CRUCIAL VIEWING
Nervous Magic Lantern: An Evening
with Ken and Flo Jacobs
(New Experimental / Performance)
Film Studies Center (University of Chicago) — Thursday, 7pm
The Nervous Magic Lantern performative collaboration between husband
and wife experimental super team Ken and Flo Jacobs is a churning, gaseous
optical illusion. Despite claiming to be nothing more than an empty
box, a light source, and a single-element lens, the family Jacobs conjure
up a stereo-strobic 3D image seemingly out of thin air, likely due to
whatever baleful spirit they have trapped within that infernal black
box. The mystic references are apt if only because the images generated
by Ken and Flo's contraption are reminiscent of the ill-advised creations
of poorly trained magicians—sputtering, elemental, and not long for
this world. Though let us be clear, novices the Jacobs are not, what
with well over 50 years of filmmaking under Ken's belt alone (The Nervous
Magic Lantern is itself an evolution of The Nervous System para-cinematic
performances dating back to the mid-1970s). Ken Jacobs has always flirted
with the scientific distillation of stereoscopy and its manifestations
within the brain, as early as GLOBE (1971), though his last 10 years
of work has been headed in diametric directions, with the ebullient
magic of Nervous Magic Lantern and the staid, proof-of-concept experiments
with animating stereoscopic photographs, as seen in CAPITALISM: CHILD
LABOR (2006). For this event, the Jacobs will be presenting one of the
most recent NML performances, TIME SQUARED, which uses "a subway trip
from the artist's home in downtown Manhattan to Times Square and back"
as its filmic starting point. The officially "sold-out" show at
Film Studies Center promises works both mystic and scientific, and considering
this is the Jacobs' first appearance in Chicago in nearly 30 years,
coupled with the ephemeral nature of a Nervous Magic Lantern performance,
this is an absolute must-see event. Also scheduled are the short digital
videos CAPITALISM: CHILD LABOR (2006) and THE GREEN WAVE (2011).
Ken and Flo Jacobs in person. (2006-2011, approx. 70 min total,
Live Projection Performance and Video) DM
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Note: This event is listed as
having no additional RSVPs, but you can show up early and get on the
wait list. No guarantee of admission, but it's worth trying.
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Check this week's Time Out Chicago (May 4 issue) for an interview with Ken Jacobs
by C-F editor Patrick Friel
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More info at filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu.
Terence Davies' THE LONG DAY CLOSES
(British Revival)
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) — Friday, 7pm
In his Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson describes
Davies' masterpiece as "a poem to ordinary bliss ... [it] is about
a state of being, a kind of paradise, despite the rain, the harsh circumstances,
and the cramped tenement house ... Nothing happens, yet lives and a
time have been opened up and gently restored, as in a tender anatomy
lesson." The lives are those of a lonely schoolboy, Bud, who takes
solace in the local moviehouse, and his tight-knit family. The time
is post-WWII—not a span of specific years, but an atmosphere that goes
beyond time. There's no story, exactly, only the progression of a mood
as it unfolds. The camera glides through this mood with infinite slowness,
as if afraid to disturb anything, exactly the way your memory works
when you're replaying a life-changing moment in your head. Yet, moment-to-moment,
the film is bursting with a vibrancy that goes beyond mere memory. It's
exhilaration so simple and pure that it's almost mysterious. Shown in
a new print direct from the UK, this screening is unmissable. (1992,
85 min, 35mm) RC
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More info at www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu.
André de Toth's DAY OF THE OUTLAW
(American Revival)
Northwest Chicago Film Society (at the Portage Theater) — Wednesday, 7:30pm
This is, simply, one of the greatest
films ever. A towering masterpiece of severe landscapes, existential
dread, and psychic pain. A beautiful, harsh, poetic western that rips
at your gut and dazzles the eye with its formal brilliance. My hyperbole
is warranted. Do Not Miss! Showing with the shorts WESTERN MELODIES
(1949), HOWDY DOODY: A THRIP TO FUNLAND (1953), and THREE LITTLE PUPS
(Tex Avery, 1953). (1959, 92 min, 16mm) PF
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Note: DAY OF THE OUTLAW replaces
the previously scheduled Allan Dwan film SILVER LODE.
