CRUCIAL VIEWING
Raul Ruiz's THREE CROWNS OF THE SAILOR (French Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Monday, 9pm
Those of us who pined from afar over last December's Raul Ruiz retrospective at New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center now have an opportunity to see a gem in this artist's over-100-film oeuvre, THREE CROWNS OF THE SAILOR. As James Monaco put it, Raul Ruiz, who died in 2011, provided "more intellectual fun and artistic experimentation, shot for shot, than any filmmaker since Jean-Luc Godard." He was "a poet of fantastic images whose films slip effortlessly from reality to imagination and back again...A manipulator of wild, intellectual games" and labyrinthine narratives. As a boy who loved Lewis Carroll, this all connects with me. The Film Society's capsule for THREE CROWNS gives us the situation ("an encounter between a student who has just committed a brutal murder and a drunken sailor") and the setting ("brothels and Latin American ports" which "Ruiz and master cinematographer Sacha Vierny fashioned out of real locations in Paris and Portugal using a series of ingenious optical effects.") THREE CROWNS was the first Ruiz film to enjoy relatively wide international exposure, though Jonathan Rosenbaum feels it may have made "a less than ideal introduction to Ruiz's work for viewers on this side of the Atlantic," in that it is "difficult to absorb without any understanding of Ruiz as a multifaceted phenomenon." However, he praises "the film's dazzling employment of wide-angle, deep-focus color photography (intermittently suggesting a comic book version of Welles) and many arresting and disturbing surrealist conceits." Who, then, was Ruiz? An artist who, according to Tony Pipolo, had an unmatched "passion for and knowledge of international literature," he fled his native Chile during the fascist coup against Salvador Allende in 1973, living in exile in Paris ever after. According to Adam Thirlwell, his career of "can be understood as a sustained resistance, a manic guerrilla operation, against two forms of power: the violence of Pinochet’s dictatorship, and the control on conventional movie-making exerted by Hollywood." For Rosenbaum, his films defy classification, except in their unpredictability and their sense of "pure stylistic play." They are "closet comedies bent on undercutting" virtually all forms of solemnity. (Monaco notes his B-movie influence and his refusal to differentiate between "high" and "low" art.) For Dave Kehr, Ruiz was "the only real maker of fantasy films I know of," meaning his work is fantastic on the level of form, not just content. The "interpenetration of form and content—this endless circulation, really, of form into story into form into story—is the basis of Ruiz's cinema," creating "beautiful blurrings of sense" in which Ruiz's system of imagining "devours" the system of language, with images finally "free to signify everything and nothing." Finally, David Thomson feels "you could have a terrific time with" THREE CROWNS, adding that "especially if you're American, Ruiz is one of those figures you owe it to yourself to sample, to become obsessed with, for all the wonderful non-American ways he knows of holding the screen and turning your passing involvement into a critical model of what it is to be you." (1983, 117 min, 35mm) SP
Lois Weber’s THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI (Silent American Revival)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 3pm and Thursday, 6pm
Lois Weber’s films are nothing if not intimate, as modest and, at times, even priggish as they are compelling and audacious. Perhaps, then, the true testament of her inherent gift for filmmaking, separate from her personal inclinations—often the defining factor of a director’s endowment—is her 1916 film THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI. When made, it was Universal’s biggest production to date, and it’s a notable departure from Weber's earlier films, including two she made the same year that recently played in the Film Center’s “Lois Weber: Pioneer Progressive Filmmaker” series: SHOES and WHERE ARE MY CHILDREN? The mise-en-scène in those pared-down features aligns with her thematic fixations. Dingy quarters, a cracked mirror, and, of course, desperately worn-out shoes dramatize the protagonist's dire poverty in the former, and in the latter, a variety of settings with carefully chosen decor highlight both the shallow preoccupations and assumed moral superiority of a partite middle class; tight, precisely composed medium shots in both add further ponderance. Intending to rival other silent epics, including D.W. Griffith’s INTOLERANCE, Universal chose a source decidedly more capacious than anything Weber had worked with before. They did so in large part because of Anna Pavlova, a prima ballerina from Russia who traveled the world to widespread acclaim and had frequently performed the role of Fenella in the eponymous 1828 opera by D.F.E. Auber. Though it was her first and only foray into film, she had something in common with Weber, whose experience and success in the industry was matched only by a select few, most of whom were men: both were in debt, thus leading to the circumstances in which one of film’s most ingenious directors and one of ballet’s most renowned dancers worked together to create a masterpiece of early cinema. Pavlova’s electric performance and Weber’s formally scrupulous direction create an irresistible dynamic; one is likewise captivated by the dancer’s sinewy movements as they are by the director’s near-perfect compositions. Its story, appropriately operatic in nature, is similarly appealing: Fenella is a mute but spritely peasant whose fisherman brother is a de facto leader amongst their class. Its political drama stems from the peasants’ dissatisfaction with Spanish rule and all its accompanying taxes; the romantic drama arises from Fenella’s affair with the Viceroy’s son, who goes undercover to experience the peasant lifestyle and is soon enticed by her joie de vivre, silent though she may be. Shot in Chicago (at the Palace of Fine Arts and an abandoned amusement park called San Souci) and Universal City in Los Angeles, its scale certainly rivals other epics of its time, from convincing seaside huts to a garish palace. Perhaps in spite of its magnitude, Weber manages to retain the visual flourishes that distinguish her work. Also impressive are “bookend” scenes seemingly detached from the story that depict Pavlova dancing against a stark black background. The effect is reminiscent of Maya Deren, an uncanny connection that adds gravitas to Weber’s assertion that she “like[d] to direct because [she] believe[d] a woman, more or less intuitively, brings out many of the emotions that are rarely expressed on the screen.” The response to the film was tepid, and Weber declined to continue on a so-called epic career path, opting instead for the socially oriented fare for which she’s best known. Regardless, THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI is a force to be reckoned with, perhaps even more so because of its distinction within her oeuvre. (1916, 112 min, DCP Digital; New Restoration) KS
Christophe Honoré’s METAMORPHOSES (New French)
Facets Cinémathèque – Check Venue website for showtimes
