:: FRIDAY, AUGUST 2 - THURSDAY, AUGUST 8 ::

📽️ CRUCIAL VIEWING

Jean Cocteau's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (France)

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

One of the most widely known fairy tales thanks to its plethora of adaptations, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is a timeless story about inner beauty. Jean Cocteau’s 1946 film version is visually lustrous and richly marked by stunning costumes, elaborate set design, and imaginative use of practical effects. Jean Marais’ dual roles as the unsightly Beast and the blonde, pretty boy Avenant, both of whom are determined to win Belle’s (Josette Day) hand in marriage, are juxtaposed against one another to represent France versus Germany during World War II. Cocteau possesses a fascination for eyes in this film with the implication that they are the windows to the soul. Repeated images of doors, windows, and mirrors all lend themselves to a metaphorical sense of discovery about the inner workings of a person’s mind. When mirrors are present, a self-reflection occurs, the introspection frequently taking on negative connotations. When an observer peers through a window or an enchanted door magically opens, extrospection is often employed, leading to a hidden trait being revealed about a character. The film’s romantic yet semi-tragic tone draws influence from the works of Shakespeare and Greek tragedies: Romeo and Juliet and hubris leading to a downfall serve as signifiers. For a film about surface appearance, two production asides seem appropriate: various film stocks used due to a post-war shortage produces textures in the image can be noticeably different from one scene to another, and a debilitating skin disease that Cocteau developed during the shoot is an ironic mimicking of the repulsiveness of the Beast. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is ultimately one of the most haunting and dreamlike films ever to grace the silver screen. Preceded by a "Beasts in Cinema" trailer reel (approx. 10 min, 35mm). (1946, 94 min, 35mm) [Kyle Cubr]

Martin Scorsese's WHO'S THAT KNOCKING ON MY DOOR? (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Tuesday, 6pm

Originally starting out as a student short film while he was still attending NYU, WHO’S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR is Martin Scorsese’s first feature film, as well as Harvey Keitel’s, who would later collaborate with the esteemed director another four times. The decision to turn it into a feature only arose after it was suggested he include a sex scene with ample nudity so that the film could be sold as a sexual exploitation film. It is shot primarily in 35mm, with a few sequences shot in 16mm to allow greater camera mobility. Even at the onset of his career, Scorsese possesses the stylistic trademarks that he has since become known for—overhead shots looking downwards like some omnipotent being, Catholic-guilt, Italian-Americans trying to make a name for themselves. J.R. (Keitel) is a young man living in New York. He spends his days paling around with his friends, drinking, and going to the movies. One day he meets a local girl (Zina Bethune) while waiting for the Staten Island Ferry and they form an instant connection while talking about John Wayne films. As their relationship furthers, he decides to abstain from having sex with her until marriage, as he believes her to be a virgin and doesn’t want to ‘spoil’ her. When she later reveals that she was raped by her former boyfriend, J.R. rejects her and returns to his former partying ways with his friends. The theme of Catholic-guilt plays very heavily throughout this film and its presence is felt subtly in nearly every scene, with Scorsese’s frequent use of Catholic iconography such as crosses and statues of Mary. This onslaught of imagery shows the viewer a glimpse into the inner workings of J.R.’s mind as he has a hard time reconciling his religious convictions with the more progressive nature of the world around him at that time. Clearly a film made by one who knows his craft and its history extremely well, WHO’S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR shows Scorsese at his most raw and unrefined but demonstrates the enormous wealth of talent that would later materialize as his career progressed. Screening as part of the Chicago International Film Festival Presents: Before They Were Big series. (1967, 90 min, 35mm) [Kyle Cubr]

John Ford's THE SEARCHERS (US)

Music Box Theatre – Thursday, 7pm

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 Summer of 70mm series. (1956, 119 min, 70mm) [Michael Glover Smith]

Marlon Riggs’ ETHNIC NOTIONS (US) and COLOR ADJUSTMENT (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Monday, 6pm (ETHNIC NOTIONS) and 7:30pm (COLOR ADJUSTMENT)

The Wikipedia page (bear with me) for Marlon Riggs’ ETHNIC NOTIONS (1986, 57 min, DCP Digital) states that the film “has become a mainstay of university, high school, and public library collections,” a fact that seems obvious in retrospect but initially took me by surprise. It did so because I think of the film as being more cinematic than merely edifying, a work that, yes, provides valuable information about its subject but is done using cinematic techniques that elevate it to art. Which is to say that its appeal should extend beyond educational institutions and even beyond one’s appreciation for the scholarship at hand, so effectively does it impart that knowledge with a distinct visual style that Riggs would maintain over the duration of his career. Riggs’ first feature-length documentary looks at how the stereotypes of African Americans—such as, most commonly, the mammy, the Sambo, the pickaninny, the coon and the uncle, among others—were acutely compounded by popular culture and its emergent forms. The film is narrated by Maude and Good Times star Esther Rolle, whose balmy tone is appropriately deceptive as she annotates the media and ephemera (Riggs had been inspired to make the film by noted Black sociologist Jan Faulkner’s immense collection of racist memorabilia; Faulkner appears in the film as an interviewee) being shown and elucidates on the sullied histories behind them; deceptive in that where her voice is both warm and welcoming, the material is discomfiting, inculcating viewers with an expanse of racist imagery. The ephemera and archival material is edited together as if a collage—hence its designation as a certain kind of documentary, an essay film—lending much-needed visuals to bigotries often considered hypothetical by a society that proclaims not to see color. See this, you will, in racist caricatures, product branding, cartoons, housewares, and movie clips, among many other forms. There are talking heads, but what they’re saying never feels extraneous. Himself an educator, Riggs leverages intellectualism as a way of contextualizing human behavior. In terms of nontraditional documentary methods, he include a vignette wherein choreographer and interviewee Leni Sloan appears as vaudeville entertainer Bert Wiliams, a Black performer who donned blackface in a ghoulish enactment of the very stereotypes thrust upon him. It’s an existential dilemma that many a Black television performer would face when that medium took over as the predominant method of entertainment. Riggs explores this in the last documentary feature released before his death in 1994, COLOR ADJUSTMENT (1992, 86 min, DCP Digital), a similar but more focused examination of a media with the power to shape our society’s attitudes, narrated by Ruby Dee. Through the film, he cleverly charts the percentage of American households that had televisions at a certain time, communicating the importance of television as a medium with mighty consequence which only grew more powerful. The documentary is peppered with clips from popular television shows over the last several decades. In one from the controversial show All in the Family, someone asks Archie Bunker’s wife, Edith, how she feels about Black people. “Well you sure got to hand it to ‘em,” she replies. “I mean, two years ago they were nothing but servants and janitors, now they’re teachers and lawyers and doctors.” A beat. “We’ve come a long way on TV.” An apt summation of the medium’s chicanery from the mouth of the problem itself. From Amos ‘n’ Andy in the 1950s to Roots in the 1970s to The Cosby Show in the 1980s, with much in between, the film charts depictions of Black people in popular television, starting with the most stereotypical (Amos ‘n’ Andy) to ending with the most atypical (The Cosby Show, which could be said to have shown an unrealistic view of Black American life). Even something like Roots is described as an assimilation story which fails to indict American society, rather focusing on microdynamics that are appropriately (and woefully) digestible to white audiences. Shows that are discussed more positively, often by some of the same interviewees who appear in ETHNIC NOTIONS, are East Side West Side from 1961 and Frank’s Place from 1987, both of which only got one season. Despite these and other appreciable portrayals, one interviewee nevertheless states that images “do not have enough autonomy to liberate us.” Where ETHNIC NOTIONS has a somewhat weary tone, COLOR ADJUSTMENT is more indignant. You might’ve come to learn, but you’ll definitely leave thinking more critically, the artistic and thematic cohesion of both packing a more powerful impact than if watching just one. Screening as part of the Entrances and Exits series. [Kat Sachs]

