Tag Archives: bamcinematek

EMOTIONAL SLOPPY MANIC CINEMA: LITTLE OTIK

Stop-motion Czech fairy tale is part of BAMcinématek’s “Emotional Sloppy Manic Cinema”

BAMcinématek
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Tuesday, August 17, 6:30 & 9:15
Series continues through August 24
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

LITTLE OTIK (OTESÁNEK) (Jan Svankmajer, 2000)
Poor Bozena (Veronika Zilková) and Karel (Jan Hartl) are unable to have a baby, so Karel decides to carve one out of a tree for his desperate wife. Bozena showers her wooden child with lots of love — and soon the little tyke is crying and very, very hungry. Based on a poem by Czech writer Karel Jaromír Erben, LITTLE OTIK was written and directed by master stop-motion animator Jan Svankmajer, who has made such feature-length films as ALICE (1988) and FAUST (1994) as well as myriad shorts, including PUNCH AND JUDY (1966), DON JUAN (1969), MEAT LOVE (1988), and FOOD (1992). In LITTLE OTIK, Svankmajer mixes live action and animation to create a delightful, if disturbingly bizarre, fairy tale. The film will screen on August 17 as part of BAMcinématek’s “Emotional Sloppy Manic Cinema,” a two-week series curated by brothers Josh and Benny Safdie The diverse group of works range from Robert Bresson’s A MAN ESCAPED to Jafar Panahi’s THE MIRROR, from Olivier Assayas’s COLD WATER to François Truffaut’s SMALL CHANGE, from Ulu Grosbard’s STRAIGHT TIME to Ralph Bakshi’s HEAVY TRAFFIC, and from Woody Allen’s HUSBANDS AND WIVES to Elaine May’s MIKEY AND NICKY. Of course, the brothers have also included their own DADDY LONGLEGS and Red Bucket Shorts and will be on hand to introduce several of the screenings, including the 6:30 showing of LITTLE OTIK.

BELA LUGOSI’S DEAD, VAMPIRES LIVE FOREVER

Bela Lugosi might be dead, but Christopher Lee isn’t about to let a little wooden stake stop him from seeking out his prey

BAMcinématek
BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave.
August 4 – September 30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Over the next two months, BAMcinématek will be paying tribute to one of cinema’s greatest and most beloved villains, screening more than thirty films that feature the bloodsucking creatures known as vampires, with nary a twilight in sight. The series begins August 4 with F. W. Murnau’s classic NOSFERATU (1922), accompanied on live piano by Ben Model, followed August 5 by Roy Ward Baker’s 1970 Hammer fave THE VAMPIRE LOVERS and August 6 by the inspired double feature of the French shot-by-shot remake of Tod Browning’s original DRACULA and Jean Painlevé’s nine-minute experimental scientific 1945 short LE VAMPIRE. Bela Lugosi finally shows up September 20, but among the others who don’t necessarily drink . . . wine are Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski, Christopher Walken, Anne Parillaud, Gary Oldman, Vincent Gallo, Catherine Deneuve, Nicolas Cage, Béatrice Dalle, and, of course, Robert Quarry as the unforgettable Count Yorga and William Marshall as the one and only Blacula. The list of directors who have made vampire movies is rather remarkable, including Roman Polanski (THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS), Guy Maddin (DRACULA: PAGES FROM A VIRGIN’S DIARY), Francis Ford Coppola (BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA), Abel Ferrara (THE ADDICTION), Tony Scott (THE HUNGER), Q&A participant Michael Almereyda (NADJA), Kathryn Bigelow (NEAR DARK), Werner Herzog (NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE), Mario Bava (PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES), John Carpenter (VAMPIRES), Carl Theodor Dreyer (VAMPYR), and Claire Denis (TROUBLE EVERY DAY). And vamps are clearly an international concern with films from America, France, Italy, Germany, Canada, England, Hong Kong, Sweden, and Denmark. Be sure to bring plenty of garlic and holy water.

