July is here—which means it's time to jump aboard the time machine and set the dial for 1920s San Francisco. The SF Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) returns for its 14th glorious edition this weekend, and lucky Bay Area filmgoers (and scores of devoted out-of-towners) will get to relive the magnificent era of silent movies once more.
SFSFF is a first-rate act, which explains why it's become the most prestigious annual event of its kind in the Americas. How so? First, you begin with a venue like the built-in-'22 Castro Theater, perhaps the nation's most beloved extant movie palace. Next you program an eclectic, challenging and fun group of films and exhibit them with the best possible 35mm prints. Then you hire the cream of internationally renowned silent movie musicians to accompany the films. Throw in a printed program of scholarly essays, informative slideshows before each screening, lots of special guests and a Grand Prize Raffle courtesy of San Francisco's McRoskey Mattress Company—and there you have it. Thanks to the festival, I've gone from being marginally interested in silent cinema, to having the SFSFF be the most anticipated three days of my film-going year.
When the line-up was announced last month, I'd hoped to find a program or two worth skipping out on. But of course, it all sounds too good, which means being sequestered in the Castro (with time off to go home and sleep) from 7:00PM Friday until 10:00PM Sunday. This year's roster is a typical SFSFF mix of familiar actors (Douglas Fairbanks, Lillian Gish, W.C. Fields, John Gilbert) and directors (King Vidor, Josef von Sternberg, D.W. Griffith), with the distinctly less familiar (Soviet-era sci-fi and a French surrealist take on Edgar Allen Poe). Here's a cursory jaunt through the entire weekend's schedule.
Friday, July 10
7:00PM, The Gaucho—At the height of his career in 1927, Douglas Fairbanks wrote and starred in this adventure extravaganza, playing a rakish but honorable Argentine bandit called upon to defend a pilgrimage site from plunder. The film co-stars Lupe Velez in her first major role, an actress I only know from a dubious appearance in Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon (a sordid story involving suicide and a toilet bowl). The film was directed by F. Richard Jones, Mary Pickford has a cameo as the Virgin Mary, and Mexican locations stand in for the Argentine pampas. I'm sure I'll know lots more after reading the film's program notes, written by none other than Hell On Frisco Bay's Brian Darr. Featuring the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. After the screening, the SFSFF opening night party takes place in the Castro mezzanine with drinks and live music.
Saturday, July 11
10:00AM, Amazing Tales From the Archives—For the fourth year in a row, SFSFF offers this FREE-admission spotlight on film preservation. (And speaking of FREE, kids under 12 get into ALL SFSFF shows gratis!) The program's highlights include a restored 1911 Edison short, How the Hungry Man Was Fed, and Screen Snapshots: 7th Series, with behind the scenes footage of Ramon Navarro and Clara Bow. Presenters are Joe Lindner and Heather Olson of the Academy Film Archive, along with 2008's SFSFF preservation fellowship recipient Anne Smatia. Featuring Stephen Horne on piano.
12:00PM, Bardleys the Magnificent—This 1926 King Vidor-directed romantic swashbuckler was considered lost, until a near-complete, but unprojectable print was discovered in a French cellar in 2008. It's been digitally restored and will therefore be projected digitally at the festival, marking a SFSFF first. John Gilbert and Eleanor Boardman star in a tale of mistaken identity and political intrigue set in the court of Louis XIII. Featuring the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.
2:30PM, Wild Rose—A romance between a poor country girl and a rich Shanghai artist is played out in this 1932 film from acclaimed Chinese director Sun Yu. Set against the backdrop of Japan's invasion of Manchuria, the film is said to explore issues of class-ism and the country's rural/urban divide. It stars Wang Renmei as the titular Wild Rose, and Jin Yan, the "Valentino of China." Jin Yan's widow, Qin Yi will be on hand to introduce the screening. Featuring Donald Sosin on piano.
5:00PM, Underworld—George Bancroft and Evelyn Brent star as gangster Bull Weed and his moll Feathers, in this slice of 1927 silent proto-noir from director Josef von Sternberg. Ben Hecht wrote the story (in tandem with an uncredited scenario by Howard Hawks) and then demanded his name be removed once he saw what Von Sternberg had done with it. He won an Oscar anyway. This film will be introduced by San Francisco's own Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller. Featuring Stephen Horne on piano.
7:30PM, The Wind—Lillian Gish plays a Virginia transplant driven nuts by West Texas wind, sand, cyclones and despicable suitors in SFSFF's 2009 Centerpiece Film. The movie was made under grueling conditions in the Mojave Desert, and Gish is once again directed by Victor Sjöström (The Scarlet Letter). The performance includes a special wind effect used in silent movie scores of the 1920s. Leonard Maltin will do the intro. Featuring Dennis James on the Castro's Mighty Wurlitzer.
9:45PM, Aelita, Queen of Mars—I missed this at the PFA two years ago when it screened as part of their Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema series, so I'm really glad to see it turn up here. Aided by eye-popping futuristic sets and costumes, the story concerns an earthman who takes a rocket ship to Mars and helps lead a revolution there. Directed by Yakov Protazanov and released in 1924. Featuring Dennis James on the Castro's Mighty Wurlitzer and theremin, and Mark Goldstein on the Buchla Lightning.
Sunday, July 12
10:30AM, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit—Before there was Mickey Mouse, there was Oswald, a cartoon character created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at Universal Studios in 1927. Disney lost control of the character in a 1928 legal dispute, and future episodes were produced by Walter Lantz (Woody Woodpecker). This program highlights eight Disney/Iwerks Oswald cartoons with guidance from Leonard Maltin and Iwerks' granddaughter Leslie Iwerks. Featuring Donald Sosin on piano.