Of all the pleasures I’ve earned, surely one of the most delicious and wonderful was reaching the point in high school when I was able to successfully struggle through selections of Ovid’s great anti-epic poem, Metamorphoses. Slipping through its sonorous, flowing rhythms, its images pendulating like crystal ornaments of tones arrested at the very moment a chord is about to cohere, reading Ovid’s linked collection of shapechanging, travel, and discovery had a way of enchanting the whole of the world around me, infusing every glisten on every dewy leaf and every rippling of muscle underneath the skin of person or beast with silent music and dolorous perfection. Each second was a cataract of change in a sea of permanent, aching, hungry flux. Watching Christophe Honoré’s movie, a gorgeous and haunting adaptation of Ovid’s book, somehow manages to capture that transformative power better than I ever would have predicted. Absent are the Harryhausen-like effects that might be expected in a narrative that features a handful of plucked-out eyeballs turning into peacocks, a woman transforming into a heifer, an elderly married couple becoming entwined trees, and a man rooting into the soil and reforming into a flower. Honoré is far too sophisticated and gifted a director to depend upon the tactics of amazement and displays of technical virtuosity that mere depiction would bring to this work. For his movie is not about the fact of metamorphosis but rather about the wonder of it. Taking his cue from Buñuel’s estranging of the natural world, Honoré plays a delicate game with on- and off-screen spaces, with unnervingly distorted landscapes and teasingly obfuscating framing that prevents the myriad becomings and unbecomings featured in the disconnected plotline from being explained away as aberrant or unusual or strange. The world of METAMORPHOSES is a world that is always turning into something, a world that isn’t punctuated with moments of magic but which is magic itself, a realm of impossibility and graceful, dignified shock. Within it, Honoré stages a series of remarkable moments each overstuffed with glowing meaning. A hunter accidentally catches sight of a forbidden nakedness. A naked man makes love to a clump of reeds. A blind, cursed doctor divines the future of an infant. Two lovers fuck so powerfully they become lions. Honoré’s images are rigorously carnal—even the plant life seems visually to yearn for erotic contact—and every shot is charged with the possibility that it might well be showing us the only things in the world at that moment that are not exploding. Like his source text, Honoré recognizes that this is no tale of innocence and joy but of need and horror and the agony of never finding any safe, stable, stillness, and his METAMORPHOSES is a work of terrible, incredible beauty, sadness, and power. (2014, 102 min, Video Projection – Unconfirmed Format) KB
Douglas Trumbull's SILENT RUNNING (American Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Saturday, 7 and 9pm and Sunday, 3:45pm
Douglas Trumbull is most famous for being the special effects virtuoso behind 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, BLADE RUNNER, and THE TREE OF LIFE, but he has also taken on the director's role for small handful of films. Trumbull's SILENT RUNNING is a product of the burgeoning environmentalism movement of the 1970's. The film imagines a bleak future in which the Earth is devoid of any nature, with the remaining plant life housed in Buckminster Fuller-style domes attached to American Airlines space freighters, which are about to be destroyed. The ecologist/botanist of the crew, aptly named Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern), will stop at nothing to prevent the eradication of his mini-forests. Think Duncan Jones' MOON, which also emphasizes the mania induced by isolation in space, rewritten by Rachel Carson. SILENT RUNNING features vague anti-communist undertones, connecting back-to-the-land enthusiasm to a quintessentially democratic ideology. As far as visual wizardry goes, Trumbull attempts to recreate the "Star Gate" sequence from 2001 as the ship passes through the rings of Jupiter, and though he's clearly working with less resources, the effects are dazzling nonetheless. SILENT RUNNING is a cautionary tale more relevant than ever today, resonating with the sustainable/local/organic mentality that has permeated mainstream food culture. It also prefigures the doomsday scenarios put forth by environmental extremists like Derrick Jensen. (1972, 89 min, 35mm) HS
ALSO RECOMMENDED
Fred Wolf's THE POINT (American Animation Revival)
Music Box Theatre – Saturday and Sunday, 11:30am
THE POINT is one of those rare cartoons that ages beautifully, both in the sense that the themes and quality of THE POINT are still relevant and aesthetically pleasing today, and in that it is as entertaining and moving to watch as an adult as it is for a child. Tragically, some people have not seen THE POINT, and only know Harry Nilsson, the composer of the soundtrack, as that guy who wrote the song "Coconut." Nilsson's ruminative and whimsical soundtrack is a highlight of the cartoon for many, but the story itself and the distinctive animation style bear much of the credit for THE POINT aging so well over the years. THE POINT begins with a father trying to pry his son away from the television to spend some quality time and tell him a bedtime story. Though the son is initially deeply uninterested in the story of Obleo, a round-headed boy ostracized by a society of pointy-headed citizens, his interest is piqued as Obleo's troubles grow more fantastic (and in the animation, more psychedelic). Dustin Hoffman narrates this original version of the story as a special favor to Nilsson, a good friend, although many who grew up with THE POINT on VHS will be surprised to hear it, having grown up with Ringo Starr's Liverpudlian lingo. Obleo's story is one of cruel exile, acceptance of being different, and realizing that even his odd round head has a purpose, through bizarre conversations with elemental pontificators like the Rock Man and dreamy musical montage sequences ("Think About Your Troubles" is a highlight) in the Pointless Forest. The gorgeous hand-drawn animation and wobbly watercolors lend a feeling of idiosyncrasy and wonder that make the story of THE POINT as beautiful, timely, and dreamy as it was in 1971. Critiques of fascist tendencies in society, failures of the criminal justice system, and even the question of "what is art?" are expertly satirized with Seussian skill and hyperbole in this classic that reminds the viewer that sometimes not having a point is exactly THE POINT. Preceded by Maurice Sendak's 1975 made-for-television animated special REALLY ROSIE (Unconfirmed Running Time, 16mm), with music by Carole King (it’s unclear if the print of ROSIE showing is the full 27-minute TV version or a slightly abridged educational version). (1971, 74 min, 16mm) AE
Robert Bresson's LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE (French Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Wednesday, 7 and 9pm
Bresson's last film featuring trained actors and his last before his legendary period of stylistic radicalism extending across the 50s and 60s, LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE combines the fussy fatalism of Jean Cocteau's implausible screenplay (based on a story from Diderot's Jacques le Fataliste et Son Maître) with a preview of Bressonian things to come: understated line delivery, extended fade-outs, and distinctive, poetic framings. The narrative involves an subtly insidious plot by one ex-lover (Maria Casarés) against another (Paul Bernard) in their relation with the young prostitute Agnès (Elina Labourdette); filmed over an extended period in Vichy France, one struggles to read the film as a political allegory: perhaps one should consider the isolating confinement of Agnès and her mother in their apartment, or the pervasive romantic pessimism (love here seems not just impossible but a contributing source of detached anguish). Alternatively, if one takes into account an intriguing biographical curiosity—Bresson's reputed former career as a gigolo in his youth—LES DAMES could be approached as the most personal film of a most impersonal auteur. (1945, 86 min, 35mm) MC
Hugh King and Lamar Williams’ BLACK AND BLUE (Documentary Revival)
--
Kent Garrett’s THE BLACK G.I. (Documentary Revival)
South Side Projections at the Community Film Workshop (Harris Park, 6200 S. Drexel Ave.) – Monday, 6:30pm (Free Admission) / South Side Projections at Blanc Gallery (4445 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.) – Tuesday, 7pm (Free Admission)
