Note on Screenings in 2007
See also: "Pleasure, Passion and Pathos" - Phillipa Hawker@The Age
- Beau Travail. (Claire Denis) 1999
This year the Melbourne Cinémathčque makes accessible to the public a diverse range of international cinematic landmarks and rarities, including cult, experiment, documentary, silent and short films. (See below for special seasons note.)
- Eyes Without A Face. (Georges Franju) 1959
Our opening night is a European horror double-bill featuring George Franju's highly influential and strikingly poetic Eyes Without A Face and Jack Clayton's renowned classic, The Innocents, with an episode of The Perfect Crime directed by Alfred Hitchcock also included. Later in the year we will return to the horror genre with two memorable works from Jacques Tourneur, Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie (which screens with Portugese film-maker Pedro Costa's remarkable debut The Blood).
- Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder) 1950
In the way of Hollywood, three of our nights focus on key works from directors Nicholas Ray, Samuel Fuller and Raoul Walsh (including an early silent from Walsh). Other classics include Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. and John Cassavete's Opening Night. A host of other memorable Hollywood from Aldrich, Ford et al screen as part of our Lee Marvin Special Season.
As usual our program includes a notable share of nights focusing on classic works from prominent European auteurs. Bresson's sublime masterpiece Au Hasard, Balthazar screens with Pasolini's The Gospel According to Matthew, Godard's Le Petit Soldat (a film with interesting links to Beau Travail) with Resnais' retrospective Muriel ou le temps d'un retour. An Italian double feature contrasts Fellini's whimsical take on youth, I Vitelloni with the rebellious streak found in Marco Bellochio's In The Name of The Father. Of course no season would be complete without a double feature from the vast ouvre of Ingmar Bergman, and this year we are screening Now, About All these Women with Scenes From A Marriage. Our screening of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari will be accompanied by a new score written by the Ang Fang Quartet, followed by a newly restored print of Frtiz Lang's silent montage-driven thriller Spione.
Some of this years distinct European features include Jean Moreu's Lumiere, and Elim Klimov's devastatingly visceral war film Come & See, which fittingly screens alongside Tarkovsky's debut war feature, Ivan's Childhood.
Experimental and animation nights include select shorts from Ryan Larkin (accompanied by a recent and acclaimed computer animation on Larkin by Chris Landreth), and a session of works from Peter Tscherkassky (Parallel Space: Inter-view, Outer Space) and Pip Todorov (Charlemagne 2: Piltzer), mingled in with Jim Finn's mockumentary Interkosmos, and PÉTER FORGÁCS philosphical documentary works.
Also in the way of documentary this year we are proud to screen the Marker-esque Heideggerian epic The Ister, complete with an introduction by the Melbourne based film-makers who independently financed and produced this internationally acclaimed work of philosophical rigor. Accompanying director Claire Denis' stunning must-see film, Beau Travail, is her documentary collaboration with Serge Daney Jacques Rivette: The Night Watchman, which will help colour our select Jacques Rivette special season. We are also screening Samuel Beckett's only foray into the cinematic medium, Film which features Buster Keaton.
Speaking of Buster Keaton, we also have an excellent night of comedy with Sherlock Jr. and two Jerry Lewis favourites. Australia also gets a look in with Bitter Springs (a film heavily discussed in Deb Verhoeven's playfully philosophical book-length study "Sheep and The Australian Cinema", a key new work in Australian cinema studies, released last year), followed by Nick Parsons' Dead Heart. This year features a small selection of Asian cinema, including two markedly different crime genre films from Johnnie To, Exiled and Election, and a Nagisa Oshima double feature.
As usual a host of new writing has been produced to accompany each film. These will appear in Cteq Annotations in Senses of Cinema and be available as print-outs at each screening (more...). Links to Senses of Cinema articles also appear on each film page found using the drop down menu in the yellow navigation bar.
Special Seasons 2007
Our first special season in March highlights the work of renowned european art-house director, Krzysztof Kieslowski. Across three weeks we will screen the acclaimed Blue, White and Red trilogy, the feature length version of A Short Film About Love from The Decalogue, as well as lesser known, but equally rigorous works such as Blind Chance and Camera Buff. We are also proud to be screening prints of the short films Kieslowski made at the dawn of his career, which set the tone for his subsequent work.
See: The Moral Matrix of Krzysztof Kieslowski, presented in conjunction with Filmoteka Naradowa.
In April we celebrate Miami-Vice creator Michael Mann's continuing contribution to the crime genre, with a retrospective highlighting the films in his career featuring (in the tradition of Jean-Pierre Melville) lone professionals operating in corrupt worlds, from his revealing debut Thief and the original Hannibal film Manhunter, through mainstream blockbusters such as Heat, The Insider and the recent HD digital collaboration with Australian Cinematographer Dion Beebe in Collateral.
See: Michael Mann: It's a Mann's World
In May we focus on film-maker Jacques Rivette, with a select range of films from across his career that will serve as an excellent introduction to this relatively unknown, but incredibly creative and productive New Wave film-maker.
See: The Fantastic Realism of Jacques Rivette
This year's Czech season brings together a delightful sample of films from one of the most imaginative, provocative and inventive periods of cinema. As well as a Svankmajer session we are screening a host of surreal and daring works from film makers such as Jaromil Jires, Jan Schmidt, Vera Chytilov‡ and Karel Kachyna.
See: East of Eden: The Imaginary in Czech Cinema 1964-1983
In June we adopt a travelling retrospective on Russian Science Fiction and Fantasy, as recently featured by numerous film societies world-wide. The season aims to reclaim from obscurity, and American cinematic re-releases, a number of films that engage the far reaches of the Russian cinematic imagination, and reveal a rich tradition in sci-fi and fantasy film-making.
See: From The Tsars to the Stars: A Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema
A short programme in November focuses on films made in Germany between the close of World War 2 and the emergence of the German New Wave (Herzog, Wenders etc).
See: From The War to the Wall: German Cinema 1945-1960
In December we traditionally see the year out with our actor based special season, and this year the spotlight falls on the great character actor Lee Marvin.