1:30PM, Erotikon—Once the kiddies have been cleared from the Castro, the SFSFF heats up with this 1929 Czech silent from Gustav Machatý. This is the director who would scandalize the world four years later with Heddy Lamar's nude swimming scene in Ecstasy. In this melodramatic precursor, a young girl has sex with a stranger, gets pregnant, marries another man and then returns to her former lover. The film is noted for its expressionistic imagery and non-judgmental approach to female sexual desire. It's also the first Czech film to appear in the SFSFF. Featuring the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.
4:00PM, So's Your Old Man—I guess I was vaguely aware that W.C. Fields made silent films, but it's hard to imagine him without that lilting sneer of a voice. This year we get to experience a "muted" Fields, thanks to the SFSFF Director's Pick program and Terry Zwigoff (Crumb, Ghost World, Bad Santa). Fields plays a New Jersey "put-upon paterfamilias" who invents a shatterproof windshield. After a disastrous demonstration at an auto convention, he meets a Spanish princess who leads the way to redemption. Directed by Gregory La Cava in 1926, the film was remade by Fields eight years later as You're Telling Me. This screening will be hosted by Zwigoff, writer Daniel Clowes (Art School Confidential) and esteemed actor/writer/director/SFSFF Board Member Frank Buxton. Featuring Philip Carli on piano.
6:15PM, The Fall of the House of Usher—Of all the films in the festival, this is the one I'm perhaps most intrigued by. French director/film theorist Jean Epstein adapted this Edgar Allen Poe story in 1928, with the assistance of an ultimately disgruntled Luis Buñuel (fresh from making Un chien andalou with Salvador Dali). It's said to be light on plot, but very heavy on atmospherics denoting dread, decay and discomfort. Marguerite Gance (wife of director Abel Gance) stars as Madeleine Usher, the model/muse whose death drives her husband to madness. Featuring Stephen Horne on Piano.
8:15PM, Lady of the Pavements—The 2009 SFSFF comes full circle for its Closing Night Film, with yet another vehicle showcasing the talents of Lupe Velez. This time she's a Spanish cabaret singer being pursued by a Prussian aristocrat in 19th century Paris. This 1929 picture would turn out to be maestro D.W. Griffith's final silent film, and it's generally considered the artistic high point of his later career. Two musical numbers and a dialogue sequence were re-shot to qualify the film as a part-talkie, but the original soundtrack discs are considered lost. In the SFSFF presentation, the two musical numbers will be sung live by vocalist Johanna Seaton. Featuring Donald Sosin on piano.
Cross-published on film-415 and Twitch.
Joshua Grannell (aka Peaches Christ) and I met up at the Duboce Park Café the Monday after Pride Weekend. As Peaches, Joshua had survived his Pilsner pork pull; an event he agreed to in support of his beloved BLT community. "Every year," Joshua admitted, "Peaches seems to do less and less [at Pride] in an attempt to reserve energy for the next eight weeks [of Midnight Mass]." Being that it's now official that this is the last year of Midnight Mass at the Bridge Theatre ("Peaches Christ: R.I.P."), I felt it compulsory to find out what's up. Although our conversation was primarily to serve my upcoming Fangoria article on Joshua's recently completed first feature All About Evil (I'll let you know when that hits the newsstands), I took time to probe about the summer swan song of the 12th season of Midnight Mass.
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Michael Guillén: As Midnight Mass launches into its 12th Summer season, will there be any preferential glimpses into All About Evil?
Joshua Grannell: There is a trailer being made for All About Evil. It's going to be cool! The first people to see the trailer will be at one of the Midnight Mass shows this summer. We'll show it there before we even put it on line. The first look at the trailer will happen at one of the shows, though I can't say exactly when yet because that depends on the delivery. But during the finale of this year's Midnight Mass, it seems so appropriate to have Elvira and Peaches present the world, our world, the Midnight Mass world, with a sneak peek of at least one scene from the movie.
Guillén: What I find intriguing is your professional awareness of a measure of scale. The artistic project of Midnight Mass has its unique and appropriate scale; but, the scale of the film All About Evil is much larger and cannot be contained by Midnight Mass. Thus, it only makes sense to me that—though it might seem that All About Evil should premiere at Midnight Mass—it somehow is not appropriate to scale. A trailer at Midnight Mass, however, sounds just right.
Grannell: Being a cult film aficionado and someone who champions cult movies, we've not yet even released the film and people refer to it as something cult. That drives me nuts because we don't deserve that yet. We aren't a cult film. We're attempting to someday hopefully be a true cult movie—that would be wonderful—but, you can't make a cult movie; it becomes a cult movie. If the fans decide to embrace All About Evil and put it up on a pedestal and watch it over and over again, then maybe sometime down the line we can refer to it as a cult movie. But it's not a cult movie yet. It's brand-new and it needs to find its audience. The movies that we screen at Midnight Mass are tried and true, beloved films; but, as a segue into this feature film, you're right, yes, a trailer seems wholly appropriate. Maybe someday we'll be able to create a Midnight Mass presentation out of All About Evil; but, I would much rather have that be after people have embraced the film and decided to love it and understand it, y'know?
Guillén: I have to ask the obvious question because some people were upset when they heard the news that this is the last year of Midnight Mass at The Bridge. Was it your decision to discontinue Midnight Mass? Was it the theater's? What's happened that Midnight Mass is now shifting away from The Bridge?
