Fall Calendar 2009

Michael Mann, 1981 • Frank (James Caan) is a jewel thief who has cultivated his own law in an attempt to build the idyllic family life he was denied by a childhood spent in orphanages and reform school. When a mafia boss comes peddling the score that could secure his dream, he embraces it impulsively, compromising his freedom from syndicate influence. In this undeniably cool debut, the cold isolation of the entrepreneurial criminal amid Chicago's landscape is lent a weird bluish haze by tungsten filters during daytime scenes, and underscored by Tangerine Dream's pulsing techno during nighttime heists. 35mm

James Nares, 1978 • Painter, performance artist, and former Contortions bandmember James Nares directed this classic of No Wave cinema. An irreverent and playful period drama, the film is as much a documentary of late-70s Lower East Side as it is a fiction film about the late Roman Empire. David McDermott III stars as Caligula, Anya Phillips plays the Queen of Sheba, and Lydia Lunch, lead singer of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and star of many films produced in the movement, also appears. Critic J. Hoberman, an early champion of No Wave, described the film as "like a toga party in Little Lulu's clubhouse." 16mm, not available on DVD

François Truffaut, 1959 • The first of five films chronicling the life of autobiographical character Antoine Doinel, The 400 Blows introduced François Truffaut to the world as a director of verve and sympathy. Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is a misunderstood and neglected youth whose consistent mischief makes him the scorn of his teacher and parents. Truffaut's episodic presentation chronicles the highs and lows of Antoine's—and the director's—childhood, from playing hooky to go on carnival rides to a night spent in jail for robbery, abruptly culminating in one of cinema's most famous endings. 35mm

Richard Boleslawski, 1935 • In the first sound adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel in English, Fredric March stars as convicted bread thief Jean Valjean. March is a perfect match for Laughton's wonderful performance as the obsessed Inspector Javert, unrelentingly pursuing Valjean over a period of decades. Between this, Mutiny on the Bounty, and Ruggles of Red Gap, 1935 marked an extraordinary year for Laughton. His over-the-top bluster here feels delightful and appropriate, unlike the over-the-top bluster of the dreadful 1980 musical adaptation that helped destroy Broadway forever—Susan Boyle be damned. 35mm

Peter Watkins, 1967 • Perhaps the most conventionally narrative film by Watkins, Privilege takes place in the dystopian "Britain, in the near future" in which the government and Church have over taken all facets of public and private life and now seek to manipulate the very will of the people. Literally buying the nation's most popular singer, Steven Shorter, they turn him into a propaganda vessel, making him into a martyr for the citizen's unwillingness to adhere to government order. But soon, Steven begins to start thinking for himself. Starring Paul Jones, lead singer of Brit-Pop group Manfred Mann, as Steven Shorter. Archival 35mm, not available on DVD

J.J. Abrams, 2009 • This "reboot" takes us back to the academy days of Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) as they prevent a time-travelling Romulan (Eric Bana) from making good on his promise of a Federation-free galaxy. Abrams declares from the very first scene that he will not be bound by the established continuity, but slips in many a wink and a nod to long-time Trekkies. Fans of Goldsmith's soundtracks will find that Michael Giacchino has stayed true to the original with some new improvisation. Finally, the curse of the odd-numbered Star Trek film is broken! 35mm

Todd Phillips, 2009 • This refreshing alternative to the recent string of bromances and "sensitive boy with a hoodie" comedies follows three friends reconstructing the details of last night's epic Las Vegas bachelor party gone wrong. Their encounters with those they wronged (Mike Tyson, an angry tiger) and the subsequent detective work needed to figure out what happened sometimes feels like a debauched episode of Law and Order. Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms ace their respective male stereotypes, and the otherworldly Zach Galifianakis gives a bizarre, beautiful, and bearded performance. 35mm

Frank Capra, 1946 • An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would had been like if he never existed. The perennial Christmas favorite named the most inspiring film of all time by the AFI returns to Doc after an eleven year absence. If you don't have any feel good emotion after viewing this, you might not have a pulse or a heart for that matter. This was Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart's first feature film after the war and also the first and last time that Capra produced, financed, directed and co-wrote one of his films. 35mm

Michael Mann, 1983 • When a squad of Nazi storm troopers falls prey to an evil spirit in an ancient Carpathian fortress, a Jewish scientist (Ian McKellan) is imported to investigate the phenomenon. Upon confronting the supernatural being, he becomes obsessed with harnessing it to exact revenge upon Germany. Mann styled his mise-en-scène after examples from German expressionism, F.W. Murnau's Faust being a personal favorite, a style which bewildered critics at the time. Still, The Keep is Mann at his most abstract and metaphysical, and remains the only of his films where evil is the central theme. 35mm, not available on DVD

Steina and Woody Vasulka, 1974 • The Vasulkas were pioneers of the video art form, and founders of The Kitchen. They were among the first to have their video works included in the Whitney Biennial, and have remained innovators of the genre, both technically and formally. These selected works serve as a sampling of the Vasulkas's work during the early years of the Kitchen, a time in which they were primarily concerned with the production of synthetic video images. Through their emphasis on the materiality of video with the use of static and wave patterns, the Vasulkas forge images of a natural beauty akin to landscapes. DVD, not commercially available on DVD

Gregory Nava, 1983 • Presented by Doc Films in conjunction with the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs 35mm

