Film Screenings / Programs / Series
AGNÈS B. SELECTS
July 10 – July 21
July 10 - 21, 2013
ALL FILMS SCREENING ON 35MM!
For almost two weeks this July, Anthology turns the programming reins over to agnès b., famed fashion designer and passionate advocate of international avant-garde and art cinema, for a series showcasing some of the films she considers her most formative and beloved. Bringing together masterpieces – some widely acknowledged and others relatively neglected – from France, the UK, Italy, Czechoslovakia, and Japan, her selection adds up to a dreamy summer series, a chance to beat the heat with some of the pinnacles of 1950s-70s cinema.
“…born and raised in Versailles, where I received a classic education in humanities, I had little exposure to the culture (which was more to my taste!) of those who speak of life, of feelings, of desires in a freer and even rebellious way. Literature and contemporary films from different cultures opened other doors for me.
“All of the films that I have chosen are films I saw in my 20s and 30s. They taught me to appreciate other points of view, seen from a different angle, showing passion and the wounds, of every sort, that left their mark on me forever.” –agnès b.
Special thanks to agnès b., Chris Apple, Elodie Cazes, William Massey, Rebecca Reinhart. Thanks also to Benn Northover; Brian Belovarac (Janus Films); Eric di Bernardo (Rialto Pictures); Chris Chouinard (Park Circus); Dennis Doros & Amy Heller (Milestone Film & Video); Anoush Froundjian (eOne Entertainment); Paul Ginsburg (Universal); Judy Nicaud (Paramount); and Andrew Youdell (BFI).
Lindsay Anderson
IF…
1968, 111 min, 35mm. With Malcolm McDowell.
Lindsay Anderson’s landmark love letter to schoolboy anarchism took the marriage of youthful rebellion and surrealistic fantasy found in Jean Vigo’s ZERO FOR CONDUCT and updated it for the England of 1968. Malcolm McDowell iconically stars as Mick Travis, a lightning rod student at an all-boy’s boarding school who winds up spearheading an armed revolt against the school’s intolerably oppressive administrators. Anderson would later write and direct two more movies focusing on the misadventures of Travis, who remains one of the great subversive figures in film history.
Wed, July 10 at 6:45, Sun, July 14 at 3:00, and Tues, July 16 at 9:00
Ken Russell
WOMEN IN LOVE
1969, 131 min, 35mm. With Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson, Alan Bates, and Jennie Linden.
Ken Russell’s adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s novel stars Linden and Jackson as sisters Ursula and Gudrun from a mining town who meet cute with best friends Gerald and Rupert (Reed and Bates) at a mutual friend’s wedding. The four quickly pair off, and the film follows the two couples as they respectively flirt with the limits of l’amour fou. Featuring a score by George Delerue and Michael Garrett, WOMEN IN LOVE has endured as one of, if not the, greatest works in Russell’s oeuvre.
Wed, July 10 at 9:00, Sun, July 14 at 8:30, and Sat, July 20 at 4:15
François Truffaut
FAHRENHEIT 451
1966, 112 min, 35mm. With Julie Christie, Oskar Werner, and Cyril Cusack.
“[O]ne of Truffaut’s wildest films, a coldly flamboyant outpouring of visual invention in the service of literary passion and artistic memory as well as a repudiation of a world of uniform convenience and comfortable conformity, in favor of the ramshackle cell of culturally devout outsiders, resistance fighters in the name of art. […] The wildness of the film represented a sort of ideal, one that he recaptured only intermittently, albeit gloriously, in the films that followed; FAHRENHEIT 451 marks a break with the low-budget, street-level cinema; it’s tinged with regret, with a retrospective wistfulness that would mark the rest of his films.” –Richard Brody, NEW YORKER
Thurs, July 11 at 6:45, Sat, July 13 at 6:30, and Thurs, July 18 at 6:30
Ken Loach
FAMILY LIFE
1971, 108 min, 35mm
Ken Loach’s rarely-seen early drama adapted from David Mercer’s TV play IN TWO MINDS, is a characteristically powerful slice of social realism and a bitter indictment of the British mental health system in the early 70s. 19-year-old Janice is a constant source of worry for her overbearing suburban parents as she has become increasingly withdrawn and rebellious. As the situation deteriorates, eventually she is taken to a public mental institution, where she’s first treated by an open-minded and liberal doctor, but ultimately transferred to a harsh regime of drugs and electro-convulsive therapy.
Thurs, July 11 at 9:15, Tues, July 16 at 6:45, and Fri, July 19 at 7:00
Akira Kurosawa
I LIVE IN FEAR / IKIMONO NO KIROKU
1955, 103 min, 35mm, b&w. In Japanese with English subtitles. With Toshiro Mifune & Takashi Shimura.