Grannell: Yes, it was my decision, along with the group of people who created Midnight Mass 12 years ago. While making All About Evil, we had to start prep for this season and had to table everything until we were done shooting the film. Usually, we would have been booking movies, powwowing, creating a marketing campaign, prepping for the summer; but, we didn't have time because we were working on All About Evil. When we finally sat down to do it, there was this sense of exhaustion, a feeling of frustration, and the heaviness of having done something for 11 years, and racking our brains to keep it fresh, new, exciting and interesting and relevant not just for the fans but one another. I always said that once it stopped being fun, we would figure out a way to rechallenge, repurpose, redo it, revamp it.
We all looked at each other and I said, "There's something about this season that feels like maybe this is the last one?" Everyone nodded in agreement. It has nothing to do with anything other than that we've done it for 12 seasons of 7 to 8 weeks of back to back shows. It's been amazing. We still love it. I think this Summer's going to be so special because we know this is the last. Part of it is that—in order to rechallenge and repurpose Midnight Mass—we've gone on the road, and we loved that; but, we want to do something new for San Francisco. All I can say is the plan is to create bigger and better shows with all that work and energy that goes into the pre-show, instead of tearing it down after one or two nights and having to do something new the next week; to really enjoy it, to savor it, to let as many audiences come to see it as possible, and to not feel so rushed and hurried. Lately, we've been hitting this wall with Midnight Mass in the Summer season where we can extend all this energy on a show like Barebarella and try to create this fun, theatrical experience, we do it for one night, and then those costumes get put away and I have to wake up on Sunday morning and start thinking about the next five shows.
What it's become really is that the shows have become so special and important to us that we want to take them to the next level; but—in order to do that—we have to give ourselves instead of a week to get ready for the shows, let's give ourselves four or five weeks and do the show for two weeks. That's what's really going on. We're not abandoning Midnight Mass, we're not walking away from Midnight Mass, we're strengthening it through rechallenging ourselves, trying something new.
Guillén: In its current incarnation, Midnight Mass is kicking off in style with your opening weekend Linda Blair doublebill! Rollerboogie on Friday, July 12 and The Exorcist on Saturday, July 13. With Blair there for both screenings! How did that all come about?
Grannell: Linda Blair has been on my list of dream guests for years. In the world of cult movies and the kinds of films that we love and celebrate at Midnight Mass, I have to say that's a very short list these days. So many of the fantastic people we would have liked to bring over the years are no longer with us and we've brought John Waters, Tura Satana, Mink Stole.... Linda Blair's a household name. She was so young when she started making movies. She's so vital and fabulous and made all these amazing incredible films that we love and she's just someone who's been on that list. We actually approached her about coming last year and she expressed interest. Unfortunately, we had a schedule conflict. The weekend I had open, she was on the East Coast. So we tabled the idea to see if we couldn't make it work this year and I was super-thrilled to find out that—not only are we going to be able to do it—but, she's excited about it.
Guillén: Have you met her?
Grannell: I have not. But she is friends with Cassandra Peterson and I'm pretty sure that Mink knows her too. That helps, y'know. It's funny how in this world of show business there are pockets of it that are quite small. When you're interested in certain kinds of movies, people know each other. I was able to get a good recommendation from Cassandra. Perhaps! [Laughter.]
Cross-published on Twitch.
The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF) turns a ripe young age of 29 this year, continuing its reign as the oldest and largest festival of its kind in the world. Over the course of 18 days (July 23 to August 10) SFJFF will present 71 films from 18 countries—showcasing the best Israeli and Jewish Diasporan cinema to emerge in the past year. Although I missed last week's press conference announcing the line-up, I've poured over the catalog and compiled this list of ten programs I don't want to miss.
1. Acné—Slowly but surely, 2008's bumper crop of acclaimed Latin American films is making its way into Bay Area festivals, rep houses and art cinemas. This first feature from Uruguayan director Federico Veiroj was a hit from Cannes' Directors Fortnight, and is said to be a bittersweet, deadpan comedy about a teenage boy's raging hormones.
2. The Yes Men Fix the World—I knew this film would turn up in the Bay Area eventually, but I didn't expect to find it at the SFJFF. In this follow-up to 2003's The Yes Men, anti-corporate, anti-government pranksters Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno take on Halliburton, Dow Chemical, and first-time film directing duties. If there are any heroes left in this crummy world, it's these guys, and I'm thrilled that Bichlbaum is expected to attend the July 26 screening at the Castro.
3. I Am Von Höfler—For me, the revelation of last year's SFJFF was Freedom of Expression Award winner Péter Forgács, a Hungarian director who transforms the forgotten photographs, diaries and home movies of European Jews into a singular form of documentary filmmaking. His new 160-minute epic tells the tale of one Tibor Von Höfler—bon vivant, chemist, cad—whose extraordinary life witnessed the German invasion of Hungary, the Holocaust and communism's rise and fall.
4. Defamation—In the most talked out doc at this year's Berlin Film Festival, Israeli director Yoav Shamir (Checkpoint, Flipping Out) looks into the nature of modern day anti-Semitism from both a global and personal perspective. I'm anticipating that his July 26 Castro Q&A will be the liveliest of the fest.
5. A History of Israeli Cinema—Clocking in at a butt-numbing 210 minutes, Raphaël Nadjari's two-part doc employs film clips and interviews to survey 60-plus years of Israeli filmmaking. Alissa Simon's Variety review is packed with qualms and quibbles, but one look at the list of participating directors and actors should render this essential viewing.
6. Yoo-Hoo Mrs. Goldberg—Who knew that television's first sit-com was about a nice Jewish family in the Bronx? The show was called The Goldbergs and Director Aviva Kempner's film profiles its creator, writer and star, Gertrude Berg—a mega-talent who was also a luminary of radio, Broadway and film. At the July 28 Castro screening, Kempner will receive the festival's 2009 Freedom of Expression Award. Additionally, in a program aptly titled The Goldbergs, you can watch four back-to-back episodes of the popular CBS sitcom (including one that features a young Anne Bancroft).