Nicholas Ray’s REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (US)

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

Nicholas Ray’s favorite of the films he directed, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE represents the peak expression of the director’s sympathy for misfits and maladroits, which can be found in nearly all his features. It’s also one of the most personal films ever made by a Hollywood studio; Ray not only received a remarkable amount of creative control over the project, but he developed close-knit, borderline familial relationships with most of the cast and managed to smuggle allusions to his own bisexuality into the film’s very narrative structure. REBEL was conceived when Ray told executive Lew Wasserman that he most wanted to make a movie about the problems of young people growing up at the time. Wasserman then sent Ray to Warner Bros., where he was recommended to adapt a non-fiction book about a “criminal psychopath.” The finished film kept the book’s title and nothing else; the final script drew on drafts by several writers (Ray had control over which writers he got to work with, and he fired at least two before landing on one whom he felt shared his vision), research Ray conducted by spending time with actual LA street gangs (members of which appear in the movie), and improvisations elicited from the cast. The lead actor, of course, is James Dean, who died about a month before the film’s premiere and whose spectral celebrity will be forever intertwined with the film’s popularity. Ray spent a lot of time getting to know Dean during preproduction, and he ended up constructing the film around him, encouraging him to mentor the other young actors so that his influence could be felt in the acting on the whole. (Dennis Hopper later recalled that he thought Dean was directing the movie, not Ray.) “In Dean, Ray had found his ideal actor,” opined Ray biographer Bernard Eisenschitz, “not because of his association with the Method and the Actors’ Studio, but because of their mutual understanding of codes of conduct or morality: Dean’s ‘urgent, inquisitive curiosity,’ his ‘kind of pathological desire for tension’ (as Leonard Rosenman put it), the actor’s very arrogance, in which Ray recognized his own fence mechanism against the Hollywood circus. Dean had the capacity, in a backfire effect from direction, to lead the filmmaker into areas of which Ray himself was unaware.” The film’s sense of revelatory discovery is heightened by Ray’s majestic use of CinemaScope, a format which was then only a couple of years old. Writers like to connect Ray’s dynamic widescreen compositions to his having studied architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright, but this has the unfortunate effect of downplaying the director's profound emotional intuition, which always guided the way he organized actors in a frame. Eisenschitz comes closer to the mark when he writes of the “constant interplay between the closest personal relationships and vast space” in REBEL, and this points to why the film is such an overpowering aesthetic experience. Screening as part of Nicholas Ray’s Heyday series. (1955, 111 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]

Nicholas Ray's (and Ida Lupino's) ON DANGEROUS GROUND (US)

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

Nicholas Ray showed his greatest sympathy for outcasts, misfits, and the mentally unbalanced—in other words, for the damaged souls for whom it’s difficult, if not impossible, to function in normal society. One of the many riches of ON DANGEROUS GROUND is that here the Ray hero is a police officer, which raises multiple fascinating questions about America’s obsession with law and order. Cop Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan at his best) can barely repress his hatred for the criminals he takes in; early on in the movie, he even gets reprimanded by his Captain for being too rough with suspects. Yet it’s clear that Jim is also a terminally isolated person whose brutality masks a deep yearning to be loved. What is it about law enforcement that attracts people like Jim? Moreover, does society need people like Jim to do its dirty work? The first half-hour of ON DANGEROUS GROUND meditates on these questions while delivering an engrossing character study and a decent policier to boot. Jim and his partners join the search for two men who killed a couple of officers, and Ray (working from a script he co-wrote with A.I. Bezzerides) presents the police work matter-of-factly, emphasizing the tedium and thankless work that are part of any widespread investigation. The city where Jim works goes unnamed, and this anonymous quality, coupled with all the quotidian detail, adds to our sense of the hero’s alienation. Ray introduces Jim in a pithy yet revealing sequence that shows his partners saying goodbye to their families as they leave for the night shift, then cuts to Jim eating dinner alone. These shots set up a divide between Jim and other people that expands as the investigation goes on. Jim catches the killers, but only after creating a rift with his partners and getting his superiors in hot water. To get him out of the way of a PR fracas, the Captain sends Jim 70 miles upstate to assist with a small town’s search for a runaway child killer. The change in setting from urban (flat, brightly lit) to rural (mountainous, snowy) happens in seconds, and the resulting sense of physical displacement feels in keeping with the general portrait of spiritual displacement. (It’s one of the movie’s finest poetic flourishes.) No sooner than Jim arrives does he meet the victim’s father (Ward Bond), who’s so bent on revenge—he vows to shoot down the killer if he finds him before the police do—that he makes Jim’s bloodlust seem tame by comparison. Jim recognizes this, in the first of several epiphanies that occur during his time in the country. The next few arise during the time he spends with the killer’s sister, a blind woman who lives outside of town and who puts Jim up for the night when his car gets damaged during a snowstorm. Ida Lupino plays the sister and directed parts of the film when Ray became too sick to work; her onscreen interactions with Ryan are some of the most poignant in either Ray's or Lupino's filmography. The characters’ growing comfort with each other stems largely from their mutual feelings of loneliness; this comfort gives way to what Doc programmer Kathleen Geier describes as “a luminous Borzagean drama about the spiritually redemptive power of romantic love.” Howard Hughes, then head of RKO Pictures, demanded that Ray change ON DANGEROUS GROUND’s downbeat ending (he also cut the film by ten minutes), and it’s possible that he made the right call. The evolution from despairing crime drama to optimistic love story is one of the most sublime and satisfying narrative arcs in American cinema. Screening as part of Nicholas Ray’s Heyday series. (1951, 82 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]