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Read Fred Camper's excellent overview
of de Toth's films here.
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More info at www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org.
ALSO RECOMMENDED
Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO and Noah
Baumbach's GREENBERG
Doc Films (University of Chicago) — Showtimes noted below
Occasionally, the scattershot 7-days-a-week
Doc Films programming provides for unexpected resonances: such is the
case with the weekend screening of last year's maligned manchild dramedy
GREENBERG (2010, 107 min, 35mm; Saturday, 7 and 9pm and Sunday,
3:15pm) and the weekday marquee anchor of the once-poorly received,
temporarily-shelved and finally utterly-consecrated VERTIGO (1958,
128 min, 35mm; Wednesday, 7 and 9:30pm). In some respects, these movies
couldn't be more different: for example, one stars Ben Stiller as an
irascible 40-year-old hipster, the other stars Bernard Herrmann's striking,
legendary score, with supporting performances from Jimmy Stewart and
Kim Novak. Herrmann—by most written accounts an intolerable jackass
himself—here combined improbable instrumentation with a visionary leitmotif
combinatorics that progressively melds hypnotic ostinatos, slow habanera
rhythms, and dissonant, bitonal chords into an unforgettable sonic model
of oneirism; Hitchcock fills in the blanks with a nonsensical mystery
narrative as plausible as a dream, and no more. Strangely, Noah Baumbach
(who may never yet realize that life is but a dream) unconsciously scripted
his expensive Hollywood mumblecore in a nearly identical fashion: both
VERTIGO and GREENBERG's protagonists, at the outset prematurely retired
and recovering from psychological illnesses, resolve to temporarily
"do nothing"—but wind up focusing their energies in exploration
of their respective urban California landscapes, ultimately trying to
transform one chance, provincial young woman (Kim Novak, Greta Gerwig)
into another, unattainable one with whom they were formerly involved
(Kim Novak, Jennifer Jason Leigh). But in contrast to VERTIGO's instrumental
complexity, GREENBERG's sole, contemptuous nod to the past attainments
of European classicism is a subplot featuring an ailing German Shepherd
named Mahler. Instead, LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy populates the
diegesis with motorik, monophonic pop, both instantly forgettable originals
and diatonic standards (Galaxie 500, Duran Duran). Combined, this mundane/worldly
narrative and drowsy/metronomic soundtrack—viewed in Hitchcock and
Herrmann's comparative shadow—come, in their timid and languid way,
to poignantly reflect the dizzying, half-century-long plunge of the
romantic spirit. MC
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More info at www.docfilms.uchicago.edu.
David Byrne's TRUE STORIES (American
Revival)
Music Box — Friday and Saturday, Midnight
In the coffeetable art book that was published alongside (and partially
financed) TRUE STORIES David Byrne wrote, "The story is just a
trick to hold your attention. It opens the door and lets the real movie
in." The real movie is a bunch of vignettes, weird ideas, musical
numbers, and observations about Reagan-era America inspired by Weekly
World News articles. It's about shopping malls, highways, technology,
conspiracy theories, religion, and even love. In other words it captures
1986 to a tee, aided immensely by Barbara Ling's note-perfect production
design. The soundtrack includes songs performed both by Talking Heads
and various actors in the film (the track "Radio Head" inspired
a certain well-known band.) John Goodman even croons a country tune.
In the wide open spaces of TRUE STORIES' Texas, as shot by the great
Ed Lachman, there's room for an avant-garde fashion show, a discussion
of urban sprawl, a parade featuring 50 sets of identical twins, and
a music video incorporating actual TV commercials. As the movie poster
intones, "It's a completely cool, multi-purpose preservative." (1986, 90 min, 35mm) RC
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More info at www.musicboxtheatre.com.
Norberto Lopez Amado and Carlos
Carcas's HOW MUCH DOES YOUR BUILDING WEIGH, MR. FOSTER? (New Documentary)
Gene Siskel Film Center — Thursday, 8:15 and 8:30pm (and at 8:45pm
at theWit Hotel, 201 N. State St.)