7. Hello, Goodbye—Fanny Ardant and Gerard Depardieu star as a middle-aged Jewish French couple who leave Paris to start a new life in Tel Aviv. Variety's Jordan Mintzer unkindly characterizes the film as "one oy-vey after another," but the presence of Israeli heartthrob Lior Ashkenazi (Late Marriage, Walk on Water) in the cast pretty much critic-proofs the film for me.
8. Lost Islands—This was Israel's biggest box office hit of 2008, earning an impressive 14 Israeli Film Academy Awards nominations (and losing the top prize to Waltz With Bashir). Set in the 1980's with the Lebanon war as a backdrop, the film is about twin brothers in a tight-knit family whose loyalties are put to a test.
9. The Gift to Stalin—Films from Central Asia have become less of a rarity in recent years, and a high percentage of those I've seen have been quite extraordinary. In Kazakh director Rustem Abdrashov's new feature, a Jewish boy en route to Siberian exile is rescued and raised by an elderly Muslim villager. Of significance to the story is the film's 1949 setting, a time when the USSR used Kazakhstan as an atom bomb testing ground.
10. The Wedding Song—This year's SFJFF closes with Karin Albou's follow-up to her 2005 award-winning La Petite Jérusalem. In 1942 Tunis, two teenage girls of marriageable age—one Muslim and one Jewish—find their futures, and their relationship with each other, challenged by the Nazi occupation of Tunisia.
Of course, this list barely scratches the surface of what's on offer at this year's fest. Depending on time and inclination, here are some others I may check out. SFJFF has a reputation for its timely, issue-driven documentaries and this year is no exception. Rachel investigates the 2003 incident that saw a 22-year-old American killed while trying to stop an Israeli bulldozer in the Occupied Territories. Director Shai Carmeli-Pollak follows last year's tragic Bilin My Love with Refugees, a look at Sudanese refuges who've tried to emigrate from Darfur to Israel. One-third of Bedouin Israeli women live in polygamous households, and Ada Ushpiz' Desert Brides examines their unhappy plight. Emily and Sarah Kunstler direct a profile of their radical defense attorney father in William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe.
Amongst the remaining narratives, here are a few more that caught my eye. Sundance favorite Adam features Peter Gallagher and Amy Irving in a tale of mismatched young lovers in NYC. (Adam will be preceded by Eve, a short directed by actress Natalie Portman.) This year's Sundance opening night film was the Australian animated feature Mary and Max, which features the voices of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Humphries (a.k.a. Dame Edna) and Toni Collette. Collette also stars in the SFJFF 2009 Australian opening night film, Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger. Noted French actors Charles Berling and Miou-Miou head the cast of Cycles, a family drama Variety's Jordan Mintzer unfortunately describes as "more Lifetime than real life." Israeli features The Tale of Nicolai & The Law of Return and Zrubavel tell stories of immigrants from Romania and Ethiopia respectively. And finally, there's Empty Nest, the latest from top Argentine director Daniel Burman (Lost Embrace, Family Law), which I saw on screener sometime last year. I'm a big Burman fan, but this labored, male mid-life crisis fantasy left me wanting. Perhaps a second look is in order.
Cross-published on film-415 and Twitch.
The San Francisco Film Society's longstanding working relationship with Film Movement ensures the theatrical exhibition of several festival-lauded films on the Sundance Kabuki's SFFS Screen. For this, Bay Area audiences should be especially grateful. Recently, Film Movement's collaboration with SFFS provided Munyurangabo; this week they're providing Eldorado (July 3-9); and in future weeks they'll be providing encore screenings of both La Ventana (July 17-23) and Lake Tahoe (July 24-30), which were featured at the 52nd edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival.
This week's entry, Belgian director Bouli Lanners' Eldorado—a "small but damn-near perfectly formed serio-comedy" (Leslie Felperin, Variety)—was selected for the 40th anniversary of the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs (Directors' Fortnight) at the 2008 61st Cannes Film Festival where it won Best European Film. Eldorado was likewise the official entry from Belgium for the 81st Annual Academy Awards (Oscars®), received a special mention at Italy's Pesaro Film Festival, and was nominated for a César for Best Foreign Feature.
Bouli Lanners—as profiled when Eldorado was featured in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs—was born in Belgium in 1965, opposite an orchard. Painter, autodidact, he worked in a wide variety of jobs on film sets before becoming popular on Canal+Belgium with Les Snuls. Since then, he has directed films and played supporting parts in Belgian and French films. In 1999, he wrote and directed Travellinckx, a black and white Super 8 road movie which traveled the international festival trail. Two years later, Muno confirmed the director's singularity and was selected for the Directors' Fortnight. Not only has he directed Eldorado, but he is also the film's screenwriter, and one of its two lead actors.
With Eldorado, Lanners returns to the genre of the road film to express his sad, absurd tale of temporary companionship on route to disparate destinies. The skillful balance between humor and melancholy is—as Felperin states it—"just so" and the film "never puts a wrong foot forward in the direction of sentimentality or cliche." Plot points "that cruder hands might have milked for more pathos" are "unfussily revealed." As Melissa Anderson states in her Village Voice review: "When the traveling companions reveal their backstories, the monologues avoid mawkishness, further upending all low expectations of this frequently trite genre. In its final act, Lanners's film is smart and confident enough to acknowledge that certain lives are dead ends, while others get tired of just spinning their wheels."
