Read an interview with legendary editor Thelma Schoonmaker at the Cine-File blog about restoring the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and working with Martin Scorsese!
📽️ THE 60TH CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
The 60th Chicago International Film Festival takes place through Sunday, October 27, at various venues throughout the city but primarily at AMC Newcity 14 and the Gene Siskel Film Center. Select programs will be available to stream virtually. See the full schedule and more info here.
Joel Potrykus’ VULCANIZADORA (US)
Music Box Theatre – Wednesday, 10pm
For those hungry to seek out what could best be described as “feel-bad cinema,” indie master Joel Potrykus’ latest exercise in expert, torturous minimalism will more than sate that bummer pit in your stomach. Potrykus made a name for himself in the 2010s for his down-and-dirty microbudget features exploring contemporary male rage and anxiety, whether it be a stand-up comic whose artistic pitfalls and anger issues become one and the same (APE [2012]), a young man channeling his addiction issues through delusions of alchemical grandeur (THE ALCHEMIST COOKBOOK [2016]), or a late-'90s slacker whose response to shifting global and personal change is to literally remain bound to his couch for all of eternity (RELAXER [2018]). After a six-year break between features, Potrykus’ latest is the work of an artist growing and evolving, building upon his thematic instincts in exciting, mature fashion, but still retaining the punk, anarchic spirit that made his work so indelible in the first place. Here, in a sequel-of-sorts to his sophomore feature, BUZZARD (2014), two friends approaching middle age (Potrykus himself, alongside frequent collaborator Joshua Burge) journey into the local woods, at first engaging in violently juvenile behavior (shooting bottle rockets, hitting sticks against trees, indulging in excessive drinking), before the real purpose of their hike emerges in a dreary and frightening fashion. To reveal more of what transpires in VULCANIZADORA would eliminate much of the joyful and sickly surprise of Potrykus’ sleek and muddy feature, but themes of suicide, depression, disillusionment, and male arrested development unfold across the tight sub-ninety-minute runtime, exploring the fractured bond between two men struggling to figure out how their respective loneliness and fear can (or should) exist in the world. Though no prior viewing of BUZZARD is necessary to appreciate the experience here, there is something additionally depressing about the gleeful anger of Burge’s character from that feature reemerging here as a shell of his former self, the life sapped from his eyes with a lumbering, ominous weight. Potrykus keeps his feature aloft with sumptuous 16mm footage of crunchy autumnal forest floors and seemingly endless lakes, underscored with a soundtrack bold and eclectic enough to include both Maria Callas and Pantera. It’s a testament to how expansive Potrykus has become as an artist, still able to access his particular brand of anxious, hellish antics while still grasping for what else lies under the sun. And even within a film as dire as this one, Potrykus offers some hope that there is still time to escape the traps of despair we build for ourselves. Potrykus in person. (2024, 85 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
---
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s AFTER LIFE (Japan)
AMC Newcity 14 – Thursday, 5:30pm
Hirokazu Kore-eda began his career as a director of documentaries for TV, so it makes sense that he approached his second narrative feature, AFTER LIFE, as though he were making a documentary. On deciding that the movie would be about people having to choose one memory from life to take with them into eternity after dYING, Kore-eda conducted interviews with over 500 Japanese senior citizens to ask them about the memories they valued most. Some of the interviewees were cast in AFTER LIFE, but more importantly, the collective testimonies shaped the film’s insights into the generation that lived through the Showa Era (roughly, the years before, during, after World War II). The interview process influenced the film’s structure too, as AFTER LIFE unfolds as a documentary-style week in the lives of a group of committed professionals, with the narrative taking its shape from their work routine. What’s novel is that the professionals here are caseworkers for the recently deceased, the spirits who prepare Japan’s just-departed souls for the rest of time. They do this by interviewing the dead about their lives, then having them select a favorite memory that the caseworkers turn into a short film that the dead will take with them into the metaphysical void. The interviews and selection process take three days, shooting and postproduction the next four. Everyone lives together, summer camp-style, in the same facility (in actuality—and a brilliant piece of location scouting—an abandoned fisheries lab compound); in AFTER LIFE, there are about a half-dozen caseworkers and 22 deceased. Kore-eda delineates this fantasy forthrightly and with choice detail, employing the modest, observational style that would become his trademark. The film introduces a range of themes—not just death and dying, but also bureaucracy, social work, memory, and cinema—and lets them resonate and play off each other, resulting in all sorts of poignant and sometimes funny inventions. There’s a wonderful scene, for instance, where one of the caseworkers has to break it to a 14-year-old girl that her chosen memory of riding down Splash Mountain had already been requested—and kindly rejected—by 30 other souls in the last year. In another sequence that anticipates Michel Gondry’s ode to semiprofessional filmmaking, BE KIND REWIND (2008), a couple of caseworkers create clouds out of cotton balls to recreate a pilot’s memory of flying. The most poignant thing about AFTER LIFE is that there are no big revelations in it; Kore-eda accumulates small moments, making death seem approachable, even oddly routine. Kore-eda in person. (1998, 119 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
---
Bernhard Wenger’s PEACOCK (Austria/Germany)
AMC Newcity 14 – Thursday, 7:45pm
The tragic irony of the life of Matthias (Albrecht Schuch) is how brilliantly he knows how to be literally anyone else but himself. As the most favorable client at My Companion, a Vienna-based "friend-for-hire" agency, Matthias can step in to whatever role you need him to play; maybe he's your social companion at cultural events around the city, or your doting son at your upcoming sixtieth birthday celebration, or even someone to coach you through relationship troubles. It’s that last one that gets especially tricky, for as colorful and expressive as Matthias can be on the job, he’s practically a blank canvas in his home life, to the point where things between him and his partner Sophia (Julia Franz Richter) have arrived at a disastrous breaking point. Bernhard Wenger’s debut feature has a distinct short story-esque feeling to it, painting in broad strokes about concrete themes and values, doing so with notably stylish editing and production design, frames meticulously assembled and eye-catching. Wenger fills his story with endless notable sequences, from an opening image of a golf cart on fire, to the frequent and deliberate use of animals throughout, from dogs of all sizes, to hordes of ducks, to the eponymous peacock wandering through a meditation garden. Just like that feathered friend, Matthias finds that his whole lot in life is nothing more than performance after performance, to the point where—in the film’s messy and bombastic finale—his own attempt at true personal expression is deemed nothing more than an act. For Matthias, for better or worse, all the world’s a stage. Wenger in person.(2024, 102 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
---
Check back next week for further coverage of the 60th Chicago International Film Festival.