Agnieszka Holland’s A WOMAN ALONE (Poland)

Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Saturday, 4pm

More harrowing than any horror movie I’ve seen of late, Agnieszka Holland’s A WOMAN ALONE, initially made for Polish television, follows a disadvantaged, middle-aged single mother as she contends with setback after setback in a devastating environment that provides little in the way of material or emotional support. When the film was made, Poland was in the throes of an economic crisis, widespread worker unrest, and the emergence of the Solidarity movement challenging the communist regime. Politics in the film is discussed as it would be in real life, casually, amongst others; rather Holland lets the action speak for itself in terms of the aforementioned authoritarian communist government's impact. Irena (Maria Chwalibóg) is a postal worker with a precarious living situation for her and her young son. The problems she faces are myriad: she lives in another family’s house, seemingly against their will (the film doesn’t explain why, but it’s nevertheless a contributing factor to Irena’s stress); her aunt is dying and she’s unsure if she’ll be left anything after her death; like others in her millieu she has to deal with long lines for little rations; her son faces trouble at school and she at work, and so on and so forth. Things begin to look up when she meets a younger man on her postal route, an injured ex-miner who’s smitten with her. But happiness here is like gambling; the house—metaphorically, all the terrible things that can happen in a person’s life—seems to always win. In a pivotal scene Irena and the younger man are attempting to flee Poland, Irena having cracked and stolen money for the voyage from her job. They’re uncharacteristically ebullient, hope literally on the horizon. However, their plans are upturned (which I mean more literally than not), fate intervening to prevent them from crossing a physical and emotional boundary. Admirers of Holland’s latest film, GREEN BORDER, will see in this an early fascination with borders as a symbol. The film’s cinematography, by Jacek Petrycki, is appropriately melancholic. Nothing is beautiful in a world with no hope, and Holland conveys that incomparably. The film, made in the very early 90s, was initially banned in Poland, to be released several years later in 1988. It’s also the last film Holland made in her homeland—she was in Sweden promoting the film when martial law was declared after a so-called Season of Freedom (the period leading up to martial law during which the Solidarity movement was gaining momentum, thus emboldening artists to be freer in their expression) after which she left for Paris and didn’t see her family for several months. She may have left, but she also left being quite the creative legacy, as heart wrenchingly beautiful as it is almost shockingly bold. Screening as part of the Agnieszka Holland’s Poland series. (1987, 92 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]

Raoul Walsh's THE ROARING TWENTIES (US)

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

A manic Looney Tune, where soldiers hop into trenches like rabbits and two men can be knocked out with a single punch, transforms into a post-Expressionist drama (watch out for the METROPOLIS references!) charting the rise and fall of Jimmy Cagney, a bootlegger who uses a taxi service as a front. Raoul Walsh's Tommy Gun opera has the distinction of being funny enough to qualify as a comedy and epic enough to qualify as a tragedy. Conceived by Warner Bros. as a throwback to their scuzzy pre-Code gangster pictures, this pastiche (literally: some of B-roll shots are outtakes from the studio's early '30s movies) functions both as a downer the-world-moves-on ending to the genre and, aesthetically, a new beginning for both Walsh and American cinema (Martin Scorsese's filmography, for one, seems unimaginable without it). Jarring changes in tone, deep-focus shots, sight gags, rushing dolly-ins: this is primal, potent Walsh. The cast is pretty gully, too; third-billed Humphrey Bogart's image is so firmly entrenched in his later cynical good-guy roles that seeing him play an irredeemable douchebag packs a wallop. Screening as part of the Public Enemy: Cagney on Film series. (1939, 104 min, 35mm) [Ignatiy Vishnevetsky]

Raoul Walsh’s THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE (US)