Though Slant's Joseph Jon Lanthier found the film flawed for its "sheer incredulity", he astutely acknowledged the "visual chemistry" successfully (and comically) engendered by the "mismatched physiques" of the film's two leads: Yvan (played by Lanners) is "beefy", "overweight and unkempt", whereas Elie (Fabrice Adde) is "smack-scrawny", "incompetent" and "pathetic." In a Cineuropa interview with Aurore Engelen, Lanners admitted he was "immediately touched by Adde's "beanpole appearance" when they first met. He added: "Our Laurel and Hardy-like duo interested me, for it had definite comic potential. It was a question of striking the right balance so as to avoid crude parody, whilst still infusing a sense of humor." Lanthier picks up on the Laurel & Hardy riff, describing it as "bewhiskered" and "bohemian."
Not only is the visual chemistry between the two lead actors notable, but the beautiful and desolate summertime landscape of the Wallonia region of Belgium—"filmed to resemble a miniaturized American West" (Stephen Holden, New York Times)—is contrasted against claustrophobic car interiors. Lanners explained in his interview with Engelen: "[T]he car is a sort of artificial cocoon in which the characters come into close contact with each other. It acts as a catalyst in the relationship between Yvan and Elie. Trapped inside the car, they are forced to listen to one another and communicate. We were originally supposed to shoot the film in a Cadillac Eldorado (whence the title), as it fitted the mood of the film." This contrast between exterior and interior shots stages a compelling visual tension. Lanthier states: "[E]ffectively placed edits juxtapose wide shots of the overcast Belgian countryside with tight, in-vehicle close-ups to emphasize the characters' isolation—as though the duo has been expelled from the rural Eden in their very midst as a punishment for their social atrophy." At Trustmovies, James van Maanen observes that the wide-screen format used by Lanners and his cinematographer Jean-Paul de Zaetijd "produce some memorable vistas", yet the view the audience takes away is precisely "interior." He articulates: "The bond that forms between the two stems from the need and desire to help, and this keeps the movie on a kind of moral ground from which it never veers."
That bond is particularly poignant for being so fugacious and—before the final act's reveal—nearly mysterious. The look Yvan gives Elie when he recognizes the boy is an incompetent heroin addict—a look that seems almost like Yvan has fallen in love—belies a commitment limned with regretful hindsight. Matched against a countenance of concerned resignation at film's end, a depth trembles in Eldorado's seeming insouciance. The haphazard and absurd adventures of their shared road trip converts into precise meaning and acquired insight.
"Once Yvan and Elie reach their destination," Stephen Holden writes, "Eldorado turns into a sad contemplation of fractured family relationships and eternal regrets. Elie's mother (Françoise Chichéry) regards her wastrel son with the stricken look of a woman who knows in her bones that he is doomed but loves him with a hopeless desperation. When Elie briefly disappears and we hear in the background the shouts of a savage father-son battle, the mother clutches Yvan's hand, her eyes wild with grief and terror." What makes this scene so wrenching, however, is that the camera is held tight on the two of them looking at each other as they overhear the argument, and only belatedly backs away to reveal that they have been grasping each others' hands. And when Yvan drives away from Elie's parents' home, Elie looks back bereaved, muttering, "Mama." The breadth of this scene is devastating.
Holden interprets this as a reflection on "the consequences of forsaking human (especially family) connections to go it alone in the world. Because Yvan understands the personal cost of ignoring ties that bind until it's too late, he tries to be an older brother to Elie. But for men fleeing pain for the freedom of the wide open spaces, whether of Montana or Wallonia, the movie suggests, the price of that freedom may be an unbearable loneliness."
If, for some reason, you're unable to catch Eldorado at the SFFS Screen, Film Movement will be releasing the film on DVD come July 14th, 2009.
Cross-published on Twitch.
Shortly before the hordes began chanting, "The Daily is dead; long live The Daily", David Hudson gathered reviews of Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro, first from its Cannes debut, and then later mid-June when it opened stateside. Here in San Francisco, Coppola met with his audience at the film's first screening at the Sundance Kabuki.
Outlining how The Godfather created a "tsunami of success" that irrevocably changed his life and filmmaking, Coppola has gleaned from the passing of years a restoration of creative spirit leaning into what he admits is his "second career." Tetro is, in fact, the second film of his second career; Youth Without Youth being the first. Lustrously shot in digital and projected in 35mm, the film is a rapture to watch, even as its rich visuals disguise an anemic narrative that doesn't quite ring true. One is grateful for what one has seen; but, not completely satisfied. I'm not a huge Vincent Gallo fan so I place the blame there—for me, he just couldn't carry the movie—but, Coppola's "discovery" Alden Ehrenreich has charisma to spare in his debut role and is a talent to watch in future years.
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Michael Guillén: One of the images I'm going to carry away with me from Tetro is that of the staged dance sequence near the edge of the sea. It reminded me of One From the Heart for being thrillingly artificial; the kind of artifice that lends itself in some odd way to emotional authenticity. Can you speak to your use of theatrical artifice to create emotion in your films?
Francis Ford Coppola: Of course. Just as the story implies, when Bennie [Alden Ehrenreich] was a little kid, his older brother Tetro [Vincent Gallo] used to take him to movies that were a little bit advanced for a seven-year-old kid and gave him some books to read and what have you and that's why the boy idolized his brother so much. It's true, in my own life I have an older brother who took me to see the Korda films, The Red Shoes—of which there's an excerpt in Tetro—and also Tales of Hoffmann, which is much stranger for a young kid. Just as the character Bennie says, whenever he thought of his brother he always thought of Tales of Hoffmann.
