On the Ocean, Up the River,Under the Sea, Aboard Ship
Water in Film II Spring 2006
January 17
Cline Library, 7:00 pm
“A seaman's a seaman. A captain's a captain. And a midshipman… is
the lowest form of animal life in the British Navy”
Mutiny on the Bounty
(Frank Lloyd, 1935 132 minutes)
“From the glory days of MGM comes this rollicking sea adventure based on
the true story of HMS Bounty in AD 1788….Mutiny on the Bounty has been
remade twice, in 1962 and 1984, and neither can hold a candle to the original
production. The story concerns a voyage to Tahiti to pick up breadfruit seedlings….
The ship reaches Tahiti and gathers the cargo, but the captain’s brutality
both on the voyage to Tahiti and back causes the first officer to lead a mutiny,
cast the captain and his few loyalists adrift in a lifeboat, and return to Tahiti.
Somehow, the captain survives, [returns to England and then back to wreak vengeance
on his crew.]…Two of the biggest stars of the day were given the leading
roles, Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh and Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian,
first officer on the Bounty….Laughton as the tyrannical Captain Bligh
makes one of the greatest screen villains of all time. He is competent and wicked
and there is hardly a shred of weakness in him. He is the type of monster you
have nightmares about… Both Laughton and costars Clark Gable and Franchot
Tone were nominated for Best Actor, the only time that three actors from a single
film were nominated. However neither of the three won, the award instead going
to Victor McLaglen who starred in The Informer. There is hardly another sea adventure
I can name that would rank with this film.” -- George Chabot. Mutiny on
the Bounty won the Oscar for Best Picture and was nominated for Best Score, Best
Editing, Best Screenplay, & Best Director. Cline Library Auditorium. Free
and open to the public. Call 523-9515 for information
January 24
Cline Library 7:00 pm
“Old Man River, He Keeps on Rollin’ Along”
Show Boat
(James Whale, 1936, 113 minutes)
“James Whale directed what is considered to be the finest screen
version of Show Boat with Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, Charles Winninger,
Paul Robeson and Helen Morgan. Winninger (as Cap'n Andy) and Morgan
(as Julie) repeat their original stage roles, while Robeson, for whom
the role was actually written, plays Joe and sings his famous rendition
of "Ol' Man River", the most powerful song in the show. Irene
Dunne, the first touring company Magnolia , also repeats her stage
role, and unlike Kathryn Grayson in the MGM 1951 Technicolor remake,
gives a memorable acting as well as singing performance. In fact, one
of the things which distinguish this screen musical [from others] is
the quality of the acting. The entire cast, from Irene Dunne down to
the bit players, breathes real life into the characters, so that the
movie never becomes one corny wait between the hit songs. …The
script for the 1936 Show Boat is … by Oscar Hammerstein II,
the original librettist and lyricist, and relies heavily on his stage
dialogue. Hammerstein and Kern were not about to let their baby fall
into the wrong hands, so they worked on the film, retaining nine songs
from the show, and adding three new ones just as good (or almost as
good) as the ones they replaced. Any changes from the show were made
by them, and director Whale…insured complete historical authenticity
in the sets props, and costumes ... For a long, time, this version
of Show Boat was suppressed, partly because MGM owned the rights, and
partly because of the controversy surrounding Paul Robeson. …Don't
pass it up. This is one of the truly great musical films.”--
Albert Sanchez Moreno. Cline Library Auditorium. Free and open to the
public. Call 523-9515 for information.
January 31
Cline Library 7:00PM
The Orientalism of Special Effects
The Rains Came
(Clarence Brown, 1939, 103) minutes)
“Myrna Loy stars in Clarence Brown's sumptuous and exotic romance,
based upon the novel by Louis Bromfield. Loy plays Lady Edwina Esketh,
the unhappily married wife of Lord Albert Esketh (Nigel Bruce), a dumpy
middle-aged English businessman. Edwina escapes her loneliness by engaging
in ephemeral love affairs. When Lord Albert travels to the Indian province
of Ranchipur, Edwina encounters one of her past lovers, Tom Ransome
(George Brent). Tom wants to renew his acquaintance with Edwina, but
she has set her sights on a young Indian doctor, Major Rama Safti (Tyrone
Power), the court favorite of the reigning maharajah (H.B. Warner)
who may inherit the throne one day. Rama is dedicated to helping the
poor and, as Edwina falls deeply in love with him, she begins to notice
of the plight of the poverty stricken. When a terrible earthquake decimates
Ranchipur, Edwina joins with Rama to help tend to the victims of this
tragedy.” -- Paul Brenner. The film earned the first Academy
Award ever given special effects. It was also nominated for Best Cinematography,
Best Sound, and Best Original Score. Cline Library Auditorium. Free
and open to the public. Call 523-9515 for information.
February 7
Cline Library 7:00 PM
“The untold want by life and land ne'er granted / Now voyager
sail thou forth to seek and find."
