đ˝ď¸ The 29th Annual Black Harvest Film Festival
The 29th Annual Black Harvest Film Festival takes place at the Gene Siskel Film Center through Thursday, with 20 feature films, 10 shorts programs, and a partial John Singleton retrospective. Select films and shorts programs are reviewed below. For more information, including all titles, showtimes, and ticket prices, check out the festival website here.
Edward O. Bland's THE CRY OF JAZZ (US/Documentary)
Friday, 6pm
More than half a century after it was made, THE CRY OF JAZZ still feels audacious. It takes place at a small gathering on the south side of Chicago where about a dozen jazz aficionadosâsome Black, some whiteâdiscuss the history of the music they love and get into a heated debate on American race relations. The subjects of music and Black history are intertwined from the get-go, as the group pedant (who also serves as the filmâs narrator) describes each development in jazz as it corresponds to a different aspect of Black American experience. As he explains, the paradoxical nature of jazzâin which players improvise within and around a fixed musical structureâreflects the inherent contradiction of Black American life. Because American culture denies Blacks a sense of past and future, Black life is, by definition, stagnant; yet the fact that it persists allows for moments of joy and celebration. Some of the whites in the room argue against the pedant, who believes that Blacks have suffered more than anyone else in American history and that they represent the neglected conscience of white America. Cowriter-director Edward O. Bland privileges the narratorâs position, but he grants more than adequate time to the rebuttals, giving the film the flow of a genuine rap session. Implicit in this organization is that for any meaningful change to occur with regards to race relations, people of different races need to have more conversations like this. Blandâs editing is impressive as well, illustrating the musical and history lessons with a dense montage that alternates images of jazz musicians in concert with images of Black poverty and other social ills. Though some of these images can be difficult to look at, the filmâs overall effect is stirring. With a live performance by and conversation with Angel Bat Dawid. (1959, 34 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
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Lagueria Davisâ BLACK BARBIE: A DOCUMENTARY (US/Documentary)
Friday, 8pm and Saturday 1:30pm
With the wild success of Greta Gerwigâs BARBIE, the brand is certainly having a moment. While the film provides easter eggs that suggest a deeper history of Barbie dolls, it never quite explores its nuances in any complexity. BLACK BARBIE: A DOCUMENTARY equally provides an expansive, illuminating doll history while exploring continuing, contemporary issues of representation; BLACK BARBIE is not just about the doll itself, but a larger understanding of identity and raceâand racismâin America. The film is grounded by the experience of Beulah Mae Mitchell, director Lagueria Davisâ aunt, who worked for many years at Mattel. It instantaneously makes this a hugely personal story, not just for Davis but for everyone interviewed, some who are being introduced to Black Barbie for the very first time. Thereâs a palpable excitement about the dolls, not just their importance in doll history but their meaning on an individual level; they all share childhood stories related to both the lack of Black representation (some of whom didnât even consider that could be an option) and the delight at finding that representation in Black Barbie. BLACK BARBIE emphasizes how representation is particularly impactful in childhood and play. This is achieved both through personal histories but also in recognizing how intrinsically connected a history of producing Black dolls is to a larger cultural history of 20th century America. In addition to Davisâ familial relationship to Black Barbie, she allows for so many voices to shine, including designers, historians, psychologists, collectors, and even children; their expertise never overshadows but always highlights the personal impact of these toys. The most affecting moments are when fellow Black Mattel employees, including Mitchell, reconnect on camera with Kitty Black Perkins, Black Barbieâs original designer. It underscores how BLACK BARBIE celebrates not just Black Barbie and her effect but the many Black women behind the scenes that made her possible, and their support of one another. David scheduled to attend via virtual Q&A. (2023, 100 mins, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
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Oscar Micheauxâs THE SYMBOL OF THE UNCONQUERED (US/Silent)
Saturday, 7pm
Of the twenty-two films that pioneering director Oscar Micheaux helmed in the 1920s, only three of them are known to have survived, leaving behind just a fragment of the artistry of one of cinemaâs earliest chroniclers of Black experience in the United States. Even within this isolated glimpse of Micheauxâs filmography shines a filmmaker with a keen sense for complex storytelling (WITHIN OUR GATES), towering screen presence (BODY AND SOUL), andâdisplayed here in THE SYMBOL OF THE UNCONQUEREDâthe power of melodrama to wrestle with topics of political and social importance. When dealing with works of the silent era, thereâs often a reticence from contemporary audiences to engage with works that arenât either inherently comedic or filled with stylized visual aesthetics, yet Micheauxâs early grasp on how dramatic structure can operate within the medium of film is utterly foundational to how we watch movies today. Similarly remarkable is the despairing rarity of watching various multi-layered facets of Black life portrayed within the context of early fiction cinema. Here, the dual narrative of Eve Mason and Jefferson Driscoll, two characters whose Black identity is shrouded by their respective abilities to pass as white, poses compelling and complex dramatic scenarios where each grapples with how the constructs of race function in our country in ways that are financial, emotional, and ultimately malicious. Micheauxâs work, certainly held to a high standard in certain film circles, more than deserves further canonization in wider film history. Case in point: in D.W. Griffithâs THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915), a film all-too-frequently held up as a bastion of early cinematic technique, Griffithâs camera drips with adoration for the monstrous Ku Klux Klan, framed as heroic bastions of that filmâs epic narrative. Meanwhile, in one of this filmâs most harrowing final sequences, Micheauxâs coverage of the Knights of the Black Cross is unabashedly drenched in despair, fiery imagery shrouding the frame in darkness, all too familiar with the horrors they bring into the country, the reverberation of bigoted thoughts and actions echoing through film history more than a century on. Co-presented by the historic Blacklight Film Festival, with a live improvised score performed by Edward Wilkerson Jr., Jim Baker, and Jonathan Woods. (1920, 54 mins, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
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Sam Pollard & Ben Shapiroâs MAX ROACH: THE DRUM ALSO WALTZES (US/Documentary)
Sunday, 3:45pm and Wednesday, 6pm
Max Roachâs accomplishments were legion. Arguably the most innovative jazz drummer of all time, Roach developed a revolutionary approach to the instrument in which the drums didnât just keep time, but rather played off melodic lines, making percussion into an integral part of the tune. He collaborated with the likes of Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Abbey Lincoln (his second wife), and Stan Getz; he also served as bandleader on numerous major recordings, including the masterpieces Percussion Bitter Sweet and We Insist! Max Roachâs Freedom Now Suite (both 1961), the gospel record Lift Every Voice and Sing (1971), and his albums with the percussion ensemble MâBoom. He was also a pioneer in marrying popular music to political activism, as epitomized by We Insist! and his compositions about African liberation. He even authored a book on drum fills that continues to be used by percussionists today (or at least it was when I was studying percussion as an adolescent). The most impressive thing about the American Masters doc MAX ROACH: THE DRUM ALSO WALTZES is that it gracefully integrates all these aspects of Roachâs life into a holistic picture of who he was and what his accomplishments mean to American culture. Veteran documentarians Sam Pollard and Ben Shapiro approach each chapter of his life in terms of personal, political, and formal concerns, blurring the lines of where one ends and another begins. Consider how the filmmakers portray Roachâs response to the untimely death of his early recording partner Clifford Brown: not surprisingly, they touch on Roachâs retreat away from his family and into alcoholism, but more importantly they address how Brownâs absence impacted the evolution of bebop in general and Roach in particular. They achieve something similar in a late passage about Roachâs 1980s collaboration with Fab 5 Freddy, intertwining choice clips of their music with Roachâs own observations about the continuity between jazz and hip hop. It makes for a fitting climax to THE DRUM ALSO WALTZES, since the filmâs ultimate subject is how Black artists have always found innovative means to translate their experience into popular art. Shapiro and Pollard scheduled to attend via virtual Q&A. (2023, 82 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
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Caullen Hudsonâs NO COP ACADEMY: THE DOCUMENTARY (US/Documentary)
Sunday, 6pm