South Side Projections continues their mission of exploring various aspects of Black life through media with two distinct programs. The first is a co-presentation with the Community Film Workshop of Chicago and Reel Black Filmmakers as part of the (In)Justice for All Film Festival: Hugh King and Lamar Williams’ BLACK AND BLUE (1987, 58 min, DVD Projection), a compact documentary that explores the up-to-that-point history of police brutality against people of color via a judicious multimedia approach. Especially illuminating are the segments about Mumia Abu-Jamal and the MOVE black liberation group, both of whose stories provide unique perspectives into the issue. There will also be a panel discussion at the screening including Chicago Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression steering committee member Mike Siviwe Elliott and others yet to be announced. Similarly compact but with a narrower focus, Kent Garrett’s THE BLACK G.I. (1970, 55 min, 16mm Archival Print) is an episode of Black Journal, a subversive public affairs program that originated on WNET in 1968 and ended in 2008, and is the subject of Devorah Heitner’s new book, Black Power TV. (Heitner will be present at the screening to talk with Bennie Webb, whose own military experience should provide additional context.) Released some time after Black Journal went under full Black editorial control, THE BLACK G.I. is a perfect encapsulation of the show’s progression owing to executive producer William Greaves, himself an acclaimed documentarian, and the very people it was intended to reach. They sent director Garrett along with a small crew to document Black soldiers fighting in Vietnam, the result being an in-depth inquiry into a distinctive aspect of an already identity stripping experience. Both programs elucidate the aforementioned parts of Black life in such a way that is not often found in mainstream media. KS
Her Environment: Mantle (Part 1) (New Media/Oppositional Viewing)
The Nightingale (1084 N. Milwaukee Ave.) – Thursday, 7:30pm
Mantle (Part 1) will be the sixth installment of the new media arts series Her Environment, co-curated by Allie Shyer and Chelsea Welch. Her Environment highlights femme spectrum new media artists who are making work which pulls against the technical formalism often found within this medium, instead focusing on the artist's personal voice, body, and experience as a femme personified individual. Mantle (Part 1) looks specifically at how the current political climate is affecting our mental state. These six works challenge us to consider different perspectives on daily survival, allowing us to laugh off our sadness with Traci Fowler in #OVERSHARING FOR THE SAKE OF SURVIVAL 2017, and recognize our privilege with Anja Morell in SELFIE THEORY #2. Kelly Lloyd and Jesse Malmed's witty ACRE TV LIVE talk show on "maximizing your potential from inside your bed" holds a mirror to our online state of consumer confusion and desire to both escape the internet and escape reality through it. This work has strong ties to Ana Paula Pinho Martins Nacif's ♥ TAKE CARE OF YOU TOO ♥, which gives us thorough instructions on taking care of our devices and ourselves in the age of surveillance. Thoughtfully programmed, Mantle (Part 1) gives us room to sensitively consider the feelings of each other and ourselves in uncertain, confusing, and frightening times. Curators Shyer and Welch in person. (Approx. 60 min total, Digital Projection) EE
Chicago Latino Film Festival
AMC River East 21 – Continues through May 4
Over the last several years, the Chicago Latino Film Festival has become a terrific showcase for movies directed by women, as Latin and South American countries have been producing new female auteurs with commendable frequency. More than a dozen of the features in this year’s line-up were directed or co-directed by women, and the handful of these I previewed were all exceptional. Deserving special mention are: Claudia Sainte-Luce’s THE EMPTY BOX (2016, 101 min, DCP Digital), from Mexico; Claudia Huaiquimilla’s BAD INFLUENCE (2016, 89 min, DCP Digital), from Chile; and Mauro Sarser and Marcela Matta’s THE MODERNS (2016, 134 min, DCP Digital), from Uruguay. Sainte-Luce’s follow-up to the sparkling THE AMAZING CATFISH, EMPTY BOX is another warm drama that details the evolving relationship between a single heroine and the people she comes to regard as family. The writer-director stars as a playwright living in Mexico City who finds herself forced to care of her estranged father, a Haitian immigrant suffering from dementia. Jazmin, Sainte-Luce’s character, accepts her responsibility willingly, allowing fate to change the course of her life. The film is poetic in its handling of time, drifting between the present and past and sometimes reality and dream. Sainte-Luce also demonstrates a novelistic approach to character, with Jazmin and her father seeming more complex as the movie proceeds. Another novelistic tale, THE MODERNS covers a couple years in the lives of a handful of intellectuals and creative types in present-day Montevideo. It centers on one couple, Clara and Fausto, two aspiring documentary filmmakers who have an on-again-off-again romantic relationship. Much of the plot concerns what happens in an “off again” phase, as the two see other people but continue to pine for each other. Sarser (who also plays Fausto) and Matta burrow into their characters’ neuroses and desires, sometimes to a painful degree. (The movie sometimes suggests a South American counterpart to THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE, a connection solidified by the black-and-white cinematography and verbose dialogue.) The film is also quite witty; the writer-directors see the humor as well as the pathos in the characters’ self-involvement. It’s a rich, emotionally involving experience, probably the best title I previewed for the festival. BAD INFLUENCE is neither as ambitious nor as accomplished as EMPTY BOX or THE MODERNS, but it’s worth recommending for its sensitive perspective on potentially volatile material. It concerns a teenage delinquent who’s sent from the city to live with his father in a small mountain town. There, he develops an emotionally manipulative relationship with a shy boy of indigenous heritage. Huaiquimilla wants to get to understand these characters rather than pass judgment on them, and she shows admirable restraint in handling a subplot that involves Chile’s indigenous people’s rights movement. The muted drama establishes a strong sense of place as well, and the young leads are both fine. Of the films in the festival not directed by women, I suggest you check out SUCH IS LIFE IN THE TROPICS (2016, 100 min, DCP Digital), the latest from Ecuadoran auteur Sebastian Cordero (CRONICAS, RABIA). Cordero is one of the few contemporary directors who seem like he’d be at home making noir films in the 1940s—his stories of corruption and economic desperation are involving in their grittiness. This one concerns a wealthy patriarch that owns a soccer team in Guayaquil; when his ne’er-do-well adult son accidentally shoots and kills a German tourist on a hunting trip, the entire family finds their lifestyle in jeopardy. This is rife with suspense and dark humor (the original title translates as “Without Death, There Is No Carnival”), not to mention cutting social observation. A prominent subplot involves the patriarch trying to evict hundreds of people from the land he hopes to develop—he quickly resorts to ruthless measures, showing that he cares nothing for the impoverished people whose lives he’s ruining. Social inequality is a recurring theme in the movies I previewed for the festival, demonstrating how strong the programming is when it comes to providing insight into Latin and South American societies. BS
---
Visit http://chicagolatinofilmfestival.org for more information and a complete schedule.