Now Voyager
(Irving Rapper, 1942, 117 minutes)
“Warner Bros. star Bette Davis, who commanded the female audience
of the 1940's like no other star, had her biggest hit of the decade
in Now, Voyager , the romantic drama of Charlotte Vale, a repressed,
overweight spinster who escapes from the influence of a domineering
mother to become a glamorous woman of the world. Oddly, it took Warner
Bros. a while to settle on Davis - then the acknowledged "Queen
of the Lot" - as star of the property, based on the 1941 novel
by Olive Higgins Prouty, who also wrote Stella Dallas. (Prouty took
the title Now, Voyager from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass: "Untold
Want, by life and land ne'er granted/Now, Voyager, sail thou forth
to seek and find.") The first choice of producer Hal B. Wallis
to play Charlotte was Irene Dunne, then Norma Shearer (as a loan-out
from MGM), then Ginger Rogers. But once Davis became aware of the role
- realizing that Charlotte was, like herself, a New Englander and a
plain woman who could transform herself into something much more attractive
- she saw to it that it was hers. Over the years, there was controversy
over who created one of the most celebrated bits of business in film
history - the cigarette ritual performed by Paul Henreid as Jerry,
the married man with whom Charlotte falls in love. Henreid puts two
cigarettes in his mouth, lights both, then passes one seductively to
Davis. The two actors, who became instant and lifelong friends, claimed
that they worked the routine out during rehearsals, inspired by a habit
Henreid shared with his wife on car trips. But screenwriter Casey Robinson
said he had included the business in his original script - something
borne out by drafts of his script on file with the Warner Bros. papers
at the University of Southern California. In Charlotte's gentle admonition
to her lover, Now, Voyager also boasts one of the most famous closing
lines in all cinema: "Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon.
We have the stars." --Roger Fristoe. Now, Voyager won the Oscar
for Score and was Nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and
Best Actress in a Leading Role. Cline Library Auditorium. Free and
open to the public.Call 523-9515 for information.
February 14
Cline Library 7:00pm
Good night and sweet dreams... which we'll analyze in the morning”
Spellbound
(Alfred Hitchcock, 1945, 111 minutes)
“When 'Doctor Edwardes' arrives at Green Manors mental asylum
he is met by the glacial Constance Peterson, whose icy façade
quickly melts as she falls in love with her new boss. But it soon becomes
apparent that the recent arrival is an amnesiac, merely masquerading
as the doctor. More chillingly, he may have murdered the real Edwardes.
Peterson joins forces with the imposter to unlock his memory and uncover
the truth about the missing medic. Or, as director Alfred Hitchcock
described Spellbound, it's "another manhunt story wrapped up in
pseudo-psychoanalysis". Hitchcock was, of course, employing typical
flippancy in his summation - producer David O Selznick had insisted
a doctor was onset to ensure a degree of authenticity. Indeed, the
setting worked so well it heralded a Hollywood fixation, with psychoanalysis
and improbably glamorous psychiatrists becoming well-worn staples of
American cinema. Few films capture the mind's mechanics with such flair,
however, and the movie's famous dream-sequence, designed by Salvador
Dali, remains admired and discussed in equal measures. Spellbound entranced
the world. It cost around $1.5 million to make and triumphantly took
over $7 million. The director perceived Bergman as pivotal to its success
and the Swedish star, suggested by Selznick, became the first actress
to portray the heroine in three of Hitchcock's American movies, a record
only equaled by Grace Kelly. Selznick also helped on the script, based
on Francis Breeding's novel, The House of Doctor Edwardes, and although
he gave Hitchcock autonomy on the studio floor he was merciless in
the editing suite, slashing 20 minutes of the work to produce a tightly
paced and fast-moving thriller. Spellbound …stands out as one
of the Master's most purely entertaining works. Suspenseful, visually
brilliant and well acted, it remains wildly implausible, but hugely
enjoyable.” -- Gavin Collinson. Spellbound won the Oscar for
Best Score and was Nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Actor in
a Supporting Role, Best Special Effects, Best Director, and Best Picture.
Cline Library Auditorium. Free and open to the public. Call 523-9515
for information.
February 21
Cline Library 7:00pm
Orson Wells, Rita Hayworth in a bright, guilty world.
The Lady From Shanghai
(Orson Wells, 1947, 87 minutes)
“In 1948 Welles was 32 and in a doomed marriage to co-star Rita
Hayworth, and Shanghai seems a little more straightforward and commercial
after his brilliant bombs Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons.
Globetrotting ne'er-do-well Michael O'Hara (Welles himself) gets hired
on as cabin-boy/bodyguard to "the world's greatest trial lawyer" and
his sexy and much-younger wife (Hayworth, pretty in platinum) as they
sail from New York to San Francisco. The Wellesian weirdness includes
a murder that's supposed to look like a suicide, some bizarre courtroom
drama and a megalomaniac's picnic that's such a rip of Kane that Welles
could well have sued himself. Plus, of course, the fabulous funhouse
climax, where hero and villains stage a shattering shoot-out in a hall
of mirrors. A salty tale with lust in its heart, The Lady from Shanghai
also benefits from Welles' usual high-quality black-and-white … boasting
gorgeous compositions (especially the director's passion for those
big close-ups) that burn themselves into your memory. Anyone who doubts
that film noir has gone depressingly downhill since its late-'40s heyday
should see Shanghai -- as should anyone who merely wants to enjoy "a
bright and guilty world" as envisioned by one of the great geniuses
of the cinema.” – Alex Patterson Cline Library Auditorium.
