(email projectfilmschool@gmail.com for more info)

January 12th @ DCTV, 7:30pm

 Oliver Stone’s WALL STREET

with a post-film lecture and q&a from Marcus Hempt : former Senior VP Capital Markets division of Lehman Brothers,

Michael Douglas won an Oscar for perfectly embodying the Reagan-era credo that “greed is good.” As a Donald Trump-like Wall Street raider aptly named Gordon Gecko (for his reptilian ability to attack corporate targets and swallow them whole), Douglas found a role tailor-made to his skill in portraying heartless men who’ve sacrificed humanity to power. He’s a slick, seductive role model for the young ambitious Wall Street broker played by Charlie Sheen, who falls into Gecko’s sphere of influence and instantly succumbs to the allure of risky deals and generous payoffs. With such perks as a high-rise apartment and women who love men for their money, Charlie’s like a worm on Gecko’s hook, blind to the corporate maneuvering that puts him at odds with his own father (played by Sheen’s offscreen father, Martin). With his usual lack of subtlety, writer-director Oliver Stone drew from the brokering experience of his own father to tell this Faustian tale for the “me” decade, but the movie’s sledgehammer style is undeniably effective. A cautionary warning that Stone delivers on highly entertaining terms, Wall Street grabs your attention while questioning the corrupted values of a system that worships profit at the cost of one’s soul. [Amazon.com]

Screening @ 730 @ DCTV

 Introduction by Andrew Miller

 (email projectfilmschool@gmail.com for more info)

Last night we got together and watched Bob Fosse’s semi-autobiographical film All That Jazz.

We started off by watching the clip below and then learning more about the film’s style and how Bob Fosse’s actual life connected with the film.

As it stands many of the real women in Fosse’s life had roles in the film and in some ways the film seemed to foreshadow Fosse’s actual death, as he passed away less than 8 years later of a heart attack himself. Also important to the film is it’s rapid pace, created mostly from the editing. Fosse shot his films to edit and benefited from working with folks like Alan Heim. He was someone who knew exactly what he wanted and got it.

The discussion afterward centered on a few main topics

* The mix of reality and fantasy - and the balance.

* Tenderness verses cynicism.

* The role of women in the film. How they played off of the protagonist (John Gideon).

* The film’s sparse use of scenes from “John Gideon’s” childhood.

* The film’s place in the time period it was made, 1979 and how it compares to films made today and how it would play if it were made today.

Overall, for an audience where not one person (minus our curator) had seen the film we were all impressed and I suspect more than one of us may have danced our way to the subway.

January 5th @ DCTV

Bob Fosse’s ALL THAT JAZZ

Intense, compelling musical based on the life of its director, choreographer and screenwriter, Bob Fosse. Roy Scheider stars as an obsessed, womanizing, pill-popping, chain-smoking Broadway choreographer and director who pays the ultimate price for his insane, creative lifestyle and kudos go to Ann Reinking playing his patient mistress. The movie probably has the only musical number set during open-heart surgery. With Jessica Lange, Cliff Gorman, Ben Vereen.

Screening @ 730 @ DCTV

Introduction by Jon-Bentley Wiggins

December 15th : A Special PFS @ The Brecht Forum

Pedro Almodovar’s WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?

Filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, the Luis Buñuel of the 1980s, cooks up another perversely funny descent into urban hell in What Have I Done to Deserve This? Carmen Maura plays a middle-class housewife hemmed in by her wildly eccentric relatives. Her principal purpose in life is a balancing act: to keep her head fastened on securely while all others are losing theirs. Film buffs will have a field day toting up Almodóvar’s visual and verbal allusions to the works of Buñuel, Brian De Palma, Billy Wilder, John Waters, and even Andy Warhol. [All Movie Guide]

Screening @ 730 @ The Brecht Forum

Introduction by  Caitlin Gianniny and Cathy Mooses

Our night began with a simple question - “name a film, that if you had made it, you could die happy”We had a variety of answers at our 12/8 Project Film School : The Engima of Kaper Hauser, The Marriage of Maria Braun, Come and See,  Fanny and Alexander, Still Life, Rushmore, Portrait of a Young Daughter of the Late 1960s, Brussels and more.

After we had all said our film, our curator for the evening, David Gatten told us that one of the films that had he made it, he could die happy, was Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (Sunless).   We learned a bit about the history of montage and how images, put next to each other, can help create meaning, in preperation for the Marker and also for Forough Farrakhzad’s The House is Black.

Both films left most of us a bit overwhelmed, as they encompass enough material to make repeat viewing almost a neccessity.  Our discussion on Sans Soleil was very question based with ponderings of the different people associated with the film (as listed in the credits) and whether it was truly a non fiction film or if it veered into fictional filmmaking.    Each person looked at the film through their own personal experiences, which is true of any film I suppose, but here the nature of how the images are put together and how the relate to sound and voiceover, makes ones own life story all the more relevant.  I feel as those we could do another Project Film School screening of Sans Soleil with all the same people and have an entirely different discussion.

In terms of The House is Black - I find Jonathan Rosenbaum’s review a fitting description:

Forugh Farrokhzad’s black-and-white documentary (1962, 19 min.) about a leper colony in northern Iran is the most powerful Iranian film I’ve seen. Farrokhzad (1935-’67) is widely regarded as the greatest Persian poet of the 20th century; her only film seamlessly adapts the techniques of poetry to its framing, editing, sound, and narration. At once lyrical and extremely matter-of-fact, devoid of sentimentality or voyeurism yet profoundly humanist, the film offers a view of everyday life in the colony–people eating, various medical treatments, children at school and at play–that’s spiritual, unflinching, and beautiful in ways that have no apparent Western counterparts; to my eyes and ears, it registers like a prayer.