François Truffaut, 1960 • Truffaut pays homage to gangster films by turning the genre on its head. Thoroughly in the tradition of the French New Wave penchant for experimentation, the tropes of gangster and noir films are deconstructed to create a film that defies any genre classification. The story follows former concert pianist, now saloon accompanist, Charlie Kohler (Charles Aznavour), is jostled out of complacency by the appearance of his two brothers on the run from the mob. Truffaut breaks the rules of traditional filmmaking throughout and produces one of his most humorous and enjoyable films. 35mm

Erle Kenton, 1932 • Charles Laughton was perhaps born to play a mad scientist, and he makes the most of the opportunity in this creepy version of H.G. Wells's Island of Dr. Moreau. Richard Arlen and Leila Hymans are shipwrecked on Moreau's island, where the doctor has been conducting experiments combining humans and animals. His bizarre creations, led by none other than Bela Legosi, are barely under control. Laughton's performance, which he apparently based on his dentist, marked his first starring role in an American film. Find here the source for Devo's famous chant of "Are we not men?" from their 1977 song "Jocko Homo." 35mm, not available on DVD

Richard Lester, 1969 • Fresh from directing Petulia, Lester helmed this part-mod part-surreal post-apocalyptic comedy. Renowned British thespians Rita Tushingham, Ralph Richardson, and Dudley Moore star as a group of nuclear holocaust refugees wandering around the bombed-out countryside trying to re-establish some modicum of normal life. Broken up into a series of episodes, their encounters with other survivors plunge them deeper and deeper into an increasingly bizarre state of alternative consciousness. Beautifully photographed in Scope, The Bed-Sitting Room is as strangely funny as it is deeply unsettling. 35mm, not available on DVD

Armando Iannucci, 2009 • James Gandolfini and Peter Capaldi shine in this brilliantly biting satire of the way that government bureaucracies operate. The camera hops back and forth over the pond as we see a thinly fictionalized buildup to the Iraq War from both the British and American perspectives. Officials big and small backstab each other and struggle to cover their own asses as this momentous decision is reduced to a labyrinth of what are essentially petty workplace squabbles. Sparkling dialogue and pacing make the end result hilarious, as well as a little scary. 35mm

Sam Mendes, 2009 • American Beauty director Sam Mendes revisits the modern nuclear family with a lighter tone in this entertaining comedy. John Krasinski (The Office) and Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live) have surprisingly great comedic chemistry as the quick-witted unmarried couple that travels the country in search of the "perfect" place to raise their unborn child. On the way, they encounter old and eccentric friends, discover some strange theories on child-care, and learn lessons on how to live a fun, meaningful life in a seemingly dull Middle America. 35mm

Frank Capra, 1930 • Jerry Strong (Ralph Graves) is a painter from a wealthy family. Kay Arnold (Barbara Stanwyck) is a working-class "party girl," hired as a model by Jerry, who becomes reluctantly infatuated with her. Kay is equally reluctant, and afraid, of her admiration for Jerry. When Jerry's snobbish parents realize his interest in the low-class Kay, and of his desire to stay in the fine arts despite their plans for him to join in their business, surprises and hard decisions take place. After first rejecting Stanwyck, Capra was convinced to cast her upon the request of her real life husband, Frank Fey. 35mm, not available on DVD

Michael Mann, 1986 • Commonly remembered for featuring the first film portrayal of Hannibal Lecktor, the heart of this thriller truly resides in the glass separating two psyches, traumatized ex-profiler Will Graham and his prey Francis Dollarhyde, who stages an oedipal ritual in the slaughter of suburban families. As a frenzied Graham is pressured back to nocturnal duty by the impersonal politics of the FBI, Dollarhyde fights to reclaim his repressed humanity from his fantasies. Tragically, before either grasps the systemic forces at work, their trajectories send them ineluctably toward collision. 35mm

Jim Jarmusch, 1984 • Eva, freshly arrived from Hungary, walks the derelict streets of New York in search of her cousin Willie. She pauses to turn on her portable tape player, and continues to the sound of Screamin' Jay Hawkins, hysterically repeating "I Put a Spell On You." With this scene, Jarmusch established himself as an innovator of American cool and informed the idiom of independent American cinema with a blend of style and incongruent humor. As Willie's sidekick (Richard Edson, one-time drummer for Sonic Youth) tags along on a trip across the U.S., Jarmusch weaves nuanced relationships between off-beat characters. 35mm

François Truffaut, 1962 • An international success upon its release, Jules and Jim remains a classic among Truffaut's oeuvre. Using the intertwined love affair of Jules (Oskar Werner), Jim (Henri Serre) and Catherine (Jeanne Moreau) as a jump-off, Truffaut examines the difficulty of modern romance as the titular characters pursue their mutual object of affection. This doomed ménage à trois spans twenty years, but ends tragically when Jules and Jim underestimate the enigmatic Catherine. This film culminates of Truffaut's early years of filmmaking; the eclectic lyrical imagery and storytelling reveal an artist of the cinema. 35mm

Stuart Walker, 1933 • A bizarre pre-code gem about a despotic rubber plantation owner in Malaysia married to a nightclub singer (Carole Lombard). Terrorized by her husband (Laughton), she begins a relationship with one of his employees. Though he did not think fondly of the film and disliked working with Lombard, who he said was not a "controlled actress," Laughton's overblown performance among the headhunters and spear fights of the jungle makes the film a real joy. During filming, Laughton insisted that Ravel's Bolero be played in between takes to sustain the tense jungle atmosphere. Archival 35mm, not available on DVD