Free and open to the public. Call 523-9515 for information.
February 28
Cline Library 7:00pm
Won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival
Seven Samurai
(Akira Kurosawa, 1954, 141 minutes)
“Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai is not only a great film
in its own right, but the source of a genre that would flow through
the rest of the century. The critic Michael Jeck suggests that this
was the first film in which a team is assembled to carry out a mission--an
idea which gave birth to its direct Hollywood remake, The Magnificent
Seven, as well as The Guns of Navarone, The Dirty Dozen and countless
later war, heist and caper movies. …[Kurosawa’s purpose]
was to make a samurai movie that was anchored in ancient Japanese culture
and yet argued for a flexible humanism in place of rigid traditions.
One of the central truths of The Seven Samurai is that the samurai
and the villagers who hire them are of different castes and must never
mix. Indeed, we learn that these villagers had earlier been hostile
to samurai--and one of them, even now, hysterically fears that a samurai
will make off with his daughter. Yet the bandits represent a greater
threat, and so the samurai are hired, valued and resented in about
equal measure…Many characters die in The Seven Samurai, but
violence and action are not the point of the movie. It is more about
duty and social roles. The samurai at the end have lost four of their
seven, yet there are no complaints, because that is the samurai's lot.
The villagers do not want the samurai around once the bandits are gone,
because armed men are a threat to order. That is the nature of society.” –Roger
Ebert. Akira Kurosawa won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival
for this film. Cline Library Auditorium. Free and open to the public.
Call 523-9515 for information.
March 7
Cline Library 7:00pm
“I'll follow him around the Horn, and around the Norway maelstrom,
and around perdition's flames before I give him up.”
Moby Dick
(John Huston, 1956 116 minutes)
50th Anniversary Screening
“One of the great American novels becomes one of the great adventure
films of all time. …[Director] John Huston and author Ray Bradbury
collaborated on the screenplay for Moby Dick, and it is a grand spectacle.
Never has a movie character been so blinded by revenge as Captain Ahab.
Gregory Peck, who normally played the considerate and thoughtful lead
in movies like To Kill a Mockingbird and Roman Holiday, completely
embodies Captain Ahab. The fierce intensity in his eyes, the muffled
ferocity in his voice, these are indications of his madness. He has
one leg, a scar on his face and a desire for revenge rooted deeply
in his thoughts. Nothing else matters to him. Ishmael (Richard Basehart)
is the narrator of the story, and all we learn of Captain Ahab is from
what Ishmael tells us. Though the movie is a character study of the
mad captain, we watch the events through Ishmael's eyes. Because of
this, we only see the aftermath of Ahab's last encounter with the whale.
We don't get the opportunity to probe his mind or figure out what makes
him tick. Just like Ishmael, we're standing on the deck of the Pequod,
looking at a man with one goal in life….John Huston had a long
career in film. He worked in many genres, like the musical (Annie),
the western (The Unforgiven) and adventures like this one. His résumé includes
some of the most respected titles in cinema (The Treasure of the Sierra
Madre, The Maltese Falcon, Prizzi's Honor). He made movies up until
his final days. When he died in 1987, his film The Dead saw release
that same year. He was also an actor, a producer, a writer. With remarkable
talent, he carved out a niche for himself in the halls of great filmmakers.
Moby Dick is a great example of the man's artistic expertise”—Roger
Ebert Won, Silver Ribbon, Best Director - Foreign Film (Regista del
Miglior Film Straniero); Won the Best Director and Best Supporting
Actor Prize by the National Board of Review; Nominated for Best Cinematography
by the British Society of Cinematographers; Nominated, DGA Award for
Outstanding Directorial Achievement. Cline Library Auditorium. Free
and open to the public. Call 523-9515 for information.
March 14
Cline Library 7:00pm
The Bridge on the River Kwai
(David Lean, 1957, 161 minutes)
"Legendary producer Sam Spiegel… approached David Lean with The
Bridge on the River Kwai while he was still shooting Summer Madness. Significantly,
Lean was attracted by the story's epic quality, and saw a drama of Shakespearean
dimensions in the tragic relationship between Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) and Nicholson
(Alec Guinness). He wrote the script with Michael Wilson, although the screen
credit went to the book's author, Pierre Boulle. It is a film of two halves.
The first concerns Nicholson's stubbornness, wrong-headedness and courage,
and his relationship with the Japanese Colonel Saito, while the second is the
story of the British commandos attack on the bridge. The link between the two
stories is the character of the American sailor Shears (William Holden), who
escapes from the prisoner of war camp, only to return to it as one of the commando
team. The first story is replete with ironies. Nicholson, having endured terrible
punishment for refusing to allow his officers to perform manual labor, actively
encourages them to do so once he has decided that the bridge must be as well
built as possible, to demonstrate British superiority. He himself sees no irony
in this, nor realizes that he, the great upholder of the Geneva Convention,
is collaborating with the enemy by becoming obsessed with the building of the
bridge. He has more in common with Saito than he realizes: both men are governed
by their own codes of 'honor'. The second story comes as something of a shock.