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

It is a real pleasure to talk about THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE, one of the most charming films ever made. The deliriously happy marriage of a cast oozing with chemistry and giving pitch-perfect performances, delicate direction even during more melodramatic moments, a mise-en-scène that is at once nostalgic and riotously lively, and some home truths in a smart script adapted by Julius and Philip Epstein from the play “One Sunday Afternoon” by James Hagan make for a very uncomplicated good time. Cagney is at his affectionate best playing Biff Grimes, a scrappy young man trying to find his way in the world at the turn of the 20th century. He takes one correspondence course after another, landing and losing jobs in a single day, and mooning along with half the town’s eligible young men after lovely strawberry blonde Virginia Brush, played with coquettish allure by Rita Hayworth. Biff’s friend Hugo Barnstead (Jack Carson) has his eye on Virginia, too, but he’s too much a man of the world to pant at her heels. When he casually sets up a date with her, Virginia insists on bringing a friend. Hugo drags Biff along to play nice with the friend, luring him with the false promise that Virginia is to be his date. This will not be the last or most serious lie Hugo tells Biff, but it is one of the luckiest lies Biff will ever hear because he meets Amy Lind (Olivia de Havilland), a nurse and liberated woman he eventually marries. Interestingly, Cagney’s mother formed the impetus for naming the film. As the actor put it in his autobiography, Cagney on Cagney, “It was part of our family legend that when she was about sixteen, she went to a dance with a fella named Eddie Casey. That happened to be the very night the song ‘Casey Would Waltz with the Strawberry Blonde’ was first introduced. Because Mom was a strawberry blonde, she and Casey were inevitably the feature of the evening. So, as a tribute to my mother, we renamed the picture.” The major set-piece of the film is a recreation of that dance during Biff’s only date with Virginia, alive with romance and a comedic set-to in the beer garden where the pair spins to that iconic song. The date sets up Biff’s major heartbreak as Hugo elopes with Virginia not long thereafter. Still, the friends go into a construction business together. Hugo’s shady dealings see Biff, the innocent patsy, end up in prison where he learns dentistry by, yes, correspondence. The film is told in flashback, with an ailing Hugo unwittingly phoning Biff’s dental practice at the beginning of the film, thus building suspense as to whether Biff will get even by giving Hugo a lethal whiff of gas. Hugo and Virginia are greedy social climbers whose transactional relationship makes them both miserable. Amy’s veneer of the independent woman melts swiftly, which always saddens me a bit, but she learns to become as genuine as Biff always has been through her love for him. As he is taken to jail in a gentlemanly fashion by his policeman friends, one look to her and a “Wait for me” communicate the world about what a touching and carefully modulated film this is. It goes from comedy to tragedy almost in the blink of an eye, but never without proper motivation having been built in beforehand. Great supporting performances by Alan Hale and George Tobias as Biff’s father and friend, respectively, provide strong timber to a structurally tight and true film. Screening as part of the Public Enemy: Cagney on Film series. (1941, 97 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED

Naomi Kawase's RADIANCE (Japan)

Cinema/Chicago at the Chicago Cultural Center (78 E. Washington St.) – Wednesday, 6:30pm [Free Admission]

In precise attunement with its elegant title, light itself emerges as the central occupation of Naomi Kawase's RADIANCE, an underrated highlight of the director's late narrative work. The film concerns Masaya (played by Jim Jarmusch mainstay Masayoshi Nagase), a once-famous photographer whose life falls into disarray as he grapples with the onset of total blindness. Clinging to the last vestiges of his rapidly failing eyesight, he refuses to accept the inevitability of his condition, forgoing a white cane and any help offered even as magnifying devices and screen readers become unreliable tools. And yet he still carries his Rolleiflex camera, using it not to capture photos, but rather as something of a camera obscura, relying on it to reflect images into the waning slice of his field of vision that still brings light into focus and which is only accessible to him when tilting his gaze low to the ground. On top of a web development job that he is losing his grip on, he works with a company that produces audio description for films, sitting alongside a panel of blind film enthusiasts and offering feedback on descriptive voice tracks in real time as they are drafted. It's in this context that he meets Misako (Ayame Misaki), the sighted woman who is tasked with writing said voice tracks. He subsequently becomes her harshest critic, decrying the inadequacy of her writing as either insufficiently descriptive or reductively prescriptive as she writes and revises her description of a challenging arthouse film about grief, old age and perseverance. The subject matter is a natural fit for Kawase, herself a slow cinema paragon and a poet of mundane action, permitting her to transform trepidatious movement down corridors into meditations on tactility, or the first faltering step down a stairwell into a moment suffuse with dramatic tension. With characteristic delicacy, she uses the narrative framework—something of a parable about the limits of translation and the difficulty of transmuting lived experience into universal art—to explore how the limits of human perspective hamper our most basic need for connection. The film's conceit also allows Kawase, an experimental documentarian at heart who often presses against the strictures of narrative cinema, to truly paint with the light. When scenes call for anything other than tense natural darkness, she shoots almost exclusively at golden hour, casting her characters in lustrous sunset hues, often turning her camera directly on the sun and allowing it to completely engulf the image. The intended effect is apparent and no less moving for its total earnestness: there is a guiding light beyond the modality of the visible that illuminates the indomitable spirit of these characters. Screening as part of Cinema/Chicago’s free summer screening series. (2017, 101 min, DCP Digital) [David Whitehouse]

Walter Hill's THE WARRIORS (US)

Music Box Theatre – Friday and Saturday, Midnight

Walter Hill's cult classic THE WARRIORS is the cinematic embodiment of mythology big and small: loosely based on Sol Yurick's eponymous novel, inspired by the Greek philosopher Xenophon's Anabasis, and bedazzled with a heavy dose of comic book influence, it contains a story of epic proportions that is built on a foundation of unsophisticated plotlines and simplified allegories. It's the simple tale of rival gangs that clash over misunderstanding and reunite amidst outlaw-justice and criminal commiseration. Groups of snazzily named New York City gangs come together and are then torn apart when the city's most powerful gang leader is killed while proposing an inter-gang truce that would enable the collective members to rival the police force. One gang, The Warriors, are framed by the culprits and it's a race against public transportation as they attempt to make their way back to Coney Island unarmed. Hill applies an ingenuous filmmaking approach so simplistic as to seem naive; "I saw THE WARRIORS as graphically driven, as situational," he told interviewers in 2009. "It was broad, easy to understand, but kind of self-mocking at the same time... those were the aspects that suggested a comic book flavor to me." Hill's self-aware style adds both to the film's quality and entertainment value—it doesn't suffer from the pretenses of social realism, nor does it completely embrace its alternative universe so as to become Gotham-esqe in execution. It exists as a rare success story in a genre full of self-important parodies that strain too hard for substance rather than style. Note that the version screening is the original theatrical cut. (1979, 92 min, 35mm) [Kat Sachs]

Welles x 2 at the Film Center

Gene Siskel Film Center – Sunday, 2pm (CITIZEN KANE) and 4:30pm (F FOR FAKE)