📽️ CRUCIAL VIEWING
Robert Bresson's LANCELOT DU LAC (France)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Thursday, 7pm
The best way to describe Bresson's intense, stilted adaptation of the concluding book of Le Mort le Roi Artu is essentially as an unfunny version of MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. For the first two minutes of LANCELOT DU LAC are truly alarming: unnamed Knights of the Round Table, in awkward forest battle, decapitate and bludgeon each other, resulting in fountains of stage blood. Returning to a humble, tented Camelot, the knights shuffle around with loudly clanking armor, and other sound effects (such as a whinnying horse) are repeated until they become obviously artificial to the viewer. What was for Bresson intended as sources of poetic estrangement became in the hands of Terry Gilliam groundbreaking middlebrow ensemble comedy. The plot, if you're unfamiliar with late Arthurian legend, is not exactly well-telegraphed: Bresson is even more concerned than usual with a relentless experimentation in framing and editing which prefers movement, sound, and details of objects to any particularly coherent narrative exposition. (This becomes highlighted in a central jousting sequence that tries as hard as possible to break all the rules of sports television.) It is ultimately a film suffused in temporal paradox: while Bresson's typically catatonic dialogue and repetitious cadences might seem a postmodern invention, in LANCELOT DU LAC they tend to sound closer to the original medieval rhetoric than anything else. Screening as part of the Capturing the Real: Four by Robert Bresson series. (1974, 85 min, 35mm) [Michael Castelle]
Ernst Lubitsch's TROUBLE IN PARADISE (US)
Chicago Film Society at Northeastern Illinois University (The Auditorium, Building E, 3701 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.) – Wednesday, 7:30pm
Wes Anderson has made no secret of the influence Ernst Lubitsch had on his 2014 film THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. He's openly cited several of the German-born director's films as direct inspiration, including one of Lubitsch's first non-musical pre-Code comedies, TROUBLE IN PARADISE. Upon seeing THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, Lubitsch's influence is obvious—in one scene, Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes) advises his elderly lady love, Madame D. (Tilda Swinton), on her choice of nail color. In another, as Madame D. lays in her coffin, Gustave sees that she changed it just before her death. Both are reminiscent of similar scenes from TROUBLE IN PARADISE, in which the lovable crook Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) critiques Madame Mariette Colet's (Kay Francis) choice of lipstick and powder; in another scene, he notices that she's taken his suggestions to heart. In Anderson's film, other characters speculate as to Gustave's sexuality, oftentimes in a way that is more derogatory than humorous. In Lubitsch's film there's no doubt that Gaston is heterosexual, but the important distinction between the films isn't one's perception of a character's sexuality—it's that, in Lubitsch's world, those very qualities are synonymous with refinement, the essence of a sophistication that comprises what is known as ‘The Lubitsch Touch,’ a certain je n'ais se quoi that is now largely absent from American cinema. His fourth collaboration with screenwriter Sam Raphaelson, derived as usual from underwhelming source material, it's the story of two love-struck crooks and the target who comes between them. At the beginning of the film, in the midst of a robbery, Gaston meets and falls in love with Lily (Miriam Hopkins), another thief from his side of the tracks. Together they leave Venice and travel to Paris, where they become entangled with Madame Colet, a widowed perfumier The film's title refers to the disruption brought to their relationship by Gaston and Mariette's newfound infatuation, a riff on the phrase often used to describe marital discord, though it could also be applied to the tenuous economic times in which the characters are operating. Though hardly a political director, Lubitsch includes one scene in which a disheveled Communist berates Madame Colet for her exorbitance, which acts, in addition to Gaston and Lily's low social class, as an acknowledgment of the financial depression that was then affecting the Western world. Such inclusions don't detract from one's enjoyment of the luxury and frivolity for which Lubitsch is primarily known, but instead act as a metaphor for moviegoing itself. It's not necessarily the escapism, but the divorce from reality that makes this untraditional rom-com a shining example of ‘The Lubitsch Touch,’ and definitely one from which any contemporary director can learn a thing or two. Preceded by Arthur Ripley's 1933 short film THE PHARMACIST (19 min, 35mm). (1932, 83 min, 35mm) [Kat Sachs]
Bob Rafelson’s THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS (US)
Chicago Film Society at Music Box Theatre – Saturday, 11:30am
Bob Rafelson’s first three features as director are some of the quintessential New Hollywood movies, presenting distinctly American subjects with a decidedly European sensibility. HEAD (1968), a freewheeling vehicle for the Monkees (whose TV show Rafelson co-created), is a Godardian satire of mass media and youth culture; FIVE EASY PIECES (1970) is a Bergmanesque saga of inner torment that incorporates beautiful West Coast locations and elements of the road movie; and THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS displays the influence of Alain Resnais in its seductive, mysterious montage and the influence of Antonioni in its use of architecture to convey feelings of alienation. It’s the oddest and most pretentious of Rafelson’s films, if not the entire New Hollywood canon (though a case can be made for Frank Perry’s THE SWIMMER [1968]), and this alone makes it some kind of landmark. And as shot by Laszlo Kovacs, it exudes a palpable sense of disillusionment that also feels very much of its period. Playing against his expressive strengths, Jack Nicholson stars as a depressive late-night radio host who’s summoned to Atlantic City by his older brother to join in his get-rich-quick schemes. Bruce Dern, at his very best, plays the brother, a big-talking would-be financial whiz who’s chronically high on his own supply. They’re joined in their misadventures by two women (Ellen Burstyn and Julia Ann Robinson) one or both of whom may be sleeping with Dern. The younger of these women dreams irrationally of becoming Miss America, and her delusion feeds off Dern’s ambitions to launch a hotel and casino in Hawaii using an Atlantic City gangster’s money. (Rounding out the cast, Scatman Crothers plays the gangster, and his scenes are a joy.) Never does the film suggest that any of these dreams will be realized; rather, it’s concerned with the lies the characters tell themselves and each other as they self-destruct. There are echoes of John Huston’s THE MISFITS (1961) in this fable of all-American failure, but Rafelson is not content to deliver just a character study, even an allegorical one. THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS is a full-blown Art Film, replete with ambiguous symbolism and deliberately disorienting edits, both of which can overwhelm the plot and make it seem more complicated than it really is. If you’re sympathetic to Rafelson’s ambitions, you may even find his pretensions moving, as they speak to a briefly realized dream of an internationally oriented art cinema financed by Hollywood studios. Preceded by the 1937 Fleischer Studios cartoon ORGAN GRINDERS SWING (7 min, 16mm). (1972, 103 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
Out of the Vault at 20: Preserved Silent Shorts from CFA (Archival Shorts)
Chicago Film Archives at the Film Studies Center (University of Chicago) – Friday, 7pm [Free Admission]
This program of seven silent short films from the collections of the Chicago Film Archives is one of several programs the CFA is presenting as part of their 20th anniversary year. It’s a particularly strong selection, highlighting some of the diversity and eclecticism in the CFA’s holdings. The best film in the show is DISINTEGRATION LINE #1 (1960) by Lawrence Janiak, who has my vote as the greatest Chicago experimental filmmaker. This early black-and-white film, made without a camera, is an energetic assortment of abstract shapes and patterns that at time seems like writhing micro-organisms, at others like the frenzied activity in a bee hive; whatever the images may remind one of, the overall sense is of controlled chaos—one, though, with a sense of rhythm and form. While the Janiak is the best, it’s another film that steals the show: Warren E. Thompson’s CAMERA ON CHICAGO, which was apparently edited in 1983 but features footage Thomson shot over several decades, most, it looks like, from 1940 into the 1960s. The CFA refers to Thompson as an amateur filmmaker, but this film shows no signs of the awkwardness or less-than-perfect filmmaking skill one often finds in amateur films. It is an elegant and finely crafted film that fits Thompson’s description of a "love letter" to the city perfectly. One could define it as a "city symphony" film, but while it has the scope it does not have the sense of gravitas that city symphony films often strive for. It’s much more grounded and often joyful in its attitude, even as it does not skirt darker sides of the city. Even though it’s just over thirty minutes, Thompson packs in a lot—the bustle of downtown, tenement districts, Lake Shore Drive, Maxwell Street, the stockyards, and more. Thompson’s camera is egalitarian and respectful and captures the diversity of the city: young and old, rich and poor, Black and white and Chinese and Latino. He interweaves his footage and moves freely between people and locations, blending everyone into a shared screen space. Also showing are CHICAGO IN BLACK-AND-WHITE (c.1939, Helen Morrison), CARMEN (c.1926, unknown filmmaker), HANDS ACROSS THE CITY (1935, John H. Matthews), BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (c.1973, JoAnn Elam), and THE CITY (c.1966, Maurice Bailen). With live piano accompaniment by David Drazin for selected films. (c.1939-1983, Total approx. 93 min, 16mm and 35mm) [Patrick Friel]
Jean-Pierre Melville's ARMY OF SHADOWS (France)
Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes
Originally released in 1969 and poorly received, Melville's emotionally devastating film about the French Resistance has vaunted itself into film canon territory after its reevaluation and international revival in 2006. The film's intricate plot follows a band of resistance fighters struggling to survive their inexorable demise from Nazi occupation and themselves—sacrificing their humanity in the process. Anthony Lane marveled at Melville's ability to "render that fatalism not as a grind but as a source of tremulous suspense." The resisters seek to undermine the occupation while defending—sometimes harrowingly—against capture, torture, and execution. Just as frequently, however, they are quietly self-policing traitors and potential weak links with the same paranoia and brutality as the Gestapo. Filmed in color, ARMY OF SHADOWS appears almost gray, and its aesthetic stands in contrast to Melville's stylized gangster films. It is not completely removed from his oeuvre, borrowing from their pacing and quiet tone. In ARMY OF SHADOWS, there are no battles or spectacular acts of sabotage; only subversive attacks on a seemingly ever-present Nazi network. But more importantly, the paranoia the resistance fighters experience as infighting and self-protection becomes its own pervasive enemy, embodying, as Baudrillard wrote of modes of resistance, cockroaches teeming in the interstices. Melville, who served in the French Resistance, shows the heartbreaking futility of the struggle when one is attacked from both outside and in. (1969, 140 min, New 4K DCP Digital Restoration) [Brian Welesko]
Robert Bresson's DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST (France)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Saturday, 4pm