Alain Guiraudie’s STAYING VERTICAL (New French)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Check Venue website for showtimes
Alain Guiraudie’s unique brand of pansexual Surrealism has accrued a steady cinephile following since 2001 when his second feature, THAT OLD DREAM THAT MOVES, drew praise from no less a luminary than Jean-Luc Godard. The transgressive director’s international breakthrough didn’t come until 2013, however, when his sexually explicit serial-killer thriller STRANGER BY THE LAKE took Cannes by storm. STAYING VERTICAL, Guiraudie’s darkly comedic follow-up, is as narratively loose and shaggy as STRANGER is tight and compressed, and is likely to puzzle viewers unfamiliar with his non-narrative earlier work. The digressive plot follows the misadventures of Leo (Damien Bonnard), a creatively blocked screenwriter who traverses the French countryside in search of inspiration. After fathering a child with a shepherdess (India Hair) who abandons him to raise the baby alone, Leo encounters a menagerie of male caretakers and father figures of ambiguous sexuality in a series of dreamlike scenes that increasingly gain power in both hilarity and allegorical resonance. Although Guiraudie is more of a poet than a polemicist, this delightfully off-the-wall oddity is perhaps best understood as a provocative defense of gay parenthood in a country where such a notion remains a lightning rod for controversy. (2016, 100 min, DCP Digital) MGS
Bruce Robinson's WITHNAIL AND I (British Revival)
Music Box Theatre – Monday, 7pm
A totem for three generations of dissolute twentysomethings. WITHNAIL AND I begins in medias res, with our heroes, a pair of actors in the throes of a rank bender, with attendant Dexedrine sweats and clawing itch, in a foul rat-ridden flat. (The rats may be a hallucination.) They decide they need to dry out, and the swanabout failure-teetering Withnail wheedles the key to a hellishly cold and underequipped country home from his uncle Monty, who also "crept the boards in his youth." (Hail now and forever Richard Griffiths' Monty and his floral bric-a-brac nightmare house.) The city mice prove predictably useless in the country, barely able to feed themselves without help; they're babies in soiled underwear and barely-shod feet, absolutely and hilariously gormless. The physicality of the settings is dank, the walls looking like they're held in place by loadbearing mold, and the actors... Richard E. Grant's wild eyes are out of a Hammer horrorshow--in certain angles and long shots, his body has the bearing of a demented, emaciated goose--while Monty's tweedy, piggy importuning of Paul McCann's eponymous "I" is a spectacular special effect. Mention should be made of McCann's too-little respected work; watching him get increasingly wised-up about the wages of attaching himself to Withnail's clattering wreckage pays as many dividends as the high antics of his famed costars. It's a movie about ego-artifice (read: actor's bullshit) and the getting of wisdom, but it doesn't get in the least deep-dish about it--what a sweet, rare relief, that. Actor Richard E. Grant in person. (1987, 107 min., 35mm) JG
Claire Denis’ TROUBLE EVERY DAY (French Revival)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Friday, 6pm and Tuesday, 6pm
TROUBLE EVERY DAY was Claire Denis’ most contentious film before BASTARDS; not surprisingly it was her goriest film to date, trading in dark, eroticized violence that can be a deal-breaker for many viewers. Vincent Gallo stars as an American doctor who travels to Paris with his innocent young wife. He says they’re on a honeymoon, but really he wants to research the rare condition with which he’s afflicted—it makes him want to drink human blood. Gallo encounters a doctor (Denis regular Alex Descas) whose wife (Beatrice Dalle) is afflicted with the same condition; Denis goes on to parallel Gallo’s story with Dalle’s, showing how terrible things might get for the American doctor. The violence is shockingly graphic, yet the narrative is characteristically vague. Is TROUBLE EVERY DAY an AIDS allegory? A Cronenbergian fable about how little we understand our own bodies? Or just a reflection of whatever nightmares Denis was having at the time? As usual for the director, Denis makes you feel vivid sensations before you understand what the film means. The associative editing, the moody cityscapes, and the evocative Tindersticks score combine to create a memorable sensory assault. Filmmaker and SAIC instructor Melika Bass lectures at the Tuesday show. (2001, 101 min, 35mm) BS
Tips 4 Tingles: A Live ASMR Experience (Video & Performance)
Comfort Station (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.) – Wednesday, 8pm (Free Admission)
For those not familiar with the concept of ASMR, Tips 4 Tingles: A Live ASMR Experience is definitely not to be missed. Curated by Hanna M. Owens, this screening and live performance will take viewers and active participants into the strange and tranquil world of ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response), which has been described as a pleasant tingling sensation in response to certain triggers including whispering voices, light tapping and scratching, and gentle blowing. ASMR therapy has been greatly popularized and shared through YouTube, making it quite a unique online phenomena for relaxation and meditation. There is a certain kindness and tenderness in the ASMR community; these video makers have the intention of genuinely helping people and this comes across through the camera. This will be a very special event in that Hanna will be both curator and healer, offering a free therapeutic service to viewers. Hanna will perform ASMR therapy live on guests who wish to participate, and a playlist of ASMR YouTube videos created by Tony Bomboni ASMR. Nia McCree Your ASMR Queen will be playing in the background. EE
Kent Mackenzie's THE EXILES (American Revival)
Film Rescue (UIC Screening Room 3226 - AEH Building, 400 S. Peoria St.) - Monday, 7pm (Free Admission)
THE EXILES is a prime exemplar of its vibrant moment, and deserves recognition alongside the other American independent features (ON THE BOWERY, SHADOWS, THE COOL WORLD) that tested the commercial viability of the nascent festival circuit. In some respects, THE EXILES was just an ambitious student film, made by a group of friends from the USC Cinema Program holding down workaday jobs on the margins of the film industry. It was shot piecemeal over the course of more than three years, with unused 300-foot scraps purportedly salvaged from Desilu Studios and, on another occasion, a plane crash. The director, Kent Mackenzie, liquidated his savings to finance the film and secured donations from his brother-in-law, his barber, and countless others. But how many student films receive a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, go on to festival engagements in Mannheim, San Francisco, London, Chicago, and Edinburgh, and land on the cover of Film Quarterly? How much THE EXILES can actually teach us about its ostensible subjects—American Indians, life off the reservation, working class struggles at midcentury, or a Bunker Hill soon made unrecognizable by urban renewal—is up for debate. (Mackenzie, who was white, maintained that the Indians did not regard him as an outsider or an opportunist: “It was more important that we’d promised them a