We seem to be watching a completely different film, when the theme of the commando
raid on the bridge is introduced. This segment is much more straightforwardly
told, with plenty of action sequences and conventional heroics. Lean achieves
some memorable images, especially the opening, a wonderful aerial shot of the
jungle. A marvelous cut shows Shears' head filling the screen and appearing
to come out of the sun. When the Japanese open fire on the commandos in the
jungle, hundreds of birds rise up from the trees and fill the sky.” –Janet
Moat. The film won the Oscar for Best Score, Best Screenplay, Best Actor (Alec
Guinness), Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Director, Best Picture;
Won, BAFTA Film Award for Best British Film, Best Film, Best British Screenplay,
Best British Actor, Alec Guinness; Won, Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture,
Best Actor, Best Director. Cline Library Auditorium. Free and open to the public.
Call 523-9515 for information.
March 28
Cline Library 7:00pm
Best film at the 1958 Brussels World Fair with jurists Godard and Truffaut
Touch of Evil, (Orson Wells, 1958 108 minutes)
``Touch of Evil, the loony border-town noir mystery from 1958… has
been re-edited into the ``pattern'' that Orson Welles desired… The
film has always been full of reckless energy, and now it is, as they
say, better than ever. It stars writer-director Welles as a corrupt
police chief on the American side of the Mexican border, Charlton Heston
as a straight-arrow Mexican narc and Janet Leigh as his wife, who seems
to have a screw loose. Along the way, there is a grand performance
by, and homage to, Marlene Dietrich. Touch of Evil seems to take place
on the border of reality as well. The whole project has an air of unreality
about it as it brazenly hits hot buttons of police corruption, sex,
drugs and racism. ``All border towns bring out the worst in a country,''
Heston, as ``Mike'' Vargas, declares…. Welles goes for broke
in his performance and direction, and the only trick he misses is a
tracking shot around his own bulging waistline. Obese, pulpy-nosed
and wheezing, the evidence-planting Quinlan speaks in such a phlegmy
voice that I expected him to spit something up. The unflappable Dietrich,
as his former lover who has seen everything and is surprised by nothing,
delivers her famous epitaph as he finally floats away in a river of
muck. …Entire scenes are done in long takes, and there is an
uninterrupted tracking shot of a car explosion at the border that not
only sets the story in motion but is also a minifilm in itself, with
a beginning, middle and end. It seems hard to believe now, but this
sequence used to be obscured by the film's title credits. My favorite
sequence shows Vargas crowding three men into a tiny elevator. There
is room for the camera inside but not for Vargas, who takes the stairs.
The camera keeps rolling, and when the elevator reaches the top, Vargas
is there to greet them. When Quinlan later gets into the elevator and
makes a key revelation, the camera is already there, of course, to
record it.”—Bob Graham. Cline Library Auditorium. Free
and open to the public. Call 523-9515 for information.
April 4
Cline Library 7:00pm
“Either you bring the water to L.A. or you bring L.A. to the
water.”
Chinatown
(Roman Polanski, 1974, 131 minutes)
"You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe
me, you don't," warns water baron Noah Cross (John Huston), when
smooth cop-turned-private eye J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson)
starts nosing around Cross's water diversion scheme. That proves to
be the ominous lesson of Chinatown, Roman Polanski's critically lauded
1974 revision of 1940s film noir detective movies. In 1930s Los Angeles, "matrimonial
work" specialist Gittes is hired by Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway)
to tail her husband, Water Department engineer Hollis Mulwray (Darrell
Zwerling). Gittes photographs him in the company of a young blonde
and figures the case is closed, only to discover that the real Mrs.
Mulwray had nothing to do with hiring Gittes in the first place. When
Hollis turns up dead, Gittes decides to investigate further, encountering
a shady old-age home, corrupt bureaucrats, angry orange farmers, and
a nostril-slicing thug (Polanski) along the way. By the time he confronts
Cross, Evelyn's father and Mulwray's former business partner, Jake
thinks he knows everything, but an even more sordid truth awaits him.
When circumstances force Jake to return to his old beat in Chinatown,
he realizes just how impotent he is against the wealthy, depraved Cross. "Forget
it, Jake," his old partner tells him. "It's Chinatown." Reworking
the somber underpinnings of detective noir along more pessimistic lines,
Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne convey a '70s-inflected critique
of capitalist and bureaucratic malevolence in a carefully detailed
period piece harkening back to the genre's roots in the 1930s and '40s.
Gittes always has a smart comeback like Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade
and Philip Marlowe, but the corruption Gittes finds is too deep for
one man to stop. …Chinatown's period sheen renders this dilemma
at once contemporary and timeless, pointing to larger implications
about the effects of corporate rapaciousness on individuals.” --Lucia
Bozzola. Chinatown won the Oscar for Best Screenplay and was Nominated
for Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Picture, Best Score, Best
Sound, Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Film Editing, Best Director,
Best Costume Design, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, and Best Cinematography.