It would seem likely that a film about the frustrations of a Catholic priest in provincial France made during the high period of postwar French existential hand-wringing would lose some of its appeal over the last six decades. Yet it is impossible not to be overawed by the absolute economy of means, singularity of vision, moral seriousness, and unfaltering confidence that are everywhere on display in this early Bresson masterpiece. With DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST, Bresson was first able to strip away all the elements of traditional filmmaking that he found inauthentic, ineffectual, theatrical. This meant shooting on location, restricting camera movement and contrast, casting primarily non-professional actors, and dictating minutely their every action and expression. This last gamble paid off richly with Claude Laydu, who portrays the inner turmoil of the neurasthenic unnamed priest without ever lapsing into melodrama or shallow psychologism. The plot is rather dire: the young priest arrives at a small parish in northern France, struggles with the apathy and spiritual lethargy of his parishioners, runs afoul of the local nobility, is tormented by the students of his catechism class, and suffers from an increasingly debilitating stomach ailment. But while the narrative charts the priest's physical deterioration and social isolation, the major events in this film are redemptive in the strictest sense: moments of unprepared for, unexpected, and inexplicable grace. This is an icon of a film, a demonstration of transcendence, and an act of devotion. Bresson set out to rid filmmaking of all dependence on theatrical forms. What he achieved was even more unlikely: the revivification of that ur-theatrical form, the medieval mystery play. Screening as part of the Capturing the Real: Four by Robert Bresson series. (1951, 115 min, DCP Digital) [Peter Raccuglia]
The Feminist Film Collectives of Cinenova
Block Cinema (at Northwestern University) – Friday, 7pm
These two films from Cinenova—a UK distributor specializing in feminist films and videos—highlight the efforts of women’s groups to empower and educate their communities about their rights. The Sheffield Film Co-op's A WOMAN LIKE YOU (1976, 18 mins, Digital Projection) begins with a striking juxtaposition: an everyday portrait of a mother with her children, quickly disrupted by a montage of advertisement images and incessant voiceovers. The message is overwhelming: not only is rearing children an exhausting affair, but society considers it an imperative that all women take up the role. This woman then speaks with a male doctor about getting an abortion, and the conversation isn’t supportive or understanding; the banality of this interaction highlights the pervasiveness of patriarchal ideology. The film then proceeds from dramatized scenes into something formally educational, presenting interviews and a slideshow of images featuring an abortion. A clinical description cuts out the bullshit and explains the facts with unsparing clarity. This is a procedure that women should be able to receive without pushback, the film explains, and so here are the facts. SWEET SUGAR RAGE (1985, 56 min, Digital Projection) is an inspiring look at the Sistren Theatre Collective in Clarendon, Jamaica. The performers come together with the aim to raise consciousness of women’s working conditions, and strategize to help them attain the rights they deserve. More than anything, their approach is a marvel of holistic pedagogy. They begin by interviewing women about their experiences, every question framed to educate them about their unjust reality. It is not uncommon for people to slip into defeated acceptance, and so hearing someone repeatedly express what can be done to lift someone from poor conditions proves incredibly powerful. With these stories, the collective discusses their findings and acts out these scenarios as low-stakes theatrical productions. There’s a deep sense of trust and camaraderie: at the beginning of the documentary, the women simply play a game; near the end, the women are asked to come up with a solution to a problem in 15 minutes before dramatizing it. This is a depiction of praxis as inviting, collective, and ongoing. It’s a reminder that it exists at different structural levels and as different modalities; to see it all enacted is profoundly stirring. Curated in collaboration with archivist and curator, Charlotte Procter, a member of the Cinenova Working Group, who will be present for post-screening conversation. Screening as part of Films by Women/Chicago '74. [Joshua Minsoo Kim]
Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell and Pressburger
Gene Siskel Film Center — See showtimes below
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger’s A CANTERBURY TALE (UK)
Friday, 5:45pm
The wartime films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger are every bit as eccentric as the films they made before and after WWII, and this may explain why they’re so successful as propaganda. In their embrace of quirkiness, these movies argue that the Allied Forces (and the United Kingdom in particular) are on the winning side of history because they welcome unusual displays of human expression, as opposed to the fascists, who aspire to a culture of brutal conformism. A CANTERBURY TALE is nonconformist cinema through and through: not only are many of the characters lovable kooks, but the plot isn’t in any hurry to go anywhere (which is especially odd, given the wartime setting), and the mystery that ostensibly drives the story gets resolved a good half-hour before the film ends. It is, in short, a beautiful example of storytelling for its own sake, not unlike many of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales from the late 14th century. The film explicitly quotes Chaucer in its opening passages, and the tale of a modern-day pilgrimage invokes the frame narrative of Chaucer’s collection; like T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets (another great poetic work written in England during WWII), it finds serenity amidst the uncertainty of war through a sense of connection with English cultural history. In a small village not far from Canterbury in 1943, three wayward souls meet: a London shopgirl who’s gone to the country to work on a government farm, a London cinema organist who’s just been conscripted into the army, and an American soldier on leave. All three want to visit Canterbury Cathedral, but they choose to stay in the village after they learn about an unidentified stranger who’s been pouring glue in women’s hair at night; working together and drawing on the locals for help, the trio determines to solve the mystery. The film’s paean to English country life is enhanced by countless charming details, from the cutaway shots to colorful individuals to the lyrical integration of the landscape into the mise-en-scène. One eccentric detail worth singling out is the casting of real-life American Army Sergeant John Sweet as the American soldier Bob Johnson (the Archers had cast Burgess Meredith in the role, but decided to replace him last-minute with an unknown); his amateurish, gee-whiz line readings help to further ground the film in historical reality, much like the shots of bombed-out buildings in Canterbury that cast a pall over the otherwise cheerful dénouement. (1944, 124 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
---
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger’s THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (UK)
Saturday, 12pm
Though the film takes its name from the then-popular David Low-penned British newspaper comics character, there is no one actually named "Colonel Blimp" in THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP. Naturally, then, we never even see his entire life or death, nor the death of the film’s protagonist, Clive Wynn-Candy, the closest thing to a Blimp analog present. Right off the bat, Powell and Pressburger’s cinematic epic of wartime escapades is teaching us to put more focus on mythmaking, symbology, and grand narratives more than cold, hard truth. The "real" Blimp, in cartoon form, was an outsized, walrus-faced military man seen as a satirical commentary on the steadfast old ways of the British elder military class. Powell and Pressburger’s fascinations lie in dissecting the very idea of Blimp, the aging British statesman (seen here through the eyes of the aforementioned Clive Candy through a forty-year period that encompasses two World Wars, and how the dreaded passage of time comes for us all and our youthful spirits. Will we adapt to the changing tides, or will we remain steadfast in the ways that best suited us in contexts of years gone by? That Powell and Pressburger’s feature so effortlessly whizzes through this man’s formative years with whip sharp dialogue and dialed-in performances is no small feat, but to have a film that simultaneously upholds and upends British is a daring tightrope walk of thematic bravura carried out tremendously, especially given the film’s initial release right at the tail end of the Second World War. The major coup of the film—besides the ever magnificent imagery and scope that’s signature of an Archers film, captured in glorious eye-popping Technicolor—is in the casting, with Roger Livesey playing Candy through multiple decades of his life, from young idealist to elder stick in the mud, never seeming out of place at any place in his life. Perhaps more impressive is Deborah Kerr’s triple-star turn in three separate roles as three different women who each play a major role in Candy’s life. Though their resemblance to one another is a core tenet of the film’s narrative (Surely three women throughout history can’t all look as dazzling as Kerr without being remarked upon), Kerr still manages to instill each character with a distinct presence and life, elevating what could easily be paper-doll muses for Candy into fully-fledged soulful women each making their own indelible mark on history. Amidst its gleeful pace across a nearly three-hour runtime, Powell and Pressburger inject appropriate pathos, contending with the horrors of war and rising fascism never more masterfully than in a searing monologue delivered by Anton Walbrook as a German man facing the aftermath of his family becoming indoctrinated into the ballooning Nazi party. For all its joy and triumph, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP is fully aware of the horrors of what it is to see the world change before our very eyes, and fearless enough to ask head on what we’ll do to adapt and change with it. (1943, 163 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
---
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger's THE RED SHOES (UK)
Saturday, 3:30pm
Powell and Pressburger were the Wes Anderson of their day, constructing dark fairy tales for adults with a museum's worth of references (both classical and private) and the most scrupulous mise-en-scene imaginable. THE RED SHOES, which remains the most beloved of their works, is a tart melodrama about a world-famous ballet company and an Impressionist dream of the beauty it creates. Besides appealing to dance aficionados, the film owes its popularity to an inspired 15-minute sequence depicting the titular ballet, a feat of Total Cinema that brings together the movie's themes and draws on all other art forms for its unique spectacle. (This is not hyperbole: Powell recruited painter Heins Heckroth for the art direction, operatic composer Brian Easdale for the score, and professional ballerina Moira Shearer for the lead; and cinematographer Jack Cardiff is famous for taking inspiration from Romantic painting and theatrical set design.) Most remarkably, all of the justly famous effects here—the slow-motion camerawork, Expressionistic sets, et cetera—bring the viewer closer to understanding the movie's heroine. That woman is a ballerina torn between the love of her composer husband and the rough demands of her profession—represented by Anton Wolbrook as a kingly choreographer. It's a simple premise rendered ornate through dense characterization (Pressburger's script accumulates psychological detail the way Powell delights in visual tricks), making THE RED SHOES one of those rare films as rich for adults as it is for children. (1948, 133 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
---
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger’s THE SMALL BACK ROOM (UK)
Saturday, 6:30pm