One interviewee in NO COP ACADEMY: THE DOCUMENTARY mentions that Chicago spends $4 million per day on policing. In the several years since the documentaryâs subject was making headlines, that number has increased to approximately $5.5 million a day, an astounding number that quantifies a grave problem. The overinvestment in policing to the exclusion of more universally beneficial community services has, in recent years, come under increased scrutiny as police continue to murder citizens, particularly Black and brown ones. In 2017 then Mayor Rahm Emanuel proposed a $95 million police and fire training academy to be built in West Garfield Park, a replacement for centers in the West Loop. The movement #NoCopAcademy arose in response, compounded not just by police brutality (Laquan McDonald had been shot and killed by a police officer in an incident that was later covered up by city officials), but by Emanuelâs unprecedented closure of 50 schools in 2013, primarily in Black and Latinx communities, and the closure of half the cityâs public mental health clinics two in 2011. Hudsonâs documentary details the origin of the movement and the tactics they undertook to protest the resolution, from train takeovers on the CTA to taking up Chance the Rapper on his offer to promote their efforts. The film details the trajectory of the pre-bid and city council meetings leading up to the final vote (not that itâs a spoiler, but, unfortunately, the academy was approved and opened earlier this year) and the groupâs actions protesting it, occasionally focusing on specific activists and their experiences within the coalition. The film is both a document of this time (including incidents such as the Black Caucus of Chicagoâs City Council ejecting protesters from a fundraising event and Alderperson Carrie Austin referring to her cohort as the cityâs real gangsters) and the groupâs endless resolve in combating the academy and bringing awareness to this gross, if not exactly illegal, misappropriation of funds. At the first city council vote, only one alderman voted against the proposal on which company to award the bid; by the final vote eight had voted against (one technically abstained but in his absence said heâd have voted nay). That is a huge accomplishment, proving that these efforts work. Itâs a much needed reminder of that fact, and that while we may not have won the battle, if things keep up, we could very well win the war. Hudson scheduled to attend. (2023, 69 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
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Shorts Program: Africa Worldwide! (US/Rwanda/ Spain/Canada/France/Brazil)
Monday, 6:15pm
The filmmakers in this program know the experience of finding themselves in a strange land trying to be true to themselves while gaining acceptance from their adopted country. Canadian-based Rwandan director Carine Muyana looks at the struggles of a wallflower trying to psych herself up to attend her high school reunion in CACOPHANY. Her incense-soaked self-affirmation mantra competes with her nagging self-doubt in the form of a young woman who hectors her throughout the day. Still, Muyana shows that one act of kindness can make a world of difference to a restless soul. A poem by Niya Ahmed Abdullahi, the Ethiopian Canadian director of IN THE WHITENESS, forms the voiceover narrative of how an Ethiopian Muslim woman experiences her personhood both outside and inside her own culture. A woman dressed in gold and colorful robes dances in the white snow for emphasis. In YAA, Ghanaian filmmaker Amartei Armar brings folklore, griot music, and the sad history of his country together, focusing on disruptions in 1948, 1967, and 2020 that claimed the lives of Ghanaians working toward a better life. The women in the film, all named Yaa, try to accept the fact of their death, while offering their ancestral support to a newly born girl for the realization of her hopes and dreams. Brazilian-based directors Joana Claude and Renan Barbosa BrandĂŁo put their distinctive stamp on the outsider story of the Immaculate Conception in LAST SUNDAY. Rural villagers Mary and Joseph are visited by a beggar who predicts Maryâs pregnancy and presents her with a bowl filled with glowing earth. While three holy men look on the soil with suspicion, it is the women of the village who are seen as divine creators. Gorgeous black-and-white photography, an otherworldly sound design, and a marvelous bossa nova song celebrating Black female liberators that closes the film enhance this enchanting experience. Also screening is Basque filmmaker David Ontoriaâs CONGUITO. (2022â2023, Total approx. 72 min., Digital Projection) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
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Shorts Program: Sisters of the Yam
Monday, 8pm
The bonds between women, especially sisters, are the focus of this program of short films. Caitlyn Johnsonâs BAD BLOOD enters a fraught time in any girlâs lifeâher first periodâand doubles down on her discomfort by dropping her into the middle of a domestic argument between her mother and her sister. Both sisters seem unable to articulate their lives to their mother, but hold fast to the bond between them in times of need. Felicia Prideâs LOOK BACK AT IT offers a gleefully comic look at a middle-age woman trying to get back into the dating scene. Is a paid escort the answer? Her daughter certainly thinks so. The mixed messages on her face communicate the fear and desire competing within her. Reaching for oneâs dreams is the theme of Jordan Josephâs SISTERS. These sisters spar as only siblings can as they think anxiously about their dreams for the future. Each hits some speed bumps, but the message to keep caring and trying comes through clearly in this gentle short film. Director Niya Abdullahi interviews three Black or biracial Muslim women in FOR BLACK MUSLIM GIRLS to understand how they experience being othered in and outside of Muslim circles. The juxtaposition of their brown skin wrapped in all-white clothing and in an all-white setting visualizes the challenges they face. All three suggest a path for others who may feel they donât belong where they are. A SWEETNESS OF LAPSE is Bashir Adenâs look at a close friendship between two teenage girls that undergoes several reality shifts. The film has a sci-fi feel to it, but ultimately we learn that no matter how many changes our relationships go through, they can ultimately prevail even more strongly than before. Also screening is George Ellzey Jr.âs BOSOM. Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. (2022-2023, Total approx. 73 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
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Shorts Program: Experiments in Black Experience (US/Jamaica/Experimental)
Wednesday, 6pm
In QUIET AS ITâS KEPT, director JaâTovia M. Gary explores seeing and not seeing as it relates to the Black experience. Toni Morrisonâs first novel, The Bluest Eye, animates both the images and philosophical ideas Gary explores with Dr. Kokahvah Zauditu-Selassie, who has examined African belief systems mediated through the American Black experience in Morrisonâs work. Gary alludes to the drubbing Shirley Temple took in Morrisonâs debut novel, and she records the pain of a light-skinned actor who apologizes to actors who are as dark as her mother for usurping their identity and livelihood. A closing modern dance by Bianca Melidor to âThem There Eyes,â a song made famous by Billie Holiday, completes the melancholic meditation. Joseph Douglas Elmhirstâs BURNT MILK takes an ordinary taskâa Jamaican nurse living in the UK boiling a can of condensed milk to make a traditional caramelized dessertâand intersperses it with remembrances of her homeland. The black-and-white images of Jamaica were doubtlessly shot on the lush, remote island resort established by the directorâs mother and screenwriter of BURNT MILK, Miss Ronnie Elmhirst. Miss Ronnieâs belief that the land is âwitchyâ with âoverwhelmingly good energyâ informs the obeah rituals of former African slaves that fill the screen. The images the director makes fit the poetic inner monologue of the nurse voiced by Tamara Lawrance. Also screening but unavailable for preview are Namir Mustafa Fearceâs IâM BUILDING ME A HOME, Lamar Robillardâs GHETTO BIRDS IN USâŚLET THE SKY TOUCH MY SOUL, Leah Solomonâs JIGNA, and Asari Precious Aibangbeeâs OMWANâEKHUI [person of Dark Skin]. Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. (2021â2023, Total approx. 96 min, Digital Projection) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
đ˝ď¸ Crucial Viewing
Michael Roemerâs THE PLOT AGAINST HARRY (US)
Chicago Film Society at Northeastern Illinois University (The Auditorium, Building E 3701 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.) â Wednesday, 7:30pm