Won the BAFTA Film Award for Best Actor, Best Direction, Best Screenplay;
Won Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture, Best Actor, Best Director,
and Best Screenplay.Cline Library Auditorium. Free and open to the
public. Call 523-9515 for information.
April 5
Liberal Arts 135 7:00pm
Up the River with an Opera House
Fitzcarraldo
(Werner Herzog, 1982,158 minutes)
“As played by Klaus Kinski, Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald—called “Fitzcarraldo” by
the Peruvian locals—is a man who wholeheartedly believes in the
popular saying, “With the faith of a mustard seed, you can move
a mountain.” What he doesn’t know, or what he chooses to
ignore, is that this old saying is a figure of speech. By the time
the film comes to a close, he has darn near moved a mountain. His obsession
to get it done is the central thesis of this film, which is written
and directed by Werner Herzog. The images that everyone remembers in
Fitzcarraldo, justifiably, are those of Kinski watching obsessively
as a group of local natives pull a 320-ton steam boat up a mountain,
using only a block and pulley system. The reason they are doing so
is to simply appease Fitzcarraldo’s obsessions, which are so
utterly preposterous that the indigenous tribe believes that his vessel
is some sort of heavenly object, and he is its divine captain. We know
otherwise: Fitztcarraldo is a mere businessman who has failed at every
commerce he has attempted in Peru, and now makes barely enough money
to survive by supplying ice to local villagers. But he has much higher
aspirations than this—he is a “man of the opera,” who
dreams of opening an opera house in the jungle. To do so, he must first
make his fortune, which he intends to collect by exploiting untapped
rubber trees up the Pongo River. To do that, he must get his steamship
from the Amazon to the Pongo, which is separated by a mountain. …All
the while, we know that Fitzcarraldo is mad, as anyone who could concoct
such a scheme must be. Yet the film is then given a rich layer of irony
when we realize that these cinematic moments are not created with models
or miniatures, but are the real thing. The truth is even stranger than
the fiction: Werner Herzog literally hired real Peruvian locals to
haul that ship up a real mountain with a real block and pulley system.
The natives agree to participate because they hoped that the film would
stir sympathy for them in the eyes of the Europeans who hoped to cultivate
their land. Understanding this, we are forced to ask: If Fitzcarraldo
is mad for envisioning such a dream, can Werzog’s madness be
any less? …Fitzcarraldo’s mad passions blend with Herzog’s.
In fact, they are interchangeable. For the film’s shortcomings—its
flimsy plotline and rather unlikely ending—the parallels between
Fitzcarraldo and Hergoz, and the two men’s obsessed madness to
pull that steam ship over the mountain, make this one of the greatest
cinematic triumphs of all time. This might very well be the first film
made in which reality and fiction are inseparable, linked together
by one man’s ambition. Some reviews have tried to separate fact
from fiction in Fiztcarraldo, urging viewers to judge the film on its
own merits, not on the basis of Herzog’s demented dream. My question
to those critics is, why would they want to separate the fantasy from
the fiction? When blended together, the complement each other—Fitzcarraldo
is Herzog, and vice versa. To embrace one is to embrace the other,
and to consider one without considering the other is to leave out an
essential part of the picture.” –Danel Griffin. Fitzcarraldo
won the Best Director prize at Cannes and the Silver prize at the German
Film Awards.Special Wednesday Night Showings in LA 135
April 11
Cline Library 7:00pm
“It doesn't make any difference what desert, it's completely
hypothetical.”
Blade Runner
(Ridley Scott, 1982, 117)
“[Ridley] Scott, a provocative visual stylist, brought terms like cyberpunk
and retrofitting into the American vocabulary with this voluptuously decadent,
sensor-overloaded portrait of Los Angeles as it might be in 2019: crowded,
polluted, clangorous, damp, desperate and diverse. Patrol cars called Spinners
carom through the canyons created by skyscrapers 400 stories tall and crumbling
in the acid rain. Millions have migrated to off-world colonies, the spacious
glories of which are incessantly touted by blimpy flying billboards. The rainbow
billions left behind squeeze through the jammed, littered, neon-splattered
streets as numb to hope as they are to the noise. The screenplay by Hampton
Fancher and David Peoples strays far from its inspiration: Philip K. Dick's "Do
Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," the tale of a genetic designer, Sebastian
(William J. Anderson). Sebastian plays a pivotal role here too, but the focus
is on Rick Deckard, a retired detective who specializes in tracking down and
destroying replicants who attempt to pass for human. Stronger and more specialized
than real people, the replicants are sent off-world as slave laborers, soldiers
and prostitutes. Deckard, the best blade runner ever, is pressed into duty
by his former boss (M. Emmet Walsh) when four replicants take over a space
shuttle and return to Earth. They have come back, as their leader Roy Blatty
(Rutger Hauer) explains, to meet their maker, Tyrell (Joe Turkel). To keep
them from supplanting the men who made them, replicants have a built-in fail-safe
-- a four-year lifespan -- and they've decided to discuss it with their man
upstairs. "What seems to be the problem?" asks Tyrell. "Death," responds
Roy, ever the wry, cerebral psychotic. Grand enough in scale to carry its many
Biblical and mythological references, Blade Runner never feels heavy or pretentious
-- only more and more engrossing with each viewing. It helps, too, that it
works as pure entertainment. In its soul, it's a detective story complete with
a glossy dame and a Chandler-style gumshoe suffering from a case of hard-boiled
heartburn. Like Bogey before him, Deckard must shake off the troubles he's
seen, the numbing shell, to get back in touch with his feelings. He becomes
human again thanks primarily to the replicants who are driven by love for one
another to develop empathy.” -- Rita Kempley. The film won the BAFTA
Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, and Best Production Design/Art
Direction; Won, Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation. Cline Library Auditorium
7:00 PM. Free and open to the public.
