Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie get close in BILLY LIAR
BILLY LIAR (John Schlesinger, 1963)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Thursday, March 7, $17, 7:30
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.michelgondry.com
Based on the novel by Keith Waterhouse (which he also adapted into a play with Willis Hall and which later became a musical), John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar is a prime example of the British New Wave of the 1950s and 1960s, which features work by such directors as Lindsay Anderson, Joseph Losey, Ken Russell, Nicolas Roeg, and Karel Reisz. Tom Courtenay stars as William Fisher, a ne’er-do-well ladies’ man who drudges away in a funeral home and dates (and lies to) multiple women, all the while daydreaming of being the president of the fictional country of Ambrosia. Billy lives in his own fantasy world where he can suddenly fire machine guns at people who bother him and be cheered by adoring crowds as he leads a marching band. Reminiscent of the 1947 American comedy The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, in which Danny Kaye dreams of other lives to lift him out of the doldrums, Billy Liar is also rooted in the reality of post-WWII England, represented by Billy’s father (Wilfred Pickles), who thinks his son is a no-good lazy bum. Shot in black-and-white, the film glows every time Julie Christie appears playing Liz, a modern woman who takes a rather fond liking to Billy. The film made Christie a star; Schlesinger next cast her in Darling, for which she won the Oscar for Best Actress. A 35mm print of Billy Liar is being shown March 7 at the IFC Center in the special program “Movie Night with Michel Gondry”; the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Be Kind Rewind, and The We and the I, which opens at IFC on March 8, will participate in a discussion following the screening. “John Schlesinger’s film certainly had an influence on my films, especially The Science of Sleep, just like Walter Mitty or other films intercutting layers of consciousness,” Gondry explains on the IFC website. “Only Billy Liar is one of the few to achieve that in the context of a social satire. All Billy’s visions are like explosions coming out of this very crude and bleak reality. And his personality is very unique, nailed in his lack of ambition. This is one of the films that taught me how magic can come just from editing.”
In 2010, filmmaker and Gallatin School professor Keith Miller made a short film, 
Jenny Deller’s first feature, Future Weather, is an involving, if overly zealous, coming-of-age drama about a thirteen-year-old loner obsessed with saving the environment. Perla Haney-Jardine (Kill Bill Vol. 2, Dark Water) stars as Lauduree, a smart, independent girl whose flighty single mother, Tanya (Marin Ireland), suddenly bolts from their trailer on the outskirts of Philadelphia and takes off for the West Coast in hopes of becoming a Hollywood makeup artist. At first Lauderee tries to go it alone but eventually starts living with her grandmother, Greta (Amy Madigan), a tough woman who is considering moving to Florida with her longtime boyfriend, the well-meaning Ed (William Sadler). Jenny’s only solace comes in science club, where she and new kid Neel (Anubhav Jain) work on special nature projects with their understanding teacher, Mrs. Markovi (Lili Taylor). While Jenny grows more and more concerned with the disastrous changes that are threatening the planet, she has difficulty dealing with the many changes that are going on in her own ever-more-complicated life. Deller makes an impressive debut with Future Weather, serving as writer, director, and editor, and she produced the film with another first-timer, Kristin Fairweather. The narrative works best when it focuses on Lauderee’s relationship with her mother and grandmother and the teen’s unique individuality, but it tends to get overbearing when making its very serious points about the Earth’s impending man-made doom. However, Deller practiced what she preached, using special environmentally friendly cameras, props, and sets, natural light, and green offices and shot at such locations as the Schuykill Center for Environmental Education and the Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust. The film will be playing the reRun Gastropub Theater from March 1 to 7, with several special events scheduled. On March 2 at 2:00, Deller, production designer Gino Fortebuono, and cinematographer Zac Mulligan will participate in the panel discussion “Collaborating on the Vision for Future Weather,” and on March 3 at 2:00, Deller, composer Erik Friedlander, and music supervisor Jackie Mulhearn will be on hand for the panel “Creating a Soundtrack.”