party.") The political reaction on the festival circuit was mixed: an award in Venice and skepticism elsewhere, with reports that audiences found the Indians “unpleasant” and “distasteful,” the portrayal of their plight “unsympathetic.” This tension becomes the film's frisson, the animating force that gives shape and feeling to Mackenzie's affectations. THE EXILES oscillates between social inquiry and professional calling card: it’s a film that critiques the inadequacies of the documentary idiom while striving to emulate it. The final product resembles a master’s thesis: it demonstrates the depth of the candidate’s research and vouches for his formal sensitivity. Mackenzie continued to work on THE EXILES for some years; in a bid for distribution he chopped the film from 77 to 72 minutes and added a (heavy-handed) prologue about the Indian in America illustrated with some Edward S. Curtis photographs. For his troubles, THE EXILES received a slot in the inaugural New York Film Festival line-up, but the distributors remained largely indifferent; Pathe Contemporary made 16mm prints available to the classroom market but did not entertain a theatrical run. The film received an extended consideration in Thom Andersen's LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF, which prompted an archival search. The original 35mm elements were found at USC and brought to UCLA Film & Television Archive, which unveiled a restored version in 2008. In the excitement that greeted its belated theatrical release, THE EXILES was promoted as a "lost film," though 16mm and 35mm prints had been sitting unwatched in several university film collections for decades. While the print in the UIC collection could never match the quality of the restoration, it's still an object with a history all its own—and more representative of the way audiences originally encountered THE EXILES. (1961, 72 min, 16mm) KAW
Chantal Akerman’s FROM THE OTHER SIDE (De L'autre Côte) (Documentary Revival/Oppositional Viewing)
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) - Thursday at 7pm
Of the late Chantal Akerman’s greatest strengths as a filmmaker are her eye for outdoor shot composition and the ability to create a compelling story from the lives of ordinary people, and in so providing a platform for those whose voices would otherwise not be heard. In FROM THE OTHER SIDE, Akerman explores the U.S.-Mexico border, including those that live nearby as well as those who work there. In these discordant times where xenophobia and nationalism have reemerged in the collective American consciousness, Akerman’s film, perhaps now more than ever, elegantly humanizes all sides involved in the U.S. border debate. This humanization seeks to highlight the struggles faced in the name of wanting to create a better life for oneself on a personal, communal, and national level. OTHER SIDE is an exercise in minimalism, especially with its recurrent landscape shots along the boundary (both static and sweeping) that invoke the very nature of what barriers are and how they can be torn down to unite. Part journalism, part video essay, and part investigation, this revisit to a time during the most previous Republican president’s administration’s intercontinental, foreign policy and its effects on those directly involved displays both the resentment and benevolence of the human spirit. (2002, 103 min, DCP Digital) KC
Monte Hellman's THE SHOOTING (American Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Monday, 7pm
This relatively early effort by Monte Hellman (TWO LANE BLACKTOP) is a pioneering example of what Jonathan Rosenbaum would later term the "Acid Western." As in Hellman’s RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND (which was made at the same time as this), Hellman takes common iconography of the genre—barren landscapes, cowboys posing with intractable stoicism—and strips them of any mythologizing context, repositioning them as eerie, quasi-abstract art. In THE SHOOTING, Hellman and screenwriter Carol Eastman (who would write FIVE EASY PIECES a few years later) even omit the motivations of their main characters, a group of travelers going off the beaten trail to search for a wanted criminal. Constructed around a central absence, THE SHOOTING recalls the absurdist dramas of Samuel Beckett—which Hellman staged in Los Angeles, incidentally, before becoming a filmmaker. The film depicts, per Michael Atkinson’s notes for the Criterion Collection, the “crepuscular odyssey” of a cowboy named Gashade (Warren Oates) who, at the start of the film, finds one of his compatriots shot to death from a stray bullet. The cowboys are soon “joined by two others, Godot-ishly but not quite,” Atkinson explains. “First, an unnamed woman (Millie Perkins) with a pouch of money, insisting, with cash that Gashade and [his fellow travelers] show her the way across the desert ‘to Kingsley’... and, later, a tightly leather-bound gunslinger named Billy Spear (Jack Nicholson), who shows up in response to a misfired gunshot cue from the icy and manipulative woman... Who these people are, what they really want, what they might have to do with the earlier offscreen incident—these are all unspoken mysteries, and all potentially mutable, their essence evolving as time passes, and as Oates’s trepidatious middleman perceives what may be the reality of what’s happening.” (1966, 81 min, DCP Digital) BS
Gregory Nava’s EL NORTE (American Revival/Oppositional Viewing)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Tuesday, 7pm
Roger Ebert proclaimed Gregory Nava’s EL NORTE (1983) one the “Great Movies” in 2004, describing it as “the story of a Guatemalan brother and sister who fled persecution at home and journeyed north the length of Mexico with a dream of finding a new home in the United States. They were illegal aliens, but then as now, the California economy could not function without their invisible presence as cheap labor. EL NORTE tells their story with astonishing visual beauty, with unabashed melodrama, with anger leavened by hope. It is a Grapes of Wrath for our time.” Ebert likened the film to Steinbeck’s epic novel, in part, due to its epic structure. NORTE unfolds in three distinct acts—the first in Guatemala (where, at the time of the film’s making, the ruling military dictatorship was waging a dirty war against the nation’s Mayan Indian community), the second in Mexico (where the protagonists risk life and limb to reach the U.S. border), and the third in California. He continued: “The movie stars two unknowns, David Villalpando as Enrique, and Zaide Silvia Gutierrez, as his sister Rosa. They have the spontaneous, unrehearsed quality of some of the actors in neorealist films like THE BICYCLE THIEF, and an infectious optimism and naivete that makes us protective of them.” And yet, despite comparing EL NORTE to da Sica’s classic, Ebert distinguished that the film “chooses to paint its story not in the grim grays of neorealism, but with the palette of Mexico, filled with color and fantasy. An early scene involving clouds of butterflies combines local [Guatemalan] legend with magical realism, and abundant life comes into the film through the shirts, dresses, ponchos, and blankets of the characters, and through the joyous use of color in their homes and villages.” (1983, 141 min, 35mm) BS
Kelly Reichardt's WENDY AND LUCY (Contemporary American)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Sunday, 7pm