Upon completing the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, one of Norman
Foster's first major projects, the architect spent an afternoon on the
site discussing the building with his friend and collaborator Buckminster
Fuller. As the afternoon drew on, Fuller offered his observations on
the progress of the shadows in the interior of the building, and then
turned to Foster and asked the pointed question that serves as the title
for this film. Foster set out to find the answer, and in the process
discovered one of the most distinctive styles in modern architecture:
a kind of clean, geometrical weightlessness that is nonetheless elegant
and monumental. Foster's work has increased steadily in ambition and
scope over the past forty years—having already built some of the world's
largest and most significant skyscrapers, airports, bridges, and civic
buildings, he is now in the process of constructing the world's first
carbon-neutral city—but Buckminster Fuller's question remains pertinent;
the airy levity has remained throughout his career. We Chicagoans would
have to travel to Racine, Wisconsin, to see the nearest Foster building
firsthand, but in this first program of the Siskel's Architecture and
Design Film Festival, we are introduced to a significant portion of
Foster's global output. The buildings are sensitively shot, with surprising
and fortuitous camera angles to complement the angles of the buildings'
designs. Just as sensitive is the depiction of Sir Norman himself, an
avid cyclist and langlaufer, and a passionate flight enthusiast. Over
images of Foster's Millau Viaduct, which bridges the River Tarn in southern
France on columns taller than the Eiffel Tower, writer/narrator Deyan
Sudjic muses "We had forgotten that useful things could be this
beautiful." This film and several others that will be shown in
the five-day festival do an excellent job of exploring and evoking the
beauty at the intersection of the instrumental and the aesthetic. (2010,
78 min, HDCAM video) PR
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More info at www.siskelfilmcenter.org.
Terrence Malick's BADLANDS (American
Revival)
Music Box — Saturday and Sunday, 11:30am
[Plot Spoilers] Terrence Malick's
first feature film remains as opaque and seductive as it must have been
for audiences upon its release in 1973; none of the four films he's
made in the intervening 38 years has given us a Rosetta Stone to de-code
his unique language of deadpan narration, breathless romance, horror, and whispering tall-grass. Later films have tinkered with the
proportions (more romance in THE NEW WORLD, more grass in DAYS OF HEAVEN),
but never the unsettling combination of ingredients. In BADLANDS, Sissy
Spacek (as 15 year-old Holly) provides the flattened voice-over that
suggests both teenage sass and PTSD. As Kit (a full-bore Martin Sheen)
seduces her, murders her father, and takes her on the run, it's Holly's
voice that pulls the viewer by the nose so deep into their world that
conditioned reactions don't work. Playfully sexy shots of Spacek in
short-shorts and Sheen in his Canadian Tuxedo block efforts to moralize
about their ages (Kit is 25). The weapons and traps Kit builds to defend
their forest hideout are as cartoon-stupid as they are dead-serious.
We aren't shocked because there's no room for shock under this heavy
blanket of affectless style; if Kip is Holly's captor, Holly and Malick
are our captors, and we all have Stockholm Syndrome. (1973, 95 min,
35mm) JF
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More info at www.musicboxtheatre.com.
Luchino Visconti's THE LEOPARD (Italian
Revival)
Gene Siskel Film Center — Saturday and Sunday, 3pm; Monday and
Tuesday, 6:30pm
The most beloved of Luchino Visconti's
films, THE LEOPARD, screens in a new restoration, reportedly the best
to date, overseen by the film's cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno (a
frequent helmer for Fellini as well as Visconti) and Martin Scorsese.
