FALL 2009 SCHEDULE

January 15: High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)

High and Low stars Toshiro Mifune as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist who has just raised money to execute his planned takeover of a shoe manufacturer. He soon learns that his son has been kidnapped and that the ransom demand is nearly equivalent to the amount Mifune has raised for his corporate takeover. When it is revealed that Gondo’s son is safe he realized that it is actually his chauffeur's son who has been kidnapped. Kurosawa here creates a detective thriller that also explores the class division in Japan, evidenced in the title. Loosely adapted from Ed McBain’s novel King's Ransom. (142 min.)

January 22: Films by Robert Todd

Reprising a screening from last Fall, we’ll be showing a selection of shorts by renowned filmmaker and Emerson College professor Robert Todd. While he has no characteristic style, his work is always diffuse, elliptical, and suggestive, its effects based on implication rather than explanation. His films are fixtures on the national and international experimental film festival circuit.

January 29: Unfaithfully Yours (Preston Sturges, 1948)

Preston Sturges’ now acclaimed 1948 film Unfaithfully Yours is the story of Sir Alfred de Carter, (Rex Harrison) a world famous symphony conductor, who through a series of comic misunderstandings, begins to suspect that his young wife has been unfaithful while he’s been away. As Sir Alfred conducts pieces by Rossini, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky, the film takes us inside the eccentric conductor’s rampant imagination, and what follows is a series of darkly comic scenarios in which Sir Alfred imagines how he will confront his wife and her suspected lover. Sturges’ writing is spot-on as usual, securing the film’s place as a classic in the tragicomic canon. (105 min.)

February 5: Vinyl (Andy Warhol, 1965) and Kidnapped (Eric Mitchell, 1978)

These two films are both loose (very loose) adaptations of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, and their pairing provides an interesting look at the relationship between the 1960s and 1970s underground arts scenes in Manhattan. Warhol’s film, in which a leather-clad hoodlum is half-heartedly “reconditioned” by a group of Factory regulars, provided the model for Mitchell’s, in which a group of Lower East Side “terrorists” give their attention to a kidnapped businessman. (120 minute program)

February 12: North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)

Alfred Hitchcock succeeds again with this 1959 cross-country, featuring a spectacular performance by Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill. In this classic Hitchcock “wrong man” scenario Thornhill is mistaken by enemy spies for a U.S. undercover agent named George Kaplan. Convinced that Phillip Vandamm (James Mason) and his henchman are trying to kill him, Thornhill flees and meets Eve Kendall (played by Eva Marie Saint). Other noteworthy “characters” in this film include the United Nations, a blood-thirsty crop-duster and Mount Rushmore. Written by Ernest Lehman and scored by Hitchcock regular Bernard Herrmann.
(131 min.)

Special mention should be noted for Robin Wood (1931-2009), film critic and scholar who is credited with bringing Hitchcock’s films into the academic canon.

February 19: Vivienne Dick Films

Following up last Fall’s presentation of Beauty Becomes the Beast, we present more films by Ireland’s Vivienne Dick. Dick’s early films, which were key works in the short-lived No Wave film scene of late-70s New York, draw on that movement’s emphasis on raw amateurism while also exhibiting an overt feminist sensibility. We’ll be showing three shorts: Guerillere Talks, She Had Her Gun All Ready, and Staten Island. (56 minute program)

February 26: Evening of Short Films

Menilmontant (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1926, France)
Smiling Madame Beudet (Germaine Dulac, 1922, France)
Zero de Conduite (Jean Vigo, 1933, France)

Dimitri Kirsanoff’s Menilmontant is a minimalist silent film, mixing elements of German Expresssionism, Soviet Montage, Hollywood melodrama and French avant-garde styles. Named after a neighborhood in France, the film features two young sisters who become involved with the same man with harsh consequences. Germaine Dulac’s Smiling Madame Beudet is considered on the first “truly feminist films.” Featuring a woman trapped in a loveless marriage, where as a practical joke the woman loads her husband’s gun, unbeknownst to him. Feeling guilty, she tries to remedy the situation before it is too late. Jean Vigo’s Zero de Conduite was banned in its native France for 13 years following its 1933 release. Drawing on Vigo’s own boarding school experiences, it features a schoolboy’s fantasy of rebellion and uprising. (120 minute program)

March 5: 23rd Psalm Branch (Stan Brakhage, 1967/1978)

Often cited as Brakhage’s only overtly political film, 23rd Psalm Branch is the magnum opus of his 8mm Songs series. Combining his characteristic manipulations of the filmstrip with archival footage of home life and the Vietnam war, this masterwork investigates the social and private roots of violence on various scales. (85 min.)