Willard Hyuck & Gloria Katz, 1972 • A woman travels to an isolated California town to search for her missing father. She finds the town all but deserted, except for two travelers who have taken up residence in her father's home. Both unable to escape, they make the most of their empty lives until they find themselves confronted by the rest of the townspeople—a group of zombies who seek to transform all humans into followers of a mysterious man who emerged from the ocean. A lyrically photographed scope masterpiece directed by the writing team who, the following year, scripted AMERICAN GRAFFITTI! Archival 35mm, not available on DVD

Robert Kenner, 2008 • A concise course on modern farms and the American food system created to inform anyone who eats, this collaboration with mainstream food figures like Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan combines investigation with alarming MATRIX type imagery of endless grain fields ruled by giant threshers to drive home the anti-industrial-farm gospel: that, contrary to the beliefs of the last six decades, cheap food isn't good food, access to healthful sustenance has become greatly unjust, and the agenda of the governmental agencies concerned is due for adjustment. 35mm

Professor Pam Martin will hold a discussion between shows. Thanks to the Program on the Global Environment.

Carlos Cuaron, 2008 • Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna star as simple brothers that get a chance to make it big in Mexico City after a scout sees them play soccer. Soon enough, the seductions of the big city become too much for Rudo and Cursi, who are unable to leave their unsophisticated ways back on the banana plantation. Competing ambitions also set the brothers at odds. This satire of soccer culture and the unrealistic aspirations created by its few success stories goes light on the serious themes for an amusing film carried by the chemistry of its leading duo. 35mm

Frank Capra, 1931 • As an indication of Capra's status in Hollywood at the time, Dirigible was the first Columbia Pictures production to open at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Taking place in a time of South Pole exploration, two pilots attempt an expedition using both lighter than air and fixed wing aircraft. Notable for being filmed in Lakehurst, New Jersey where the Hindenburg would burst into flames six years later. In addition, the South Pole scenes were filmed in the sweltering heat of the San Gabriel Valley, using of bleached corn flakes and dry ice placed in the mouths of the actors. 35mm, not available on DVD

Directory and release date TBA • With Sony Pictures Classics President Michael Barker. TBA

Sponsored by the Committee on Cinema and Media Studies, the Division of Humanities, the France Chicago Center, Fire Escape Films, and Doc Films. Free event. University students, faculty, and staff only.

Laurie Anderson, 1986 • Five years after landing a surprise pop hit with "O Superman," performance artist (and Glen Ellyn, Illinois native) Laurie Anderson directed her own concert film while touring in support of her album "Mister Heartbreak." Playing violin and synthesizer along with a full band, she layers poetry on top of electronic music in this innovative multimedia performance, and her deadpan observations are at once hilarious and spooky. William S. Burroughs, the inspiration for her song "Language is a Virus," also appears on stage at one point to dance a tango with Anderson. Laserdisc, not available on DVD

François Truffaut, 1966 • Jokingly referring to his adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Truffaut wrote, "There will be as many literary references... as in all Jean-Luc's eleven movies put together." And indeed, the film is as much paean to literature as it is an adaptation of the novel. Fahrenheit 451 retains Bradbury's story of Montag (Oskar Werner), a fireman in a future society who oversees the burning of books, but rediscovers literature through a relationship with the liberated Clarisse (Julie Christie, also playing Montag's wife Linda). Truffaut expertly captures the paranoia and excitement of the original. 35mm

Alexander Korda, 1933 • Never is Laughton given license to let loose and chew scenery more than in this star-making turn as the titular monarch. Henry blusters his way through five marriages, contending with wives and lovers played by likes of Merle Oberon, Binnie Barnes, Robert Donat, and Laughton's real-life wife Elsa Lanchester. Tremendous fun and gleefully inaccurate, the film's worldwide success became a major breakthrough not only for Laughton, but for British cinema as a whole. Laughton would again collaborate with Alexander Korda on the equally excellent historical biopic Rembrandt. 16mm

L.Q. Jones, 1975 • Directed by the mysterious L.Q. Jones, A Boy & His Dog presented itself as "a future you will probably live to see." Don Johnson is Vic, a young man wandering around a nuclear holocaust desert with his telepathic dog, Blood. While Blood searches for food, Vic is on a quest for visceral pleasures and sex. Their journey takes them through a cold and angry world, much like the one which existed before the war, and as their relative interests prove less and less feasible, they unwittingly become a part of the world they had so smugly dismissed. Thirty years later, the metaphor remains poignant. 35mm

Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, 2009 • Pressured to abandon his home and move into a retirement center, the eccentric and lovable Carl Frederickson shows his neighbors and disbelievers what's Up—literally. Thousands of vibrant balloons emerge from his home, as Carl fulfills his lifelong promise to his beloved wife Ellie, discovers his young spirit, and embarks on a wild adventure to Paradise Falls. Joined by a young stowaway named Russell, the two encounter talking dogs, an unlikely villain, and a colorful rare bird. Pixar delivers another animated film that soars. 35mm

