(CODE INCONNU, Michael Haneke, France/Germany/ Romania 2000, 116 min., French, German, Romanian, Bambara, and Songhai with subtitles, 35mm)
A spine-tingling thriller with no visible violence and no apparent mystery to solve, this tense follow-up to Haneke’s Funny Games details the lives of four people whose paths casually cross in present-day Paris. In her most amazing performance since Kieslowski’s Blue, Juliette Binoche brings emotional intensity and subtlety to actions as simple as being in a subway train or listening through the wall to her neighbors’ domestic quarrel.
Saturday, December 9th, 8 p.m.
Screenwriter and director Alexander Payne recently enjoyed a fun and successful visit to George Eastman House when he presented his comedy Election. On December 9, he returns to introduce and discuss the 1955 Richard Fleischer movie The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing. In 1906 there was no more sensational or scandalous story than the love affair between model Evelyn Nesbitt and celebrated architect Stanford White—an affair that ended when White was murdered by Nesbitt’s violently jealous husband, Harry Thaw. The true story of this deadly triangle is told with style and finesse by director Fleischer and brought to life by an excellent cast: Ray Milland as White, Joan Collins as Nesbitt, and Farley Granger as Thaw. This is a personal favorite of Oscar®-winning filmmaker Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt), and he will join us for a post-film analysis and discussion. Never available on home video in the U.S., the film screens in a gorgeous, new 35mm color and CinemaScope print.
The Heartbreak Kid is one of the best-kept film secrets of the 1970s, and so is its director, Elaine May.
When I first saw the film on video, I thought it was so good that I watched it twice in a row. When I started looking for a 35mm exhibition print, I checked all the major archives, some minor archives, and even with private collectors. But my investigation turned up zilch. Turns out all 35mm prints had lapsed into neglect, and quality prints no longer existed. So I threw in the towel.
In the 1970s May was regarded on a level with her former stand-up and writing partner Mike Nichols. A performer and writer of exceptional gifts, she first established her reputation in the movie business as a screenwriter of finely crafted satire and jet-black comedy. Like Nichols, she turned to directing, and came up with a trio of smart, character-driven comedies including A New Leaf (1971), starring Walter Matthau, and Mikey and Nickey (1976), starring Peter Falk and John Cassavetes. During a ten-year hiatus from directing, May was an uncredited but reportedly essential contributor to the screenplays of classics like Reds and Tootsie. When she returned to the director’s chair, it was for the wrongly maligned comedy Ishtar (1987), whose unfortunate box office failure has denied us more Elaine May-directed movies. It has been our loss.
May’s second film, The Heartbreak Kid, is about an incredibly insensitive man (the very funny Charles Grodin) who, on his honeymoon, dumps his wife (Jeannie Berlin, Elaine May’s daughter, in an Oscar®-nominated performance) for a gorgeous, blonde WASP (Cybill Shepherd). It’s the kind of story that could easily make for a trashy TV movie of the week, but in May’s hands, it’s comic gold.
I came to find I wasn’t the picture’s only fan; the Farrelly Brothers are producing a remake for release in 2007. Additionally, after giving up my quest to show The Heartbreak Kid in the Museum’s Dryden Theatre, I heard about a new print struck for a long overdue tribute to Elaine May at The Film Society of Lincoln Center earlier this year. The find was well worth the wait.
~Michael Neault, Associate Programmer and Coordinator of Theater Operations, Motion Picture Department
A new 35mm print of The Heartbreak Kid, courtesy of the Academy Film Archive, will screen on Saturday, December 16, at 8 p.m.
From December 27 through 31, using a specially constructed, large silver screen, the Dryden Theatre will again play host to some of the best three-dimensional films from 1953 through 1955, the golden age of 3-D. No anaglyph (red/blue) films will be screened, only excellent 35mm prints that utilize a synchronized, two-strip dual projector system and special polarized glasses. This system provides twice the amount of light of a regular feature and makes for an especially vivid image and convincing “coming at you” effects. It’s 3-D the way it was meant to be seen.
The first of three double feature programs will be Andre De Toth’s The Stranger Wore a Gun and Raoul Walsh’s Gun Fury (both screening December 27 and 30), a pair of color Westerns shot on breathtaking locations by two acclaimed auteurs. Next up is Rita Hayworth in the drama Miss Sadie Thompson, paired in a double feature with The Mad Magician (December 28 and 31), starring king of 3-D horror Vincent Price. As a bonus to this program, The Three Stooges poke your eyes out in the 3-D short Spooks.
The rest of the series will bring back past favorites such as a double feature of House of Wax and The Phantom of the Rue Morgue (December 29), the latter starring Karl Malden, Merv Griffin, and a guy in a gorilla suit. Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (December 30) is also back by popular demand. Join us as we bring in the new year on December 31 with the 3-D Kiss Me Kate along with the Stooges in their other 3-D short, Pardon My Backfire.
Regular admission prices apply to all 3-D screenings. No Take-10 tickets or passes will be accepted. Advance tickets for the New Year’s Eve screening of Kiss Me Kate are currently available in person at the Dryden Theatre box office, or the museum’s admissions desk. Advance tickets are no longer available via the web, or by phone.
(Edward Sutherland, US 1926, 70 min., 16mm)
The hilarious W. C. Fields, in his first starring vehicle, plays put-upon pharmacist Elmer Prettywillie. Endlessly suffering the abuse of overbearing relatives and petty drugstore customers, Elmer finds a number of comically inventive ways to cope. Without the use of his trademark voice, Fields shows us what an excellent pantomimist he was, and he brings to the screen several of his famous stage sketches. The radiant Louise Brooks co-stars as Elmer’s pretty and kind assistant. Live piano by Philip C. Carli.