If you ever have the chance to see this film - do.

 December 8th, 7:30pm @ DCTV

(email projectfilmschool@gmail.com for more info)

IN THE STREET (Helen Levitt, James Agee et al)

THE HOUSE IS BLACK (Forough Farrakhzad)

with Chris Marker’s SANS SOLEIL

Chris Marker’s 1982 masterpiece is one of the key nonfiction films of our time–a personal philosophical essay that concentrates mainly on contemporary Tokyo but also includes footage shot in Iceland, Guinea-Bissau, and San Francisco (where the filmmaker tracks down all the locations from Hitchcock’s Vertigo). Difficult to describe and almost impossible to summarize, this poetic journal of a major French filmmaker radiates in all directions, exploring and reflecting upon many decades of experience. While Marker’s brilliance as a thinker and filmmaker has largely (and unfairly) been eclipsed by Godard’s, there is conceivably no film in the entire Godard canon that has as much to say about the state of the world, and the wit and beauty of Marker’s highly original form of discourse leave a profound aftertaste. A film about subjectivity, death, photography, social custom, and consciousness itself, Sans Soleil registers like a poem one might find in a time capsule. [Jonathan Rosenbaum]

Screening @ 730 @ DCTV

Introduction by David Gatten

We had a great screening of Cluny Brown this past Monday with pretty much everyone falling victim to the “mischievous charm” of Ernst Lubitsch (and Charles Boyer and Jennifer Jones)

After the film we discussed the political implications of the time period (the film was made in 1946 but took place in 1938) as they connected to England’s involvement with WW2.   We also looked at how the class system at the time impacted the humor and the characters.

The great thing about a film like this is that all the characters are so well developed that everyone really feels like they know them and thus has a pretty strong opinion about their motivations.  The one character that we all disagreed on more than any other was Cluny Brown.

Some saw her as naive, while others thought she was simply holding back her true desires.   We also looked at the film from a more feminist perspective and Cluny again was the subject of differing opinions. Some saw her as weak, as she is unable to make any decisions of her own throughout the film, while others saw her as representing freedom of sorts and the breaking down the typical female role.

No matter how anyone saw Cluny the character, I think it’s safe to say that we all enjoyed Cluny Brown the film.

December 1st @ DCTV

Ernst Lubitsch’s CLUNY BROWN

(I absolutely love this film and encourage you to do everything you can to make it!)

Ernst Lubitsch’s late masterpiece Cluny Brown is a little-known, sophisticated comedy romance with serious overtones and performances that bubble with charm and wit. Cluny (Jennifer Jones), a plumber’s niece sent to work as a servant at an English country estate, refuses to acknowledge her station in life. She finds a kindred spirit in Professor Belinski (Charles Boyer), a European intellectual on the run from the Nazis. The two displaced souls form a bond, though Cluny focuses her attentions on Mr. Wilson (the hilarious Richard Haydn, who enlivened many Hollywood films in the ‘40s), a pompous chemist attached to the apron strings of his dour mother (the great Una O’Connor).

Jones and Boyer, two utterly different actors, are beautifully in-sync in this amusing tale of manners and mores in upper crust England, as the two outsiders try to accommodate themselves in an uncomfortable world where rule breakers are not meant to dally with rule makers.[FSLC]

Screening @ 730 @ DCTV

Introduction by Gina Telaroli

November 24th : A field trip to BAM to see Teuvo Tulio’s CROSS OF LOVE

(@ 6:50 or 9:15)

This film is similar to The Way You Wanted Me in its depiction of a provincial girl who is seduced, abandoned, and then rejected by her entire village. The innocent country girl (Linnanheimo) takes her grief and moves away from her estranged father to the big city where she is eventually engaged to a handsome artist. However, it is not too long before her past catches up to her. This expressionistic, lurid melodrama is one of Tulio’s best-known films. In Finnish with English subtitles.

More information : http://bam.org/view.aspx?pid=678

Week of November 17th : A home screening of Agnes Varda’s VAGABOND

Sandrine Bonnaire won the Best Actress César for her portrayal of the defiant young drifter Mona, found frozen to death in a ditch at the beginning of Vagabond. Agnès Varda pieces together Mona’s story through flashbacks told by those who encountered her (played by a largely nonprofessional cast), producing a splintered portrait of an enigmatic woman. With its sparse, poetic imagery, Vagabond (Sans toit ni loi) is a stunner, and won Varda the top prize at the Venice Film Festival.

If you’ve never been to a home screening it’s a pretty easy process. You either rent the film from wherever you rent films from or you email projectfilmschool@gmail.com to RSVP for the organized home screening, we send you the address and you show up to that home to watch the movie.

RESOURCE/INFO

Bio : Agnès Varda (born May 30, 1928) is a French film director. Her movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style. Varda was born in Brussels, Belgium, to a Greek father and French mother. Her father’s family were Greek refugees from Asia Minor. For her first film La Pointe courte (editing by Alain Resnais), she drew her inspiration from the region of Sète, where she grew up.

Agnès Varda profile @ Senses of Cinema

Agnes Varda European Graduate School Lecture (2004) @ Youtube (part 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6)

Vagabond @ Strictly Film School

Vagabond @ Senses of Cinema (by Holly Willis)

Moving Images : Agnes Varda @ Tate Online