April 12
Liberal Arts 135 7:00pm
Winner, Venice Film Festival, International Award
Indochine
(Régis Wargnier, 1992, 156 minutes)
“ Regis Wargnier's epic about French Indochina -- from the years
of French colonial imperialism to the days when American presence made
itself felt and the country became known as Vietnam -- is a story of
romance and separation told through the backdrop of a country in turmoil.
The film centers on the relationship of the beautiful and imperious
Eliane (Catherine Deneuve), a French rubber-plantation owner, and Camille
(Linh Dan Pham), her adopted Indochinese daughter. The mother and daughter
are very close until a diffident naval officer, Jean-Baptiste (Vincent
Perez) enters their lives. Eliane is in love with him, but Jean-Baptiste
and Camille become attracted to each other and fall in love. Thinking
that she is doing Camille a favor, Eliane arranges to have Jean-Baptiste
transferred to the far-away Tonkin Islands. But Camille flees the plantation
to go to the man she loves. As she travels the country, she gains a
greater knowledge and respect for the people of her homeland. When
the government tears her from Jean-Baptiste and their infant child
and arrests her for crimes against the state, she becomes politicized
and becomes a supporter of the communists in the country's civil war.
As the country rocks in turmoil, Eliane becomes a personification of
France, coolly walking amid her peasant workers, neither bowed nor
afraid, grimly looking westward.”-- Paul Brenner. Indochine won
the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film; Won, César , for Best
Supporting Actress, Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best
Actress, and Best Sound; Won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language
Film; Won the Goya Award for Best European Film; the National Board
of Review, Best Foreign Language Film; The Political Film Society Democracy
Award. Special Wednesday Night Showings in LA 135
April 18
Cline Library 7:00pm
Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, Linda Hunt
The Year of Living Dangerously
(Peter Weir, 1982, 117 minutes)
“Australian director Peter Weir had made several excellent films
before The Year of Living Dangerously was released to critical acclaim
in 1983, but it was this moody tale of romance and political upheaval
that bought Weir and star Mel Gibson their tickets to Hollywood. Set
in Indonesia in 1965, the film focuses on a group of Caucasian journalists
and photographers who are in Jakarta to cover the political upheavals
that are threatening to collapse the unstable government of President
Sukarno. Gibson plays an Australian correspondent named Guy Hamilton
who's determined to get the best story, and he's given invaluable assistance
from Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt), a half-Indonesian, half-Australian photojournalist
who knows the culture inside and out. Billy introduces Guy to Jill
(Sigourney Weaver) and their romance develops in an atmosphere of political
unrest and constant personal danger. This journalistic adventure is
compelling in itself (and Hunt's gender-switching performance won her
a much-deserved Oscar), but it's Weir's creation of a rich, authentically
exotic locale that gives the movie its alluring and subtly mysterious
atmosphere. A tale of tragedy and survival, it's also a story about
fascinating people at a turbulent juncture of history, and the empathy
they feel for each other and the culture that surrounds them.”----Jeff
Shannon. The film won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
and the Australian Film Institute Best Actress in a Supporting Role
and Nominated for the AFI Award for Best Editing, Best Cinematography,
Best Sound, Best Actor, Best Score, Best Screenplay, Best Film, Best
Director. Cline Library Auditorium. Free and open to the public. Call
523-9515 for information.
April 19
Liberal Arts 135 7:00pm
The Flooded
(Fernando Birri, 87 minutes, 1961)
“Los Inundados was Birri’s first feature film, made with
an unheard of mix of professional and natural actors and also with
a very noticeable taste for social documentary — it was shot
during the flooding devastation of an underdeveloped area in Argentina.
It shows great narrative skills and a very human, warm sense of picaresque
humor centered on its humble characters. A whole family (including
the dog) loses their home and takes provisional refuge in an empty
stockcar. A new odyssey starts for the occupants when (by chance?)
the locomotive is coupled to the stockcar, dragging it towards an uncertain
destiny. A satirical tone is used to depict the hypocrisy of politicians,
and a different one to show the main characters' resilience and ingenuity
for surviving. Four decades after it was filmed, The Flooded keeps
intact its freshness, enthusiasm, and fighting spirit for social justice
that were the film’s inspirational strength. —Jorge Ruffinelli.