When Michael Roemerâs all-but-lost 1984 TV movie VENGEANCE IS MINE (aka HAUNTED) finally received a theatrical release in 2022, many wondered what had kept this masterpiece from public appreciation for so many years. Here was a clear-eyed vision of domestic life that blended documentary-style realism with a literary sense of character and placeâit delivered a world that felt lived-in and recognizable but at the same time too complex as to be never completely knowable. Had it been more readily available when it was first made, it would have surely gone down as one of the finest American films of its era. Unfortunately, this was not the first time a Roemer film belatedly found its audience: the writer-directorâs second feature, THE PLOT AGAINST HARRY, received its theatrical release in 1989âroughly two decades after it was completed and then shelved by its producers. Like VENGEANCE IS MINE, HARRY mixes aspects of documentary cinema and modern literature in surprising ways; it also advances an inquisitive, scholarly tone thatâs all but unique in movie comedy. A superlative Jewish joke, the movie relates everything that goes wrong in the life of the title character, a small-time racketeer just released from prison, as he struggles to embark on a moral life. Martin Priest, a professional actor whoâd previously appeared in Roemerâs NOTHING BUT A MAN (1964), plays Harry as the ultimate lovable schnook; heâs excellent, but heâs routinely upstaged by the supporting cast of nonprofessionals that Roemer recruited from the New York area. Harryâs misadventures take him through multiple Jewish ceremonies (as well as some fashion shows and a hilariously awful telethon shoot), and what emerges from all these is a stingingly precise portrait of postwar middle-class Jewish life. Jonathan Rosenbaum (who will be introducing Wednesdayâs screening) has praised Roemerâs approach as simultaneously caustic and affectionate and has likened it to the fiction of such major Jewish authors as Bernard Malamud, Saul Bellow, and Philip Roth. The directorâs knowingness surely grew out of the wealth of research he conducted in making the film, which went so far as working for a kosher catering service for a year before he wrote the script. Would the characterization of Harryâs ex-brother-in-law Leo (who runs a kosher catering service) feel as spot-on if not for all this work? Probably not. Many filmmakers might have come up with the hilarious running gag of Leo dipping his finger into the food heâs about to serve in order to get a free sample, but few others would have thought to blend this amusingly gross detail with such plausible insights into the characterâs daily stresses and hopes. Every scene of THE PLOT AGAINST HARRY features some sweet-and-sour tension like this, which takes precedence even over the filmâs sense of time. Because of Roemerâs elliptical storytelling, itâs never clear how much time transpires between scenes; the movie could take place over days or months. While the effect can be a little disorienting on first viewing, it also results in a warm immediacy that makes the film seem to cling to you like an embrace from a sweaty but well-meaning relative. Preceded by Josh and Benny Safdieâs 2020 short GOLDMAN V. SILVERMAN (6 min, 35mm). (1969/1989, 81 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
Douglas Sirkâs THEREâS ALWAYS TOMORROW (US)
Film Studies Center (at the Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., University of Chicago) â Friday, 7pm [Free Admission]
Melodrama and nuance arenât exactly synonymous descriptors. One hears the former with regard to film and assumes magnified scenarios that are intended to elicit a broad range of emotions. Subtlety is nowhere to be found, as is the case with Douglas Sirkâs⌠well, anything, but here in particular his 1956 film THEREâS ALWAYS TOMORROW. At least, not upon initial consideration. Beneath the intensified affections in Sirkâs films are truths of humanity not always palatable unless expressed so totally. In THEREâS ALWAYS TOMORROW, adapted from Ursula Parrottâs novel of the same name and produced by Ross Hunter (who also produced the 1934 adaptation directed by Edward Sloman), toy manufacturer Cliff Groves (Fred MacMurray) begins to feel taken for granted by his family; his wife (Fritz Lang femme fatale Joan Bennett) is overly preoccupied with the children, and the children are preoccupied with their own lives, seeing father mostly as a big dollar sign. So when former employee Norma Vale (Barbara Stanwyck), having transformed from a mousy toy designer into a glamorous clothing designer, shows up at his doorstep, Cliff finds wistful respite in catching up with an old friend. One thing leads to another, and his teenage son begins suspecting the two of having an affair. His girlfriend admonishes him for this, with good arguments to support her position. But viewers have been privy to that which has caused the sonâs suspicion, romantic feelings obviously having blossomed (at least for Cliff; Norma admits to always having been in love with him) between the two. Meanwhile Cliffâs wife, Marion, doesnât suspect a thingâbut is it because sheâs so taken her husband for granted that sheâs blind to his emotional indiscretions or is her trust in him so unwavering that the thought of her husband being any less than the honorable man she married is simply so far-fetched? Is Clifford truly in love with Norma, or is he nostalgic for a time when he had less responsibility? And what is it that Norma wants? Much is made of her being a childless career woman, something everyone, including herself, is convinced has made her life an ultimately unfulfilled one. But perhaps sheâs just managed to evade the rut altogether and is lamenting something she isnât even sure would have brought her happiness to begin with, considering Cliffâs emotional infidelity toward his wife, whoâs only doing the thing sheâs always been expected to do. (Heâs a parent, too. Why, then, has all the responsibility for child rearing fallen to Marion, only for him to resent her for it?) Rather despairingly, it would seem THEREâS ALWAYS TOMORROW presents the double-edged sword of both traditional and modern American society, pitting housewife against career woman, man unlikely to find true happiness with either, a conundrum posited by Norma in two separate monologues that express the scenarioâs inherent contradiction. Sirk had wanted to make the film in color but, when he wasnât permitted to do so, was still able to have longtime collaborator Russell Metty shoot it. The result is chiaroscuro black-and-white cinematography that underscores the facade of both domestic bliss and wild fantasy with a noir-esque aesthetic that almost makes the pursuit of happiness feel like a crime. Visual metaphors, such as a toy robot that Cliffâs company is producingârepresenting the automation with which heâs going through life, as well as how society views him, a machine to be wound up at willâand shadows of rain running down Normaâs cheeks as she stoically comes to terms with reality, complement Sirkâs aims, mimicking oneâs overall interpretation of the film as being broad (such visual representation may seem obvious) but even more subversive for being so. This was Sirkâs second film with Stanwyck (the first being ALL I DESIRE from 1953) and Stanwyckâs fourth with MacMurray. Both are excellent, Stanwyck as always and McMurray especially so, communicating the uncertainty that underlies not just the film but domestic relationships as a whole. Nuance is conveyed subtlety in elements such as MacMurrayâs performance, but in general itâs an illusory lack thereof that is the ultimate distinction. Introduced by Marsha Gordon, author of Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life and Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott. (1956, 84 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Mrinal Senâs BHUVAN SHOME (India)
Film Studies Center (at the Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., University of Chicago) â Thursday, 7pm [Free Admission]
One of the most important of all Indian filmmakers, Mrinal Sen blended radical formal experimentation with radical politics to invigorating effect. His trailblazing work of the 1960s and â70s merits comparison with the contemporaneous breakthroughs made by Jean-Luc Godard, Glauber Rocha, Nagisa Oshima, and DuĹĄan Makavejev. BHUVAN SHOME may not be the most daring or confrontational of Senâs filmsâindeed, it often proceeds as a lighthearted observational comedyâyet a righteous anger lies beneath the ingratiating surface. It makes for a perfect introduction to the directorâs work. The title character is a tight-lipped 50-something bureaucrat who works for the national train system; per the sociological examination of Shome that kicks off the film, heâs such a notorious stickler that he even fired his own son from the railway service for a minor infraction. This extended breakdown of Shomeâs social position is the filmâs most experimental passage, as it incorporates non-naturalistic shots, faux-scientific narration (delivered by a young Amitabh Bachchan!), and even some crude animation. In Brechtian fashion, one comes to regard Shome as a complex individual as well as an example of his classâhis flaws reflect the flaws that Sen sees in the Indian bourgeoisie as a whole. The plot, once it gets started, concerns Shomeâs gradual understanding of his shortcomings when he goes to the countryside for a bird hunting expedition. As the character lets go of his stuffy demeanor, the film itself becomes more relaxed, subtly transforming from a clinical case study into a laidback comedy of manners. (BHUVAN SHOME would make for an excellent double feature with Satyajit Rayâs comparably laidback masterpiece DAYS AND NIGHTS IN THE FOREST, which premiered in India not long after this did.) The film hinges on an encounter between Shome and a young rural woman who agrees to help him with his expedition; in a Dickensian coincidence, this pure-hearted soul happens to be engaged to one of the men who Shome has fired. Does the hero learn to be more empathetic from getting to know her? Of course he does, but Senâs point is that Shomeâs transformation can serve as a model for his entire class. (1969, 96 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
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This screening marks the beginning of Guerrilla Fighter: Mrinal Sen and the Legacies of Radical Cinema, a three-day celebration of Senâs work at the Film Studies Center. It continues next Friday with additional screenings, some of which take place before we go to print. PADATIK (THE GUERILLA FIGHTER) (1973, 98 min, Digital Projection) screens next Friday at 10am, and AKALER SANDHANE (IN SEARCH OF FAMINE) (1980, 115 min, DCP Digital) screens that day at 2pm. Check next weekâs list for more information about this crucial program.