Orson Welles’ CITIZEN KANE (US)
Now that two decades have passed since the last time Sight & Sound magazine named CITIZEN KANE the greatest movie ever made, maybe we can begin to recontextualize it in its historical moment and within Orson Welles’ career. Jonathan Rosenbaum, whose insights into Welles are bottomless, provided some useful starting points a few years ago when he introduced KANE at the Siskel Center, pointing out that the film’s overall project of deflating a media mogul and would-be demagogue reflects Welles’ leftist politics, which were already firmly in place by the time he made it. That Welles’ media mogul should appear so similar to William Randolph Hearst that Hearst himself tried to have the film destroyed speaks to Welles’ audacity, which was also an established part of his persona/legend by his mid-20s. Indeed, it’s astonishing what Welles had accomplished before making CITIZEN KANE, and the film incorporates his achievements in both theater (through the staging and performances) and radio (through the complicated soundtrack). It also builds upon cinematographer Gregg Toland’s then-recent breakthroughs with William Wyler (DEAD END, WUTHERING HEIGHTS) and John Ford (THE LONG VOYAGE HOME) with deep focus photography, which Welles employs to recreate the effect of the theatrical proscenium on film. For André Bazin, Toland’s work inaugurated a new era of cinematic realism in which viewers, presented with whole dramatic environments, could choose which parts of the shot were important based on their interpretation of the image. Yet Welles’ cinematic vocabulary contains a lot more than deep focus shots, and he often guides the viewers’ interpretation, in the expressionist tradition, through a mélange of cinematic devices. Consider the montage that condenses the dissolution of Kane’s first marriage into a few painful minutes; the extreme low-angle shots that turn characters into giants; or the famous camera movement that goes up and up and up through the rafters as Kane’s second wife makes her disastrous opera debut. What these passages have in common is their sheer exuberance—the style can be intoxicating, and it inspired generations of filmmakers. And while Herman J. Mankiewicz certainly deserves credit for the film’s verbal eloquence, there’s no mistaking that this is a film of visual splendor first and foremost. Screening as part of the Entrances and Exits series. (1941, 119 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
---
Orson Welles’ F FOR FAKE (France/Iran/West Germany)
If THE TRIAL (1962) was Orson Welles’ way of telling the world he was the greatest filmmaker when it came to lighting a shot, then F FOR FAKE was the film where he crowned himself Emperor of Montage. A dizzying mix of documentary, self-portrait, and metafiction, the film brings together (almost entirely through editing) an array of fascinating figures: world-famous art forger Elmyr de Hory; his biographer Clifford Irving, who also created the notorious fake interview with Howard Hughes in 1970; Hughes, whom Welles muses on in one of the film’s many digressions; Welles himself, whose early career comes under consideration; Pablo Picasso, who serves as the mysterious man of wealth and power who always turns up in a Welles picture; and Welles’ then-muse Oja Kodar, who gets to model some sexy outfits. It often feels as though Welles is putting the movie together as you watch it (literally—he sometimes appears seated at an editing table), even though F FOR FAKE may be the most intricately plotted thing he ever made. The film’s deceptive simplicity is in keeping with its theme of trickery, with cinema representing the greatest trick you can ever pull on an audience. Welles makes the connection explicit at the start of the film when he performs some magic tricks (he must have been on a roll after making GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT [1972]), but it’s implicit in his affectionate portraits of de Hory and Irving, who, like Welles, have a great talent for fooling people. In particular, de Hory’s ability to effectively imitate any number of great artists raises the question of authorship in art, since even museum curators and other so-called experts could be tricked into believing his forgeries were authentic. F FOR FAKE reaches its climax with Welles’ poetic reflections on the cathedral at Chartres, which he argues is the most beautiful work of art in the Western world. No one knows who built the cathedral, he asks, but does that matter if so many people derive meaning from it? It would take way too long to explain how Welles winds up at such profound questions after starting with magic tricks and a silly “girl watching” episode; suffice it to say, the inventive logic that connects these different points is the stuff of art. Screening as part of the Entrances and Exits series. (1973, 89 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]

Rebekkah McKendry’s GLORIOUS (US)

Music Box Theatre – Friday, 9:30pm

Lovecraftian horror, with its emphasis on the incomprehensible, is not an easy subgenre to adapt to film, but when done well, they leave a lasting impression. There is a contemporary resurgence of cosmic horror films that have found an audience willing to embrace the unknowable. From apocalyptic madness in Richard Stanley's COLOR OUT OF SPACE (2019) to the mutating shimmer in Alex Garland's ANNIHILATION (2018) to the reality-bending time loops in Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's THE ENDLESS (2017) and the social politics of Frank Darabont’s THE MIST (2007), tales of a condemning universe and godlike creatures have become more palatable than ever. Rebekkah McKendry's GLORIOUS, based on the H.P. Lovecraft short story “Out Of The Aeons,” falls in line with the best of 21st century cosmic horror and proves you can accomplish the unfilmable with a less-is-more filmmaking style. Ancient gods, world-enders, titans of the sea, and the unknown inside the infinite nothing, are conceptually horrific; however, without humanity to anchor these stories, the horror of things beyond our imagination can easily fizzle out. To provide that human counterpart, McKendry and screenwriter Joshua Hull give us Wes (Ryan Kwanten). Not many actors have had to act opposite a hole in a bathroom stall, but when the unseen bathroom companion is voiced by J.K. Simmons, all performances are elevated. Production began during lockdown, so Kwanten and Simmons rehearsed their lines together on video chat and Simmons’ lines were recorded separately. Blocking, cinematography, and dialogue are key in a single-location shoot. McKendry shows off her mastery of independent production by crafting each scene with intensity and knowing when to undercut the dread with comic timing. In the process of putting miles between himself and the guilt of his past, Wes inevitably must find a rest area off the highway. He spends the night drinking and burning memorabilia only to pass out. In the morning, he rushes into the rest stop bathroom to vomit. Here he encounters an eldritch deity hiding behind a hole in a stall. This god desires something only Wes can provide. The words demonic glory hole chamber piece are not necessarily words that evoke mass audience appeal, but GLORIOUS lives up to its title again and again throughout its quick-paced runtime. The individual narrative elements of GLORIOUS seem at the onset as counter-intuitive. To feature a Lovecraft creature, Ghatanothoa (or "Ghat" for short), as a non-corporeal voice instead of showing the son of Cthulhu as a mighty entity works because it leaves the god’s form to be imagined. The film's shifting tone with moments of humor, animated bathroom graffiti, surrealist flashbacks, neon-drenched lighting, and enough oozing viscera for any genre fan balances the absurdist premise, mythology of the ancient ones, and the treachery of man with fantastic results. Ghat may be real or a manifestation of Wes’ guilt; either way the consequences of Wes’ actions could make him a hero or simply forgotten. As Simmons' Ghat says, "The universe has a favor to ask." Co-presented by the Horror House with writer Joshua Hull in attendance. (2022, 79 min, DCP Digital) [Shaun Huhn]

