PREVIOUS FILM CLUB SCREENINGS:
SUNDAY January 31, 2009 @ 6 pm
FILM CLUB PRESENTS:
“FELLINI’S ROMA” INTRODUCED BY ANTONIO MONDA
Antonio Monda is an Italian film director, writer, journalist, and professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He is the the US cultural correspondent for “La Repubblica” and writes the column “Central Park West” on Vanity Fair Italia. He has curated shows for the Guggenheim Museum, the MOMA, Lincoln Center, the American Museum of Moving Image, and the Academy. A promoter of Italian-American cultural relations, the New York Times, has called Monda a “one-man Italian cultural institute”.
“Roma”(Italy, 1972; 128 min) Federico Fellini’s 1972 ode to the city of Rome is far from a coherent narrative, but as a selection of images and sounds celebrating the famed Italian capital, it’s dazzling and hugely enjoyable. Stylistically, it’s a perfect bridge between the excesses of Satyricon and the nostalgia of Amarcord, and it showcases the true love that Fellini had for the Eternal City. Mixing autobiographical flashbacks with the travails of a present-day movie company making a film about the city (headed up by Fellini himself), Roma is an impressionistic tour de force, delivered via Fellini’s unique cinematic vision. Through it all, Fellini’s passion for Rome (and moviemaking) shines through, especially in the film’s climax, a dialogue-free sequence of motorcycles roaring through the city at night, a tour that ends at the magnificent Colosseum. At that marriage of past and present, Roma is about as perfect as cinema can get.
SUNDAY DECEMBER 13 2009 @ 5 pm
FILM CLUB PRESENTS:
“ARTISTS AND MODELS” INTRODUCED BY GLENN KENNY
Glenn Kenny is a Film writer, formerly of Premiere magazine and premiere.com. His articles have appeared in publications such as The Village Voice, The New York Times and Playboy. 2009 marks Glen Kenny’s feature film debut in Stephen Soderbergh’s “The Girlfriend Experience”.
FILM CLUB AND MAYSLES CINEMA PRESENT:
“My Dinner With Andre”
“My Dinner With Andre” (U.S.A.,1981; 110 min): A bold experiment in film narrative that paid off in critical raves and cult status, Louis Malle’s drama consists almost entirely of the dinner conversation of two real-life friends. More or less playing themselves, Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn wrote their own dialogue, which ranges in subject from the New York theater world to rain forests, and in tone from hilarious to heartbreaking.
SUNDAY OCTOBER 18, 2009
“Artists and Models” (U.S.A, 1955; 109 Minutes) Former Looney Tunes director Frank Tashlin adds his surreal cartoon-ish take to the mad-cap comedy of Martin and Lewis, paired up again in their fourteenth feature, a big colorful VistaVision romp with musical numbers to boot! Starring Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Shirley MacLaine, Eva Gabor, Anita Ekberg.
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 14
Followed by a conversation with Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory and Bob Balaban.
www.mayslesinstitute.org/cinema/
“My Dinner with André: Long, Strange Trips” by Amy Taubin
My Dinner With Andre in 30 Seconds, Re-Enacted by Bunnies
Andy’s Kaufman’s “My Dinner with Blassie”
Mike Nichols’ “Catch-22” with special guest Bob Balaban. Followed by a discussion with Raj Roy
Catch-22 (U.S.A., 1970; 122 min)
Capt. John Yossarian (Alan Arkin), a WWII bombardier, can’t take the stress absurdity of war anymore and does everything he can to certified as insane so he can stop flying missions. Based on the Joseph Heller novel, Yossarian’s story is a parody of the military mentaility and of bureaucracy in all of its incarnations. With Bob Balaban, Art Garfunkel, Anthony Perkins, Richard Benjamin, Jack Gilford and Paula Prentiss. Directed by Mike Nichols. Written by Buck Henry from the novel by Joseph Heller .
Raj Roy is the Chief Curator of the Department of Film at the Museum of Modern Art, and a respected member of the New York film community, having worked since 2002 as the Director of Programming and then Artistic Director of the Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF). Roy has also served as the only American member of the international competition selection committee for the Berlin International Film Festival, recommending films and also participating as a moderator at panels and q+a discussions. Roy worked at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in a variety of positions in the Film and Media Arts Program, collaborating on the launch of the museum’s first film programs in New York, Bilbao and Berlin.