Opera Prima Award, Golden Medal Leone di San Marco, XXIII Mostra Internazionale,
Venice, 1962. Special Jury Award, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
of the New Cinemas of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Czechoslovakia,
1962. Cabeza de Palenque Award, V International Film “Festival
de Festivales”, Acapulco, México, 1962.Special Wednesday
Night Showings in LA 135
April 25
Cline Library 7:00pm
Best Art Direction, Sound, and Cinematography, Japanese Academy
Rhapsody in August
(Akira Kurosawa, 1991, 98 minutes)
“Rhapsody in August…shares much with Hiroshima, Mon Amour,
notably themes of pacifism and of memory, but is otherwise a very different,
simple, quiet and elegiac work of moods and feelings. Its maker is
the great Akira Kurosawa who is often said to be the most western of
Japanese directors yet still profoundly Japanese. The unhurried first
part exudes a perfect rural vacation feel. In the summer of 1990, two
pairs of youngsters, first cousins, are staying with their aged, sweet
and old-fashioned grandmother Kane in the countryside near Nagasaki… Wearing
blue jeans and T-shirts with American logos, behaving like perfectly
normal and nice teenagers, the grandchildren treat the old lady with
affection as well as amused (sometimes bemused) tolerance. Far from
Granny dumping , we get Granny nurturing here. A trip to neighboring
Nagasaki gives the youths (and the audience) a sudden awareness of
the 1945 bombing. They contemplate the twisted metal of a jungle gym
in the school yard and learn that this is where Granny's husband, a
schoolteacher, was killed. They visit the point-of-impact memorial,
a stark slab of granite bearing only the inscription of the day and
time: 8. 9. 11:02… Kurosawa 's film is neither accusatory nor
defensive film nor apologetic. The fingers points simply at the notion
of war. Without any didacticism, the movie speaks of the tragedy of
the past , meaning war as the source of unhappiness, and of the sadness
of the present , which is the forgetting of the past. To this Kurosawa
brings his acute sense of observation, his painterly eye, touching
visuals some immediately accessible (two old women visiting each other
and communicating in total silence), some poetic (a pair of charred
trees), others metaphorical (a procession of ants invading a flower).
The sophisticated plainness of this movie is a big asset. It will surprise
those viewers who are mostly familiar with the grand, sweeping style
of Kurosawa's historical epics. Like those films, Rhapsody must be
treasured, on a different level.”—Edwin Jahiel. This film
won the Award of the Japanese Academy for Best Art Direction, Best
Sound, Best Cinematography, Best Lighting. Cline Library Auditorium.
Free and open to the public.
April 26
Liberal Arts 135 7:00pm
Winner of the Crystal Simorgh {Fajr], Kingfisher [Ljubljana] La Pieza
[Mexico City], Golden Lion [Venice]
The Return
Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2002, 105 minutes)
“Winner of the same Venice Film Festival that gave a decidedly
mixed reception to The Dreamers, Andrey Zvyagintsev's The Return is
also suggestive of a lost era—the highly crafted allegorical
Eastern European art films of the '60s and '70s. Zvyagintsev, a former
actor and TV director, locks on to a compelling story that has both
psychological and political resonance. After an absence of 12 years,
the father of two adolescent boys abruptly materializes in the home
of their pretty blonde mother and, by way of getting acquainted, insists
on taking his confused sons on a fishing trip…. Expertly shot
by Mikhail Kritchman, The Return unfolds in a somewhat emptied-out
world. The look is austere but lush, the color slightly leached. The
boys live in an under populated settlement in a stylishly povera house;
the town where they stop for lunch is largely devoid of human presence;
their father takes them through wilderness to a seemingly deserted
island. While the natural world is photographed with an elementalism
strongly reminiscent of Andrei Tarkovsky, what's most concrete in the
movie are the performances. The kids are terrific. While Andrey is
wide-eyed and incredulous, pinched, angry Vanya turns out to be the
tougher of the two. No less surprising, the taciturn father is not
completely uncaring. The Return begins as a mysterious quest, shades
into a discomfiting thriller, then a survival story, and finally a
tragic parable. Primordial and laconic, this remarkably assured debut
feature has the elegant simplicity of its title. The mode is sustained,
the structure overt. Some may be put off by the movie's cool technique
and boldly closed form, but it clearly announces Zvyagintsev as a director
to watch.”—J. Hoberman. Won, Chlotrudis Award, Best Cinematography;
Cottbus Film Festival of Young East European Cinema , Award of the
Ecumenical Jury; European Film Awards, Won, European Discovery of the
Year; Fajr Film Festival, Won, Crystal Simorgh. Special Wednesday Night
Showings in LA 135
May 2
Cline Library 7:00pm
“Whoever tells the best story wins”
Amistad
(Steven Spielberg, 1997, 152 minutes)
“The story begins at sea as a would-be slave named Cinque frees
himself from the hold of the Spanish slave ship La Amistad and leads
his fellow prisoners in a bloody revolt that captures the vessel in
a matter of minutes, killing all but two crew members needed to navigate
them back to Africa. Where the Spaniards take them, however, is into
the waters off Long Island where they are intercepted by an American
naval vessel and imprisoned on charges of murder and piracy. Fortunately
for the Africans, the case is not nearly so simple as it seems. As
a consequence of the incident's unusual particulars, a host of conflicting
claims plunge the issue into heated political waters, capturing the
attention of President Martin Van Buren whose re-election hinges on
maintaining good relations with the increasingly suspicious and insecure
South. On the other side of the issue is a team of tireless abolitionists,
including wealthy ex-slave Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman), successful
businessman Lewis Tappan (Stellan Skarsgard) and idealistic young attorney
Roger Baldwin (Matthew McConaughey)…. Amistad must be regarded
as a monumentally impressive achievement and further proof of Spielberg's
ongoing maturation as an artist. Interspersed with the film's many
dialogue-heavy courtroom scenes is a handful of staggering visual sequences,
most notably an extended flashback detailing events on the "Amistad" prior
to the revolt.”-- Wade Major. Amistad won the Image Awards for
both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.
