering cinematic lushness. Screening as part of the monthly Fetish Film Forum series. (2014, 104 min, Digital Projection) [Megan Fariello]

🎞️ ALSO SCREENING

⚫ Chicago Film Archives
The Chicago Transit Authority, in partnership with 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 Public Library
View all screenings taking place at Chicago Public Library branches here.

⚫ Cinema/Chicago
July Jung’s 2022 South Korean film KILLING JESUS (99 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday, 6:30pm, at the Chicago Cultural Center (78 E. Washington St.) as part of the organization’s free summer screening series. Free admission. Register and learn more here.

⚫ Davis Theater
Oscarbate presents the next screening of Trust Fall, a brand new “blind” movie screening series, on Thursday at 7pm. More info here.

⚫ Doc Films (at the University of Chicago)
Agnieszka Holland’s 1979 film PROVINCIAL ACTORS (108 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday, 4pm, as part of the Agnieszka Holland’s Poland series. More info here.

⚫ FACETS Cinema
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 2023 film EVIL DOES NOT EXIST (105 min, DCP Digital) screens this week. See Venue website for showtimes. 

Full Spectrum Features presents CAFE FOCUS in the FACETS Lounge on Sunday at 2pm. Cafe Focus is a monthly coworking pop-up for Chicago filmmakers and film workers of all backgrounds and experience levels. More information on all screenings and events here.

⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
Thomas Napper’s 2023 film MADAME CLICQUOT (89 min, DCP Digital) begins screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes.

Mike Nichols’ 1967 film THE GRADUATE (106 min, DCP Digital) screens Sunday,  4:30pm, as part of the Last Shot series. More info on all screenings here. 

⚫ Music Box Theatre
Music Box Garden Movies continue. See Venue website for films and showtimes.

Ti West’s MAXXXINE (101 min, 35mm) and Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2024 film KINDS OF KINDNESS (165 min, DCP Digital) continue screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes.

Damian McCarthy’s 2024 horror film ODDITY (98 min, DCP Digital) screens Friday at midnight as part of the monthly Shudder Showcases serving up new screenings of the horror platform’s most exciting and provocative upcoming titles. 

Donald Petrie’s 1988 film MYSTIC PIZZA (104 min, 35mm) screens Tuesday, 7pm, as part of Clean Plate Club: A Food and Film Series. The ticket and food option is currently sold out, but other ticket options are still available. More info on all screenings and events 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
Saif Alsaegh: Bittersweet Landscape, a program of three short films by Alsaegh, screens for free on VDB TV. More info here.

CINE-LIST: July 19 - July 25, 2024

MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs

CONTRIBUTORS // Kian Bergstrom, Michael Castelle, Rob Christopher, Maxwell Courtright, Kyle Cubr, Jeremy M. Davies, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Max Frank, Tristan Johnson, Ben Kaye, Mojo Lorwin, Scott Pfeiffer, Elise Schierbeek, Harrison Sherrod, Michael Glover Smith, David Whitehouse