Tag Archives: film forum

SON OF SUMMER SCI-FI, FANTASY & HORROR: SOLARIS

Reality gets twisted up in outer space in Andrei Tarkovsky’s SOLARIS

SOLARIS (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Monday, August 12, 1:00, 4:10, 7:15
Series runs through September 5
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

In Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris, the Russian 2001: A Space Odyssey, Natalya Bondarchuk and Donatus Banionis star as a different kind of couple caught up in something very strange that is going on in outer space, unexplainable to both the characters in the film and the people in the audience. Banionis plays Dr. Kris Kelvin, a psychologist who is sent to the Solaris space station to decide whether to put an end to the solaristics project that Burton (Vladislav Dvorzhetsky) complicated twenty years before. What he discovers is one death, two possibly insane men, and his supposedly dead wife (Bondarchuk). Ambiguity reigns supreme in this gorgeously shot (in color and black and white by cinematographer Vadim Yusov) and scored (by Eduard Artemyev) film that, while technically science fiction, is really about the human conscience, another gem from master Russian director Tarkovsky (Ivan’s Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Nostalghia). See it whether or not you checked out Steven Soderbergh’s underrated remake with George Clooney and Natascha McElhone.

Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY helps cast a light on far-out sci-fi summer series at Film Forum

Based on Stanislaw Lem’s novel, Solaris is screening August 12 as part of Film Forum’s “Son of Summer Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror” series, which returns to the indie house for the first time in seventeen years. The festival continues through September 5 with such great double features as Jason and the Argonauts and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The Thing from Another World and It! The Terror from Beyond Space, Psycho and Peeping Tom, The Fearless Vampire Killers and The Abominable Dr. Phibes, the 1958 and 1978 versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the 1958 and 1986 versions of The Fly, and other creepy classics in addition to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

OZU REPRISE PRESENTATION: EQUINOX FLOWER

Wataru Hirayama (Shin Saburi) is a conflicted father-matchmaker in Yasujirō Ozu’s first color film, EQUINOX FLOWER

EQUINOX FLOWER (HIGANBANA) (Yasujirō Ozu, 1958)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Tuesday, July 23, 1:20, 3:40
Series runs through July 25
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Yasujirō Ozu’s first film in color, at the studio’s request, is another engagingly told exploration of the changing relationship between parents and children, the traditional and the modern, in postwar Japan. Both funny and elegiac, Equinox Flower opens with businessman Wataru Hirayama (Shin Saburi) giving a surprisingly personal speech at a friend’s daughter’s wedding, explaining that he is envious that the newlyweds are truly in love, as opposed to his marriage, which was arranged for him and his wife, Kiyoko (Kinuyo Tanaka). Hirayama is later approached by an old middle school friend, Mikami (Ozu regular Chishu Ryu), who wants him to speak with his daughter, Fumiko (Yoshiko Kuga), who has left home to be with a man against her father’s will. Meanwhile, Yukiko (Fujiko Yamamoto), a friend of Hirayama’s elder daughter, Setsuko (Ineko Arima), is constantly being set up by her gossipy mother, Hatsu (Chieko Naniwa). Hirayama does not seem to be instantly against what Fumiko and Yukiko want for themselves, but when a young salaryman named Taniguchi (Keiji Sada) asks Hirayama for permission to marry his older daughter, Setsuko (Ineko Arima), Hirayama stands firmly against their wedding, claiming that he will decide Setsuko’s future. “Can’t I find my own happiness?” Setsuko cries out. The widening gap between father and daughter represents the modernization Japan is experiencing, but the past is always close at hand; Ozu and longtime cowriter Kōgo Noda even have Taniguchi being transferred to Hiroshima, the scene of such tragedy and devastation. Yet there is still a lighthearted aspect to Equinox Flower, and Ozu and cinematographer Yuharu Atsuta embrace the use of color, including beautiful outdoor scenes of Hirayama and Kiyoko looking out across a river and mountain, a train station sign warning of dangerous winds, the flashing neon RCA Victor building, and laundry floating against a cloudy blue sky. The interiors are carefully designed as well, with objects of various colors arranged like still-life paintings, particularly a red teapot that shows up in numerous shots. And Kiyoko’s seemingly offhanded adjustment of a broom hanging on the wall is unforgettable. But at the center of it all is Saburi’s marvelously gentle performance as a proud man caught between the past, the present, and the future. Equinox Flower is screening July 23 at Film Forum, which is holding a “Reprise Presentation” of its earlier, extensive Ozu series with encore screenings of eight of the works, concluding with Tokyo Twilight and Late Autumn.