Cline Library Auditorium. Free and open to the public. Call 523-9515
for information.
May 9
Cline Library 7:00pm
Just When You Thought it Was Safe to Leave NAU for the Summer
Jaws
(Steven Spielberg, 1975, 124 minutes)
“The small town of Amity comes under attack from a Great White
shark in a film that sealed Steven Spielberg's talent as a master entertainer.
The principal character is Roy Scheider who plays the slightly unheroic
local sheriff battling between his instinct to shut the beach for safety
reasons and the cost to the local tourist economy if he does. What
is perhaps most surprising about Jaws is the lack of screen time given
to the ferocious shark. Rather than fill the modestly budgeted film
with gratuitous effects, Spielberg relies on other tools to build tension
and atmosphere. This includes a fearless use of long shots (not popular
in Hollywood) which helps convey both isolation for the victims and
endows the shark with seemingly god-like hunting powers. And then there's
the soundtrack. If ever there was an important example for how music
can enhance a film it is Jaws. John Williams' memorable score is used
sparingly but its tone of impending terror is more responsible for
the power of the film than the sightings of the beast itself. “Spielberg's…style
for Jaws is calm and steady; building to a climax, which combined with
the music, is very much reminiscent of Hitchcock, particularly Psycho.
This confident direction combined with clever editing, lulls you into
relaxing at precisely the wrong moments to great effect. Being able
to calm the viewer only to wrench into their most primeval fears when
least expected is the essence that lies behind the ability of Jaws
to shock and entertain.” -- AlmarHaflidason. Jaws won the Oscar
for Best Sound, Best Score, and Best Editing and Academy of Science
Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Outstanding film of 1975.
Special Thanks to:The College of Arts and Letters including Dean Susan
Fitzmaurice. Major funding through a generous grant from the CAL
Theme Committee . Cline Library for major funding and technical support,
including Cynthia Childrey, Claudia Bakula, Kathleen Smalldon, Beth
Schuck, Joyce Read, Bahe Katenay, Ed Cahall,Nancy Pitz, Stephanie
Keys, Delia Munoz, Charleene Fell and Ruth Roazen and our projectionist
Michaelle Francis Ford. Thanks to: KNAU, The School of Communication,
The School of Music, The School of Fine Art, The Departments of English,
History, Philosophy, and Theatre; the Asian Studies Program, The
Program in Community, Culture, and Environment, The MLS Program,
and The Martin-Springer Institute; Molly Munger, the Office of the
Provost, the Office of the Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate
Studies, and Residence Life; Blase Scarnati, Gioia Woods and our
other faculty presenters. Special Thanks to our Community Sponsors:
Dr. Phyllis N Amata , Clara Ashton, Lee Ashton, B. Athens, Dr. Peter
A. Blakey, Robert C. Bohannan Jr, Sylvia Breakey, Duane & Gail
Bromgard, Robert & Ruthella Caldwell, James R. Case, Glenn O.
Clark, Anna Ford, Thomas & Peggy Garito, Andrea Graber, John
Hardcastle, Terry Hubbard, Mar-Elise Hill, The Kelley-Bojanowski
Family, David and Judith Landkamer, Mary Anne & Erik Larson,
William & Marylin Lyon, Donna Muhlenkamp, Roger Muhlenkamp, Logan
Phillips, Susan Rain, Carol A. Scholing, The Sisk Family, Karen and
David Washabau, Doris S White, The Wilmot Family and Appliance Service
Today. Special thanks to: NAU Public Affairs, FlagLive!, The Arizona
Daily Sun, the Humanities, Arts, and Religion Office Staff, Joe Boles
and Paul Helford as the Film Guys.
Films are free and open to the public. Please call 523-9515 for a copy of the film series poster or brochure. Call if you would like to better know the age appropriateness of any film. Note that 4 films in April are in the Liberal Arts Building, room 135. Call for directions or any other need.