Rebecca Baron and Douglas Goodwin: Artifacts (US/Experimental)
Block Cinema (at Northwestern University) â Friday, 7pm [Free Admission]
Californians Rebecca Baron and Douglas Goodwin discuss our conception of images, at various technological stages from analog photography to AI, and its relation to what we call reality. The duoâs signature series LOSSLESS shows quite the opposite of what the title suggests. "Through various techniques of digital disruption," as film and media scholar Braxton Soderman dexterously describes the series, "the artists reveal the gain of a 'new' media, full of material forms ripe for aesthetic sleuthing." The third installment, LOSSLESS #3 (2008, 10 min), which was made by removing keyframes from digitally compressed videos, transforms action scenes in John Fordâs THE SEARCHERS into peristaltic movements of patches of earthy colors across the screen. At the foreground of DETOUR DE FORCE (2014, 29 min) are fragments of archival recordings of the alleged psychic photographerâor "thoughtographer"âTed Serios, in the mid-'60s, proving to a room of experts that he could transfer mind-images onto rolls of Polaroid. Sound is only occasionally in sync with its corresponding images, like how Serios could only rarely produce convincing pictures that depicted objects or locals outside of the room. In the hands of Baron and Goodwin, this mystic incident of make-believe, choreographed by possibly a charlatan and his psychiatrist accomplice, becomes a discussion on the entanglement of image, photography, abstraction, and how they convey what is real in an era without digital manipulation. The duoâs newest punch is NEAREST NEIGHBOR (2023, 22 min), a humorous video essay that, with a title borrowed from proximity research, triangulates bird, language, and artificial intelligence. Expect to see: an explosion of bird calls; voiceovers of various timber uttered in a very stiff, AI manner; images of human figures that make you wonder whether they are real people; a speculative phone app that shall allow you to upgrade birdwatching to birdspeaking. Naturally, the AI will flex its ornithological omniscience without losing the opportunity to comment on the diminishing bird population and their habitat: âI could identify 200 species in 2019, more now. As your numbers go down, mine go up.â Goodwinâs solo project ARTIFACT #1 (2011, 13 min) is probably what memory looks like as a moving image. Slimy, thready, and ethereal city scenesâdetails recollected from the peripheral vision meshed with unspecific fragments of some men driving carsâare woven together with a humming, almost murmuring soundscape. Made with a rotating shutter, a series of long-exposure images layer and mutate into each other, suspending the cinematic intensity of some car chase scenes in a long, slowed-down stretch of time. Baron and Goodwin in person. [Nicky Ni]
Joseph H. Lewis' GUN CRAZY (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Friday and Saturday, 7pm
The legacy of Joseph H. Lewis was cemented by GUN CRAZY, a B noir whose audacity well exceeds its small budget. The film's visual ingenuity is still remarkable: Lewis stages tracking shots in reverse, creates odd compositions that intentionally leave faces or key actions out of the frame, andâmost famouslyâshoots a bank robbery in a single long take from the back of a car. Along with some of Val Lewton's productions, it's one of the few U.S. films of the 40s that can be compared to CITIZEN KANE in its go-for-broke stylization. But the psychological element of the film (so pronounced it can't really be called "subtext") is fascinating as well, as John Dall's emotionally stunted antihero is pulled into crime by a femme fatale as protective as she is conniving. This makes him different from the standard noir hero, who's confident but merely unlucky. Given his introversion and child-like fascination with guns, Dall is vulnerable to misfortune from the very start. This would place GUN CRAZY among the most fatalistic noirs, if it weren't for Lewis' overt sympathy for the character, which in turn makes the Rocky Mountain manhunt of the third act even more intense. The accomplished black-and-white cinematography is by Howard Hawks regular Russell Harlan. Screening as part of the Amour Fou series. (1949, 86 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
Sarah Maldororâs SAMBIZANGA (Angola/France)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Sunday, 6:30pm
The vexation of Kafka joined with the ferment of colonialism, Sarah Maldororâs SAMBIZANGAâthe first film produced by a Lusophone African nation, by some accounts the first feature to have been directed by a woman in sub-Saharan Africa, and the prolific Marxist filmmaker's second featureâis especially unnerving as it deals in the real-life terror of subjugation. Set in the titular village of Luanda (the capital city of Angola), the film follows the sudden arrest of Domingos, a manual laborer, on suspicion of being part of a covert resistance movement against the Portuguese colonialists; it also concerns his wife Maria as she tries to discover whatâs happened to him, navigating a Trial-esque bureaucracy with their baby son fastened to her back. SAMBIZANGA was adapted from JosĂŠ Luandino Vieiraâs 1961 novella The Real Life of Domingos Xavier by Maldoror, her partner MĂĄrio Pinto de Andrade (a founder of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola [MPLA], as well as its first president), and French novelist Maurice Pons. The story navigates between Domingosâ detention and Mariaâs journey, with suggestions of the larger anti-colonialist liberation movement interwoven amidst them, showing how whisper networks of subversion facilitate the larger, eventual rebellion. Maldororâs background is as varied as it is impressive. The daughter of a French mother and Guadeloupean father, born in southwestern France, she studied drama in Paris, where she was one of the founding members of Les Griots, a troupe of African and Afro-Caribbean actors. She later studied film in the Soviet Union under the tutelage of Mark Donskoy at the Moscow Film Academy, overlapping with Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène during his time there. In SAMBIZANGA, she adroitly communicates information in tandem with the narrative, resulting in something that edifies the curiosity of outsiders and immerses all spectators in the narrative trajectory. At the beginning of the film, a sheath of text augurs a real-life uprising that took place on February 4, 1961 in Luanda, when âa group of militants set out from Sambizanga⌠intending to storm the capital's prison. At the same time, they gave the signal for the armed struggle for national independence that has engulfed Angola ever since.â Domingos and Mariaâs trials come to represent that which spurs the eventual uprising, which is fueled by the poverty and exploitation thrust upon them by the colonialist interlopersâa justifiable resentment patiently nurtured until the clandestine became justly impudent. Shot in the Peopleâs Republic of the Congo, the film is not just a testament to the Angolan liberation movement of which the MPLA was a significant part but to the spirit of Pan-Africanism in general; Maldoror sees in various locales around the continent a common goal that transcends geography. Thatâs evident in the casting as well: primarily working with amateurs (with the exception of French actor Jacques Poitrenaud, who plays the white authority figure who tortures Domingos), Maldoror recruited Domingos Oliveira, an Angolan exile working in the Congo, to appear as the character of the same name, and Cape Verdean economist Elisa Andrade, who appeared in Maldororâs 1968 short MONANGAMBĂ, plays Maria. Filmically itâs a stunning work, the expressive cinematography lending additional contours and its soundtrack another layer of emotional depth to the characters and thus the countryâs harrowing struggle. Screening as part of the Open Veins: Postcolonial Cinema of the Luso-Hispanic World series. (1972, 97 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Fritz Lang's YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Monday, 7pm