Richard Shepard’s THE LINGUINI INCIDENT (US)

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

More than three decades after his solo directorial debut was rushed into theaters in a less-than-desired form, Richard Shepard has returned to his pseudo-anonymous early-'90s crime comedy THE LINGUINI INCIDENT with a new edit that, ideally, will bring this mélange of cinematic kookiness to a whole new generation. Shepard’s particular brand of quirky atmospherics may come off as cinematic cilantro to some, but I was unabashedly taken with the mode of play here, most notably the film’s primary setting: the garish upper-class restaurant Dali, a teal-and-pink surrealist monstrosity of fine dining catering to the “trendsucking leeches” of New York City. Here, our primary scenario unfolds, where a waitress with a penchant for escape artistry (Rosanna Arquette) teams up with a love-crazy bartender with a horrific gambling addiction (David Bowie) to rob the place for their own respective screwball motivations. In its best moments, the film achieves kaleidoscopic moments of top-notch visual humor aided by committed oddball performances (particularly of note: Marlee Matlin as a hilariously unserious hostess, and the bizarre pairing of Andre Gregory and Buck Henry as the restaurant’s demented owners). For many, the most attention-grabbing pleasure will be the cementing of another star in the ever-expanding constellation of the multi-faceted David Bowie’s ever-chameleonic career; he's cast here in a cinematic light otherwise unexplored as a romantic comedy lead. Even the most ardent Bowie fan will be thrilled to see this particular brand of unseen lovestruck comic skill from the late icon, his effervescent charm employed here to delightful ends. (1991, 93 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]

Spike Lee's BAMBOOZLED (US)

Logan Center for the Arts (915 E. 60th St., University of Chicago)  – Sunday, 1pm [Free Admission]

As the new millennium approached, Spike Lee chose to reflect on Black entertainers in a supposedly “post-race” society and on Black minstrelsy in contemporary culture. BAMBOOZLED is a meditation on the previous 100 years, considering the birth of cinema and the portrayal of African Americans through blackface minstrelsy. The film’s title is taken from a speech by Malcolm X about the treatment of black Americans by the United States and capitalist machine: “Oh, I say and I say it again, ya been had! Ya been took! Ya been hoodwinked! Bamboozled!” Many critics didn’t know what to make of it at the time, as it was pointing its finger at them as well as the industrial entertainment world at large. Unfortunately, and like many masterpieces, this led to the film's poor critical reception and box-office failure upon initial release. With the 1990s far in the rearview mirror, however, it's been reappraised as a brilliant satire and a gem of Lee’s filmography. The plot revolves around a Black, Harvard-educated TV producer, Delacroix; deciding he's had enough with his racist boss, Delacroix plans to escape his contract by getting fired. He writes a pilot for a program called Mantan: The New Millenium Minstrel Show, a variety show with two hosts, Mantan and Sleep‘n Eat, played by Black actors in blackface. Rather than ruin his career, the show grows into an American cultural phenomenon, making it Delacroix’s Frankenstein monster. Damon Wayans’ performance as Delacroix fits perfectly into this borderline-dystopian world. He's matched by the ever-charismatic Jada Pinkett Smith as his personal assistant (the duo was inspired by Cary Grant and Rosalind Russel in HIS GIRL FRIDAY [1940]), and their onscreen rapport forms a unique modern romance. Savion Glover and Tommy Davidson display their talents as the two struggling artists who become minstrel superstars and grapple with success at the cost of their dignity. And Michael Rapaport nails the attitudes of liberal white America as a racist in denial. The film ends in documentary style, cutting across time through American films that took part in blackface minstrelsy. Ending on this note not only drives home Lee’s point about how this practice is embedded in American culture and the DNA of cinema, but poses a simple question: If this was how entertainment treated black people in the 20th century, what will the next 100 years bring? Screening as part of the Screening Acts series, a free film series celebrating Black independent cinema. (2000, 135 mins, Unconfirmed Format) [Ray Ebarb]

Sidney Lumet's THE VERDICT (US)

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

Bluntly stated, the two greatest movies in the "lawyer on the skids decides to take a case in a last-ditch attempt to redeem himself" genre are ANATOMY OF A MURDER and THE VERDICT. Whereas the former is leavened with a wry sense of humor, thanks to Jimmy Stewart's hem-hawing, Eve Arden's wisecracks, and Lee Remick's lazy sex kitten, THE VERDICT is most often chilly and cerebral. And no less fascinating for it. Every character is a "type," a mere cog in the story's machine. The story's contrivances are such a pleasure to experience because, as usual, Lumet assembled such a perfect cast. Jack Warden's gruffness, Charlotte Rampling's icy sensuality, Milo O'Shea's Irish pragmatism, and of course Paul Newman's expertly calibrated weariness are all wonderfully balanced against each other. But James Mason is the film's secret weapon. No one else could have played such a ruthless and rapacious lawyer with such mysterious dignity and grace—he steals every scene he's in. Screening as part of the Sidney Lumet Centennial series. (1982, 129 min, DCP Digital) [Rob Christopher]

David Hinton’s MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBURGER (UK/Documentary)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