David Yates, 2009 • Everything and nothing goes according to plan as Dumbledore investigates Lord Voldemort's origins, Draco takes a larger role among the Death Eaters, and Snape plays double agent for both sides. J.K. Rowling's more humorous portrayal of the protagonists' love lives is replaced by dramatic bedside scenes, but we are more than repaid by some stunning special effects. With 652 pages cut to fit 153 minutes, many nuances and entire subplots were inevitably lost, but let's try to get past that and enjoy the ride. 35mm

Frank Capra, 1931 • Based upon the life of Los Angeles-based evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, Barbara Stanwyck's second film with Capra resulted in this portrayal of the daughter of a long-serving minister who, after her father is replaced with a younger, shinier preacher, curses his congregation for their utter hypocrisy. She vows to transform her anger into cash through the exploitation of blind faith. Her new identity is "Sister Fallon," who performs bogus miracles in return for donations. Her scheme works well until the unexpected happens: she falls for a handsome blind man, portrayed by David Manners. 35mm, not available on DVD

Michael Mann, 1992 • Against the backdrop of the French and Indian War, the adopted Mohegan woodsman Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) becomes embroiled in the lives of British settlers who suffer the retributive justice of the Huron, allies of the French. Few classical Western tropes clutter this historical romance, whose keen sense of spectacle is directed toward other purpose. Mann frames his figures in spacious, wilderness tableau, deliberately evocative of the period's romantic tradition, and instructing us that a new world violently cleansed of laws and assumptions loomed very large. 35mm

Tom Bowes, 1985 • Founded in the early '70s by Steina and Woody Vasulka, The Kitchen became one of the most important art spaces of the downtown scene. Located in the kitchen of the Mercer Arts center, it started as a space for video art, but eventually expanded to include artists across several disciplines, as illustrated in this film. Originally filmed as a television project, Two Moon July is a unique document of this community, bringing together many of its talented artists, including David Byrne, Bill T. Jones, Laurie Anderson, Cindy Sherman, John and Evan Lurie, Philip Glass, Brian Eno, Robert Longo, and Bill Viola. DVD, not available on DVD

Basil Dearden, 1961 • Melville Farr, played by actor Dirk Bogarde, plays a married, successful judge who is hiding the fact he is homosexual. When he starts getting blackmailed by hoodlums who have killed his lover, Farr puts his marriage, career, and life on the line by deciding to fight back. Initially banned in the United States,Victim made history by being the first English language film to use the word "homosexual." DVD
This film is co-sponsored by the LGBTQ Programming Office and Doc Films in celebration of OUTober. Please visit http://outober.uchicago.edu/events.shtml for more information.

François Truffaut, 1968 & 1962 • The third entry in Truffaut's series of Antoine Doinel films finds Truffaut's doppelganger unsuccessfully transitioning to adulthood. Following a discharge from the army for being "unfit", Antoine returns to Paris to find work. He works an array of positions, none of which he is particularly skilled at. Throughout his occupational travails he must placate the continued frustration of his girlfriend Christine. Truffaut depicts Antoine's vocational and relationship difficulties humorously, reveling in his alter ego's nonchalance. Part 2 of the Doinel story, Antoine and Collette, will follow. 35mm

Robert Siodmak, 1944 • One of director Robert Siodmak's best works, this film noir, set in 1902 London, stars Laughton as a bank teller with a horrid wife (Rosalind Ivan). He begins an innocent friendship with the young and beautiful Mary Gray (Ella Raines), but his wife learns of it and is consumed with rage. Laughton then kills his wife and covers it up as an accident, but of course, he still raises the suspicions of a Scotland Yard inspector, as well as his neighbor. The result is a classic suspense tale, taut and finely crafted, largely thanks to the excellent performance of Laughton. 35mm, not available on DVD

Paul Bartel, 1975 • This blistering black comedy satire is set after the third world war of 1979. The U.S. has been split up into various provinces which are governed over by one semi-dictatorial leader. Every year, the Transcontinental-Road-Race is held, in which drivers score points by running down as many citizens as they can (different point values are allotted for each type of person). However, an underground organization is also at work, trying to eliminate both the race and The Leader by any means necessary. They have secretly placed an agent to act as the assistant to top racer, Frankenstein (David Carradine). 35mm

Woody Allen, 2009 • Larry David plays a neurotic (of course) former physicist named Boris Yellnikof who grumpily gives chess lessons to rich kids while he mocks all of humankind. His mordant cynicism encounters a wall in the form of the blithe young Melody St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Woods), a runaway who appears on his doorstep and ends up permanently settled in his apartment. Sparks and insults fly when her parents storm into New York to take her back. After filming his last several films abroad, Allen returns here to his native Manhattan, and his comfort is evident. 35mm

Jim Jarmusch, 2009 • Jarmusch's latest concerns a criminal job in Spain and the lone wolf who must carry it out (a captivating Isaach De Bankolé). Chicago film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum calls this film Jarmusch's best since DEAD MAN. Bill Murray cameos as the "American", a role as wonderful and creepy as it sounds. 35mm

Sam Raimi, 1987 • Everyone's favorite chainsaw-wielding badass Ash Williams (a chin-tastic Bruce Campbell) returns in this hilarious horror classic that is equal parts gore and slapstick. Ash takes on endless hordes of demons armed with his wit, his trusty boomstick, and any other undead-killing objects within hand's reach. Will he be dead by dawn? Come and find out! Tickets are $5, but come in a costume and admission is free! 35mm
Note: EVIL DEAD II replaces the canceled screening of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, originally scheduled for Halloween night.