Sandwiched between two of Powell and Pressburger’s Technicolor fantasias, THE SMALL BACK ROOM, based on the 1943 novel by Nigel Balchin and set during World War II, is firmly rooted in the relative minutiae and tense reality of a specific group critical to the war efforts, the “back room” workers—scientists, engineers and other such experts who were researching and developing new technology (read: weaponry) that could be used in the war effort. One such expert is Sammy Rice (David Farrar). We find him at work where one Captain Stuart has come to see him, as they’ve discovered that the Germans have been airdropping some new kind of mine that they can’t figure out how to disable and that has already resulted in the death of a child. Rice is an alcoholic who has a prosthetic leg and PTSD from previous trauma; he’s romantically involved with the office secretary, Susan (Kathleen Byron). Rice is a tortured soul, self-conscious about his injury and not-so-confident in his profession, apparently, besieged as it is by bureaucratic suppression. With Susan’s help he manages to resist the siren call of the whiskey bottle, culminating in the only scene outwardly suggestive of the Archiers’ whimsical imagination, wherein Rice encounters a life-sized bottle of whiskey, shot in a style reminiscent of German expressionism. It’s fortuitous when Rice, seeming to value life no more, receives a call from Stuart to see two of those devices at Chesil Beach; the captain says to Rice that he’s going to have the first go at them, seeming almost jolly at the prospect. When Rice gets there, the worst has happened, but he still attempts to deactivate the other. Though aesthetically antithetical to Powell and Pressburger’s Technicolor dreamscapes—small, cramped, daunting—it nevertheless shares in the consideration of immense heed. For me this was wholly embodied in a shot toward the end of the film in which Rice, faced with death, looks up at the sky above him, seagulls circling unconcernedly. In that very moment I, too, felt as if death may have been imminent. The precariousness is disorienting, not fantastically like many of the Archers’ other films but realistically, showing us that the stuff of life is often as inconceivable as the stuff of dreams. The film wasn’t a box office success; Powell later said in his enthusiasm for the source material he overestimated public interest. While many films of the time expressed postwar malaise, it may have been that, at the end of the 40s, many weren’t ready or weren’t interested in reliving a traumatic time through such an intense story. This was the Archers’ first film back with producer Alexander Korda after a several year break; Farrar and Byron, who’s especially affecting in the film, were paired again just two years after BLACK NARCISSUS. All told, it’s impressive how the Archers were able to make a film as dark as many of the others are bright, finding inspiration in the shadows as well as surreal. (1949, 104 min, New 4K DCP Digital Restoration) [Kat Sachs]
---
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger’s A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (UK)
Sunday, 12pm
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH was renamed STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN for its American release because Hollywood distributors feared that people wouldn’t want to see a movie with “death” in the title. And while “Stairway to Heaven” accurately reflects the film’s sense of romantic fantasy, the original name speaks to its morbidity, which is no less critical to the film’s overall power. When Jonathan Rosenbaum introduced the film several years ago, he pointed out how common it was in Great Britain for people to have lost loved ones during World War II (whether through combat or German bombings), and he proposed that the movie responded to this national trauma by confronting the inevitability of death. One might add that it attempts to resolve that trauma by offering a reassuring portrait of the afterlife. Indeed, Powell and Pressburger’s depiction of the Other World is one of the cinema’s great imaginings, an awesome vision of humankind made one with the cosmos; when experienced on a big screen, it allows one to grasp a sense of the infinite. The Archers famously shot the heaven-set sequences in three-strip Technicolor but didn’t use color dye when processing the film, resulting in a fittingly otherworldly look that the movie’s IMDB trivia page aptly describes as pearlescent; the filmmakers reserved the color dye for the earthbound sequences, which render our world so ravishing as to make you thankful to be alive. The central love story has this effect too—as the British title suggests, the film makes romantic love seem all-important, a reason for living. At the same time, A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH never feels like a work of breast-beating; the Archers’ quirky sense of humor keeps the more spectacular elements in check. The Other World’s elaborate bureaucracy is as brilliant a creation as the Other World itself, and the film’s very premise of a slip-up in Heaven has the effect of making the universe seem more human than it’s typically presented by Modern Science. Every scene contains some detail to reaffirm your faith in life’s wonderful peculiarity, whether it’s Roger Livesey supporting performance as a kooky doctor, the use of freeze frames during the ping pong game, or the Archers’ witty depiction of Anglo-American relations. (1946, 104 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
---
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger’s BLACK NARCISSUS (UK)
Sunday, 2:30pm
A deep tension is embedded in the very structure of Powell & Pressburger’s religious drama, a tale of assimilation, desire, and the limits and binding nature of faith. In their quest to build a new convent deep in a Himalayan mountain village, the nuns at the center of BLACK NARCISSUS consistently find their faith tested, their efforts to provide something holy and enlightening at odds with the inherent colonial mission at play, a last gasp of Britain’s tyrannical rule over India before gaining independence just months after the film’s initial release. Among the many treasures of Powell and Pressburger’s feature are the methods by which grand emotional gestures—jealousy, yearning, fear—find themselves thrust onto the screen; Deborah Kerr’s longing for David Farrar infecting frame after frame through flashbacks and understated glances, the sheer heat and intensity of Kathleen Byron’s furious eyes piercing through the screen, the majesty of the church bell ringing, its tones soaring through the hills alternately as a joyous cheer and a cry for help. The film is perhaps most noteworthy for its sprawling, painterly visual palette, transforming England’s Pinewood Studios into a lush, Himalayan landscape, mountain peaks almost poking their way out of the screen. The use of matte paintings to create depth and scope makes each frame painterly in its own right, with the film being justly rewarded Academy Awards for Art Direction and Cinematography, a cherry on top for a film relishing in trying to find the divine in all aspects of life. (1947, 101 mins, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
---
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger's THE TALES OF HOFFMANN (UK)
Sunday, 5pm
“Music is the most romantic of art forms because its sole subject is the infinite,” wrote the German critic and author E.T.A. Hoffmann in an essay on Beethoven. Hoffmann may have been right about music, but that hasn’t stopped artists in other media from trying to approach the infinite through the deliberate manipulation of form. The British director Michael Powell was one such artist. Beginning with BLACK NARCISSUS in 1947, Powell began to refine what he termed the “composed film,” instructing the composer of the movie’s score to write the music to key sequences before they were shot, then planning the scenes so they flowed just like the soundtrack. Narrative cinema, of course, can never achieve pure formal abstraction—the content keeps the work too grounded in concrete ideas. Still, some of the greatest passages in Powell’s work with his longtime collaborator Emeric Pressburger come close to abstract beauty in their irreducible fusions of color, movement, special effects, and, yes, music. The central ballet sequence of THE RED SHOES (1948) is about as close to pure cinema as you’ll find in the narrative canon; ditto much of THE TALES OF HOFFMANN, the duo’s feature-length attempt to expand on said sequence. Based on Jacques Offenbach’s opera-ballet (itself based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s short stories), the film is a visual and auditory spectacle that exploits the magic of cinema to heighten the splendor of music and dance. It consists of a prologue and three tales that Hoffmann tells to a group of bar patrons during the intermission of a ballet. The first two stories are fantastical in nature, featuring marionettes that come to life, evil sorcerers, and magic tricks that fuse beautifully with the film’s special effects. The third tale is more realistic, centering on the tubercular daughter of a dead opera singer whose father has mysteriously forbidden her from singing. Hoffmann is a character in all three vignettes; in each one he looks for love, only to have his hopes dashed by black magic or tragic fate. None of the stories are as interesting as the imaginative way that the filmmakers realize them: practically every shot exults the possibilities of Technicolor, with combinations of lurid hues and/or pastels, and the camera’s movements (which often mirror those of the dancers) seductively draw one into Hoffmann’s world. In that world, time and space seem marvelously fluid, which is another way of saying that Powell and Pressburger’s filmmaking here approaches the infinite. (1951, 128 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
---
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger's I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING! (UK)
Monday, 6:15pm
A rebuke of materialism and the wonton acquisition of wealth, Powell and Pressburger's atmospheric romance is also a soft-sell for British wartime bonhomie. Set in the Hebrides of Scotland, a determined woman intends to meet her industrialist fiancé on the Island of Kiloran, but is held on shore by fate and bad weather. When the woman meets the Laird of Kiloran—an upstanding man on leave from active duty, unconcerned with the value of his land—her faith in upper class wealth is undermined. The film plays like a parable, with the Laird acting as the romantic lead and a model for its war-weary audience: honorable, selfless, moralistic, and satisfied with what he has. I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING! is never didactic and its precisely paced romance leads its characters gently to its theme. Complete with its own mythology of curses and legends, the film uses the island's people to mirror the woman's conflict. Gaelic is spoken casually and an affecting Scottish dance ritual celebrating a couple's enduring marriage provokes her further. Both picturesque and portentous, the Hebrides' fog gives way to gales, then to heavy seas and a massive ocean whirlpool. Through an enveloping sound design and striking photography, Powell and Pressburger's mastery of the elemental is on full display. The effect is a profound diagnosis of their audience's restlessness with war's humbleness and sacrifice, and a lyrical romance that simultaneously allows them to escape. (1945, 91 min, DCP Digital) [Brian Welesko]
---
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger’s GONE TO EARTH (UK/US)
Wednesday, 6pm
With BLACK NARCISSUS (1947), the Archers famously created a Himalayan monastery entirely at Pinewood Studios; with the underrated GONE TO EARTH, they made the English countryside appear as fantastical as any movie set. The film was shot principally in the county of Shropshire, in western England on the border with Wales, and Christopher Challis’ Technicolor photography brings out the majesty of the local flora and every sunrise and sunset. Based on a 1917 novel but set 20 years earlier, the film feels at once like an age-old fairy tale and a modern allegory. The great Jennifer Jones stars as Hazel, a naive but headstrong woman who finds herself torn between two men: the new clergyman (Cyril Cusack), who loves her and wants to save her soul, and a local squire (David Farrar) who wants to possess her and with whom she shares a fiery, carnal connection. Even after Hazel marries the clergyman, the squire continues to pursue her; she proves unable to resist temptation, and, like many a protagonist of Powell and Pressburger’s filmography, she is ultimately undone by her passion. GONE TO EARTH itself came undone after it was completed, as executive producer David O. Selznick (Jones’ husband) drastically recut the film for its American release, excising about a third of Powell and Pressburger’s footage and bringing in Rouben Mamoulian to direct reshoots. This version, retitled THE WILD HEART, came out in the US in 1952 and for decades afterward was the only way to legally see the film here; thankfully, the Siskel Center will be presenting the Archers’ original vision. And what a vision it is, not only in its bold color palette, but in its Lawrentian mix of palpable eroticism and wonder toward the natural world. The filmmakers’ endearing nuttiness comes through too, primarily in the casting of beloved character actor Hugh Griffith as Hazel’s self-appointed protector. (1950, 110 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
---
Also screening is Powell and Pressburger’s 1950 film THE ELUSIVE PIMPERNEL (109 min, 35mm) on Thursday at 8:30pm.
📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED
Werner Herzog’s FITZCARRALDO (West Germany/Peru)
Music Box Theatre – Friday, 4pm and Sunday, 11:30am
FITZCARRALDO, the madcap magnum opus of Werner Herzog’s narrative oeuvre, centers on the outlandish ambition of one Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski), rechristened Fitzcarraldo for ease of pronunciation by the local population of his adopted home of Iquitos, a Peruvian town situated deep within the Amazon basin. The rubber boom of the late 19th century is well underway, as evidenced by a prologue that takes Fitzcarraldo to its historical epicenter: Manaus, a Brazilian city described by David Grann as being “among the gaudiest cities of the world” for its time. Fitzcarraldo, a consummate lover of the arts, is there to visit the city’s extravagant opera house, and it is in the auditorium watching famed tenor Enrico Caruso perform that the insane scope of his vision is revealed, namely that he has every intention of building his own opera house back in Iquitos and bringing Caruso along with him. Thus compelled to ascend to the ranks of the rubber barons to raise the necessary capital, Fitzcarraldo hatches the plan that necessitated one of the most infamously troubled productions in all of film history: he will purchase a commercial boat with borrowed money and engineer a means of vaulting it over a mountain in order to access the last remaining parcel of rubber-rich jungle in the region, as of yet unclaimed owing to its total inaccessibility via river travel. Once the plan is set into motion, the film effectively unfolds as a documentary of its own unhinged and ethically compromised production, capturing the air of mania, the ecological devastation and the outrageous human toll that resulted from Herzog’s stubborn determination to actually accomplish the deranged feat in question without the use of special effects. Through it all, Kinski’s Fitzcarraldo (the “conquistador of the useless” as he is dubbed at a pivotal early juncture) emerges as the quintessential Herzogian subject. He is all at once a grifter, an artist, a lover, a loser, and a raving lunatic of the highest order. In stark contrast to the bloodless rubber barons he consorts with in the film’s opening stretch, he is gripped with a deleterious lust for life—just look at the reckless way in which he chews through cigars, his brow soaked with sweat, for evidence of that fact. The film ultimately reveals his delusion to be twofold in nature. It’s not that his attempts to figuratively and literally move mountains are any more insane than Aguirre’s quest for the mythical El Dorado in AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD (1972), or Bruno’s search for the even more elusive American dream in STROSZEK (1977); rather, his undoing arises as a result of a particular failure of the imagination—the earnest belief that he will go unpunished for his guileless exploitation of the indigenous Peruvians he employs in the course of his mission. All the while, horses drink champagne straight from the bottle, catfish chomp on 100-dollar bills, and rich men howl with laughter in anticipation of Fitzcarraldo’s utterly predictable failure. (1982, 157 min, DCP Digital) [David Whitehouse]
Les Blank's BURDEN OF DREAMS (US/West Germany/Documentary)
Music Box Theatre – Saturday, 2pm, Sunday 2:45pm, and Monday, 7:15pm
"I'm tired of it all and I couldn't care less if they move the stupid ship—or finish the fucking film," director Les Blank wrote in his journal during the filming of BURDEN OF DREAMS. The film documents the trials and tribulations that filmmaker Werner Herzog and his crew faced during the nearly five-year production of his 1982 picture, FITZCARRALDO. That film stars Klaus Kinski as Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, a wannabe rubber baron hellbent on building an opera house in the jungle, which involves transporting a gigantic steamship over the Andes mountains to access a rich rubber territory in the Amazon. It's a crackpot idea, one that Herzog practically took on during production. He attempted to use native Peruvian tribes to haul a 320-ton steamship over a steep hill in order to film it. Les Blank and co-director Maureen Gossling chronicle the narrowing of reality as the director and crew are almost entirely cut off from the outside world, and Herzog's plights start to mirror his own creation of Fitzcarraldo. The intangible entanglement of creator and creation and the constant push and pull of visionary drive are observed through the careful eye of the camera. So, too, is the buzzing jungle and tense, dubious relationship with the indigenous peoples and land (Peru’s native Campa, Machiguenga, and Aguaruna could not secure rights to the land they inhabit, as they could not prove ownership to the Peruvian government). Soon, as production slows and investments wane, Herzog begins to unravel amidst the bush. "The trees here are in misery, the birds are in misery. I don't think they sing. They just screech in pain." BURDEN OF DREAMS serves as a document of visionary anguish, the suffering brought about by the monumental need to create. (1982, 95 min, DCP Digital) [Olivia Hunter Willke]
Mai Zetterling’s LOVING COUPLES (Sweden)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Tuesday, 7pm
“War and marriage teach people to hate each other,” exclaims a character in Mai Zetterling’s first feature film, LOVING COUPLES. This is effectively the thesis of her late, maligned film, THE GIRLS (1968), which evokes Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, in which the women of Greece withhold sex until their men agree to end the Peloponnesian War. In LOVING COUPLES war also underscores the tension—not looming but rather latent—between another two factions, men and women, even more literally as it anticipates the First World War. The film opens in a maternity ward where three halves of the titular “loving couples” are preparing to give birth. Angela (Gio Petré) is an aristocratic young woman, a ward of her wealthy aunt Petra (Anita Björk) following the death of her parents; flashbacks illuminate the backgrounds of all three women, revealing for Angela her time at an all-girls’ boarding school, where she forms a close friendship with another girl and is the object of desire for a female teacher. Angela is the most affluent of the women—Adele (Gunnel Lindblom) is the wife of a lowly tenant at Petra’s gård, and Agda (Harriet Andersson) is a maid at her estate. Adele is bitter, having once known love with a more affluent man and resenting her husband for his position, while Agda is joyous, entering into an affair with another wealthy woman’s son and then becoming pregnant with his child, after which she marries an eccentric painter out of convenience. At the maternity ward, Adele is pregnant with her husband’s child, while Angela has become pregnant by an older married man who had once been her aunt’s lover, prompting the aunt to view the forthcoming child as being theirs. Adapted from a cycle of novels by Swedish writer Agnes von Krusenstjerna, the film is a hodgepodge of tones, from the dour implications of womanhood (Adga, for instance, despite seeming happy is shown to have been almost raped by an older man in childhood) to the ecstasy of Midsommar celebrations which inform the sequences of relative debauchery. A review at the time proclaimed, “It is by turns bawdy in its humor, bitter in its portrait and extremely earnest in the relationship between men and women. Mai Zetterling is to be congratulated on her rare success.” (I still can’t figure out why, exactly, it’s a “rare” success.) Another critic exclaimed that she “pours scorn over all the corrupt, vain, stupid, and ineffectual males who have brought her heroines to grief.” Indeed, Zetterling explores a range of dispositions in both genders, many of which are similar between the two, but imparting that, when backed by the privilege of being the dominant sex, such propensities are just as the critic notes, and that lesser attitudes in the “gentler” sex are thus justifiable in response to this oppression of entitlement. Adele’s impertinent disposition is objectively abhorrent, but, like Madame Bovary before her, is representative of how she’s being held back by societal expectations related both to gender and class. Zetterling began her career as an actress and starred in one of Ignmar Bergman's films; his regular cinematographer Sven Nykvist shot LOVING COUPLES, and while it does indeed resemble a Bergman film—and stars several of his more regular female collaborators—its timbre is angrier, mischievous, and altogether less mournful than those of the other Swedish auteur. For Zetterling relationships may as well be war, the battle of the sexes an ongoing campaign being waged until there are no more survivors. Screening as part of the Films by Women/Chicago ’74 series. (1964, 118 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Arturo Ripstein’s EL LUGAR SIN LIMITES (Mexico)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Wednesday, 7pm