It’s hard to think of any independent filmmakers who have created more masterpieces than Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. The British-born Powell and Hungarian immigrant to England Pressburger had an almost mystical creative connection that birthed such wild and wonderful dreamscapes as I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING! (1945), BLACK NARCISSUS (1947), and THE RED SHOES (1948) through their production company, The Archers, influencing countless future directors. Most famously, Martin Scorsese credits THE RED SHOES with his approach to the boxing scenes in his RAGING BULL (1980), and it is Scorsese who takes us through the careers of these two men in a combination documentary/essay film that samples from their collaborations and a couple of movies that Powell made on his own, notably his career-killing PEEPING TOM (1960). Of great interest are the films the team made during World War II as their contribution to the war effort. At Pressburger’s suggestion, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (1943) features Deborah Kerr playing three women in the life of Clive Candy (Roger Livesey), the embodiment of the comic character of Colonel Blimp made noble through this undying love, as well as his decades-long friendship with a German officer (Anton Walbrook). In A CANTERBURY TALE (1944), using the superimposition of an airplane over the image of a bird in flight connects the spiritual seekers of Chaucer’s pilgrims with the present-day Britons trying to reawaken the peace of their green and pleasant land. The power of love dominates another wartime effort, A TALE OF LIFE AND DEATH (1946), in which the innovation of picturing the living world in color and the dead in heaven in black and white offered a vision of renewal to a scarred people. Scorsese analyzes the various thematic and technical achievements of The Archers, and compares some of them with scenes from his own films as rather egotistical examples of their influence. Archival photos and footage of the men on set and in interviews adds a bit of color to the proceedings, though little real information is given. We learn about their great and then difficult partnership J. Arthur Rank, the disastrous meddling of Hollywood studios they teamed with, and the schism that broke them up. Scant biographical information is given, though Scorsese’s reminiscences about meeting Powell and gaining his friendship and encouragement in the last years of the older man’s life (not to mention that Scorsese’s regular film editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, married Powell in 1984) help to personalize the film. MADE IN ENGLAND should have a permanent berth in film schools. For the rest of us, just basking in the glorious scenes from some of their finest films is reward enough. (2024, 131 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Wim Wenders' WINGS OF DESIRE (Germany)

Goethe-Institut Chicago (150 N. Michigan Ave.) – Saturday, 6pm (Free Admission)

In 1971, Wim Wenders and other luminaries of New German Cinema (including Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, and Alexander Kluge) founded the famous Filmverlag der Autoren to produce and distribute their own films, and Wenders and Austrian novelist and playwright Peter Handke completed their first feature film collaboration, THE GOALIE'S ANXIETY AT THE PENALTY KICK (1971). Nearly twenty years later, they co-wrote WINGS OF DESIRE, a beautiful film in the tradition of the German fairytale and dedicated to the angels and to master directors Yasujiro Ozu, François Truffaut, and Andrei Tarkovsky. Wenders tells the story of an angel, Damiel (Bruno Ganz), falling in love with trapeze artist Marion (Solveig Dommartin), who flies through the air at the Circus Alekan (named in honor of the film's cinematographer, Henri Alekan). Damiel fervently desires to abandon his spiritual existence to become a human being and experience the pleasures and pains of life, particularly that of love, which can be both. He and the other angels experience the world in black and white, but Wenders uses bursts of color to indicate the magnificent difference in the way humans see it. WINGS OF DESIRE is also an ode to Berlin, recalling the city films of the early twentieth century, such as Walter Ruttmann's BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A GREAT CITY (1927) and Dziga Vertov's MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA (1929). The original German title is DER HIMMEL UBER BERLIN, meaning ‘The Sky, or Heaven, over Berlin.’ Wenders begins shooting the city from an angel's point of view in the sky, and his camera later descends to the streets, looking at or out of cars, buses, and trains. He concerns himself with Berlin's history and the stories of its people, particularly since World War II. Recurring shots of the Berlin Wall covered in decorative graffiti figure prominently as does old war footage of air raids and of the victims they claimed lying amidst the rubble. Ultimately, WINGS OF DESIRE is a story about time—as longed for by angels, as lived by Berliners, and as experienced by us in watching the film unfold. Screening as part of the 70 Years of German Films series. (1987, 128 min, Digital Projection) [Candace Wirt]

David Lynch's DUNE (US)

Alamo Drafthouse – Monday, 9:45pm and Wednesday, 11am and 6:30pm

Having seen David Lynch's adaptation DUNE after watching Denis Villeneuve’s version, I am struck at how similar the two are—and by how easy it is to teeter from making an adaptation work to completely missing the mark. While Villeneuve may have found a way to streamline the original novel’s plot, he didn’t make it any less dense. Lynch’s version never figured out its impermeability; this led to a challenging production and eventual box office failure on release. In revisiting, I’m most surprised to see so many parallels between Lynch’s DUNE and his more recent Twin Peaks: The Return, both in the aesthetic—particularly set design and special effects–and in its puzzling nature. Set in the future, the intricate plot—much of it divulged through voiceover—follows young Paul Atreides (an enthusiastic Kyle MacLachlan in his first film role) as his powerful family relocates to the desert planet Arrakis, which is the only place in the universe where spice, a necessary resource for interplanetary space travel, is found. DUNE is filled with bizarre performances by Lynch regulars and one-offs alike: Patrick Stewart, Brad Dourif, Sting, and Alicia Witt, just to name a handful. The film is also scored by rock band Toto with a theme by Brian Eno. There’s a lot going on, and a lot of that doesn’t work, but it's impressive in its attempt, and often weirdly fascinating. While it’s a perplexing film to grapple with, Lynch's DUNE sits oddly somewhere between two of my favorite kinds of cinema: the ambitious and mainly unsuccessful sci-fi/fantasy films of the 80s on the one hand and Lynch’s most inscrutable work on the other. The former taught me missteps can still contain some stunning visuals; the latter taught me that a seemingly impenetrable film experience can also be a very rewarding one. (1984, 137 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]

Jim Jarmusch's STRANGER THAN PARADISE (US)