"You know, scientifically speaking, Marian," says Matthew Modine in SHORT CUTS, "there's no such thing as beyond natural color." Is there such a thing as beyond naturalism? If there is, Reichardt has moved beyond it, beyond even neorealism, using an unvarnished eye to fashion impressionistic portraits of characters who inhabit very specific times and places. Though she's made only a handful of films, a randomly chosen moment from any one of them bears her distinct sensibility. Her most recent film, 2016’s CERTAIN WOMEN, has garnered considerably more attention than her previous work, bringing her name to larger audiences. That's a great reason to revisit one of her previous masterpieces (though "masterpiece" seems like a pretentious way to describe this simple, heartbreaking story about loneliness). WENDY AND LUCY is centered on an outstanding performance by Michelle Williams and a painterly eye for the environs of Oregon. Anyone who's ever spent time in the Pacific Northwest will savor details like the greenness of the grass in an empty field or the slow clatter of a freight train going by. It's a small gem that has all the Americana of a John Ford movie yet recalls the naturalism of VAGABOND and even UMBERTO D. And like those movies it's about people literally living hand to mouth, an existence where a gift of $6 (which occurs towards the end) is truly a sacrifice. Owing much to co-screenwriter Jon Raymond's fiction, it unfolds like a perfectly constructed novella. (2008, 80 min, 35mm) RC
Barry Jenkins' MOONLIGHT (New American)
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) – Tuesday, 5:30pm (Free Admission)
The leitmotif of Barry Jenkins' lyrical, sensual drama MOONLIGHT is black masculinity as an imitated pose. Three chapters trace the identity formation of a shy, gay male at ages 9, 16, and 26. Growing up bullied amidst Miami's deadly drug economy, the boy endures abuse and neglect from his addicted mother. Male tenderness is a casualty of the burden of the front, though a few men drop the hard mask to allow for vulnerability and love—a neighborhood drug dealer with heart, a childhood friend whose cool, exaggeratedly sexist pose is just that. This is the story of a self being buried beneath layers of hurt. It could have been schematic, were the acting and writing not so natural and alive. Based on Tarell Alvin McCraney's play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, the movie's color palette is as evocative of the beauty of bodies and nature as that title. Presented by Northwestern’s Black Arts Initiative. Followed by a discussion. (2016, 110 min, DCP Digital) SP
Preston Sturges' SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (American Revival)
Park Ridge Classic Film Series at the Park Ridge Public Library (20 S. Prospect Ave., Park Ridge) – Thursday, 7pm (Free Admission)
Despite often being cited as his masterpiece, SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS is Preston Sturges' most deeply ambiguous and contradictory film. Though much of his work subtly underscores the discrepancies between varying levels of the socioeconomic strata, SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS explicitly centers on issues of upper crust naiveté and class guilt. John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) is a Hollywood director who desperately wants to divorce himself from the frivolous comedies that have made him successful and exclusively produce socially conscious films; however, Sullivan believes that he must live the life of a vagabond before he can accurately comment on the struggles of the impoverished. By the end of the film Sullivan discovers that comedy is a more valuable gift (one might say opiate) to the masses than social realism, but it's unclear whether Sturges feels the same way. A conventional reading might posit that Sturges has struck a balance in keeping with Brecht's belief that a story doesn't have to sacrifice entertainment value in order to provide social commentary, but this interpretation is contradicted by the fact that Sullivan ultimately admits the futility of helping the less fortunate. Furthermore, the film features a disconcerting streak of racism (not uncommon for Sturges), which further complicates its message. (1941, 90 min, Video Projection – Unconfirmed Format) HS
Elia Kazan’s A FACE IN THE CROWD (American Revival)
Facets Cinémathèque – Sunday, 1pm (Free Admission)
François Truffaut characterized Elia Kazan’s A FACE IN THE CROWD as “a great and beautiful work whose importance transcends the dimension of a cinema review.” Well. I’ve got my work cut out for me. Perhaps J. Hoberman felt the same way when he chose to make a thorough examination of the film the epilogue of his book An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War? More on that later. In this subtly subversive socio-political masterpiece, Andy Griffith, best known for playing Atticus Finch-lite on his eponymous television show, stars as Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, who’s given that nickname by Patricia Neal’s Marcia Jeffries after she discovers him in her small town jail’s drunk tank and puts him on her local radio program. Lonesome is not a particularly talented singer—rather, his talent lies in his rudimentary, if somewhat dishonest, philosophical ramblings, which catapult him to success as a rough-and-ready ideologue. It’s hard not to think of Donald Trump when watching A FACE IN THE CROWD—indeed, Hoberman notes that “[l]onesome though he may be, Rhodes can instrumentalize mass culture because he personifies it. Before the movie ends, he is...a major threat to American democracy.” Hoberman also analyzes the way in which Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg depict television as a medium that can be used to unduly influence its audience, a scenario that’s playing out before our very eyes as a reality star with no previous political experience sits as President of the United States. “Kazan and Schulberg intuited that...media personalities and movie stars would now nominate themselves for the leading roles,” Hoberman writes, something that he says came to “full fruition” with Reagan, and that’s now even yuger—and scarier—in light of Trump’s rise to power. Griffith’s performance in his big-screen debut is as deft as it is disconcerting; even his features appear larger-than-life as he takes on Lonesome’s mendacious personality. Neal, in a performance that one might say is the antithesis of her role as Dominique Francon in King Vidor’s adaptation of The Fountainhead, serves as the so-called moral straight man, and Walter Matthau’s Mel Miller (or Vanderbilt ‘44 as Lonesome calls him, revealing an anti-intellectual attitude that’s all too familiar) foils her earnestness with his acerbic yet perceptive cynicism. A FACE IN THE CROWD certainly won’t make you feel better about the current state of things, but perhaps there’s some reassurance in knowing that the more things change, the more they stay the same—or is there? Regardless, you can take comfort in this “great and beautiful work” that’s both astute and entertaining. (1957, 126 min, Video Projection – Unconfirmed Format) KS
---
Showing as one of Facets’ “Teach-In” events. Discussion moderated by Hugh Iglarsh, Chicago-based writer, editor, and member of the Nelson Algren Committee.