“The central drama of the film […] derives less from the possibility of another nuclear attack than from the devastation Nakajima’s paranoia wreaks on his family, who try to have him declared insane. Mifune, with his age makeup, contorted face, and paunchy, crooked gait, makes a splendidly stubborn old patriarch, and though he reigns over his family with unforgiving, iron resolve, he remains the film’s most completely drawn, sympathetic figure. Still, Kurosawa refuses to takes sides on the question of who, if anyone, has the sanest response to the threat of nuclear annihilation. Despite the economic miracle of the mid-fifties in Japan, Kurosawa paints a society connected through unease, its future an ominous question mark.” –Michael Koresky, CRITERION COLLECTION
Fri, July 12 at 6:30, Thurs, July 18 at 9:00, and Sat, July 20 at 9:15
Akira Kurosawa
DODES’KA-DEN
1970, 140 min, 35mm. In Japanese with English subtitles.
“Kurosawa’s first film in color is a stylized, experimental work produced independently on a very small budget, necessitating a number of economies that contribute to the personal feeling of the piece as a whole. For example, Kurosawa himself not only designed but painted the sets. Mixing reality and fantasy, Kurosawa weaves together the lives of a group of Tokyo slum dwellers; in its semi-allegorical narrative, the film offers an impassioned affirmation of life and of the human ability to overcome adversity through hope and dreams.” –PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE
Fri, July 12 at 8:45 and Sun, July 14 at 5:30
Luchino Visconti
ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS / ROCCO E I SUOI FRATELLI
1960, 177 min, 35mm, b&w. In Italian with English subtitles. With Alain Delon, Renato Salvatori, and Annie Girardot.
“As he did in his great period dramas SENSO and THE LEOPARD, Visconti embedded his schematic sense of history in sensual and emotional detail. You don’t observe his characters so much as live alongside them. […] ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS […] lives on partly through the influence it has had on American filmmakers. Neither the neighborhood intimacy of MEAN STREETS nor the grandeur of the GODFATHER movies is imaginable without Visconti’s example.” –A.O. Scott, NEW YORK TIMES
Sat, July 13 at 3:00 and Wed, July 17 at 7:30
Jean-Luc Godard
LA CHINOISE
1967, 96 min, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. With Jean-Pierre Léaud, Juliet Berto, and Anne Wiazemsky.
Jean-Luc Godard’s sort-of-take on Dostoevsky’s THE DEVILS is among his greatest films of the 1960s, a claustrophobic torrent of slogans and symbolic tableaux performed by several key members of his 60s repertory (including Jean-Pierre Léaud, Juliet Berto, and his then-wife, Anne Wiazemsky). At once a spoof on and a celebration of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, LA CHINOISE takes the Little Red Book as both an intellectual springboard and as an expressive prop in service of Godard’s irreverent analysis of the French political climate with May 1968 just around the corner.
Sat, July 13 at 9:00, Mon, July 15 at 6:45, and Sat, July 20 at 7:00
Bernardo Bertolucci
THE CONFORMIST / IL CONFORMISTA
1970, 111 min, 35mm. In Italian with English subtitles. With Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda, and Pierre Clémenti.
Arguably Bertolucci’s greatest achievement, THE CONFORMIST is a visual tour de force with an immense political resonance. Adapted from a novel by Alberto Moravia and set during the Mussolini years, Jean-Louis Trintignant stars as Marcello, a fascist stooge who uses his honeymoon as an opportunity to complete as morally complicated a mission as any: to search out and assassinate his former teacher, Professor Quadri (Enzo Tarascio). Matters only grow muddier and more perilous when Marcello falls for Quadri’s beautiful young wife, Anna (Dominique Sanda)…
Mon, July 15 at 9:00, Fri, July 19 at 9:15, and Sun, July 21 at 8:45
Milos Forman
LOVES OF A BLONDE / LÁSKY JEDNÉ PLAVOVLÁSKY
1965, 82 min, 35mm, b&w. In Czech with English subtitles. With Hana Brejchova.
“Forman’s 1965 comedy of love and disillusionment, about a young girl (Brejchova) who mistakes a night with a traveling jazz musician for the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Forman’s great talent lies in his ability to slip sharply satirical observations into a softly naturalistic format; he makes fun of his characters’ shortcomings but never gives in to parody or caricature. Ivan Passer contributed to the screenplay.” –Dave Kehr, CHICAGO READER
Sun, July 21 at 6:45