Frank Capra, 1931 • Stew Smith (Robert Williams) is a reporter covering a scandal that has thrust a wealthy family uncomfortably into the headlines. As he gets closer to the family, he becomes interested in the snobby but beautiful daughter, Anne Schuyler (Jean Harlow). The two elope, but their opposite backgrounds threaten the marriage as Smith starts spending more time with his 'pal', female reporter Gallagher (Loretta Young). This film is an early example of the screwball comedy, and was renamed prior to release due to the popularity of third-billed star Harlow, who shares a nickname with the new title. 35mm

Michael Mann, 1995 • This grand soap opera has earned its reputation for superficial reasons. The celebrated scene between Pacino and de Niro is electrifying only by virtue of its precise place in a scenario where their characters initially encounter each other as parcels of information, a quality which, combined with their dialogue's almost humorous self-reflexivity, suggests the scene (and the film) works on three interacting planes, as a drama of human connection refracted through imagery, as a reflection upon the artists' own dubious relevance, and as a theory of history as the collision of egos. 35mm

Edo Bertoglio, 1981 • Also known as New York Beat Movie, Downtown 81 is a fascinating portrait of the New York scene in the early '80s. The then-unknown Jean-Michel Basquiat stars as a character much like himself, who spends the day wandering the Lower East Side, encountering many notable figures from the scene, including Debbie Harry, the Plastics, and John Lurie. Glenn O'Brien, host of the infamous public access show TV Party, wrote the screenplay. Financing issues caused the film to be abandoned until 2001. As much of the original soundtrack was lost, Basquiat's dialog was re-recorded by actor and poet Saul Williams. 35mm, not available on DVD

Olatunde Osunsanmi, 2009 • Doc is proud to present a special advance screening of Universal Pictures' new film, THE FOURTH KIND. From their website: "In 1972, a scale of measurement was established for alien encounters. When a UFO is sighted, it is called an encounter of the first kind. When evidence is collected, it is known as an encounter of the second kind. When contact is made with extraterrestrials, it is the third kind. The next level, abduction, is the fourth kind. This encounter has been the most difficult to document... until now." 35mm

François Truffaut, 1970 • Based on a case study of Dr. Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, The Wild Child approaches Truffaut's pet subject of childhood from a distinct and original perspective. In his first acting role, Truffaut plays Dr. Itard, who takes under his care 'Victor' (Jean-Pierre Cargol), a boy discovered in Southern France who appears to have lived in the wild since early childhood, and attempts to teach him to speak and understand language. An example of Truffaut as a formalist, The Wild Child sees him adopting visual aspects of silent cinema to underlie the boy's emotional discovery of language and communication. 35mm

Cecil B. DeMille, 1932 • In making this Roman epic, his comeback project at Paramount, DeMille met with tremendous resistance by the studio, forcing him to recreate ancient Rome on a modest budget. Perhaps distracted by these struggles, DeMille allowed Laughton to transform his interpretation of Emperor Nero into a raging queen, complete with a nude, nubile young man sitting by his side. The film became a hit, yet for decades faced censorship battles, including over an infamous scene where Claudette Colbert bathes in milk. This archival print, restored from DeMille's personal copy, returns the film to its uncut form. Archival 35mm

Lucio Fulci, 1981 • Lucio Fulci's The Beyond ranks as one of the most notorious and gore-filled "end-of-the-world" fables ever to find its way to the screen. A young woman inherits an old former hotel in rural Louisiana and decides to repair it. However, a series of strange and bloody accidents soon befall anyone involved with the project. With the help of a local doctor, she begins to investigate the history of the hotel and soon begins to believe the building was constructed on top of an entrance to hell, and that the door has been opened, putting into effect the events which will destroy the world. 35mm

Larry Charles, 2009 • British comic Sacha Baron Cohen returns with another gleefully offensive mockumentary that embarrasses just about everyone on its way to the top of the box office. Just as Borat mocked Kazakhs as a roundabout way of skewering America's own xenophobic bigots, so does Bruno use a caricatured gay Austrian would-be fashion superstar to assault homophobia and vapid Hollywood culture, although the subtlety of Borat has toned down in favor of more dick jokes. Casualties of Cohen's fabulous rampage include Harrison Ford and a sympathetic Ron Paul. 35mm

Corneliu Porumboiu, 2006 • It's December 22nd. 16 years have passed since the Romanian Revolution. In this absurdist comedy (set by director Corneliu Porumoiu in his own provincial hometown of Vaslui), an old retiree is getting ready to spend another Christmas by himself, while a nearby history teacher struggles with debts. The owner of the local TV station decides to put them both on the air and finally address the question: "Was there a revolution in our town or not?" DVD
This screening is part of "With Immediate Effect": The Events of 1989 Revisited event series. All events are free and open to the public.
The series is cosponsored by the International House Global Voices Program, Doc Films, and the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies.
Persons with disabilities who may need assistance should contact the Office of Programs & External Relations in advance of the program at 773-753-2274.