Michael Dudok de Wit’s THE RED TURTLE (New Animation)
Gene Siskel Film Center - Check Venue website for showtimes
Over the course of its thirty plus year existence, Studio Ghibli has been celebrated for its anime releases, but in that time, have never produced a non-Japanese film. Hayao Miyazaki was so impressed by Michael Dudok de Wit’s FATHER AND DAUGHTER that he had his studio reach out to the Dutch director to collaborate, and THE RED TURTLE was born. This taut, dialogue-free film depicts a shipwrecked sailor marooned on a tropical island. After a mysterious red sea turtle prevents his numerous attempts to flee the island, he flips the creature onto its shell and leaves it to bake in the sun on the beach. When the animal dies, the body is seemingly replaced with that of a red haired woman, and the man gains a companion. Many of the themes of THE RED TURTLE revolve around loneliness, acceptance, and man’s will to survive and, coupled with its basic narrative premise, draw an easy comparison to Robinson Crusoe. The film’s color palette is vibrant and lush and this brightness instills a sense of vitality and tranquility that invites the viewer to imagine the warm breezes rustling through the trees and the cool water lapping along the shores. There is a sense of whimsy that pervades the film and juxtaposed with the lack of dialogue, attunes the eye to the subtleties of the gorgeous animation and the mind to the minimalist, but affecting, story. (2016, 80 min, DCP Digital) KC
Ceyda Torun’s KEDI (New Turkish Documentary)
Music Box Theatre – Check Venue website for showtimes
In Istanbul, Turkey, feral cats can be found everywhere; however, unlike the rats of our fair Chicago, these animals experience a peaceful co-habitation with the populace that, for some, borders on the reverential. KEDI packages Istanbul’s admiration for its felines in several vignettes and is meant for cat lovers and non-cat lovers alike. The stories told are uplifting. For some of the interviewees, these cats represent a tangential relationship between themselves and their beliefs in religious omnipotence. The cinematography found in KEDI is superb and beautiful. At times providing a cat’s eye view of the city, the camerawork bounces from rooftop to rooftop, scurries up trees, and dives down pathways that only the nimble footed could traverse. Combined with the staccato score, KEDI has succinct and upbeat tempo. The film follows seven cats’ lives and the nuances of their individual personalities are allowed to flourish on screen. Ceyda Torun explores the circumstances of how these animals came to become so prevalent in Istanbul and to paint a portrait of why their existence is a joyous thing for everyone. KEDI is the kind of film that gives essence to mankind’s love for cats and showcases all of the natural and urban beauty that can be found in Istanbul. (2016, 80 min, DCP Digital) KC
MORE OPPOSITIONAL VIEWING
The (In)Justice For All Film Festival began on Thursday and runs through April 29, with screenings presented at and co-sponsored by a variety of local organizations and venues. Visit http://www.injusticeforallff.com for a complete schedule, and see BLACK AND BLUE above in Also Recommended.
SAIC The Visiting Artist Program at the School of the Art Institute presents a lecture by Lebanese artist and videomaker Walid Raad on Tuesday at 6pm. It’s in SAIC’s Rubloff Auditorium (230 S. Columbus Dr.). Free Admission.
Black Cinema House (at the Stony Island Arts Bank, 6760 S. Stony Island Ave.) screens Ava DuVernay’s 2008 documentary THIS IS THE LIFE (97 min, Video Projection), about the Good Life hip-hop scene, in the “This is the Life: Moving Images, Making Cities Film Series” on Wednesday at 6:30m. Followed by a discussion with Tayyib Smith, co-founder of Philadelphia’s Institute of Hip Hop Entrepreneurship, and Briahna Gatlin, board member of the Lupe Fiasco Foundation, CEO and Founder of Swank Publishing, and urban journalist. Free admission, but RSVPs are requested at https://rebuild-foundation.org.
The Goethe-Institut Chicago (150 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 200) screens local filmmaker Shuli Eshel’s 2014 documentary A VOICE AMONG THE SILENT: THE LEGACY OF JAMES G. MCDONALD (53 min, Video Projection) on Monday at 6pm, with Eshel in person. The documentary is about American diplomat McDonald’s attempts to aid Jewish refugees in the 1930 and to warn about the dangers of Hitler. Free admission.
At the Gene Siskel Film Center: Shimon Dotan’s 2016 Israeli documentary THE SETTLERS (107 min, DCP Digital), which examines the subject of Israeli settles in the occupied territories, plays for a week; and Maysaloun Hamoud’s Israeli/French film IN BETWEEN, Muayad Alayan’s Palestinian film LOVE, THEFT AND OTHER ENTANGLEMENTS, and Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earp’s U.S. documentary THE OCCUPATION OF THE AMERICAN MIND all screen in the Chicago Palestine Film Festival.