This should make for stunning viewing, as Visconti remains one of cinema's
most immersive chroniclers of past eras. His exquisite mise-en-scene
(aided here by voluptuous Technirama, Technicolor's in-house version
of CinemaScope) never fails to suggest living, breathing worlds; and
his fluid camerawork, a major influence on both Michael Cimino and Olivier
Assayas, creates the unique, sweet-and-sour flavor of nostalgia seen
at an impossible distance. The film is an epic about an aristocratic
family's final period of prominence; it takes place during the 19th
century revolution that would come to remake Italy entirely. Burt Lancaster,
in what he considered his finest performance, plays the family's patriarch,
a tragic hero who must learn to cede his political authority in order
to adapt for the coming era. Roger Ebert, in his Great Movies review
of THE LEOPARD clearly agreed with Lancaster. He wrote, "An actor
who always brought a certain formality to his work, who made his own
way as an independent before that was fashionable, he embodies the prince
as a man who has a great love for a way of life he understands must
come to an end." This transition is dramatized in the film's audacious
final third, which alone makes for crucial big-screen viewing. To quote
Ebert again: "The film ends with a ballroom sequence lasting 45
minutes... Critic Dave Kehr called it "one of the most moving meditations
on individual mortality in the history of cinema.' Visconti, Lancaster
and Rotunno collaborate to resolve all of the themes of the movie in
this long sequence in which almost none of the dialogue involves what
is really happening. The ball is a last glorious celebration of the
dying age; Visconti cast members of noble old Sicilian families as the
guests, and in their faces, we see a history that cannot be acted, only
embodied. The orchestra plays Verdi. The young people dance on and on,
and the older people watch carefully and gauge the futures market in
romances and liaisons." (1963, 186 min, 35mm widescreen) BS
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More info at www.siskelfilmcenter.org.
Lee Chang-dong's POETRY (New Korean)
Gene Siskel Film Center — Check Venue website for showtimes
The evolution of Lee Chang-dong from
storyteller to soothsayer has been one of the glories of contemporary
movies. A former novelist (and high school teacher before that), Lee
began his filmmaking career in the energetic, confrontational manner
that's marked so much recent Korean cinema. His first films as director,
GREEN FISH and PEPPERMINT CANDY, are cannily placed needles in the national
nerve; but his third, OASIS, is a revelation, one of the watershed moments
in South Korean cinema. A romance between mentally disabled characters
that is not sentimental or schematic, or flippantly unkind, it demonstrated
how a curiosity about challenging social taboos (a near-constant in
the Korean New Wave) could blossom into a study of humanity, period.
It is one of the finest films ever made about the opposing forces of
love and civic propriety. After a four-year stint as South Korea's Minister
of Culture, Lee made SECRET SUNSHINE, a film about the inevitabilities
of suffering and spiritual awakening that already seems timeless four
years after its release. And now, POETRY. The main character, Mija (played
by 60s Korean icon Yoon Jeong-hee, who came out of retirement for the
role), is an elderly woman deprived, by circumstance, of companionship
and anxious to rediscover life by learning to write poems. Like much
of Lee's work, this sounds potentially maudlin in summary, though the
realization of the material is anything but. As in the case of Jeon Do-yeon's
character in SECRET SUNSHINE, Lee reveals different facets of Mija's
personality through impulsive, often furtive action without ever betraying
an audience's initial impression of her. Combined with the narrative
unpredictability that has defined the director's best work, the result
is a multi-faceted film that is inseparable—formally as well as structurally—from
its central character. (2010, 139 min, 35mm) BS + IV
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More info at www.siskelfilmcenter.org.
MORE SCREENINGS AND EVENTS
Local filmmaker Eric Fleischauer will
be screening artist Dan Graham's 1982-84 essay video ROCK MY RELIGION
on Sunday at 8pm at Monument 2 (2007 N. Point St.). As comment
on the recent removal of ROCK from the online site ubu.com, Fleischauer
will be deliberately screening from an old bootleg VHS copy of the video.
Another local filmmaker, Ben Russell,
has curated a fascinating looking program whose title is something of
a mouthful: MARS, or War Huh Yeah What Is It Good For
Absolutely Nothing Say It Again. It's on Sunday at 7:30pm at Thalia
Hall (1807 S. Allport) and includes FUCK THE WAR (Beate Geissler and
Oliver Sann, 2007), WINTER SOLDIER (Single Spark Film Collective, 1971),
T, O, U, C, H, I, N, G (Paul Sharits, 1968), FROZEN WAR (John Smith,
2002), FRIENDLY FIRE (Thorsten Fleisch, 2003), and CROSSROADS (Bruce
Conner, 1976), which is showing from video, sadly, as there are currently
no prints in distribution.
Chicago Filmmakers screens Doug Block's 2009 documentary THE KIDS GROW UP on Sunday
at 1pm.