EL LUGAR SIN LIMITES (“The Place Without Limits”) feels like a Mexican analogue to some of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s films, as it mixes elements of classical melodrama with contemporary, transgressive subject matter. The performances are nuanced according to Fassbinder’s later periods, though the mise-en-scène is stripped down after the fashion of the German master’s early films. These qualities give the film a heightened sense of theatricality, while director Arturo Ripstein’s use of flashbacks and subtle camera movements place it firmly in the realm of cinema. Roberto Cobo stars as Manuela, a trans woman who manages a brothel in a small Mexican town; her grown daughter works there as well. Manuela is generally accepted by the community where she lives, though when the movie begins, she’s dreading the arrival of Pancho, a transphobic truck driver who threatened her a year ago and who has recently returned to town. For most of its first half, EL LUGAR SIN LIMITES is content to bask in the relationships at the brothel and the surrounding community, particularly Manuela’s familial bonds with the sex workers she manages. Ripstein also considers the relationships various townspeople have with Don Alejo, an old man who owns most of the property in the area; the only major building he doesn’t own is the brothel, which Manuela wants to sell but her daughter does not. The pending decision of whether to sell the women’s place of employment hangs as heavily over the plot as Pancho’s imminent return—clearly, the characters’ way of life is coming to an end. This pervading sense of finality gives the film an air of tragedy, though Ripstein ameliorates it through the vibrant performances he elicits from the cast. Screening as part of the Mexican Romance: Through the Heart of the Nation series. (1978, 111 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
Peter Bogdanovich's THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Monday, 7pm
In THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, Peter Bogdanovich tells a coming-of-age story about three teenagers simultaneously living their own lives and seemingly reliving those of their parents and grandparents in the small town of Anarene, Texas. While finishing high school in the early 1950s, Duane (Jeff Bridges) dates the gorgeous Jacy (Cybill Shepherd), and Duane's best friend, Sonny (Timothy Bottoms), tentatively begins an affair with his football coach's wife (Cloris Leachman). As a film critic, Bogdanovich popularized the classic Hollywood era by praising its great filmmakers, including John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Orson Welles; he later described the larger aim of his film, "I saw the story as a Texas version of Orson Welles' THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, which was about the end of a way of life caused by the coming of the automobile. This was about the end of a way of life caused by the coming of television." In Bogdanovich's Anarene, the cinema is closing. The owner complains to Duane and Sonny that no one comes to the movies anymore, because they are at home watching TV. The cinema's last picture show is Hawks' RED RIVER (1948), starring John Wayne as a tough cattle driver in the Old West. Hawks depicted yet another way of life from times gone by that only exists in the movies. While Bogdanovich too quickly mourned the passing of a representation of life that is still with us, his co-writer, Larry McMurtry, laments life itself as lived in Anarene, also known as the Archer City of his youth. McMurtry and cinematographer Robert Surtees create an extraordinary sense of both the place of this poor town and the vast, empty space that nearly engulfs it and its last few inhabitants. Anarene is dying; it may soon be a ghost town with no one left at all. It begs questions like: Why did it exist? Why is it still here? In the middle of THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, Sam the Lion, played by veteran western actor Ben Johnson, tells Sonny that he is just as sentimental as the next when it comes to "old times." Their conversation and the film as a whole remind one of a statement by Terrence Malick, who also deals in memories of his Texas boyhood: "Nostalgia is a powerful feeling; it can drown out anything." THE LAST PICTURE SHOW is a beautiful evocation not only of old times, but also of the possibility—whether great or small—time once held. Screening as part of the Columbia Pictures in the 1970s series. (1971, 118 min, DCP Digital) [Candace Wirt]
Quentin Dupieux's DAAAAAALÍ! (France)
Music Box Theatre — See Venue website for showtimes
In the years since he mounted his return to his home turf, it has been extremely heartening to watch Quentin Dupieux's directorial profile rise amidst his anarchic reign of terror over the French domestic box office, wherein he has put his name on a whopping eight feature films, each and every one an outrageously shaggy, sub-80-minute surrealist whimsy. That the onetime underground dance producer and director of novelty B-movie shlock like RUBBER (2010) and WRONG COPS (2013) would metamorphose into an accomplished fabulist in the tradition of Jean de la Fontaine—and, even more amazingly, emerge as something of a French counterpart to Hong Sang-soo, drawing an increasingly impressive roster of A-list actors into his orbit as he produces hasty skits and improvisational doodles at a relentless clip—remains shocking to me. Enter DAAAAAALÍ!, an anti-biographical portrait of Salvador Dalí and a giddy exercise in cinematic cubism that refuses any meaningful gesture towards historicity at every turn. For the most part, the film is unchecked delirium; so silly it really ought to come with some kind of a warning. It putatively depicts the attempts of a journalist (Anaïs Demoustier) to conduct an interview with the famed surrealist (played with gusto by no less than five different actors, who have a tendency to hand over the reins mid-scene), but it quickly becomes apparent that there is no center whatsoever as the film all-but disintegrates into a veritable hall of mirrors, unleashing a nonstop barrage of surreal sight gags and meta fake-outs that confound and distort the narrative beyond recognition. DAAAAAALÍ! clearly aims to capture Salvador Dalí not quite as he lived, but rather as he exists in the public imagination, sculpting all of that psychic data into a slice of free-associative majesty that embodies the essence of Dalí's art by repeatedly flipping the bird at the space-time continuum. In short, it's melted clocks everywhere you look. (2023, 77 min, DCP Digital) [David Whitehouse]
Frank Henenlotter's FRANKENHOOKER (US)
Music Box Theatre – Friday, 11pm
In 1818 when Mary Shelley was 20 years old, she unleashed a story so singular that it could only be copied by each generation after her. Through personal loss, intellectual conversations, scientific curiosity, and a ghost story creative challenge, horror was forever changed. Frank Henenlotter is as proudly indebted to Shelley’s work as James Whale was for the creation of his FRANKENSTEIN (1931). FRANKENHOOKER is a scrappy, low-budget film that is exactly what you'd expect it to be: a bizarre and campy mash-up of Mary Shelley’s debut novel with sex workers. In reducing Henenlotter’s cult film to just that doesn’t do justice to the bizarre charm and provocative themes it offers. The film follows Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz), a med school dropout whose fiancée, Elizabeth (Patty Mullen), tragically dies in a freak lawnmower accident. Overcome by grief and teetering on the edge of sanity, Jeffrey concocts a plan to bring her back to life using the body of a sex worker. His initial attempt at finding the perfect woman involves interviewing potential candidates, but things don’t go as planned when the women accidentally consume Jeffrey’s stash of explosive crack cocaine. In a chaotic scene, they all explode, forcing Jeffrey to scavenge through the wreckage to find the best parts to create a new body for Elizabeth. Henenlotter’s film embraces its absurdity at every turn, diving headfirst into camp, practical effects, and over-the-top gore. However, beneath the surface of this chaotic narrative, FRANKENHOOKER hints at heavier themes such as the male gaze, objectification of women, ethics of scientific hubris, body horror, sex work, and even urban decay in 1980s New York. When Elizabeth is brought back to life, she has an uncontrollable urge to return to her patched-together body’s old life as a sex worker—something Jeffrey can’t accept. Like in Frankenstein, the true monster here is the one who plays God and who distorts life for their own selfish needs. Jeffrey reduces the women to mere body parts, reinforcing his view that a woman's worth is tied solely to her physical appearance. His "perfect" woman is a grotesque symbol of dehumanization, designed solely for his desire and control. As in Henenlotter’s other films like the BASKET CASE trilogy, BRAIN DAMAGE, and BAD BIOLOGY, grotesque body transformations take center stage. The dismemberment and reassembly of Elizabeth highlights the film’s body horror while also raising questions about bodily autonomy, identity, and agency. Through her transformation, Elizabeth is liberated from her former life and from Jeffrey’s control. Empowered, she exacts revenge on men who try to dominate her, turning the film into a feminist revenge fantasy. It’s hard to pin down exactly how to interpret FRANKENHOOKER, as it plays out with gleeful irreverence, deadpan one-liners, and over-the-top performances. The outlandish special effects, surreal tone, and oscillation between horror and comedy give the film a distinct, trash-cinema aesthetic. Neon makeup, non-sequitur, and exploitation satire only further add to the chaos. One of the best examples of the film's dark humor comes when Jeffrey says, "I've lost the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, good and bad. I'm scared, Ma. I feel like I'm plunging headfirst into some black void of sheer and utter madness." His mother, played by the underutilized Louise Lasser of BLOOD RAGE, simply replies, "You want a sandwich?" Preceded by a spooky vinyl DJ set by Gaudy God in the Music Box Lounge from 8pm to midnight. Screening as part of Music Box of Horrors: The Dream Child. (1990, 85 min, DCP Digital) [Shaun Huhn]