Alamo Drafthouse – Saturday, 12pm and Tuesday, 10pm

Who is Jim Jarmusch? For many, it's a troubling question. Jarmusch is a director that everyone seems to know. It's been an accepted truth that there is a "Jarmusch style" and that his films are "all about the same things." Like most accepted truths, it's total bullshit. Jarmusch might be liked by those who think his movies are uncomplicated and low-key, but he is admired by those that realize that they are complicated and adventurous: that Jarmusch is no more "outsiders" than Melville was "crime," no more "stillness" than Ophüls was "movement," no more dialogue than Chaplin was "silence." To think of him as a traditionalist denies how much new cinema and culture his films have embraced over the years. To say that Jarmusch is "consistent" denies how much ground he's managed to cover in the last 30 years. "Jarmusch" (the omnivorous Jarmusch, the idea that exists apart from the director) begins not with PERMANENT VACATION, but with his second film, STRANGER THAN PARADISE, and its discovery of something that seems both new and completely obvious: a rigid and physical non-time, the concrete quality life takes on when you have nowhere to go and don't own a wristwatch. Without a goal, everything becomes important; walking down a street without a particular destination, you notice every building. STRANGER THAN PARADISE has an economy; the film is put together like a wedding banquet during a food shortage, every ingredient carefully rationed. It is edited together out of shot-scenes and take-moments where nothing seems to happen because things are constantly happening: every time John Lurie's razor makes it down his neck during a shave, every time he shuffles the cards, Eszter Balint takes a drag from one of her cigarettes or Richard Edson shrugs, it's an event. (1984, 95 min, DCP Digital) [Ignatiy Vishnevetsky]

Osgood Perkins’ LONGLEGS (US)

Various Theaters and the Music Box Theatre – See Venue websites for showtimes

LONGLEGS has an unanticipated fairy tale quality about it. Though maybe one shouldn’t be too surprised, as horror director Osgood Perkins has trod into that arena before with his previous film GRETEL AND HANSEL. His most recent film is dreamy, focusing on imprints left by objects and images and their role in creating and warping memories. The physicality of objects is important, too; they have meaning and magic in a way that at times feels like a nebulous commentary on the importance of physical media—​its '90s setting with '70s flashbacks contributes to this as well. LONGLEGS is a procedural, often reminiscent of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and ZODIAC. Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is a young FBI agent working on a decades-spanning case concerning a serial killer known as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage), who targets families with young girls and leaves behind coded messages wrought with satanic imagery. Lee is naturally—​perhaps supernaturally—​intuitive, but she may have an even deeper connection to the case than she realizes. This all feels very familiar, but Perkins' distinct style gives an added layer. Lee is shot in warped close ups, as if the camera is trying desperately to get inside her head; Monroe’s strained expressions and reserved anxiety also adds to the sensation that she’s silently screaming. Subliminal, satanic imagery flashes on screen as both Lee and the audience try to piece together what evil is at work here. Cage’s performance is simultaneously what you expect and yet still so unsettling and funny in surprising ways—​despite the lack of visuals in promotional material, Perkins doesn’t hold back from ultimately showcasing this performance. Longlegs is more Twin Peaks' Bob than anything else, a very real threat shrouded in a bizarre supernatural element. The film does however feel cold in its cool-toned settings and the way it keeps the audience at an arm’s length from the details of the evil that’s occurring. Wide shots combined with overcrowded interiors suggest there’s a worse monster lurking just off screen, perhaps captured in a letter or photograph, hidden in the past somewhere. What is most disturbing and resonate about LONGLEGS is what’s left beneath the surface, a fairy tale disguised as a procedural horror, thematically reminiscent with something like THE COMPANY OF WOLVES about the terror of growing up; Lee’s religious mother (a haunting Alicia Witt) even repeatedly mentions a big bad wolf in reference to her childhood. LONGLEGS is impressive in that it’s suggestive without being exploitative: that surviving girlhood is a dangerous minefield that often takes a lot of sacrifice and rarely leaves one unscathed. (2024, 101 min, DCP Digital and 35mm at the Music Box) [Megan Fariello]

🎞️ ALSO SCREENING

⚫ Bedsheet Cinema
Jacques Tati’s 1953 French film MR. HULOT’S HOLIDAY (98 min, Digital Projection) screens Sunday at 8pm. More info here.

⚫ 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
The Chicago Film Society presents Flickering Frolic: Slides and Movies with Heather McAdams on Saturday, 2pm, at the Harold Washington Library Center, followed by a post-event Q&A with McAdams. Register here.

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

⚫ Comfort Film at Comfort Station (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.) 
Alan Crosland’s 1920 film THE FLAPPER (88 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday, 8pm, with live accompaniment by the Peter Schwendener Quartet as part of the Silent Film on the Lawn series. Weather permitting. Free admission. More info here. 

⚫ FACETS Cinema
A restoration of Goffredo Alessandrini’s 1942 film WE THE LIVING (172 min, Digital Projection) screens Saturday, 5:30pm, with an introduction by Duncan Scott. More info here. 

⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
Frauke Finsterwalder’s 2023 film SISI & I (132 min, DCP Digital) begins screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes. More info here. 

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

Sean Wang’s 2024 film DIDI (93 min, DCP Digital) begins and Monia Chokri’s 2023 French film THE NATURE OF LOVE (111 min, DCP Digital) continues screening this week. 

CatVideoFest takes place Saturday and Sunday at 11:30am and Thursday at 7pm. 10% of all ticket proceeds will be donated to Red Door Animal Shelter. 

Tilman Singer’s 2024 horror film CUCKOO (102 min, 35mm) screens Monday and Tuesday at 9:15pm. More info on all screenings and events here. 

⚫ Sideshow Gelato (4819 W. Western Ave.)
SUPER-HORROR-RAMA! presents Victor Sjöström’s 1924 silent film HE WHO GETS SLAPPED (80 min, Digital Projection) on Wednesday, 7pm, as part of a weekly horror gathering and screening series, with a social hour starting at 6pm. More info 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: August 2 - August 8, 2024

MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs

CONTRIBUTORS // Rob Christopher, Kyle Cubr, Ray Ebarb, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Shaun Huhn, Ben Kaye, Michael Glover Smith, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, David Whitehouse, Candice Wirt