CARY GRANT vs. CLINT EASTWOOD

Grant transforms into Dirty Cary in Stanley Donen’s CHARADE

Cary Grant 2, BAMcinématek, July 9-29
The Complete Clint Eastwood, Film Society of Lincoln Center, July 9-29
www.bam.org
www.filmlinc.com

It’s the battle of the big men this month, the fight for the heavyweight championship, as two of Hollywood’s all-time hunksters, the machoest of movie stars, go mano a mano in Brooklyn and Manhattan. From July 9 to 29, the Walter Reade Theater will be hosting “The Complete Clint Eastwood,” screening every single one of the Man with No Name’s directorial efforts, from 1971’s PLAY MISTY FOR ME and 1973’s HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER and BREEZY (with William Holden as an old lech!) to 2008’s CHANGELING and GRAN TORINO and last year’s INVICTUS. Lincoln Center is upping the ante — and cheating more than a bit — by throwing in three of Eastwood’s Sergio Leone Westerns, A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964), FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (1965), and THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY (1966), in addition to the first DIRTY HARRY (Don Siegel, 1971). The eighty-year-old Eastwood will participate in a live conversation and Q&A via Skype following the 2:30 screening of FISTFUL on July 10.

Clint Eastwood is ready for action in THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES

Meanwhile, over in Brooklyn, British-American film legend Archibald Alexander Leach will be flexing his muscles in nineteen of his finest works, the second part of a tribute BAM began last year. Grant, who died in 1986 at the age of eighty-two, can be seen in such unforgettable classics as CHARADE (Stanley Donen, 1963), the best Hitchcock film not directed by Sir Alfred; Howard Hawks’s 1938 screwball comedy BRINGING UP BABY, alongside the Great Kate and a tiger; George Stevens’s 1939 epic, GUNGA DIN, one of the grandest adventure movies ever made; and the romantic heartbreaker AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER (Leo McCarey, 1957), with Deborah Kerr. While Eastwood does most of his talking with his eyes, rifles, and a carefully placed expectoration here and there, Grant almost never shuts his mouth, words tumbling out at a frantic pace that would challenge the Gatling gun. But while Eastwood is still starring in and directing pictures as an octogenarian, Grant called it quits near the top of his game, retiring from the industry while in his mid-sixties after appearing in Charles Walters’s WALK, DON’T RUN in 1966, just when Clint was moving along from western cowboy to eastern cop and military man. Although they didn’t make any films together, the five-time-married Grant, who also had flings with many a starlet, did appear with the twice-married Eastwood, who kept himself rather busy as well, fathering numerous children with multiple women, in the 1986 television special ALL-STAR PARTY FOR CLINT EASTWOOD; no fisticuffs ensued.

SOCCER FEVER!

Diego Maradona is one of the many soccer legends examined in BAM series

BAMcinématek
BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Wednesday, June 2, through Tuesday, June 8
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Do you have it yet? ’Cause we do. It’s called World Cup Fever, as the international community prepares for this year’s competition, with thirty-two teams battling it out to be the best June 11 through July 11 in South Africa. From June 2 to June 8, BAMcinématek will be presenting nine soccer-based films, ranging from SOCCER AS NEVER BEFORE, Hellmuth Costard’s 1971 examination of Manchester United legend George Best in one game against Coventry, to ZIDANE: A 21st CENTURY PORTRAIT, Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s seventeen-camera look at Zinédine Zidane (of head-butt fame) in a match between Real Madrid and Villareal. Other films follow a 2002 match contest Bhutan and Montserrat (THE OTHER FINAL), the 1966 finals (GOAL! WORLD CUP 1966), Argentine star Diego Maradona (MARADONA, THE GOLDEN KID), and preparations for the 2010 tourney (FAHRENHEIT 2010). And for some reason, BAM decided to include the silly Rodney Dangerfield comedy LAYDBUGS; what, they couldn’t get Khyentse Norbu’s THE CUP or even John Huston’s VICTORY, with Sylvester Stallone playing the goalkeeper?

JEAN RENOIR

If they know what’s good for them, film fans should be crowding into BAM to see such Jean Renoir masterpieces as GRAND ILLUSION

BAMcinématek
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
April 9 – May 11
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Son of French Impressionist master Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jean Renoir made some forty films during a nearly fifty-year career that left, er, quite an impression on world cinema. One of the most influential auteurs to ever put images on celluloid, Renoir commented on politics, social conventions, and war in his films, with several works being banned in Germany, Italy, and even France because they hit a little too close to home. He compiled one of the great resumes while making films first in France and later in Hollywood, including A DAY IN THE COUNTRY (1936), GRAND ILLUSION (1937), THE RULES OF THE GAME (1939), THE SOUTHERNER (1945), THE DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID (1945), THE RIVER (1951), and FRENCH CANCAN (1955), along the way developing one of the most fruitful actor-director relationships with French star Jean Gabin. Renoir was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1975 and died in 1979, leaving behind a legacy that continues to have a strong impact on filmmakers and film lovers today. BAM will be screening twenty-two of his films from April 9 to May 11, offering a crash course in Renoir’s humanistic approach to storytelling, featuring all of the works mentioned above as well as THE LOWER DEPTHS (1936), LE MARSEILLAISE (1938), THE HUMAN BEAST (1938), and others.