OZU REPRISE PRESENTATION: THE END OF SUMMER

Ganjirō Nakamura is a sheer delight as the unpredictable patriarch of the Kohayagawa family in THE END OF SUMMER

THE END OF SUMMER (KOHAYAGAWA-KE NO AKI) (Yasujirō Ozu, 1961)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Tuesday, July 16, 1:00, 3:15, 5:30, 7:40, 9:50, and Wednesday, July 17, 1:00, 3:15, 5:30
Series runs through July 25
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Yasujirō Ozu’s next-to-last film, 1961’s The End of Summer, is a poignant examination of growing old in a changing Japan; Ozu would make only one more film, 1962’s An Autumn Afternoon, before passing away on his sixtieth birthday in December 1963. Ganjirō Nakamura is absolutely endearing as Manbei Kohayagawa, the family patriarch who heads a small sake brewery. The aging grandfather has been mysteriously disappearing for periods of time, secretly visiting his old girlfriend, Sasaki (Chieko Naniwa), and her daughter, Yuriko (Reiko Dan), who might or might not be his. In the meantime, Manbei’s brother-in-law, Kitagawa (Daisuke Katō), is trying to set up Manbei’s widowed daughter-in-law, Akiko (Setsuko Hara), with businessman Isomura Eiichirou (Hisaya Morishige), while also attempting to find a proper suitor for Manbei’s youngest daughter, Noriko (Yoko Tsukasa), a typist with strong feelings for a coworker who has moved to Sapporo. Manbei’s other daughter, Fumiko (Michiyo Aratama), is married to Hisao (Keiju Kobayashi), who works at the brewery and is concerned about Manbei’s suddenly unpredictable behavior. When Manbei suffers a heart attack, everyone is forced to look at their own lives, both personal and professional, as the single women consider their suitors and the men contemplate the future of the business, which might involve selling out to a larger company. “The Kohayagawa family is complicated indeed,” Hisao’s colleague tells him when trying to figure out who’s who, an inside joke about the complex relationships developed by Ozu and longtime cowriter Kôgo Noda in the film as well as in the casting.

Akiko (Setsuko Hara) and Noriko (Yoko Tsukasa) represent old and new Japan in Ozu’s penultimate film

The End of Summer tells a far more serious story than Late Spring and many other Ozu films that deal with matchmaking and middle-class Japanese life, both pre- and postwar. The perpetually smiling Hara, who played unrelated women named Noriko in three previous Ozu films, once again plays a young widow named Akiko here, as she did in Late Autumn, while Tsukasa, who played Hara’s daughter in Late Autumn, now takes over the name of Noriko as Akiko’s sister. Late Autumn also featured a character named Yuriko Sasaki, played by Mariko Okada, who went on to play a woman named Akiko in Ozu’s final film, An Autumn Afternoon. Got that? Ozu’s fifth film in color, The End of Summer uses several beautiful establishing shots that incorporate flashing light and bold hues — including a neon sign that declares “New Japan” — photographed by Asakazu Nakai (Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Ran), as well as numerous carefully designed set pieces that place the old and the new in direct contrast, primarily when Akiko and Noriko are alone, the former in a kimono, the latter in more modern dress. But at the center of it all is Nakamura, who plays Manbei with a childlike glee, as if Ozu is equating birth and death, the beginning and the end. The film is screening July 16 & 17 at Film Forum, which is holding a “Reprise Presentation” of its earlier, extensive Ozu series with encore screenings of eight of the works, continuing with The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice, Early Summer, Tokyo Twilight, Equinox Flower, and Late Autumn.

NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS 50th ANNIVERSARY: LE AMICHE

Luc Sante will introduce a special presentation of Michelangelo Antonioni’s magnificent melodrama LE AMICHE on July 15 at Film Forum

LE AMICHE (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1955)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Monday, July 15, 7:00
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Winner of the Silver Lion at the 1955 Venice Film Festival, Michelangelo Antonioni’s sublimely marvelous Le Amiche follows the life and loves of a group of oh-so-fabulous catty, chatty, and ultra-fashionable Italian women and the men they keep around for adornment. Returning to her native Turin after having lived in Rome for many years, Clelia (Eleonora Rossi Drago) discovers that the young woman in the hotel room next to hers, Rosetta (Madeleine Fischer), has attempted suicide, thrusting Clelia into the middle of a collection of self-centered girlfriends who make the shenanigans of George Cukor’s The Women look like child’s play. The leader of the vain, vapid vamps is Momina (Yvonne Furneaux), who carefully orchestrates situations to her liking, particularly when it comes to her husband and her various, ever-changing companions, primarily architect Cesare (Franco Fabrizi). As Rosetta falls for painter Lorenzo (Gabriele Ferzetti), who is married to ceramicist Nene (Valentina Cortese), Clelia considers a relationship with Cesare’s assistant, Carlo (Ettore Manni), and the flighty Mariella (Anna Maria Pancani) considers just about anyone. Based on the novella Tra Donne Sole (“Among Only Women”) by Cesare Pavese, Le Amiche is one of Antonioni’s best, and least well known, films, an intoxicating and thoroughly entertaining precursor to his early 1960s trilogy, L’Avventura, La Notte, and L’Eclisse. Skewering the not-very-discreet “charm” of the Italian bourgeoisie, Antonioni mixes razor-sharp dialogue with scenes of wonderful ennui, all shot in glorious black and white by Gianni Di Venanzo. Recently restored in 35mm, Le Amiche is a newly rediscovered treasure from one of cinema’s most iconoclastic auteurs. The film will have a special screening July 15 at 7:00 as part of Film Forum’s ongoing celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the New York Review of Books and will be introduced by frequent NYRB contributor Luc Sante (Low Life, The Factory of Facts). The NYRB edition of The Selected Works of Cesare Pavese, which will be available at Film Forum, includes Among Only Women in addition to Pavese’s The Beach, The House on the Hill, and The Devil in the Hills.

L’AVVENTURA

Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’AVVENTURA, starring Monica Vitti and Gabriele Ferzetti, is a thing of existential beauty

L’AVVENTURA (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
July 12-25
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Michelangelo Antonioni shows that being rich and fancy-free on the Italian Riviera ain’t all it’s cracked up to be in this fascinating study of a group of friends out on a yachting adventure. When Anna (Lea Massari) disappears, Claudia (Monica Vitti), Giulia (Dominique Blanchar), and Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti) search for her but can’t find her. Slowly life goes on, with Sandro and Claudia falling for each other as the mystery of Anna fades away. Aldo Scavarda’s gorgeous cinematography adds beauty to this captivating, unusually told story of ultimately empty souls. Winner of a Special Jury Prize at Cannes, where it was also booed, the existential L’Avventura, the first of a trilogy by Antonioni that also includes La Notte (1961) and L’Eclisse (1962), is screening July 12-25 at Film Forum in a new 35mm restoration that should take the stunning black-and-white visuals to a whole new level.