Heralded by James Baldwin as Fritz Langâs best film, YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE also ranks as one of the greatest âlovers on the runâ films ever made. Eddie Taylor receives parole from prison, reuniting with his girlfriend Joan. As soon as they marry and begin their life together, Eddieâs past returns to haunt him. Struggling to find a job as an ex-convict, his subclass citizenship forces him to return to his underworld connections to provide for Joan. Langâs second film in the United States stars a strapping young Henry Fonda (as Eddie) and luminescent Silvia Sidney (as Joan). The charm of the duo paired with Langâs expressionistic camera and slow integration of film score pushes the audience into a deep investment of the characters. I agree with Baldwinâs assertionâit's Langâs most humanist film, with a deep emphasis on emotions and relationships. Repeatedly in Langâs films, he highlights the archetypes of society: everyone has a role to play, a cinematic functionalism. Itâs no surprise Baldwin loved this film as stated in his essay, The Devil Finds Work (1976). The African American writerâs fictional work depicts characters suffering from the labels society has forced on them (often in Baldwinâs work, their race). In the film, Eddie experiences subclass citizenship his entire life, explaining that from early childhood, the odds were stacked against him. His life is a nightmare of Calvinist determinism. When leaving the prison, an inmate reminds him, "youâre still one of the boys." This statement becomes validated as the couple gets evicted from their lodging and Eddie is fired for one-time tardiness. In the end, the only liberation for the two is death. As the credits roll, the audience is left to question if it must be this way. Screening as part of the Proto-noir: The Roots of the Film Noir Movement. (1937, 86 mins, DCP Digital) [Ray Ebarb]
Sofia Coppolaâs PRISCILLA (US)
Multiple Venues â See Venue websites for showtimes
In 1959, rock ânâ roll icon Elvis Presley was perhaps the most famous person in the world. It was in that year, during his military service in West Germany, that the 24-year-old superstar met 14-year-old Army brat Priscilla Beaulieu and began courting her. After several visits to Graceland after his discharge, Priscilla would move to Graceland permanently in 1963 and marry Elvis in 1967. The marriage produced a daughter, Lisa Marie, and was dissolved in 1973. It is this period in Priscilla Presleyâs life, adapted for the screen from her 1985 autobiography Elvis and Me, that forms Sofia Coppolaâs latest entry on the dynamics of fame that confuse the lives of those who are caught up in it, particularly the lives of women who suffer under male domination. Coppola emphasizes Priscillaâs innocence at the beginning, putting her in a ribbon choker from which a silver heart dangles, a subliminal cry for love. The approach of one of Elvisâ Army buddies, who invites her to a party Elvis is throwing, looks like a grown man offering a child some candy. Indeed he is, but her homesickness, excitement about meeting Presley, and the promise of responsible chaperoning eventually overcome her parentsâ objections. Coppola handles the romance tentatively, suggesting its creepiness while giving plausibility to the underpinnings of the relationship: the pairâs feelings of disruption and their mutual need for love. The rest of the film proceeds in an episodic way, which works not only to telescope the yearslong action, sometimes to a confusing extent, but also to emphasize the lack of coherent forward movement in Priscillaâs undramatic life. Sheâs not allowed to get a job to fill her empty hours waiting for Elvis to return to Graceland from wherever heâs working. Sheâs not allowed to have sex with him until he decides the moment is right, even though the fan magazines are filled with his romantic escapades. She canât even play outside with the puppy he got her because it would attract attention from the fans who flock at the compound gates. Cailee Spaeny is as good as the buzz surrounding her award-winning performance has made her out to be. She very believably moves from ninth-grader to adult woman, getting increasingly frustrated and frightened by Elvisâ erratic behavior once his drug use is firmly entrenched. Jacob Elordi adopts Elvisâ vocal mannerisms and posture to such a degree that I came to accept him as the man he plays. Coppola focuses on the pair intensely in most scenes, somewhat undercutting the feeling that Priscilla was often alone. She also is far too discreet about Priscillaâs intimate life, from failing to shoot Elvis and Priscilla having sex for the first time to barely suggesting her affair with her martial arts instructor (perhaps concessions to Priscilla Presley, her executive producer). The period detail in PRISCILLA is precise, as is the recreation of attitudes under which women suffered, and her mix of camera stocks to suggest home movies and news footage adds a nice touch. Coppolaâs signature use of needle drops throughout the film are fun, if a bit obvious, such as Dolly Parton singing âI Will Always Love Youâ as Priscilla drives away to a different life. PRISCILLA does not rank with the best of Sofia Coppolaâs work, but her meticulous mise-en-scène and excellent direction of actors are sharper than ever. (2023, 113 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
đ˝ď¸ ALSO RECOMMENDED
John Huston's THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Tuesday, 7pm
Like other cinematic adaptations of Tennessee Williams' plays, THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA is a vision of excess: catastrophic drinking, nervous breakdowns, melodramatic monologues, and characters driven to the breaking point. This particular adaptation was also a vision of excess behind the scenes: director John Huston and star Ava Gardner were often drunk and rowdy by mid-day during shooting; actor Richard Burton and his then-lover Elizabeth Taylor (who did not appear in this Williams adaptation, alas) were drinking, fighting, and carousing around Puerto Vallarta, where the film was shot and which became a tourist destination after paparazzi flocked to the location. Despite the dysfunction on set, a superb drama about the dark night of the soul emerged in NIGHT OF THE IGUANA. Richard Burton plays the Rev. T. Lawrence Shannon, a defrocked minister who, in the middle of a bus tour in Mexico, snaps and drives an entire busload of Baptist church ladies to a run-down hotel owned by his good friend Fred, whom he hopes will save him from himself. Unfortunately, Fred is dead, and his widow, Maxine Faulk (played by Gardner on a delightful seesaw between wry humor and raw pathos), has no interest in hosting anyone at the moment. Shannon convinces her to at least let them stay the night, then proceeds to fall apart in a fantastic spectacle. His dark night of the soul is further complicated by the arrival of Hannah Jelkes (Deborah Kerr) and her father, a duo of penniless artists. Though not as pitch-perfect as A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951) or sharply smoldering as CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958), NIGHT OF THE IGUANA stands out as one of the odder, more flawed, and conversely more charming Williams' adaptations, revealing the playwright's (and also the director's) penchant for self-destruction and the frailty of human connection that can stave off that destruction. Gardner and Kerr deliver vulnerable performances with Burton and with each other, demonstrating how an unusual and frank friendship can emerge from tragedy when boundaries are crossed and one too many rum cocos are consumed. Screening as part of the False Preachers series. (1964, 125 min, DCP Digital) [Alex Ensign]
Shengze Zhu's A RIVER RUNS, TURNS, ERASES, REPLACES (US/China/Documentary)
Gene Siskel Film Center â Tuesday, 6pm