Also at Block Cinema
(Northwestern University) this week is the shorts program Lunchfilm:
Film Before Food on Thursday at 7pm. "Lunchfilm" is Sundance
short film programmer Mike Plante's ongoing project of "commissioning" various filmmakers to make a film for the cost of buying them lunch.
Plante in person.
Also at the Film Studies Center
(University of Chicago) this week is The Silence of the Archive:
Roundtable Discussion of A Film Unfinished on Saturday at 8pm. This
event focuses on Yael Hersonski's 2009 film A FILM UNFINISHED and includes
Hersonski, Tom Gunning (Cinema and Media Studies U of C), Noa Steimatsky
(Cinema and Media Studies, U of C), Julia Adeney Thomas (History, University
of Notre Dame), and Johannes von Moltke (Germanic Languages & Literatures
and Screen Arts & Cultures, University of Michigan).
The Chicago Film Seminar welcomes
Northwestern University professor Jacqueline Stewart who will
give a lecture titled "Discovering Black Film History: Tracing
the Tyler, Texas Black Film Collection." Michael Martin of the
The Black Film Center/Archive at Indiana University will respond. This
event is Thursday at 6:30pm at the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago (112 S. Michigan Ave., Rm. 1307).
Local filmmakers Ted Hardin and Elizabeth
Coffman screen their new post-Katrina Louisiana environmental documentary
VEINS IN THE GULF on Wednesday at 6pm at Film Row Cinema (Columbia College Chicago, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.).
Werner Herzog's 3D film CAVE OF
FORGOTTEN DREAMS opens at the River East 21.
At the Landmark's Century Centre
Cinema this week: Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve's new film
INCENDIES opens; and François Ozon's POTICHE continues.
Also at the Gene Siskel Film Center this week: Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas' documentary AMERICAN: THE
BILL HICKS STORY screens four times this week; Iara Lee's documentary
CULTURES OF RESISTANCE screens on Friday at 8pm and is followed
by a panel discussion (see the Siskel website for details); local filmmaker
Joe Swanberg's new Mumblecore film UNCLE KENT plays for a week
(Swanberg in person at the Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday shows); local
filmmaker John Severson's documentary A PERFECT SOLDIER screens
on Saturday at 8:15pm (Severson and producer/editor Jonathan Lacocque
in person); and CFA Amateur Night, a program comprised of home
movies from 1915-2005 that is co-presented by the Chicago Film Archives,
is on Wednesday at 8pm. Curator Dwight Swanson, from the Center for
Home Movies, in person.
Also at Doc Films (University of Chicago) this week: Joel and Ethan Coen's TRUE GRIT screens Friday night and Sunday afternoon; Joseph De Grasse and Sidney
Franklin's 1919 Mary Pickford film HEART O' THE HILLS is on Sunday
night; the program Space and Structure: Michael Snow and Joyce Wieland,
featuring Snow's great films WAVELENGTH and BACK AND FORTH and a terrific
Wieland short HAND TINTING, is on Monday night; Dudley Murphy's 1933
Paul Robeson film THE EMPEROR JONES screens Tuesday; Mohsen Makhmalbaf's
great 2001 film KANDAHAR is the early Thursday film; and Terry
Gilliam's 12 MONKEYS and Chris Marker's classic short LA JETEE screen in the late slot Thursday.
Also at the Music Box this week:
Jim Mickle's vampire movie STAKE LAND and Taggart Siegel's documentary
QUEEN OF THE SUN: WHAT ARE THE BEES TELLING US? both open; Apichatpong
Weerasethakul's UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES returns
for screenings on Friday-Sunday only.
Facets Cinémathèque plays
Alexander Holt and Lance Roehrig's 2010 romantic drama FORGET ME
NOT this week.
The Chicago History Museum screens
the documentary LETTERS FROM THE OTHER SIDE on Sunday at 1:30pm.
Cinema/Chicago
kicks off its International Summer Screenings series at the Chicago
Cultural Center with Ashim Ahluwalia's 2010 film JOHN & JANE (from DVD) on Wednesday at 6:30pm.
The Logan Square International Film
Series leads off its summer series by moving to Tuesdays at 8pm
and to Comfort Station Logan Square (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.). Up first
is François Ozon's 8 WOMEN (from DVD).
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