THE SURREAL WORLD OF ETGAR KERET

Partners Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen collaborate on JELLYFISH

JELLYFISH (MEDUZOT) (Shira Geffen & Etgar Keret, 2007)
BAMcinématek
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Monday, April 5, 7:00
Series runs April 5-7
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Short-story writer and children’s book author Etgar Keret and playwright and kids’ book writer Shira Geffen, who are life partners, teamed up in 2007 for their feature-film directorial debut, JELLYFISH (MEDUZOT), a small, charming Israeli film that won the Camera D’Or at Cannes. Written by Geffen, the story follows three women dealing with family problems that threaten to leave them lost and lonely. After her boyfriend dumps her, Batya (Sarah Adler) heads off to her job working for a wedding caterer, where she is surrounded by happy people celebrating a marriage while she contemplates her own bleak future. But her life changes when she is sitting on the beach and a silent young girl (Nikol Leidman) comes walking out of the ocean and approaches her. When a policeman says that no one has reported the girl missing or is looking for her, Batya decides to take care of the child herself, perhaps as a reaction to the offhanded way in which her own wealthy, successful mother treats her. Meanwhile, Keren (Noa Knoller), who broke her leg at her wedding reception after being trapped in the bathroom, has to spend her honeymoon in a local seaside hotel instead of jetting off to the Caribbean; her unhappiness is soon magnified when she suspects her husband (Gera Sandler) might have eyes for an older woman who is staying alone in the deluxe penthouse suite. And Joy (Ma-nenita De Latorre) is a Filipino guest worker who has come to Israel to make money to send back to her son in the Philippines, but because she cannot speak Hebrew, it is difficult for her to communicate with anyone, especially one old woman (Zharira Charifai) she has been hired to care for. Like the multiple-character drama BABEL, Keret and Geffen’s film focuses on complex family relationship and the challenges of interpersonal communication, with water — whether it’s the leak in Batya’s ceiling, the ocean rumbling outside Keren’s hotel room, the sea the young girl mysteriously emerges from, or the large expanse that separates Joy from her family — serving as a metaphor for both life and death, joy and sorrow. This sweet, painful, and somewhat surreal examination of four generations of women might be set in Tel Aviv, but its themes are universal.

The April 5 screening at BAM kicks off a three-day mini-festival celebrating Keret, who will participate in a postscreening Q&A with Ira Glass. The series continues with Tatia Rosenthal’s $9.99 on Tuesday and Goran Dukic’s WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY on Wednesday.

THAT’S MONTGOMERY CLIFT, HONEY!

Montgomery Clift would join Marilyn Monroe in Hollywood Babylon five years after appearing together in THE MISFITS

BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
March 11-25
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

In “The Right Profile,” the Clash’s Joe Strummer famously declared, “That’s Montgomery Clift, honey!” in a song that referenced the Hollywood star’s troubled career and fatal struggle with pills and the bottle. Born in Nebraska in 1920, Clift quickly rose to fame in his first few films in the late 1940s, which included Academy Award nominations for his roles in THE SEARCH and A PLACE IN THE SUN. But his career took a tragic turn when he suffered severe facial disfigurements in a car accident while filming RAINTREE COUNTRY in 1956. In 1961, Clift starred in THE MISFITS, the John Huston film that featured the final screen appearances of both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable; Clift made only three more movies before dying a broken man in his New York City bedroom in 1966, at the age of forty-five, guaranteeing himself a place in Hollywood Babylon alongside such other denizens as Monroe and James Dean. BAM is celebrating what would have been Clift’s ninetieth year with a two-week festival of eleven of his films, beginning March 11 with William Wyler’s THE HEIRESS and continuing through THE MISFITS on March 25. On March 14, Clift biographer Patricia Bosworth will introduce FROM HERE TO ETERNITY; the series also includes screenings of A PLACE IN THE SUN, THE HEIRESS, I CONFESS, RED RIVER, FREUD, and other Clift classics.