In documentary, cinemaâs expansive frame embraces the subject with proverbial open arms, allowing for as much to fill the visual enclave as possible. Shengze Zhuâs A RIVER RUNS, TURNS, ERASES, REPLACES contains within its conspicuously long shots not just its contentâin which any distinct human activity is often obscured by distanceâbut implications of the past, present, and future, for which the titular watercourse is an emblem. The film was shot in Zhuâs hometown, Wuhan, China, between 2016 and 2019; obviously, the location gained worldwide significance toward the end of that period, after which nothing, neither there nor elsewhere, has been the same. But this isnât a film about the pandemic, outside of several segments toward the beginning, captured on CCTV, of sparsely populated streets and some random, pandemic-specific occurrences that happen on them. Rather, itâs about the increasing development of Wuhan and how it relates to the Yangtze River, which serves as a throughline for this otherwise rather opaque assay. Over this footage, unwavering in patient observation, is text of letters devised from the real-life experiences of people who lost loved ones during Covid. In each, the letter writer mentions something related to the river, connecting the disparate texts and allowing the film to flow like a boat on water, stopping at sporadic intervals to observe scenes of life within and alongside its depths. The film subtly comments on the downsides of development, among them the homogenization of places and the disenfranchisement of people. Still, thereâs a raw optimism present, conveyed via colorful projections cutting through thickets of smog and the laughter of people swimming in the symbolic waterway. Bridges also play an important part in the film; the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, built in 1957, was the first bridge on the river, which people had previously crossed via ferry or (in the case of soldiers) pontoon bridges. This bridge and others evoke allusions of connection in spite of surrounding development (ironically, theyâre also a factor of it). Zhu rounds out her silent treatise with old photographs of groups of people alongside the river with bridges visible in the background and a punk song on its soundtrack, connecting the past and the present with an indeterminate premonition for the future. Screening as part of Daniel Eisenbergâs fall SAIC lecture series, the Times, the Chronicle, the Witness, and the Observer: Three Decades Of Film/Video Inquiry. (2021, 87 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Kathryn Bigelow's STRANGE DAYS (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Sunday, 3pm
Utopias donât age, but distopias donât age well. The imagined ideal society is always abstract, always planned for perfection, always writ on a blank slate. But our nightmares are built out of the quotidian, made from fears magnified, dangers taken to extremes, the horrors of today turned into the horrors of every day. But if the curve of history teaches anything, itâs that we as a species have a special power to become accustomed to any degradation, and so todayâs apocalypses have the unenviable fortune of either tomorrowâs farces, which we read and watch and laugh over at how much worse things actually are than we were warned, or todayâs uncanny documentaries, weird reverse time-capsules that accidentally captured the zeitgeist of the future. STRANGE DAYS is both. It is a film that unflinchingly puts American racism and misogyny on display as driving forces of catastrophic exploitation, cruelty, violence, and barbarism, constructing a dense web of a narrative that melds VERTIGO, PEEPING TOM, THE PARALLAX VIEW into an elaborate repudiation of the Rodney King verdict in which two women, a white hooker and a black limousine driver, strike with brutal force at patriarchal bigotry and the police state. It is a dizzying murder mystery in which the killer is irrelevant and the detective is effectively already dead, a love story in which neither partner loves the other, a science-fiction allegory in which the futuristic technology is cinema itself. But in the America of Donald Trump and Richard Spencer, the America of Tamir Rice and Michael Brown, the America of Sandra Bland and Homan Square, the America of hipster Nazis in the New York Times, the romantic idea that a video recording of police officers murdering a black man at a traffic stop could bring such an institution as the LAPD to its knees is either uncomfortably naive or ridiculously idealistic. Bigelowâs film knows all this, of course. Its contradictions were clear in 1995 when it was first released, and Bigelow is a master at playing her films against themselves, at making political art that self-deconstructs in a thousand different ways. If anything, the dark malaise of STRANGE DAYS has only become more urgently needed as time has passed. This movie is the White Gaze stabbing its own eyes out. An encore screening as part of the In the Club: 90s Electronic Music and Beyond series. (1995, 145 min, 35mm) [Kian Bergstrom]
Agnès Varda's THE GLEANERS AND I (France/Documentary)
Alliance Française de Chicago (54 W. Chicago Ave.) â Thursday, 6:30pm
Agnès Varda, arguably the first filmmaker of the French New Wave, builds an easy, rambling, and revelatory road movie in THE GLEANERS AND I, an essay film about the historical French custom of gleaning, the act of collecting crops left to waste after the harvest. Varda takes to the motorways with her digital camera and captures gleaning as it is in contemporary French life. She interviews potato farmers, crust punks, gypsies, grocers, justices, vintners, and artists, illuminating lots of sympathetic thematic tensions along the way. Varda doesn't linger in interviews; she brings us only snippets of the people she speaks with, capturing their charm in a few juicy clips. Varda uses GLEANERS to consider her own aging, revolving technology, the ethics of waste, and the sliding economic realities that brought gleaning back as a common practice. Screening as part of the French Women Filmmakers series. With a complimentary glass of Bourgogne Louis Jadot and a post-screening discussion with Nick Davis, Associate Professor of English and Gender Studies at Northwestern University. (2000, 79 min, Digital Projection) [Christy LeMaster]
Hou Hsiao-Hsien's MILLENNIUM MAMBO (Taiwan)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Thursday, 7pm
After its premiere at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, Hou Hsiao-Hsien cut MILLENNIUM MAMBO by about 15 minutes, excising much of the subplot in which the young heroine, Vicky (Shu Qi), travels to northern Japan on a whim. This passage makes a great impression in the subsequent version, even thoughâor perhaps becauseâit seems so fleeting. The heroine registers the change in landscape enough to comment on it in her narration, but she doesnât internalize it; maybe itâs a result of having felt so transient for so long. In any case, the Japanese visit doesnât interrupt the filmâs hypnotic flow, which is tied to both Vickyâs experience (as a passive, drug-addled raver in turn-of-the-millennium Taipei) and the techno music that drives the soundtrack. Houâs perspective feels detached in MILLENNIUM MAMBO, despite the fact that he shoots much of the action in medium shot and frequently moves the camera to observe people in motion. That he and screenwriter Chu Tâien-wen have Vicky narrate the story from ten years in the future heightens oneâs sense of distance. Adding a layer of mystery to the story, Vicky doesnât divulge what sheâs doing in 2011; one simply gathers that sheâs a different person at this point and that she views her young adulthood with feelings of loss. Her experience as a young adult is certainly lamentable: a high school dropout, she moves to Taipei with her boyfriend Hao-Hao to immerse herself in the cityâs rave scene. Hao-Hao is often high and abusive, driving Vicky to flee their tiny apartment and take solace with an older gangster named Jack (who may care for her, but doesnât try to convince her to leave her boyfriend for good). She returns to Hao-Hao a few times, however, drawn to him by some mutual self-annihilating impulse. That impulse provides the film with its dark heartâitâs a movie about the desire to lose yourself and the emotional baggage you still canât get rid of in the process. Screening as part of the In the Club: 90s Electronic Music and Beyond series. (2001, 101 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
Ang Lee's RIDE WITH THE DEVIL (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Wednesday, 7pm
Ang Lee's spin on the revisionist western feels as surprisingly rewarding and nuanced as his other ventures into genre pictures like SENSE AND SENSIBILITY and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. RIDE WITH THE DEVIL deals in violence and tragedy but does so with careful attention to detail, quietude, and words left unsaid between characters constrained by social mores, much like his other films already screened in this series for Doc Films. The film tells the story of a group of young men in Missouri known as the "Irregulars" during the Civil War. These men fought on both sides of the war, and the story centers on those who fought for the Confederacy, using guerrilla tactics to bring down larger enemy forces and hide in plain sight. The film does not shy away from the brutality and graphic violence that erupted in these battles using combinations of swords and wild pistol shots. Indeed, the film lingers on the trauma that surrounds the aftermath of battle, with characters losing arms, being shot in the face, or dying premature and preventable deaths. In sharp contrast to CROUCHING TIGER, RIDE WITH THE DEVIL shows the ugly side of the warrior life, with little grace or honor played out in the battle scenes, though the concepts themselves are peppered throughout the idealistic young men's dialogue. Tobey Maguire, Skeet Ulrich, and Simon Baker deliver strong performances that center their intense friendship through the war, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers embodies an utterly bone-chilling nemesis to Maguire's mild-mannered protagonist. In her feature film debut, folk/pop singer Jewel portrays a twice-widowed woman barely entering her 20s with grit and dignity. Outshining them all, however, is Jeffrey Wright in a supporting role as a taciturn freedman fighting with the Irregularsâhis monologues are few and far between, but his presence and quiet emoting in the film is a constant and deeply personal reminder of the racist underpinnings of the society the Irregulars are defending. Rounded out by the superb cinematography by Frederick Elmes (a frequent collaborator of David Lynch and Jim Jarmusch), RIDE WITH THE DEVIL is unlike any other western you've seen and one of Ang Lee's best films. Screening as part of the Films of Ang Lee series. (1999, 138 min, Digital Projection) [Alex Ensign]