12 ANGRY MEN

Sidney Lumet’s 12 ANGRY MEN explores the consciences and more of a dozen jurors deciding a murder case

12 ANGRY MEN (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
July 5-11
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

The fate of an eighteen-year-old boy charged with the murder of his father is at stake in Sidney Lumet’s first film, the gripping, genre-defining 12 Angry Men. After a series of establishing shots, a judge sends a dozen New Yorkers into the jurors room, where they need to come to a unanimous verdict that could lead to the execution of the teen. Over the course of about ninety minutes, an all-star cast examines and reexamines the case — and their own personal biases — as the heat increases, both literally and figuratively. At first, the nameless dozen men make small talk, trying to be friendly, but it’s not long before some of them are at others’ throats, primarily the gruff Lee J. Cobb, who has it in for the calm and thoughtful Henry Fonda, who is ready to stand alone if necessary for what he believes in. The other uniformly excellent actors playing a very specific cross-section of white, male America are John Fiedler, Martin Balsam, Robert Webber, E. G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Edward Binns, Jack Warden, Ed Begley, Joseph Sweeney, and George Voskovec. “I tell you, we were lucky to get a murder case,” Webber tells Fonda, but he won’t feel the same as the tension reaches near-violent proportions. 12 Angry Men is a searing examination of the criminal justice system as well as basic human instincts, behavior, and common decency. The Philadelphia-born Lumet, whose parents were both in the Yiddish theater, is able to tell the story in cinematic ways despite its taking place mostly in one small, sweaty room, letting the intense acting drive the narrative; the director, who was nominated for an Oscar for the film, would go on to make such other classic New York City dramas as The Pawnbroker, The Anderson Tapes, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, and Prince of the City. Nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin, 12 Angry Men, based on an original teleplay by Reginald Rose, will be presented in a DCP restoration at Film Forum July 5-11.

RESCHEDULED — CONEY ISLAND FLICKS ON THE BEACH: LITTLE FUGITIVE

Joey Norton goes on the adventure of a lifetime in Coney Island in underground indie classic LITTLE FUGITIVE

LITTLE FUGITIVE (Morris Engel, Ray Ashley, and Ruth Orkin, 1953)
Coney Island
1001 Boardwalk West
Rained out: Monday, July 1, free, dusk
Rescheduled: Tuesday, August 27, free, dusk
www.coneyislandfunguide.com

A summer night in Coney Island is the perfect time and place to see one of the most influential and important — and vastly entertaining — works to ever come out of the city, Morris Engel’s charming Little Fugitive. In celebration of the film’s sixtieth anniversary, the free summer series “Flicks on the Beach” is screening the newly restored 35mm print of the underground classic, which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1953, was nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar, and was entered into the National Film Registry in 1997. Written and directed with Ray Ashley and Ruth Orkin, Engel’s future wife, Little Fugitive follows the gritty, adorable exploits of seven-year-old wannabe cowboy Joey Norton (Richie Andrusco, in his only film role), who runs away to Coney Island after his older brother, Lennie (Richard Brewster), and his brother’s friends, Harry (Charlie Moss) and Charley (Tommy DeCanio), play a trick on the young boy, using ketchup to convince Joey that he accidentally killed Lennie. With their single mother (Winifred Cushing) off visiting their ailing mother, Joey heads out on his own, determined to escape the cops who are surely after him. But once he gets to Coney Island, he decides to take advantage of all the crazy things to be found on the beach, along the boardwalk, and in the surrounding area, including, if he can get the money, riding a real pony.

A no-budget black-and-white neo-Realist masterpiece shot by Engel with a specially designed lightweight camera that was often hidden so people didn’t know they were being filmed, Little Fugitive explores the many pleasures and pains of childhood and the innate value of home and family. As Joey wanders around Coney Island, he meets all levels of humanity, preparing him for the world that awaits as he grows older. Meanwhile, Engel gets into the nooks and crannies of the popular beach area, from gorgeous sunrises to beguiling shadows under the boardwalk. In creating their beautifully told tale, Engel, Ashley, and Orkin use both trained and nonprofessional actors, including Jay Williams as Jay, the sensitive pony ride man, and Will Lee, who went on to play Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street, as an understanding photographer, while Eddie Manson’s score continually references “Home on the Range.” Rough around the edges in all the right ways, Little Fugitive became a major influence on the French New Wave, with Truffaut himself singing its well-deserved praises. There’s really nothing quite like it, before or since.