Peter Strickland’s IN FABRIC (UK)
FACETS Cinema — Friday, 7pm
A cursed dress from a haunted department store menaces the innocent. This is yet another pulpy conceit that Peter Strickland has elevated into something far more than the sums of its parts. I adore a film that can bring obvious elements of existing genres and styles but still be so inarguably now and forward-thinking that pastiche can’t enter the conversation. Strickland works like a magpie, collecting bits of things he finds beautiful and amusing. The surreal tenuous storylines of giallo films. The psychedelic pornography of Wakefield Poole. The television advertisements cum horror of British COI films. That very specific type of blackened bleak humor that the British use to (un)politely mask their more sinister selves. The horny danger of the Cinema of Transgression. The still image as disorientating device in a motion picture. IN FABRIC takes all these disparate elements and, like a piece of art by Gee Vaucher or a Throbbing Gristle track, creates something so wholly new and of itself that it renders its sources moot. You can see glimpses of the cultural detritus from which Strickland has pulled from, but to focus on that would be to willfully ignore the thing that is in front of you. This film is sensuous in the most literal of ways. It's of the flesh and desire, but it's also so very sensory. As with all his films, the sound design here is paramount. You are inside this world as its soundscape engulfs you. The musical score by Cavern of Anti-Matter (aka Tim Gane, co-founder of the bands Stereolab and McCarthy) is somehow simultaneously psychically oppressive and languidly freeing. The pure love of the artificial image (fashion, staged lighting, unnatural perspective) is quite obvious as well. But IN FABRIC manages to somehow capture one of the senses that forever eludes cinema: touch. It's almost as if you can feel this film. I catch myself unconsciously fingering my clothing when I watch this film. I become very aware of the cocoon of fabric I’ve wrapped myself in. Its texture, its weight. I think about my clothing beyond just how it lands on the eye. I become (too) aware of my own skin. It feels like a lazy, clumsy disservice to call this film a horror-comedy. I feel incredibly uncomfortable putting this alongside KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE. But that fact is that IN FABRIC is as howlingly funny as it is deeply discomforting. Half of The Mighty Boosh is in this film. It's decidedly comedic. Just further proof that we’re forever trapped by the inefficiency of language. Thankfully we have art and films like IN FABRIC that remind us of that—man-made creations that momentarily offer us things we might not have, or even want, the words to describe. Something that unconsciously forces us to feel. And in the case of IN FABRIC, sometimes both metaphorically and literally. (2018, 118 min, DCP Digital) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
---
Screening as part of Make it a Double: Dressed to Possess with Tobe Hooper’s 1990 made-for-TV movie I’M DANGEROUS TONIGHT (100 min, Digital Projection) at 9:30pm. Programmed by Cine-File contributor Meg Fariello. Both screenings preceded by a curated vintage market where you might just find a haunted dress of your own, featuring local sellers Punch Shop Vintage and Thick Chick Vintage.
Albert Brooks’ REAL LIFE (US)
Alamo Drafthouse – Sunday, 3:30pm
In a modern culture where every moment of your life can become potential fodder for public broadcast in the online arena— willingly or otherwise—Albert Brooks’ directorial debut seems almost frighteningly prescient in its dedication to broadcasting what is "true," by any means necessary. Brooks’ particular brand of comedy—self-deprecating but pompous, down-to-earth but quippy to the nth degree—proves to be a perfect vehicle for an early dive into what would become our norm of reality television; REAL LIFE debuted decades before the vast proliferation of The Real World and Big Brother and countless Housewivesfranchises attempted to earnestly capture reality, and especially before the likes of Nathan Fielder or Sacha Baron Cohen attempted to use the reality TV genre to dissect human behavior under the microscope of the video camera. Here, Brooks (portraying a slightly sleazier version of himself) attempts to work with the National Institute of Human Behavior to document a year in the life of a "regular American family," with any pretense of this being a real documentary being shred to bits once the patriarch of said family is revealed to be played by Charles Grodin, a similar master of comedic deadpan. Though much of the film is devoted to antics from the inane (Brooks engaging in something of an emotional tryst with Frances Lee McCain as the matriarch of the family) to the insane (Grodin’s veterinarian character unwittingly hitting tragedy during surgery on a horse), Brooks hits surprisingly fertile ground with his examination of how the documentary genre’s attempts at capturing what is true are inherently flawed, the mere presence of a film camera—or in this case, the hilariously lumbering Ettinauer over-the-head cameras that the film crew begrudgingly adorns—tossing a wrench into any pretense of traditionally normal behavior. The residents of Phoenix (where the documentary takes place) are all too eager to get cast into the limelight, where Brooks’ patronizing attempts at relating with "small town folk" wear thin fast. By the end, Brooks, perhaps rather cynically, comes to the only conclusion that could seemingly make any sense to him: "The audience loves fake. They crave fake. Reality sucks." Screening as part of the Alamo Time Capsule 1979 series. (1979, 99 mins, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
Apichatpong Weerasethakul's UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES (Thailand)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) – Thursday, 9:30pm
A hushed and floating aureole of a film, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's UNCLE BOONMEE captivates and holds us firm in some timeless stupor. The northern Thai jungle throbs patiently—with past lives and past events, monkey ghosts and ethereality—while Boonmee comes full circle, or doesn't. The film centers on an elderly Thai farmer, Uncle Boonmee, who is dying of kidney disease. Fading in his farm home, his son and wife appear as spirits (in easily one of the most affecting family dinner scenes on film) to ease Boonmee into non-being. As in SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY and TROPICAL MALADY, Weerasethakul's Buddhism informs the fluidity of time and body, though here he forgoes the formal duality of those films for something like a drifting continuum. Boonmee laments his karma, having killed in the past either too many communists or bugs on his tamarind farm, and later dreams of a stunted future where images of one's past are projected until they arrive. Are we some Baudrillard-like copy of a copy, reborn and born again—or perhaps a continual permutation of events and memories? As in his past work, Weerasethakul lets us linger just long enough in dense but controlled compositions. The distance of his subjects in the frame methodically draws us deeper into his hypnotic world where the sound of our breathing heightens anticipation. It amplifies the pulse and hum of the darkened, textured jungle on screen. But the frame here is also Weerasethakul's most purposeful one, leading us gently into fabled recollection, and cunningly deep inside a haunting cave-womb. History and spirit have a composite curiosity that envelops both Boonmee and the viewer. Weerasethakul's latest masterwork offers as much as one is willing to ask. Screening as part of the Subversive Histories: A Snapshot of Queer Cinema series. (2010, 114 min, DCP Digital) [Brian Welesko]
India Donaldson's GOOD ONE (US)
FACETS Cinema – See Venue website for showtimes
It would be incredibly easy, and painfully reductive, to label India Donaldson’s debut feature GOOD ONE as a movie where "nothing happens." In the traditional sense, one could concede that, sure, not a lot "happens"; a father and daughter—accompanied by the father’s oldest friend—go on a hiking trip, have awkward conversations, gaze at nature, and then complete said hiking trip. No grand revelations are unveiled, no lengthy monologues are delivered, and the surface-level stakes remain at a particularly modest level. But visually, emotionally, and atmospherically, worlds are uncovered and scavenged throughout, as relationships between this central trio are tested in tiny but momentous ways. As our center, Sam (Lily Collias) is an ecstatically confident teenager, but moments of disbelief poke through her self-assured visage, finding herself shaken by the frequent childishness of her middle-age companions. Her father, Chris (James Le Gros), and his friend, Matt (Danny McCarthy), bicker and banter like siblings—or perhaps more appropriately, an old married couple—as they each contend with shattered hopes, loves lost, and futures that remain painfully unclear. It’s a film of glances between father and daughter, deep sighs between friends, dumb jokes and painfully creepy asides, of humans simply living within the bounty of nature. GOOD ONE thrives in its pastoral environment (aided by Celia Hollander’s earworm of a score), the rocks and trees painting the frame, the rivers flooding our eardrums with calm, instilling a whole world into the lives of these wandering lost souls. In one of the final moments, Chris presents a rock to Sam, slamming it on the dashboard. A gift, a peace offering, a token of his appreciation; whatever this may be, in this moment, everything happens. (2024, 90 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