My idea was that—when Bennie is reading [Tetro's] cryptic notes and writings—that he imagines the story as though it's scenes from a Michael Powell / Emeric Pressburger dance film. The version of the story that the boy understands is as though it's told in dance. It's great that film is one of those mediums that can use different art forms to do different things. It was also fun for me—as someone who has admired The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus and all those beautiful Technicolor films—to get to fool with telling this little story in those images. The image you mentioned of the dancers on the stage with the sea coming in is very much inspired by the dance in The Red Shoes, as you can imagine.
Cross-published on Twitch.
Norwegian Black Metal, Graphic Sexual Horror and a Headless Woman. Jeez, is it Halloween already? No, it's just this summer's insouciant film/video line-up at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. But before we dig into what curator Joel Shepard has in store through September, here's exciting news for YBCA filmgoers. Starting July 6, ticket holders will be allowed FREE admittance into YBCA's exhibition galleries, whose days and hours of operation have been adjusted to align with evening film and video screenings.
Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell's Until the Light Takes Us (July 9 & 11) shines a torch on the stygian world of Norwegian Black Metal, a musical subgenre that grabbed headlines for inspiring a wave of murder, suicide and over 50 church burnings in the early '90s. The filmmakers were reluctantly introduced to the music by an insistent employee at San Francisco's Aquarius Records, which subsequently inspired them to spend two years in Norway gathering materials for this film. Moving from extreme music to extreme sexuality, the following weekend at YBCA brings us Anna Lorentzon and Barbara Bell's Graphic Sexual Horror (July 16 & 17). This documentary tells the story of Insex, a now-defunct BDSM website featuring exclusively female submissives that was also an early pioneer of internet video streaming and live feeds.
"Where is The Headless Woman?" That was the big question on the lips of Bay Area cinephiles when the latest from Argentine director Lucrecia Martel failed to make the line-up of this year's SF International Film Festival. We'd been lusting to see this film since its world premiere at Cannes last year. My anticipation became further heightened when it got ranked #1 on Film Comment's list of 20 Best Unreleased Films of 2008. Well, leave it to YBCA to end up bringing us not only the film, but the director as well, in a program titled Holy Girls and Headless Women: The Films of Lucrecia Martel. The ground-breaking director will appear at a screening of her 2001 debut feature La Ciénaga on July 14, followed by The Headless Woman on the following evening. Her second and middle feature, 2004's The Holy Girl will be shown on July 23 without the director in attendance (Martel accompanied the film to the SF International Film Festival in 2005).
Anyone who missed Chantal Akerman's revolutionary Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles when it screened at SF MOMA earlier this year, will get another chance on August 1 and 2. There may even be some repeat viewers—the SFMOMA screenings were marred by a missing second reel—replaced by a DVD at the first screening and 16mm at the second. This hypnotic, long (201-minute) 1975 film is considered one of the most important works in the history of cinema by many, and stars Delphine Seyrig as a middle-class widow and mother whose orderly universe s-l-o-w-l-y cracks apart.
Fewer things interest me less than sports, but I'm intrigued by several programs in Beyond ESPN: An Offbeat Look at the Sports Film. This month-long series, co-curated by Shepard and SF Bay Guardian Arts and Entertainment Editor Johnny Ray Huston, spans the full artsy to trashy gamut. Kicking off the series on August 6 is Rare Films from the Baseball Hall of Fame, followed by Jorgen Leth's A Sunday in Hell on August 9. Said to be the best film ever made about professional bicycle racing, Leth documented the grueling 1976 Paris-Roubaix race across northern France using 20 cameras and a helicopter. Contemporary audiences might know Leth best as the director assigned a series of wily filmmaking challenges by Lars Von Trier in 2003's The Five Obstructions.
Of all the films in the sports series, perhaps the one of most interest to cinephiles will be Claire Denis' 2005 never-seen-in-SF Towards Mathilde (August 13). Made in between L'intrus and 35 Shots of Rum, the film documents modern dance choreographer Mathilde Monnier as she creates a new work. The release of Criterion's Criteron's William Klein boxed-set last year generated renewed interest in the work of this American born and educated director who spent most of his career in France. He's represented in this series by The French (August 16), a documentary about the 1982 French Open tennis tournament in which Jimmy Connors, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova and John McEnroe were participants (the film is not part of the Criterion set and is not available on DVD). Then on August 20 YBCA will screen Veronica Chen's visually striking Agua, an Argentine film set in the world of open water marathon swimming (specifically the 57-km Santa Fe-Cordoba river race.) The film appeared at the 2007 SF International Film Festival, and my review for The Evening Class can be found here.
Midnites for Maniacs—and its ebullient host Jesse Hawthorne Ficks—bring their swell act to YBCA on August 23, with Winning Isn't Everything: A Tribute to 1970s Sports Film. This triple-bill movie-marathon includes 1978 Robbie Benson-starring ice skating tear-jerker Ice Castles, Michael Ritchie's 1976 classic The Bad News Bears with Walter Matthau and Tatum O'Neal, and last but not least, The Cheerleaders, a 1973 exploitation film that threatens to reveal "everything you ever wanted to know about cheerleaders but were afraid to ask."
The final weekend of YBCA's sports series brings us two more classic, rarely seen documentaries. Visions of Eight (August 28) is an omnibus film centering on the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, with segments directed by Milos Forman, Kon Ichikawa, Claude Lelouch, Arthur Penn, John Schlesinger and others. Not too long ago, YBCA had a bona fide hit on its hands with numerous sold-out showings of Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, which followed French soccer star Zinedine Zidane through one complete match. The film which did this first, however, was Hellmuth Costard's 1971 Football as Never Before (August 30). Using eight cameras, soccer legend George Best is trailed though a 1970 Manchester United First Division game. Interestingly, Spike Lee employs the same method in an upcoming documentary on Kobe Bryant.