March 26: Hiroshima, Mon Amour (Alain Renais, 1959)

Following upon the heels of his holocaust documentary Night and Fog, Alain Renais’ Hiroshima, Mon Amour intercuts an affair between a French Actress and a Japanese architect with images of post-atomic bomb Hiroshima and its attendant devastation. Renais’ film offers a highly personal look at the ways in which individuals’ histories and memories are impacted by and create national memory and history. Based on a book by Marguerite Duras. (93 min.)

April 2: BillBobBillBillBob (Gunvor Nelson, 1971)

Initially scheduled for last Fall, this screening presents Gunvor Nelson’s feature-length experimental documentary Five Artists: BillBobBillBillBob (1971, 70m), which she made with her frequent filmmaking partner, Dorothy Wiley. The film is a playful and intitmate portrait of five California-based filmmakers, painters, and sculptors, all close friends of Nelson’s. Bill Wiley, Bob Nelson, Bill Allan, Bill Geis, and Bob Hudson are the title figures, all of whom get loving treatment in this often-overlooked gem. (70 min.)

April 9: Knock on Any Door (Nicholas Ray, 1949)

Adapted from the novel by Willard Motley, Nicholas Ray’s courtroom noir gave 1950s American youth culture its rebellious and romantic credo: Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse. Humphrey Bogart stars as a cynical lawyer from the slums, who reluctantly agrees to defend a teenager (John Derek) off those same streets accused of killing a police officer. Released on the heels of Rays debut They Live by Night (1949), and foreshadowing his classic melodrama of juvenile delinquency Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Knock on Any Door marks an early example of the cult auteur’s preoccupation with victims of society, alienated anti-heroes, and postwar malaise. The film also served as the first project by Bogart’s own Santana
Productions. (100 min.)

April 16: Three by J.J. Murphy

University of Wisconsin professor J.J. Murphy spent the 1970s investigating ways to make the most mundane elements of filmmaking into small aesthetic wonders. Science Fiction (1979) converts a high school science film into a bewildering sci-fi fantasy. Sky Blue Water Light Sign (1972) is probably the loveliest portrayal of a simple nature scene ever captured on film. Movie Stills (1977) is a timely memorial to the visual possibilities of Polaroid film as it lingers on the development of its images. (60 minute program)

April 23: Rome, Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945)

Roberto Rossellini dark masterpiece Rome, Open City is part of his trilogy of films made during and after World War II—with Paisan and Germany Ground Zero. Like other Italian Neo-Realist films, this film features many nonprofessional actors and unorthodox approaches to storytelling. The film tells of the Nazi occupation of Italy during World War II. Featuring Aldo Fabrizi as the priest Don Pietro Pellegrini and Anna Magnani as Pina, the fiancée of a resistance member. The screenplay, written by Sergio Amidei and Frederico Fellini was nominated for an Academy Award. (100 min.)

May 1: The Iris Film Festival – Special Saturday Event

The Department of Communication and Culture’s Iris Film Festival is now in its fourth year. Each year the festival has featured films and videos from students at Indiana University and other colleges around the country, as well as amateur filmmakers from around the state. The films range from short dramas, comedies, documentaries, mockumentaries and music videos. Our panel of judges includes three CMCL faculty and one graduate student. We are pleased to announce that the festival will take place in a new room, Fine Arts (FA) 015, a comfortable screening room that seats several hundred people. Please join us again this year for a wonderful evening of short films. Screening usually lasts about two hours, with an awards ceremony following. As always, drinks, popcorn and movie snacks will be provided for free. Free admission. 7 p.m.