Film Screenings / Programs / Series
SIMIAN VÉRITÉ
June 16 – June 27
This Summer, between monkey attacks large and small at the multiplex, Anthology presents SIMIAN VÉRITÉ: a screening series probing the eternal question of human-primate coexistence. The conundrum poses itself more literally in some cases than others – Nagisa Oshima’s serially underrated MAX MON AMOUR traces an untenable love affair between a socialite and a chimp, while Frederick Wiseman’s PRIMATE shows viewers the cold fundamentals of behavioral research (and, inevitably, the all-too-human power dynamics lurking beneath). The series includes classics of anthropoid camaraderie, including George Romero’s assisted-living cautionary tale MONKEY SHINES, Clint Eastwood’s brawling orangutan road comedy EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE, and Barbet Schroeder’s KOKO, A TALKING GORILLA – an examination of human cognition in flux across evolutionary generations. But it’s only fair that the series culminates in the late 70s with the release of Dino De Laurentiis’s KING KONG, depicting a more sympathetic gorilla king who, exploited by the postcolonial showbiz industrial complex, wages doomed revenge against an uncaring power structure. Center-staged for a new generation, Kong was xeroxed a year later in Runme Shaw’s special effects bonanza MIGHTY PEKING MAN, then eulogized in Marco Ferreri’s BYE BYE MONKEY – a quintessentially barbed rumination on the eternal line between man and his forebear, or what Huxley referred to as “ape and essence.”
Guest-programmed by Steve Macfarlane, who also wrote the introduction and film descriptions.
Special thanks to Alastair Allen (Roissy Films); Brian Belovarac (Janus Films); Hadrian Belove; Eric Di Bernardo (Rialto Pictures); Chris Chouinard (Park Circus); Marco Cicala (Istituto Luce Cinecittà); Keith Crocker; Jack Durwood (Paramount); Amélie Garin-Davet (Cultural Services of the French Embassy); Paul Ginsburg (Universal); Karen Konicek & Emily Glaser (Zipporah Films); Kristie Nakamura & Nicki Woods (WB); Veronica Neely & Beth Krublit (20th Century Fox); and Todd Wiener & Steven Hill (UCLA Film & Television Archive).