Michael Mann, 2009 • Death is always present in this film, Mann's masterpiece to date. Cop or robber, gravity effects us all in the same way. This is a serious film, whose gangster glamour and action thrills are all engineered toward creating an extreme situation, a matter of life and death in which all the characters are embroiled. The whisky, the fast cars, the guns and the clothes speak volumes on how these people of 1933 live, the speed at which they live. Johnny Depp's John Dillinger has no long-term plans. It's just him and his girl, living for each other, living to have everything. Right now. 35mm

Frank Capra, 1934 • Dan Brooks (Warner Baxter) is a carefree member of a wealthy, respected family. His cold but socially correct wife Margaret (Helen Vinson) forces her husband into the family business, but Brooks prefers to spend his time at the racetrack. He purchases a horse named Broadway Bill and tries to make it a winner. Only Brooks' sister-in-law (Myrna Loy) and stable hand Whitey (Clarence Muse) have faith in Broadway Bill. As Brooks races the horse and keeps one step ahead of the creditors and gamblers, his relationship with his sister-in-law takes an unexpected turn. 35mm, not available on DVD

Michael Mann, 1999 • This film inaugurated Mann's hitherto preferred idiom, defined by elaborate reportage-style camera setups, and a precisely rhythmic montage of disorientation and imbalance. The result is a pervasive sense of urgency, befitting an adaptation of true events. It's Mann's most political film. The dilemma of an ex-tobacco scientist who risks prison by interviewing for 60 Minutes is paralleled to that of the producer who fights to preserve the segment from censorship, as both face the insubstantiality of their professional integrity in a bewilderingly compromised corporate America. 35mm

David Byrne, 1986 • Featuring a score by Talking Heads, True Stories is a beautiful, bizarre take on small town life. Byrne, sporting a ten-gallon cowboy hat, guides us through the fictional town of Virgil, Texas, as its citizens prepare for the "Celebration of Special-ness." Inspired by headlines from tabloids, the film wanders from character to character, such as the woman who never leaves her bed, the man with a radio in his head (the inspiration for the British band's name), and the engineer with the consistent panda bear shape looking for love. The result is an intruiging variation on the traditional American musical. 35mm

Werner Herzog, 2009 • Come out for a special advance screening of Werner Herzog's newest film, BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS, starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer and Xzibit. A Q&A with the film's producers, Gabe & Alan Polsky, will follow after the screening. The special event is sponsored in conjunction with First Look Studios. The screening is free and open to the public. Invite all your friends!

François Truffaut, 1969 • An homage to Alfred Hitchcock, Mississippi Mermaid illuminates the influence of American cinema on Truffaut. Adapted from a novel by William Irish, the film stars two celebrities of the French New Wave, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Catherine Deneuve as two lovers on the lam. Truffaut uses the story of romantic tobacco farmer Louis and his con-artist mail-order bride Julie (a.k.a. Marion) to explore the depths of sexual obsession. Transposing the typical bleak urban setting of film noir to lush African and French locales, Truffaut deftly recreates the tropes of noir to his own cinematic means. 35mm

Billy Wilder, 1957 • Billy Wilder adapts this thrilling mystery by Agatha Christie to great effect. Laughton plays Sir Wilfred Robards, a successful British attorney defending Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power) against a murder charge, despite his poor health. Sir Robards is shocked to discover that Vole's wife, played by Marlene Dietrich, plans on appearing as a witness for the prosecution. Elsa Lanchester also appears, and both husband and wife would eventually be rewarded with Oscar nominations. The twisting plot and the witty dialog make it a classic, whether you're a fan of Wilder or Christie. 35mm

Phillip Kaufman, 1978 • Kaufman's 1978 adaptation of the short story The Body Snatchers remains its most startling cinematic interpretation. Set in San Francisco, Donald Sutherland plays a health inspector who becomes involved in an alien plot to replace the human population of earth with identical beings. As the world around him slowly begins to collapse, Southerland struggles to not only save his life, but his sanity. Rich with striking scope imagery, thanks to cinematographer Michael Chapman, and dark allusions to Communism and conformism, Kaufman presents a brutal vision of an all too plausible vision of society. 35mm

Kathryn Bigelow, 2009 • This electrifying, superbly crafted drama catalogues the moment-to-moment terror that a U.S. bomb-disposal squad in Baghdad faces every day. Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) puts himself and his comrades at risk with his cocksure, devil-may-care behavior, and tension within the squad escalates with each defusal. While avoiding any narrow ideological line, Bigelow's kinetic and powerful epic illuminates the damages that combat life inflicts on the soldiers whose lives hinge precariously on loose wires. 5mm

Marc Webb, 2009 • That dorky and lovable Joseph Gordon-Levitt from 10 Things I Hate About You returns to the romantic comedy, perfectly fitting the role of Tom Hansen, a hopeless romantic coping with love had and lost. The recently broken-up Tom replays the intimate moments and 500 Days shared with the enchanting Summer Flynn (Zooey Deschanel). With the help of his friends and his sister, he overcomes his heartache and discovers something essential about himself. The achronological narrative, captivating acting, and impeccable soundtrack makes this offbeat romantic comedy sparkle. 35mm

Frank Capra, 1934 • Ellen 'Ellie' Andrews (Claudette Colbert) is the runaway bride, a poor little rich girl, who meets up with the worldly reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable) while on the lam from her family and would-be husband. The bus and automobile road-trip romance of Colbert and Gable remains one of Hollywood's most endearing love stories. The film was both a critical and a popular success, becoming the first to win the five top Oscars (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Directing and Adapted Screenplay). As a result, the film is often (unjustly) credited with launching screwball comedy as a genre. 35mm