Werner Herzog's NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (West Germany)
Alamo Drafthouse – Saturday, 3:30pm
NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE is Werner Herzog's homage to F.W. Murnau's glooming, swirling, haunting masterpiece—the 1922 original, NOSFERATU, A SYMPHONY OF HORRORS. As moody as its predecessor, this NOSFERATU dwells in the caverns and misty crossings of Herzog's Caspar David Friedrich-esque film landscapes. The centerpiece is Klaus Kinski's performance as Count Dracula—a limping, aching vampire who has lured an ambitious gentleman to his castle. Though radically differing from the original, NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE does represent an interesting moment in the history of German cinema. Herzog, perhaps more than his contemporaries, is credited with bridging the gap of the so-called "lost years" of German cinema—those between Expressionism and the Neue Deutsche Film. Despite this film and his admiration of Murnau, Herzog has distanced himself from his esteemed predecessor in German film: "SUNRISE is a great movie... but there's really no connection." Agreed. Screening as part of the Alamo Time Capsule 1979 series. (1979, 107 min, DCP Digital) [Liam Neff]
Alex Phillips' ALL JACKED UP AND FULL OF WORMS (US)
Alamo Drafthouse – Wednesday, 9:30pm
This batshit-crazy body horror/black comedy is the reason why "After Dark" sidebars at film festivals exist. It may not have a lot on its mind, aside from the desire to provoke visceral reactions from adventurous viewers, but seeing it with a boozy late-night crowd should be fun. ALL JACKED UP begins with bearded weirdo Benny (Trevor Dawkins) mail-ordering a plastic baby sex doll aimed at the pedophile market—one of the more disturbing props in contemporary cinema—to satisfy his earnest desire to become a parent. After sex-worker Henrietta (Eva Fellows) turns him on to eating earthworms that possess hallucinogenic properties, Benny teams up with motel employee and fellow worm enthusiast Roscoe (Phillip Andre Botello), and the duo embark on an absurd and violent crime spree. This microbudget psychedelic odyssey, which boasts a fair number of gruesome and impressive practical effects, may not ultimately "mean anything" but it does possess a certain scuzzy integrity. The cast, led by Dawkins (a veteran of Chicago's Neo-Futurist Theater who first proved his transgressive cinema bonafides in Spencer Parsons' BITE RADIUS [2015]), certainly gives it their all; and, formally, the story becomes increasingly non-narrative as it progresses in order to correspond to the disintegrating mental states of the characters. By the final scene, it feels like the film itself is tripping. Screening as part of Weird Wednesday with Phillips in person for a post-screening conversation moderated by filmmaker John McNaughton. (2022, 72 min, DCP Digital) [Michael Glover Smith]
🎞️ ALSO SCREENING
⚫ Alamo Drafthouse
Lucio Fulci’s 1981 film THE BLACK CAT (92 min, DCP Digital) screens Tuesday, 9:30pm, as part of Terror Tuesdays programmed by the Oscarbate Film Collective. More info here.
⚫ Athenaeum Center (2936 N. Southport Ave.)
Cinematographer Roger Deakins appears in person on Thursday in conjunction with the release of his new book, Byways, with a book signing from 4:30 - 6:30pm and a screening of Joel Coen’s THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE (118 min, Digital Projection) starting at 7pm. More info here.
⚫ Block Cinema (at Northwestern University)
Jessie Maple’s 1981 film WILL (71 min, DCP Digital Projection) screens Thursday, 7pm, as part of the Films by Women/Chicago ’74 series. 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
View all screenings taking place at Chicago Public Library branches here.
⚫ Comfort Film at Comfort Station (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.)
Silvio Amadio’s 1972 film SMILE BEFORE DEATH (88 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday, 8pm, as part of the Art of Murder series, curated by local programmer Stephanie "La Gialloholique" Sack, who will be introducing the film. Free admission. More info here.
⚫ Davis Theater
The Oscarbate Film Collective presents a new digital restoration of Michio Yamamoto’s 1970 film THE VAMPIRE DOLL (71 min, DCP Digital) on Wednesday at 9:15pm. More info here.
⚫ Doc Films at the University of Chicago
Doc Films will be hosting filmmaker Vadim Kostrov for his first in-person US engagements, starting with his 2022 film FALL (99 min, DCP Digital) on Friday at 7pm, followed by his 2024 film NORMANDIE (87 min, DCP Digital) on Saturday at 7pm; his 2020 film ORPHEUS (116 min, DCP Digital) on Saturday at 9:30pm; and short films (70 min, DCP Digital) by him on Sunday at 4pm. Kostrov in person at all screenings for post-screening discussions and Q&As.
Nathaniel Dorsky’s 1982 film HOURS FOR JEROME (45 min, 16mm) and 1983 film ARIEL (16 min, 16mm), and Jerome Hiller’s NEW SHORES (35 min, 16mm), screen Sunday, 8pm, as part of the Devotional Cinema of Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler series. More info on all screenings here.
⚫ FACETS Cinema
Michael Curtiz’s 1933 horror film MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (77 min, Digital Projection) screens Saturday, 7:30pm, and Sunday, 1:30pm, as part of Speakeasy Cinema. Saturday screening includes 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. Programmed by Raul Benitez. More info here.
⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
The new 4K DCP Digital Restorations of Kon Ichikawa’s 1956 film THE BURMESE HARP (116 min) of Julian Schnabel’s 1996 film BASQUIAT (107 min) begin screening this week.
The 2022 National Theatre Live production of Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie (120 min, DCP Digital), directed by Justin Martin and Matthew Amos and starring Jodie Comer, screens on Saturday and Sunday at 2pm; however, both screenings are sold out.
Mystery Movie Monday takes place Monday at 6pm.
Valerio Ciriaci’s 2022 documentary STONEBREAKERS (70 min, DCP Digital) screens Tuesday, 6pm, as part of the Propaganda and Counterculture lecture series.
Conversations at the Edge presents An Evening with Paige Taul, featuring eight of Taul’s short films, on Thursday, 6pm, followed by a post-screening discussion and Q&A with the artist. More info on all screenings here.
⚫ Inga Books (1821 S. Racine Ave.)
Eleanor Boyer and Karen Peugh’s 1984 video LA MAESTRA: MARIA LUISA MICHEL ALMONTE screens Friday as part of Dreaming Inside History: Chicago's Alternative Pedagogies on Screen starting at 6pm. In addition to the film screening there will be a discussion and shared meal. Hosted by Watershed art & ecology with video courtesy of Media Burn Archive. More info here.
⚫ Music Box Theatre
Coralie Fargeat’s 2024 film THE SUBSTANCE (140 min, DCP Digital) continues. See Venue website for showtimes.
As part of Music Box of Horrors, Sam Firstenberg’s 1984 film NINJA III: THE DOMINATION (92 min, 35mm) screens Saturday at 10pm, sponsored by the Brewed; Bobcat Goldthwait’s 2013 film WILLOW CREEK (78 min, DCP Digital Projection) screens Sunday at 7pm, with Goldthwait in person for a post-screening Q&A; Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman’s 2009 film CROPSEY (84 min, DCP Digital Projection) screens Monday at 9:30pm, free for Music Box members; and Joon-Hwan Jang’s 2003 South Korean film SAVE THE GREEN PLANET! (118 min, DCP Digital Projection) screens Tuesday at 9:30pm.
A sneak preview of Sean Baker’s 2024 film ANORA (139 min, DCP Digital Projection) screens Saturday at 7pm.
Laura Gabbert’s 2024 documentary FOOD AND COUNTRY (100 min, DCP Digital Projection) screens Monday at 4:15pm.
Scott Lucas’ 2024 film LIFERS: A LOCAL H MOVIE (82 min, DCP Digital Projection) screens Tuesday, 7pm, with Lucas in person for a post-screening Q&A.
Michael P. Noens’ 2010 film COASTING (90 min, DCP Digital) screens Tuesday at 7pm. Programmed and presented by Imbibe Cinema. More info on all screenings here.
⚫ Sideshow Gelato (4819 N. Western Ave.)
SUPER-HORROR-RAMA! presents William Castle’s 1961 film MR. SARDONICUS (89 min, Digital Projection) on Wednesday, 7:30pm, as part of a weekly horror gathering and screening series, with a social hour starting at 6pm, a surprise short feature at 6:30, and then a short feature and giveaways at 7pm. More info here.
⚫ Sweet Void Cinema (3036 W. Chicago Ave.)
Find more information on the Humboldt Park microcinema, including its full screening and workshop schedule, here.
CINE-LIST: October 11 - October 17, 2024
MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Michael Castelle, Megan Fariello, Patrick Friel, Shaun Huhn, Ben Kaye, Joshua Minsoo Kim, Raphael Jose Martinez, Liam Neff, Peter Raccuglia, Michael Glover Smith, Brian Welesko, K.A. Westphal, David Whitehouse, Olivia Hunter Willke, Candace Wirt