“Yossarian Is Alive And Well in the Mexican Desert”
“A Triumphant ‘Catch’”
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 20, 2009
Robert Bresson’s “Pickpocket” with an introduction by Paul Schrader
Pickpocket (France, 1959; 75 min): Robert Bresson’s incomparable tale of crime and redemption follows Michel, a young pickpocket who spends his days working the streets, subway cars, and train stations of Paris. As his compulsion grows, however, so too does his fear that his luck is about to run out. Tautly choreographed and crafted in Bresson’s inimitable style, Pickpocket reveals a master director at the height of his powers.
Paul Schrader is an American director, screenwriter and critic. His essays on film have appeared in publications such as the Los Angeles Free Press, Cinema Magazine, and Film Comment. His film credits include “Adam Resurrected”, “Cat People”, “American Gigolo”, “Mishima”, “The Comfort of Strangers”, “Hardcore”, “Light Sleeper”, “Patty Hearst”, “Auto Focus”, and “The Walker”. His screenwriting credits include “The Last Temptation of Christ”, “Taxi Driver”, “Raging Bull”, “Bringing Out The Dead”, “The Yakuza”, and “The Mosquito Coast” among many others. He has been nominated for the Palm D’or for “Patty Hearst” and “Mishima”, The Golden Globe for his screenplays for “Raging Bull” and “Taxi Driver”, the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for “Light Sleeper” and “Hardcore”. In 1999 the Writer’s Guild of America awarded him the Laurel Award for Achievement in Screenwriting.
Paul Schrader’s Article on Pickpocket, Part 1
Paul Schrader’s Article on Pickpocket, Part 2
TUESDAY MAY 19, 2009
Federico Fellini’s “Toby Dammit” with an introduction by Antonio Monda
Toby Dammit (1968, 40min) : Part of “Spirits of the Dead”, a three-episode film. While the segments by Louis Malle and Roger Vadim are minor works, Fellini’s is a brilliant miniature, recapping many themes of La Dolce Vita in a darker key. Relying on a summary of Poe’s short story Never Bet the Devil Your Head, Fellini chose to keep only the original ending. The hero becomes an alcoholic British actor (Terence Stamp) who flies to Rome to shoot a movie.
Antonio Monda is an Italian film director, writer, journalist, and professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He is the the US cultural correspondent for “La Repubblica” and writes the column “Central Park West” on Vanity Fair Italia. He has curated shows for the Guggenheim Museum, the MOMA, Lincoln Center, the American Museum of Moving Image, and the Academy. A promoter of Italian-American cultural relations, the New York Times, has called Monda a “one-man Italian cultural institute”.
THURSDAY APRIL 20, 2009
Day For Night (Dir. Francois Truffaut) Presented by Wendy Keys
Wendy Keys is the former Executive Producer / Head of Programming for the Film Society of Lincoln Center and a member of the selection committees of the New York Film Festival and New Directors/New Films, an annual series co-sponsored with the Museum of Modern Art. She currently sits on the Film Society’ Board of Directors and is on the Executive Committee as well as two other board committees. From 1972-2008 she directed and co-produced the Film Society’s annual Gala Tribute to a major film artist. She also serves on the board of directors of the Human Rights Watch and is the founder of the Toronto Committee for the organization and sits on several committees including Friends of the High Line.
Other films in the Screening Series May Include:
- Memories of Underdevelopment (Dir. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea)
- 3 Women (Dir. Robert Altman)
- Scarface (Dir. Howard Hawks)
- Boudu Saved From Drowning (Dir. Jean Renoir)
- Sullivan’s Travels (Dir. Preston Sturges)
- Mean Streets (Dir. Martin Scorsese)
- Céline and Julie Go Boating (Dir. Jacques Rivette)
- The Man Who Loved Women (Dir. Francois Truffaut)
- I Know Where I’m Going (Dirs. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger)
- Rio Bravo (Dir. Howard Hawks)
- Letters From an Unknown Woman (Dir. Max Ophuls)
- Smiles of a Summer Night (Dir. Ingmar Bergman)
- Salesman (Dirs. Albert and David Maysles)
- The Loves of a Blonde (Dir. Milos Forman)
- Late Spring (Dir. Yasujiro Ozu)
- Umberto D. (Dir. Vittorio de Sica)
- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Dir. Robert Wiene)
- Rebecca (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
- Cléo from 5 to 7 (Dir. Agnes Varda)
- The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
- Red Desert (Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni)
- Eclipse (Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni)
- Stardust Memories (Dir. Woody Allen)
- Ballad of a Soldier (Dir. Grigori Chukhrai)
- Sherlock Jr. (Dir. Buster Keaton)
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