Michael Mann, 2001 • Mann's most free form picture, alternately evoking epic song, jazz and pastiche, shapes a series of painstakingly reconstructed moments from Muhammad Ali's life into cathartic drama. The plot, which encompasses a decade framed by two of Ali's greatest fights, renders history a maelstrom of images, a dazzling array of figures and events, at the nucleus of which there is an apparition of rapturous physical grace and maddening vanity. For Mann, this is Ali, a breath of defiance, which liberates the world, a murmur, which echoes across public, private, foreign and domestic space. 35mm

Jonathan Demme, 1987 • In the first of his filmed monologues, Spalding Gray recounts his experiences in Southeast Asia filming his supporting role in The Killing Fields. Armed only with a glass of water, a writing pad, and a map, he provides a compelling example of storytelling at its finest. Gray, a co-founder of the experimental theatre company the Wooster Group, pioneered in this film a form of autobiographical one-man-show whose influence is still seen today. Demme's minimalistic direction gives room to focus on Gray's hilarious and touching anecdotes, while Laurie Anderson provides an appropriately haunting score. 35mm, not available on DVD

François Truffaut, 1970 • Antoine Doinel continues his life of rebellion and mischief in Bed and Board, this time antagonized by his boredom with married life. Settling down with Christine (Claude Jade), Antoine works painting flowers in the same courtyard where his wife teaches violin. There complacency is jeopardized when Antoine begins an affair with a Japanese girl, Kyoko (Hiroko Berghauer). With typical acerbic wit, Truffaut addresses the inherent banality of marital comfort (every time the married couple is seen in bed they are reading), eschewing any notion of romance in Antoine and Christine's eventual reunion. 35mm

Otto Preminger, 1962 • While battling bone cancer, Charles Laughton made his final screen appearance in Otto Preminger's slow-burning adaptation of Drury's Pulitzer Prize-winning political novel. Henry Fonda plays Robert Leffingwell, a liberal appointed by the President to serve as Secretary of State, sparking an intense confirmation battle that puts the careers of several politicians in jeopardy. Players in the drama include Burgess Meredith, Walter Pidgeon, and Laughton donning a southern drawl as a fiery senator from South Carolina. Preminger reportedly also offered a role to Martin Luther King, Jr., who declined. Archival 35mm

Preserved by the Academy Film Archive with funding from the Andrew J. Kuehn Jr. Foundation.

Enzo Castellari, 1982 • Set in the dystopian near future of New York City, The Bronx Warriors pits a malicious and street smart cop against a gang of post-punk murderers operating the city's dangerous underground. Enzo Castellari's vision of the future is ripe with over the top stylization and tremendously choreographed fight scenes all set in a dream like near future. Featuring blaxploitation cinema stalwart actor and director Fred Williamson and culminating in one of the most outrageous battle scenes ever filmed, The Bronx Warriors is a dazzling example of early 80s Italian exploitation filmmaking. 35mm

Francis Ford Coppola, 2009 • Coppola's latest invokes the force and scale of classical drama. Tetro (Vincent Gallo), the son of a renowned conductor, lives away from home in Argentina with his devoted girlfriend, Miranda (Maribel Verdu). When his younger brother (Alden Ehrenreich) arrives, Tetro fears that his intrusion will unearth old family secrets that caused his exile in the first place. Exquisitely shot in black and white (with flashbacks in color), Tetro is a domestic saga that glories in the intensity of human passions. 35mm
Note: This film will be preceded by a conversation between the film's composer, Osvaldo Golijov, and Associate Professor of Music in the College Berthold Hoeckner. This event is co-sponsored the the University of Chicago Artspeaks series. Please visit http://artspeaks.uchicago.edu for more information.

Judd Apatow, 2009 • The joke's on Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen in Apatow's latest, a comedy about comedians that steers fart jokes and romance toward a moral finish. Ailing funnyman George Simmons (Sandler) calls on an up-and-coming stand-up guy (Rogen) to apprentice for him, before serendipity entices both to make half-baked attempts at winning back that elusive female. Jason Schwartzman and Jonah Hill do much to round out the comic relief, but lessons about family from the director's own wife (Leslie Mann) and kids end things on a sobering note about the sad lives of funny people. 35mm

Frank Capra, 1937 • British diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) rescues several westerners from war-torn China only to have their plane crash in the Himalayas. The survivors are taken to the mysterious and legendary Shangri-La, a majestic sanctuary that offers refuge from the strife of the 1930s. Art Director Stephen Goosson's colossal sets stunningly depict the mythical paradise. Goosson employed a dazzling mixture of screen deco and Hollywood exoticism, and his sets, which often rose over 90 feet high, were largely responsible for the film's budget of $1.25 million, the largest in Columbia's history. 35mm

Michael Mann, 2004 • Mann's first Hi-def feature imbues a potboiler setup about a hitman landing in a neurotic cabby's backseat with real world significance by enveloping the script's dense, allusive dialogues in layer after layer of Los Angeles's ecology. Constituting a return to the lonely, intimate key of Mann's early work, the film becomes a study of disparate people's perspectival collisions, and the tenuous potential for human connection in an interstitial landscape of dispersed possibilities. Here a taxi's warm interior light reveals characters isolated by their own dreams. 35mm