Mamoru Oshii's GHOST IN THE SHELL (Japan/Animation)
Music Box Theatre â Friday, Midnight and Saturday, 11:15am
Through miles and miles of cables, an unfathomable amount of data is created every day, and the horizon is plastered with copy-and-pasted skyscrapers looming silently above. It's 2029 Japan, and life is getting more complex every day. Take our main character: Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg public-security agent who ponders her identity in between chasing criminals. Sheâs not only concerned about what she is but also why she is. It's explained she has some sort of brain despite her body having been manufactured by a tech company, but her enhanced strength and senses come at the cost of knowing who she was or even if she was. It's all a bit confusing, franklyâthe philosophical dialogue is delivered quickly and can be a bit denseâhowever, it works perfectly. Mamoru Oshii gets how our minds and bodies are constantly overloaded with work demands, social media blasts, food cravings, car horns, gunshots, and so on. But he offers brief reprieves from all this, like when Motoko takes a serene dip in the water outside the city despite the potential damage she could cause to her âshell.â The film takes such detours between action set pieces and heavy text; in other films, it could all get tiresome, but in this one, the pacing is perfect. The animation is no joke eitherâevery scene is meticulously designed to create something particularly spectacular. After she gets embroiled in a case teeming with mystery and political intrigue, Motoko finds herself down a path that could help answer the questions plaguing her. She may be trapped in a system programming her purpose, but the virus of rebellion propagates slowly, perhaps even offering some sense of freedom. (1995, 83 min, DCP Digital) [Drew Van Weelden]
Camilla Hall and Jennifer Tiexieraâs SUBJECT (US/Documentary)
Music Box Theatre â Sunday, 3:30pm
"There usually isn't a happy ending,â says Jesse Friedman, whoâs featured in Andrew Jareckiâs 2003 HBO documentary CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS. Heâs also one of the so-called subjects in Camilla Hall and Jennifer Tiexieraâs aptly titled film, a documentary about the subjects of documentaries. Along with his father Arthur Friedman, Jesse had been convicted of molesting young boys two decades prior to the film, though his conviction was later put into question; here heâs observing that while many documentaries assume a traditional narrative structure with a pat, if not always happy, ending, such closure is not necessarily provided in real life. Further exemplifying this is Margaret Ratliff, daughter of Michael Peterson, whose trial for the murder of his wife Kathleen has been the subject of much media speculation. This includes not only a 2004 French-produced docuseries, The Staircase (acquired and updated by Netflix in 2018), but also a recent fictionalized series on HBO; she recalls Sophie Turner, the actress playing her, asking if they could speak, to which Margaret expresses frustration over the fact that Turner not only made a lot of money for the job but dredged up traumatic memories while capitalizing on her familyâs tragedy. These are just two examples of how SUBJECT probes the documentary landscape, past and present, to consider the moral implications of the form. Several figures from prominent documentaries of the last few decades (which also include HOOP DREAMS, THE SQUARE, and THE WOLFPACK) discuss their experiences, while filmmakers and industry powerhouses such as Chicagoâs own Gordon Quinn, Kirsten Johnson, Bing Liu, Sam Pollard, Thom Powers, and Sonya Childress weigh in on the ethical dilemmas inherent in their practice. (Interestingly, the filmmakers decided not to interview the directors of any of the films whose subjects are represented.) Responses run the gamut: some of those featured in the documentaries are either outrightly resentful of the experience or at least ambivalent toward it. Others are happier, with a few even continuing to leverage the visibility brought to them by the films. But the point is that their stories go on, when the cameras have stopped rolling and the accolades and platitudes have ceased. Documentary is hardly an under-discussed facet of the film industryâtheyâve become aggressively mainstream, with people now anticipating a documentary or docuseries about every cultural incidentâand while the film doesnât tread new ground, it certainly casts a light on that which typically isnât discussed in popular discourse around non-fiction cinema. Followed by a post-screening Q&A with Ratliff, Arthur Agee from HOOP DREAMS, and filmmaker and Kartemquin founding member Gordon Quinn, moderated by Nick Thompson. (2022, 96 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Justine Trietâs ANATOMY OF A FALL (France)
Music Box Theatre â See Venue website for showtimes
Like John Cassavetes, Justine Triet makes movies that feel like theyâre constantly trying to catch up with their own characters; one consistent pleasure of both of their films is never knowing how the tone will adapt to how the subjects behave. Unlike Cassavetes, who started as an actor, Triet began her career making documentaries, so itâs likely that she allows her characters such liberty because she cut her teeth on observing real people. In her fiction features, the sense of directorial fascination extends beyond what the characters do and into the worlds they inhabitâanother surprising quality of Trietâs IN BED WITH VICTORIA (2016) and SIBYL (2019) is how they at first resemble bourgeois lifestyle comedies but end up having a lot to say about law and psychoanalysis, respectively. ANATOMY OF A FALL, which won the Palme dâOr at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, also has a lot to say about the law, in addition to fiction writing and marriage; befitting a movie about a novelist, it feels novelistic in its breadth and depth. But that doesnât mean it ever feels less than cinematicâTriet makes as many engagingly eccentric decisions behind the camera as her characters make in front of it. ANATOMY OF A FALL is noteworthy for its deliberately graceless zooms and pans, which suggest the perspective of a curious insect, and its low-angle closeups, which evoke a sense of nervous intimacy before the characters even do anything. Triet also shifts enigmatically between objective and subjective perspectives, creates chilling ellipses through editing, and covers staggering amounts of emotional territory within individual scenes. If she werenât such an exceptional director of actors, her ambitions as a storyteller might seem show-offy; yet ANATOMY OF A FALL (like Trietâs previous two features) is worthy of Sidney Lumet in how it glues your eyes to the performances. Sandra HĂźller deserves all the praise she gets for her lead performance as a successful novelist who stands trial after her husband dies in a suspicious accident, but the whole cast is mesmerizing, down to the bit players. Special mention goes to young Milo Machado Garner, who plays HĂźllerâs 11-year-old son and exudes an emotional maturity well beyond his years. Yet another surprise of ANATOMY OF A FALL is how much it comes to be about his character in the final act; his story vaguely recalls Ozuâs early masterpiece I WAS BORN, BUT⌠(1932) in its stinging evocation of the moment when we realize our parents are flawed individuals like everyone else. It speaks to the effectiveness of Trietâs maximalism that even the revelations of secondary characters carry the weight of entire separate films. (2023, 152 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT (US/UK)