Although not officially listed on YBCA's website yet, there are two important films I'm anticipating beyond the current calendar. On September 10, 12 and 13, YBCA revives Nicholas Ray's 1956 Bigger Than Life, in which James Mason is transformed from mild-mannered schoolteacher to deluded megalomaniac—courtesy of the modern miracle drug cortisone. Then on September 17, 19 and 20 we get to see another critically acclaimed Latin American film from 2008, Lisandro Alonso's Liverpool. This latest work from the Argentine minimalist director placed 10th on the aforementioned Film Comment list of Top 20 unreleased films, and was another surprise omission from this year's SFIFF. Hopefully YBCA will continue to focus on Latin American cinema, given the fact that we no longer have a Latino Film Festival here in the Bay Area. At the top of my wish list you'll find Pablo Larrain's Tony Manero (#9 on the Film Comment list) and Rodrigo Plá's Desert Within (winner of eight 2008 Mexican Ariel awards).
Cross-published on film-415 and Twitch.
Seventy years later and 1939 is still hailed as a benchmark year for Hollywood cinema. Celebrating that fact, this evening The Castro Theatre launches its 18-film tribute to 1939, including such classics as Son of Frankenstein and The Man They Could Not Hang, At the Circus and You Can't Cheat An Honest Man, They Made Me A Criminal and Each Dawn I Die, The Women and Ninotchka, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Destry Rides Again, Wuthering Heights and Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Tarzan Finds A Son and Another Thin Man, Gunga Din and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, wrapping up with Golden Boy and Only Angels Have Wings.
If you prefer your home entertainment system to a movie palace, at least 10 of those titles are likewise included in Turner Classic Movies' 39-film tribute "1939—70th Anniversary of Hollywood's Greatest Year." Each Thursday night through the month of July, TCM will shoot off 1939's most celebrated fireworks, including all 10 Best Picture Oscar® Nominees (reminding—in the light of recent events—that everything old is new again). Robert Osborne offers a preview of the festival at Now Playing: The Show and the full schedule can be found at TCM's website. TCM's "39 From 1939" Film Festival also features the premiere of the new Warner Home Video documentary 1939 (2009), which recounts the astonishing accomplishments of Hollywood during this historic film year.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has, of course, been screening all 10 Best Picture Oscar® Nominees throughout the Summer, with only four screenings left to go.
Of related interest, at One Way Street Alan Rode angles in on 1939 by way of a sterling portrait of "the incredible twelve month run of film roles by the great character actor, Thomas Mitchell."
And, of course, no survey of any given year in cinema history would be complete without a tip of the hat to Thom Ryan's Film of the Year. He chose Confessions of a Nazi Spy as his focus on 1939.
So, out of sheer curiosity, what is your favorite film from 1939?
Cross-published on Twitch.
07/02/09 UPDATE: Dennis Harvey offers up his thoughts on the Castro program for SF360, as well as some of his fave raves from 1939 not included in the Castro schedule.
July is here—which means it's time to jump aboard the time machine and set the dial for 1920s San Francisco. The SF Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) returns for its 14th glorious edition this weekend, and lucky Bay Area filmgoers (and scores of devoted out-of-towners) will get to relive the magnificent era of silent movies once more.
SFSFF is a first-rate act, which explains why it's become the most prestigious annual event of its kind in the Americas. How so? First, you begin with a venue like the built-in-'22 Castro Theater, perhaps the nation's most beloved extant movie palace. Next you program an eclectic, challenging and fun group of films and exhibit them with the best possible 35mm prints. Then you hire the cream of internationally renowned silent movie musicians to accompany the films. Throw in a printed program of scholarly essays, informative slideshows before each screening, lots of special guests and a Grand Prize Raffle courtesy of San Francisco's McRoskey Mattress Company—and there you have it. Thanks to the festival, I've gone from being marginally interested in silent cinema, to having the SFSFF be the most anticipated three days of my film-going year.
When the line-up was announced last month, I'd hoped to find a program or two worth skipping out on. But of course, it all sounds too good, which means being sequestered in the Castro (with time off to go home and sleep) from 7:00PM Friday until 10:00PM Sunday. This year's roster is a typical SFSFF mix of familiar actors (Douglas Fairbanks, Lillian Gish, W.C. Fields, John Gilbert) and directors (King Vidor, Josef von Sternberg, D.W. Griffith), with the distinctly less familiar (Soviet-era sci-fi and a French surrealist take on Edgar Allen Poe). Here's a cursory jaunt through the entire weekend's schedule.
7:00PM, The Gaucho—At the height of his career in 1927, Douglas Fairbanks wrote and starred in this adventure extravaganza, playing a rakish but honorable Argentine bandit called upon to defend a pilgrimage site from plunder. The film co-stars Lupe Velez in her first major role, an actress I only know from a dubious appearance in Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon (a sordid story involving suicide and a toilet bowl). The film was directed by F. Richard Jones, Mary Pickford has a cameo as the Virgin Mary, and Mexican locations stand in for the Argentine pampas. I'm sure I'll know lots more after reading the film's program notes, written by none other than Hell On Frisco Bay's Brian Darr. Featuring the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. After the screening, the SFSFF opening night party takes place in the Castro mezzanine with drinks and live music.