MORE SCREENINGS AND EVENTS
The Graduate Student Conference in the Department of Cinema & Media Studies, University of Chicago, entitled “Trauma & Melodrama: Emotions in the Public Sphere,” takes place Friday at Saturday at the Logan Center for the Arts (915 E. 60th St., University of Chicago). Friday begins with a reception at 4:30pm, followed by opening remarks by U of C professor Tom Gunning and a Keynote Address, “‘Grab ‘Em By The Pussy'”: Melodramatic Desires in the Age of Trump," by Elisabeth Anker (Associate Professor of American Studies and Political Science, George Washington University; author of Orgies of Feeling: Melodrama and the Politics of Freedom). Immediately following the keynote, there will be a screening of Mitchell Block’s 1973 film NO LIES (16 min, 35mm Archival Print). The conference continues on Saturday with a full day of graduate student panels, beginning at 10am, and a faculty roundtable at 5pm. Full schedule and details at https://traumamelodrama.wordpress.com.
The Chicago International Movies and Music Festival (CIMMFest) presents a three-day Spring Fling Thing Friday through Sunday. Among the film/media offerings are Fulcrum Point New Music Project’s Hong Kong Pop Meets Avant-Pop A Multimedia Live Score, James Lathos’ documentary FINDING JOSEPH I: THE HR FROM BAD BRAINS, and Arlen Parsa’s documentary THE WAY TO ANDINA.
Black World Cinema (at the Studio Movie Grill Chatham, 210 W. 87th St.) screens Amma Asante’s 2016 British film A UNITED KINGDOM (111 min, Digital Projection) for a week long run.
The Film Studies Center (at the Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., University of Chicago) screens Gianfranco Rosi’s 2016 Italian documentary FIRE AT SEA (108 min, DCP Digital) on Thursday at 7pm. Followed by a discussion by University of Chicago professors Rebecca West and Judy Hoffman. Free admission.
Township (2200 N. California Ave.) hosts the Sinema Obscura event TV Party 4 on Monday at 7pm.
Also at the Gene Siskel Film Center this week: Billie August’s 1987 Danish/Swedish film PELLE THE CONQUEROR (150 min, DCP Digital; New Restoration) is on Friday at 2pm and Saturday at 5:15pm.
Also at Doc Films (University of Chicago) this week: Pedro Almodovar’s 2016 film JULIETA (99 min, DCP Digital) is on Friday at 7 and 9pm and Sunday at 1:30pm; and two “mystery screenings” are on Thursday. We can’t tell you what they are, but the 7pm Mystery Screening 1 is a 35mm archival print of a terrific war movie by one of cinema’s under-sung visual stylists, and the 9:45pm Mystery Screening 2 is a gritty and great early film by one of our favorite directors here at Cine-File, also in 35mm. If we were going to provide an additional clue for each, the first one might be from the 1960s and the second one might be from the 1980s.
Also at the Music Box Theatre this week: Richard Kelly’s 2001 film DONNIE DARKO (113 min, DCP Digital; New Restoration) opens. The Friday 7pm screening is the 134 minute Director’s Cut, and all other screenings are of the original theatrical version; Makoto Shinkai’s 2016 Japanese animated film YOUR NAME. (107 min, Digital Projection; check website for subtitled vs. English-dubbed showtimes) and Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski’s 2017 horror film THE VOID (90 min, DCP Digital) both continue; the ACLU hosts a benefit screening of a sneak of season two of the television series Sense8 (2017, 90 min, DCP Digital) on Sunday at 4pm, with an introduction by Karen Sheley, ACLU of Illinois Police Practices Project Director, and a Q&A with director Lana Wachowski; Parts 1-3 of the Japanese animated film series KIZUMONOGATARI are showing on Tuesday. Tatsuya Oishi and Akiyuki Shinbo's KIZUMONOGATARI PART 1: TEKKETSU (2016, 60 min) and Tatsuya Oishi's KIZUMONOGATARI PART 2: NEKKETSU (2016, 60 min) show as a double feature at 5pm, followed by Tatsuya Oishi and Akiyuki Shinbo’s KIZUMONOGATARI PART 3: REIKETSU (2017, 83 min) at 7:40pm. All are Digital Projection and showing in Japanese with subtitles; The Sound of Silent Film Festival is on Saturday at 7:30pm (details at www.acmusic.org); David Lynch’s 2001 film MULHOLLAND DRIVE (147 min, 35mm) kicks off the Music Box’s David Lynch retrospective on Thursday at 7:30pm; and Daisuke Nishio and Hirotoshi Rissen’s 2003 Japanese animated film INTERSTELLA SSSS – THE STORY OF THE SECRET STAR SYSTEM (68 min, Digital Projection) is on Friday and Saturday at Midnight.
Also at Facets Cinémathèque this week: Petr Kazda and Tomás Weinreb’s 2016 Czech Republic/International 2016 film I, OLGA HEPNAROVÀ (105 min, Video Projection – Unconfirmed Format) plays for a week-long run.
ONGOING FILM/VIDEO INSTALLATIONS
The Art Institute of Chicago exhibition Zhang Peili: Record. Repeat is on view through July 9. The artist’s first US exhibition features over 50 channels of video from 1989-2007. It is on view in Modern Wing galleries 186 and 289.
The Art Institute of Chicago exhibition Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium is on view through May 7. The large exhibition of work by the acclaimed Brazilian artist includes several films by him, and some related films. Included are Oiticica’s films BRASIL JORGE (1971), FILMORE EAST (1971), and AGRIPPINA IS ROME-MANHATTAN (1972); two slide-show works: NEYRÓTIKA (1973) and CC6 COKE HEAD’S SOUP (1973, made with Thomas Valentin); and Raimundo Amado’s APOCALIPOPÓTESE (1968) and Andreas Valentin’s ONE NIGHT ON GAY STREET (1975, 16mm).
The Art Institute of Chicago (Modern Wing Galleries) has Dara Birnbaum’s 1979 two-channel video KISS THE GIRLS: MAKE THEM CRY (6 min) currently on view.
CINE-LIST: April 21 - April 27, 2017
MANAGING EDITOR // Patrick Friel
ASSOCIATE EDITORS // Ben Sachs, Kathleen Sachs, Kyle A. Westphal
CONTRIBUTORS // Julian Antos, Beth Capper, Michael Castelle, Kyle Cubr, Mojo Lorwin, Scott Pfeiffer, Michael G. Smith
