Category Archives: FILM

FELLINI SATYRICON

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This picture will be science fiction. You are astonished? But science fiction can be in the past as well as the future. This picture is a trip back to Nero’s time, and that means it is a trip into an unknown dimension. What do we know about the Romans? This has made problems for me. My other pictures have all been autobiographical to one degree or another… But now I must become detached, and that has been very hard work.

First I have to invent this world of Nero. Then I must see it from a very narrow point of view, so it will appear foreign and unknown. I am examining ancient Rome as if this were a documentary about the customs and habits of the Martians. To be detached from your own creation is unnatural—I must look on my son as a stranger…

Because the film is so detached, the sex in it will not be erotic. Everyone says Fellini is making a dirty movie. But everything will be abstract, detached. The sex in SATYRICON will be like those ancient Indian statues on the positions of love. Even as you see a woman kissing a monster, it means nothing, because it is so old, so far away, from another civilization…

If you see with innocent eyes, everything is divine… All artists are equal when they are themselves. — Federico Fellini

FELLINI SATYRICON

Wednesday, January 22, at 7 pm.

Royal

11523 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Los Angeles.

Pasadena 7

673 East Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena.

Glendale

2017 North Maryland Avenue, Glendale.

Federico Fellini, Fellini Satyricon (1969), from top: Hiram Keller; Keller and Martin Potter (right); Mario Romagnoli (right); Fellini with actor on set; Fellini Satyricon; Capucine; U.S. poster; Fellini Satyricon; Keller.

SHIRLEY CLARKE — THE COOL WORLD

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I know a lot about alienation… I think all women filmmakers are aware of it. It was the subject of a lot of the conversations I had with Maya Deren. We agreed that we were always going to present a united front to the world…

I would not have been able to make THE COOL WORLD had I not been living with Carl Lee at that time. It took Carl three months of going up to Harlem all the time, gathering kids, and bringing them down for us to interview… The “good” kids in school weren’t giving us believable readings… I finally persuaded Carl to try to get to the gangs, [and] it was very exciting because the “real” kids started improvising the script we had written right back to us. — Shirley Clarke

As part of the UCLA Film and Television Archive series American Neorealism, Part One—1948–1984, Clarke’s THE COOL WORLD will screen at the Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum this weekend on a double bill with Michael Roemer’s Nothing But a Man.

Frederick Wiseman produced THE COOL WORLD, and the jazz score is by Mal Waldron, with Dizzy Gillespie on the soundtrack.

THE COOL WORLD

Saturday, January 18, at 7:30 pm.

Billy Wilder Theater—Hammer Museum

10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles.

Shirley Clarke, The Cool World (1964). Film stills and (above) photographs of Clarke on set and with composer Mal Waldron. Images courtesy the filmmaker’s estate, the actors, the producers, and the distributors.

BLACK ORPHEUS

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As part part of LA Opera’s Eurydice Found program celebrating the world premiere of Matthew Aucoin and Sarah Ruhl’s opera Eurydice, the Hammer Museum will screen BLACK ORPHEUS, Marcel Camus’ bossa nova take on the myth. (The film’s score is by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Luis Bonfá.)

BLACK ORPHEUS

Wednesday, January 15, at 7:30 pm.

Hammer Museum—Billy Wilder Theater

10899 Wilshire Boulevard.

Marcel Camus, Black Orpheus (1959), from top; Marpessa Dawn as Eurydice and Breno Mello as Orpheus; French poster; Dawn; Black Orpheus carnaval do Brasil scene. Images courtesy and © the actors, photographers, producers.

DANCE CAMERA WEST 2020

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DANCE CAMERA WEST 2020 is here.

Join founder Kelly Hargraves at Redcat and the Downtown Independent Cinema for a long weekend of extraordinary artistry, resilience, and performance on film.

Opening night will feature a Q & A with special guests Katrina McPherson and Édouard Lock following a screening of the CalArts School of Dance film ONE ANOTHER.

On Friday evening there are two programs of shorts, and Saturday’s programs include the features THREE DANCES (directed by Glória Halász), FROM KNEE TO HEART (a portrait of Sol Picó directed by Susanna Barranco), and KREATUR (featuring members of the dance company Sasha Waltz and Guests).

The first three days are at Redcat before moving to the Downtown Independent for Sunday’s free matinee program. See links below for full schedule.

DANCE CAMERA WEST 2020

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, January 9, 10, and 11.

Redcat

631 West 2nd Street, downtown Los Angeles.

Sunday, January 12, from noon.

Downtown Independent Cinema

251 South Main Street, Los Angeles.

From top: Sasha Waltz and Guests, Kreatur(2); Susanna Barranco, From Knee to Heart; Juan Medellín (left) and dancer in Andrew Houchens, Juan of the Witches; Will Johnston, Cielo; Janique Robillard, From There to Here; Teddy Tedholm, Don’t Miss It; Sofia Castro, Maids; Kelly Hargraves; Antoine Panier, Making Men; Glória Halász, Three Dances; Roseanna Anderson and Joshua Ben-Tovim, The Ballet of the Nations (2). Images courtesy and © the artists, dancers, photographers, producers, Dance Camera West, L.A. Dance Chronicle, and Kelly Hargraves.

CÉLINE SCIAMMA IN CONVERSATION

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At the center of the film is this idea that there is no muse, or that it’s a beautiful word for hiding the reality of how women have been collaborating with artists. I wanted to portray the intellectual dialog and not to forget that there are several brains in the room. We see how art history reduces the collaboration between artists and their companions: before, a muse was this fetishized, silent, beautiful woman sitting in the room, whereas we now know that Dora Maar, the “muse” of Picasso, was this great Surrealist photographer. And Gabrièle Buffet-Picabia, the companion of Picabia, was intensely involved in his evolution…

I wanted to portray the reality of that in the process of actually making a film in strong collaboration with my actresses. — Céline Sciamma, writer and director of PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE

Sciamma and her stars—Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel—are in town to present a special screening of PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE, followed by a Q & A. Three days later, the writer-director will present an encore screening.

PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE

CÉCILE SCIAMMA, NOÉMIE MERLANT, and ADÈLE HAENEL Q & A

Tuesday, January 7, at 7 pm.

CÉCILE SCIAMMA Q & A

Friday, January 10, at 7 pm.

The Landmark

10850 West Pico Boulevard, West Los Angeles.

Cécile Sciamma, Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), from top: Adèle Haenel; Haenel (left) and Noémie Merlant; Valeria Golino; Haenel and Golino; Merlant; U.S. film poster; Merlant and Haenel; portrait of Haenel’s character; Merlant and Haenel. Images courtesy and © the filmmaker, the actors, the photographers, and Neon.