Dedicated to screening rare & significant films in their original format.
Dedicated to screening rare & significant films in their original format.
The Melbourne Cinémathèque is a not-for-profit, volunteer-run film society.
We hold screenings at The Australian Centre for the Moving image every Wednesday night for most of the year.
Admission is by membership, which can be obtained on a monthly or yearly basis.
7:00pm – AUTUMN LEAVES
Robert Aldrich (1956) 107 mins G
Playing a lonely middle-aged woman wooed by a troubled younger man (Cliff Robertson), this was Joan Crawford’s first collaboration with Aldrich, leading the way to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? As with the later film, Aldrich – assisted by the great cinematographer Charles Lang – brings a toughness to the melodrama of the so-called “woman’s picture”. Richard Brody called it “a story of romantic agony, archetypal tragedy and mental illness” which “forges its passionate themes and actions into a cinematic style of a rare, hectic ardour”. With Vera Miles and Lorne Greene and featuring the title song by Nat King Cole.
9:00pm – HUSH…HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE
Robert Aldrich (1964) 133 mins M
This wicked gothic drama fuses an ageing Southern belle, a buried family secret and the sinister hum of small-town gossip with the rich black-and-white tones of Joseph F. Biroc’s cinematography. Aldrich’s follow up to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a Grand Guignol vehicle that transports Bette Davis to the macabre splendour of a crumbling plantation house in Louisiana. This baroque psychological thriller is spiced up with a stellar supporting cast including Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Cecil Kellaway, Bruce Dern and Mary Astor.
The Melbourne Cinémathèque started out as the Melbourne University Film Society (MUFS) in 1948 and changed its name to Cinémathèque in 1984.
The Melbourne Cinémathèque aims to present films in the medium they were created and as closely as possible to screen films the way they would have originally screened (i.e. big screen, celluloid prints, not video or DVD).
Programmes include a diverse selection of classic and contemporary films showcasing director retrospectives, special guest appearances and thematic series including archival material and new or restored prints.
We have on occasion hosted numerous seminars featuring renowned film scholars such as David Bordwell, Adrian Martin and Ian Christie. We are also dedicated to providing new annotations on the films we screen via the CTEQ annotations, hosted as a part of the quarterly online film journal Senses of Cinema.
The Melbourne Cinémathèque is self-administered and membership-driven relying on support from individuals, foundations, corporations and government funding to maintain its high standard of excellence. If you would like to be involved, or to offer donations or sponsorship, please contact us.
Presented by The Melbourne Cinémathèque with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
Curated by the Melbourne Cinémathèque.
Curatorial Committee: Michael Koller, Adrian Danks, Eloise Ross and Cerise Howard, with Associate Curator Michelle Carey
Supported by Film Victoria, RMIT University & The City of Melbourne
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© The Melbourne Cinémathèque
ABN 59 987 473 440
Supported by Film Victoria, RMIT University & City of Melbourne.
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