Alamo Drafthouse (3519 N. Clark St., Suite C301) â Friday, 9:45pm and Sunday, 6:15pm
Seen in any version (there are at least seven), BLADE RUNNER is a monstrous messâa mĂŠlange of film noir, Philip K. Dick, action-heavy cineplex sadism, and horny chinoiserie. A critically derided flop on its initial release, BLADE RUNNER carries the uncanny suggestion that its story not only revolves around androids, but may actually have been conceived and shaped by non-human intelligenceâa quality it shares with that other misunderstood Summer of '82 sci-fi spectacular, TRON. When viewed alongside director Ridley Scott's prior effort, the masterfully controlled and minutely calibrated terror show ALIEN, BLADE RUNNER feels programmatic and kludgy, as if all decisions about staging, atmospherics, and rhythm were simply fed into an overheated circuit board. (The original endingâan improbably sunny coda repurposed from second-unit outtakes from THE SHININGâplays like the product of an inelegant Surefire BoxOffice algorithm.) It's not so much that art direction, set design, cinematography, editing, music, and acting are working at cross-purposesâinstead, they're merely zipping along semi-autonomously, without being shaped into a grammatical whole. So, it's odd and kind of touching that Ridley Scott has repeatedly re-asserted his authorship of this unruly, seemingly author-less masterworkâfirst in a hastily produced 'Director's Cut' in 1992, subsequently in a "Final Cut" released in 2007. (If Scott follows Oliver Stone's example with ALEXANDER, the "Final Cut" need not really be final; there's always the promise of an "Ultimate Cut" peeking out over the smoggy horizon.) It now takes on the impossible grandeur of a medieval saga, a lumbering epic embroidered and corrupted by countless textual variants. Most of the major changes were performed for the so-called Director's Cut: Harrison Ford's sleepy voice-over is gone, an origami unicorn rhymes with and undercuts a re-inserted dream sequence, and the freak ending is excised. The Final Cut, by contrast, services superfans, correcting gaffes imperceptible to the uninitiated: matte lines are cleaned up, lip sync is fixed with lines re-dubbed by Ford's son, Joanna Cassidy's face is digitally plastered over the body of a stunt double, Rutger Hauer treats his father more decorously. I still prefer the original 1982 theatrical cut above all othersâit really heightens the contradictions, as the student Marxists used to say. But the Final Cut is still queer and ungainly enough to slosh around in. (1982/2007, 117 min, DCP Digital) [K.A. Westphal]
Robert Altman's THE LONG GOODBYE (US)
Alamo Drafthouse (3519 N. Clark St., Suite C301) â Friday, 3pm and Wednesday, 7:45pm
When Robert Altman agreed to direct THE LONG GOODBYE, he had one condition: it was written into his contract that the studio could not change screenwriter Leigh Brackett's ending, which differs from the book. Now, a story by Raymond Chandler always gets around to solving the mystery. But a Philip Marlowe novel isn't really about mystery-solving any more than NASHVILLE is really about country music. Rather each is a zigzag in the form of a stroll, passing through moods and textures on its unhurried way to adding up. The general critical disdain that greeted Altman's take on THE LONG GOODBYE when it was first released must have stemmed more from a clinging nostalgia for the Bogie/Hawks vision of Marlowe than a reverence for Chandler's actual text. Altman may not offer up a period piece in the vein of THIEVES LIKE US, but he faithfully hews to the contours of Chandler's novel. Casting Elliot Gould is a masterstroke, but he further displays his genius for casting by using Henry Gibson and Mark Rydell to manifest two complimentary shades of evil. There's never been a more Chandlerian "old man" than Sterling Hayden. And you know what? The film's ending is better. (1973, 112 min, DCP Digital) [Rob Christopher]
đď¸ PHYSICAL SCREENINGS/EVENTS â
ALSO SCREENING
⍠Chicago Film Archives
The Chicago Transit Authority, in partnership with the Chicago Film Archives (CFA), presents a new, one-of-a-kind temporary art installation at the Cicero Green Line station (4800 W. Lake St.). The installation, called we love, is a filmic exhibition of home movies and amateur films selected from collections housed and preserved at CFA. The video will be projected onto a wall in the mezzanine area of the station and will run day and night through mid-March next year. More info here.
⍠The Davis Theater
Kathleen Ermitageâs 2022 documentary MIXTAPE TRILOGY: STORIES OF THE POWER OF MUSIC (93 min, DCP Digital) screens Sunday at 4pm. Followed by a post-screening Q&A with the filmmakers and one of the filmâs subjects, Garnette Cadogan, moderated by film critic Richard Roeper. More info here.
⍠Doc Films (at the University of Chicago)
Doris Wishmanâs 1965 film BAD GIRLS GO TO HELL (65 min, DCP Digital) screens Thursday, 9:30pm, as part of the Depths of the Grindhouse series. More info here.
⍠FACETS Cinema
The 40th Annual Chicago International Children's Film Festival continues through Sunday, November 19, with screenings at FACETS Cinema the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, AMC NEWCITY 14, the Music Box Theatre, and the Chicago History Museum. More info on all screenings and related events here.
⍠Instituto Cervantes of Chicago (31 W. Ohio St.)
Taras Tomenkoâs 2021 Ukrainian film TERYKONY (80 min, Digital Projection) screens Monday, 6pm, as part of the Ukrainian films program. More info here.
⍠Music Box Theatre
Alexander Payneâs 2023 film THE HOLDOVERS (133 min, 35mm/DCP [check specific showtime for format]) continues. See Venue website for showtimes.
Cody Lightningâs 2023 film HEY VIKTOR! (102 min, DCP Digital) screens Friday at 7pm. This is the closing night screening of the First Nations Film and Video Festival.
Jeff Leroyâs 2002 film HELLâS HIGHWAY (70 min, DCP Digital) screens Friday at midnight. Programmed and presented by the Front Row and Terror Vision.
Ivan Reitmanâs 1981 comedy STRIPES (106 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday at 4:30pm. Programmed and presented by Ronan's Reel. More info on all screenings here.
⍠Northwestern University
Not a screening but a job opportunity! Northwestern Universityâs Department of Radio/Television/Film seeks an outstanding Professor of Media Production specializing in narrative fiction for cinema and television, to teach narrative techniques and aesthetics to undergraduate students and graduate students in their MFA in Documentary Media program. This is an open-rank, tenure-eligible position, hiring at any appropriate rank, up to Full Professor. The school seeks a filmmaker with an established or emerging national and international reputation, who has an impact on the field with an innovative body of work directing and/or producing theatrical features and/or scripted episodic television. Additional significant experience in writing, editing, cinematography, or other cinematic crafts a plus. Application deadline is November 17. Apply here.
⍠School of the Art Institute
Another job opportunityâactually two! The Department of Film, Video, New Media and Animation (FVNMA) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is conducting a double searchâtwo tenure-track positions hiring concurrently this year. They are jointly listed for artists with an expertise in "experimental film and video." The priority application deadline is January 8, 2024. More information about the role and how to apply here.
⍠Sideshow Gelato (4819 N. Western Ave.)
The Sideshow Gelato shop presents Sideshow Sinema!, during which they will screen films connected to the shop theme, every Thursday. More info here.
⍠Sweet Void Cinema (3036 W. Chicago Ave.)
Collectif Varcarmes Filmsâ 2021 documentary FEDAYIN: GEORGES ABDALLAH'S FIGHT (81 min, Digital Projection) screens Friday, 9pm, with a guest speaker from Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. Find more information on the Humboldt Park microcinema, including its larger screening and workshop schedule, here.
đď¸ ONLINE SCREENINGS/EVENTS
⍠VDB TV
Mark Oates and Tom Rubnitzâs 1985 video PSYKHO III THE MUSICAL (23 min) screens for free on VDB TV. More info here.
CINE-LIST: November 10 - November 16, 2023
MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Kian Bergstrom, Rob Christopher, Ray Ebarb, Alex Ensign, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Ben Kaye, Christy LeMaster, Nicky Ni, Drew Van Weelden, K.A. Westphal