10:00AM, Amazing Tales From the Archives—For the fourth year in a row, SFSFF offers this FREE-admission spotlight on film preservation. (And speaking of FREE, kids under 12 get into ALL SFSFF shows gratis!) The program's highlights include a restored 1911 Edison short, How the Hungry Man Was Fed, and Screen Snapshots: 7th Series, with behind the scenes footage of Ramon Navarro and Clara Bow. Presenters are Joe Lindner and Heather Olson of the Academy Film Archive, along with 2008's SFSFF preservation fellowship recipient Anne Smatia. Featuring Stephen Horne on piano.
12:00PM, Bardleys the Magnificent—This 1926 King Vidor-directed romantic swashbuckler was considered lost, until a near-complete, but unprojectable print was discovered in a French cellar in 2008. It's been digitally restored and will therefore be projected digitally at the festival, marking a SFSFF first. John Gilbert and Eleanor Boardman star in a tale of mistaken identity and political intrigue set in the court of Louis XIII. Featuring the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.
2:30PM, Wild Rose—A romance between a poor country girl and a rich Shanghai artist is played out in this 1932 film from acclaimed Chinese director Sun Yu. Set against the backdrop of Japan's invasion of Manchuria, the film is said to explore issues of class-ism and the country's rural/urban divide. It stars Wang Renmei as the titular Wild Rose, and Jin Yan, the "Valentino of China." Jin Yan's widow, Qin Yi will be on hand to introduce the screening. Featuring Donald Sosin on piano.
5:00PM, Underworld—George Bancroft and Evelyn Brent star as gangster Bull Weed and his moll Feathers, in this slice of 1927 silent proto-noir from director Josef von Sternberg. Ben Hecht wrote the story (in tandem with an uncredited scenario by Howard Hawks) and then demanded his name be removed once he saw what Von Sternberg had done with it. He won an Oscar anyway. This film will be introduced by San Francisco's own Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller. Featuring Stephen Horne on piano.
7:30PM, The Wind—Lillian Gish plays a Virginia transplant driven nuts by West Texas wind, sand, cyclones and despicable suitors in SFSFF's 2009 Centerpiece Film. The movie was made under grueling conditions in the Mojave Desert, and Gish is once again directed by Victor Sjöström (The Scarlet Letter). The performance includes a special wind effect used in silent movie scores of the 1920s. Leonard Maltin will do the intro. Featuring Dennis James on the Castro's Mighty Wurlitzer.
9:45PM, Aelita, Queen of Mars—I missed this at the PFA two years ago when it screened as part of their Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema series, so I'm really glad to see it turn up here. Aided by eye-popping futuristic sets and costumes, the story concerns an earthman who takes a rocket ship to Mars and helps lead a revolution there. Directed by Yakov Protazanov and released in 1924. Featuring Dennis James on the Castro's Mighty Wurlitzer and theremin, and Mark Goldstein on the Buchla Lightning.
10:30AM, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit—Before there was Mickey Mouse, there was Oswald, a cartoon character created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at Universal Studios in 1927. Disney lost control of the character in a 1928 legal dispute, and future episodes were produced by Walter Lantz (Woody Woodpecker). This program highlights eight Disney/Iwerks Oswald cartoons with guidance from Leonard Maltin and Iwerks' granddaughter Leslie Iwerks. Featuring Donald Sosin on piano.
1:30PM, Erotikon—Once the kiddies have been cleared from the Castro, the SFSFF heats up with this 1929 Czech silent from Gustav Machatý. This is the director who would scandalize the world four years later with Heddy Lamar's nude swimming scene in Ecstasy. In this melodramatic precursor, a young girl has sex with a stranger, gets pregnant, marries another man and then returns to her former lover. The film is noted for its expressionistic imagery and non-judgmental approach to female sexual desire. It's also the first Czech film to appear in the SFSFF. Featuring the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.
4:00PM, So's Your Old Man—I guess I was vaguely aware that W.C. Fields made silent films, but it's hard to imagine him without that lilting sneer of a voice. This year we get to experience a "muted" Fields, thanks to the SFSFF Director's Pick program and Terry Zwigoff (Crumb, Ghost World, Bad Santa). Fields plays a New Jersey "put-upon paterfamilias" who invents a shatterproof windshield. After a disastrous demonstration at an auto convention, he meets a Spanish princess who leads the way to redemption. Directed by Gregory La Cava in 1926, the film was remade by Fields eight years later as You're Telling Me. This screening will be hosted by Zwigoff, writer Daniel Clowes (Art School Confidential) and esteemed actor/writer/director/SFSFF Board Member Frank Buxton. Featuring Philip Carli on piano.
6:15PM, The Fall of the House of Usher—Of all the films in the festival, this is the one I'm perhaps most intrigued by. French director/film theorist Jean Epstein adapted this Edgar Allen Poe story in 1928, with the assistance of an ultimately disgruntled Luis Buñuel (fresh from making Un chien andalou with Salvador Dali). It's said to be light on plot, but very heavy on atmospherics denoting dread, decay and discomfort. Marguerite Gance (wife of director Abel Gance) stars as Madeleine Usher, the model/muse whose death drives her husband to madness. Featuring Stephen Horne on Piano.
8:15PM, Lady of the Pavements—The 2009 SFSFF comes full circle for its Closing Night Film, with yet another vehicle showcasing the talents of Lupe Velez. This time she's a Spanish cabaret singer being pursued by a Prussian aristocrat in 19th century Paris. This 1929 picture would turn out to be maestro D.W. Griffith's final silent film, and it's generally considered the artistic high point of his later career. Two musical numbers and a dialogue sequence were re-shot to qualify the film as a part-talkie, but the original soundtrack discs are considered lost. In the SFSFF presentation, the two musical numbers will be sung live by vocalist Johanna Seaton. Featuring Donald Sosin on piano.
