February 6

Opening Night 2019

The opening night of our 2019 program features a recent restoration of one of the great “last works” of any director in the history of cinema, Sergio Leone’s (1929–1989) truly monumental, deeply cinephilic and profoundly knowing final film, Once Upon a Time in America. Notoriously cut down to a length of 139 minutes for its botched US release, in the year the Melbourne Cinémathèque was launched, this gangster epic is one of the great accounts of the hopes of migration, the corruption of unfettered capitalism and the wasted opportunities and distorted perspectives of the “American Century”. Drawing on many of the themes, ideas and motifs found in Leone’s celebrated Spaghetti Westerns, and tapping into the sensibility of the Italian crime films of the 1970s, this 2012 restoration is truly one of the defining post-classical genre films, a movie whose vaunted reputation has continued to gather momentum over the last 35 years and that provides a perfect opening to our 2019 calendar.

February 6

7:00pm – ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA
(Extended Version)

Sergio Leone (1984) 251 mins Unclassified 18+

A crime saga truly unparalleled in scope, Leone’s audacious gangster epic traverses five decades in the lives of David “Noodles” Aaronson (Robert De Niro) and Max Bercovicz (James Woods), from their hardscrabble beginnings in the milieu of a Brooklyn Jewish ghetto to the peak of their Prohibition-era bootlegging empire. Leone is at his most daringly experimental as he jumps freely through time and space, deeply probing themes of greed, violence, betrayal and the inexorable passage of time. The Italian master’s final – and perhaps greatest – film presents an outsider’s perspective on the immigrant experience and the grand illusion of the American Dream. Famously mutilated by an overly cautious distributor for US release, this 2012 restoration is the closest contemporary audiences are likely to come to Leone’s original vision.

Featuring one of Ennio Morricone’s greatest and most affecting scores, and an extraordinary gallery of supporting performances from Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams, Tuesday Weld and Joe Pesci.

CTEQ ANNOTATION
‘Fractured images and tainted dreams: Sergio Leone’s Once upon a Time in America by Danica van de Velde.

Wednesday 5 February
OPENING NIGHT 2025

12–26 February
BALLETIC SWORDFIGHTS, FLYING HEROINES AND BAMBOO FORESTS: KING HU, MASTER OF WUXIA

5–19 March
THE PAST IS ALWAYS PRESENT: THE EVOLUTIONARY CAREER OF ROBERTO ROSSELLINI

26 March – 9 April
OUT OF THE PAST AND INTO FLARES: NEO-NOIR IN 1970s AMERICA

16–30 April
CONTINENTAL DIVIDE: THE UNFLINCHING VISION OF MICHAEL HANEKE

7–21 May
BARBARA STEELE: THE QUEEN OF SCREAM

28 May – 11 June
VÍCTOR ERICE: COME TOWARDS THE LIGHT

18 June – 2 July
REBELLIOUS MUSE: DELPHINE SEYRIG AS ACTOR, DIRECTOR AND ACTIVIST

Wednesday 9 July
DEEP DIVE: THE RESTLESSLY INVENTIVE WORK OF DIRK DE BRUYN

16–30 July
APPETITE FOR DECONSTRUCTION: SEIJUN SUZUKI

3–17 September
CINE DE ORO: TREASURES OF MEXICAN CINEMA’S GOLDEN AGE

24 September – 8 October
ONE FOR THE AGES: THE BALLADIC, PAINTERLY CINEMA OF FRANTIŠEK VLÁČIL

15–22 October
“ON THE EDGE OF FICTION”: ELIA SULEIMAN’S CINEMA OF BELONGING

29 October – 5 November
MARX, MELODRAMA AND MARCOS: LINO BROCKA FROM THE MID-1970s TO THE EARLY 1980s

12–19 November
IT’S TIME: AUSTRALIAN CINEMA IN 1975

Wednesday 26 November
MOTHER TONGUE: AUSTRALIAN WOMEN IN ANIMATION

3–17 December
THE COURAGE TO TAKE THINGS SERIOUSLY: JOHN M. STAHL’S UNIRONIC MELODRAMAS