Jonathan Demme, 1984 • Beginning with David Byrne performing "Psycho Killer" alone with a drum machine and growing to an enormous band with backup dancers, this classic concert film catches Talking Heads at the height of their global success. By this point, Byrne had developed into one of music's great showmen, and moments from his performance—dancing with a lampshade, jogging in a circle around the stage, and donning his famous big suit—have since become iconic. Demme's fluid direction helps make this, along with >i/i<, one of the greatest rock n' roll films ever made. Thanks! Does anybody have any questions? 35mm

Various directors, 1966 • Presented by Doc Films in conjunction with the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs 16mm, not available on DVD

François Truffaut, 1979 • Love on the Run begins with the end of Antoine Doinel's marriage. Now in his thirties, Antoine, newly single, pens an autobiographical novel and falls in love with record store clerk Sabine (Dorothée), but his past continues to manifest through random meetings with former lover Collette and his mother's "Number One Lover" Monsieur Lucien. Truffaut ends this series of films by both looking back (using clips of the previous films) and offering a sense of hope in Antoine's future, through his new love and vocation, as he belatedly transitions from the brash, arrested-adolescent into adulthood. 35mm

Frank Capra, 1938 • Wall Street robber baron's son Tony Kirby (James Stewart) is engaged to Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), who lives in a very unconventional household headed by her philosophical Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore). Mother writes plays, Father makes fireworks in the basement, and Alice's sister and brother-in-law spend most of their time singing and dancing. Boarders and friends add to the mixture of vivid personalities living together in benevolent chaos. But Tony's father (Edward Arnold) has secret plans to acquire Grandpa Vanderhof's home and land, threatening to displace this harmonious commune. 35mm

Michael Mann, 2006 • This post-9/11 rejoinder to his Reagan-era television phenomenon finds Mann returning to the framework of a popular subgenre as a pretext to examine the spaces and practices of illicit goods markets on a more global scale. The result is a dire blockbuster about the everyday identity crises facing individuals undercover. Its major theme, the interaction of surface and depth, is expressed in a stark tonal alternation between sun-burnished daytime and viscous nighttime imagery, rendered in cool Hi-Def video. At once, there is unearthly Miami, and the vice transacted on its ports. 35mm

Meredith Monk, 1981 & 1988 • Monk, a filmmaker, choreographer, and composer, filmed Ellis Island at the famous port of entry before its 1990 restoration. Described by Monk as a "ghost story told through the musicality of images," it blends fiction, documentary, and dance to explore the story of the millions of immigrants who passed through. In the dreamlike Book of Days, Monk juxtaposes black and white depictions of the tumult of the Middle Ages with color scenes of a contemporary AIDS-plagued world. Music, dance, and stunning cinematography mix into a haunting and often humorous meditation on the transparency of time. 35mm, not available on DVD

François Truffaut, 1980 • In German-occupied Paris, a theatre company attempts to stage a production while their Jewish director hides in the cellar and Nazi collaborators keep them under heavy surveillance. Star actress Marion (Catherine Deneuve), the director's wife, and leading man Bernard (Gerard Depardieu), must resist the temptation of their growing affection. Truffaut's story of bravery in occupied France eschews heroic gestures to ruminate on the parallels between art and political conviction. Never an overtly political filmmaker, Truffaut manages to combine effectively combine personal and political turmoil. 35mm

Charles Laughton, 1955 • It's difficult to encapsulate the power of The Night of the Hunter, the greatest directorial debut this side of Citizen Kane, which, sadly, would also be Laughton's only directorial credit. Robert Mitchum gives one of film's most iconic performances as a sinful preacher who marries a fragile widow so that he can torture her two children into revealing the location of a hidden fortune. Pulitzer Prize-winner James Agee wrote the screenplay, with Laughton himself providing an uncredited rewrite. A terrifying slice of Americana filled with haunting imagery, this is, simply put, as good as cinema gets. Archival 35mm

George Romero, 1985 • The third (and originally final) installment in George A. Romero's ongoing zombie saga presents a world overtaken by the living dead, with a few lonely human survivors taking refuge in an abandoned military base. The nomadic soldiers try to continue living a sort of "normal" existence but the impending threat of death grows ever nearer. Although notable for its sequences of extreme gore (created by acclaimed makeup artist, Tom Savini), Romero's focus is on zombies as metaphor, in this case for militarism. Day of the Dead is perhaps Romero's most unsettling work. 35mm

Nora Ephron, 2009 • Declaring your intention of blogging through every recipe in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in a single year may seem routine these days, but a few short years ago Julie Powell was stuck in a cubicle without even a cassoulet under her belt, to say nothing of books and a movie. Julie and Julia switches between Amy Adams as Powell in those unhappy years and Meryl Streep as an eccentric Child whose decision to enroll at the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris as a bored diplomat's wife has unexpectedly large significance. 35mm

Quentin Tarantino, 2009 • Ready to kill some Nazis? Tarantino's sixth feature pushes the envelope in plenty of ways, and his depictions of Nazis and Jews alike transport us to a riff on World War II in which the avengers (Brad Pitt and B.J. Novak, among others) and villains (a marvelous Christoph Waltz as SS Colonel Landa) are all having way more fun than seems appropriate. With the tastelessness comes plenty of breathtaking cinematography and witty dialogue, so long as you're willing to check your disbelief and sense of moral outrage at the cinema door. 35mm