Among the most gifted and unpredictable of contemporary American filmmakers, Jim Jarmusch has also remained unequivocally “independent” in an era when that word is used loosely. We’ll celebrate the many talents and unique sensibility of Jarmusch when we screen five of his diverse features in February, beginning with one of his most acclaimed, Dead Man, starring Johnny Depp, on February 3. On February 6, we’ll start at the beginning with Jarmusch’s NYU master’s thesis and first feature, Permanent Vacation. Jarmusch’s second feature, Stranger Than Paradise (February 13) earned him international acclaim and a strong base of cult followers. His follow-up, Down By Law (February 20) brought deadpan minimalist hipness to the prison-break movie and introduced American audiences to Roberto Benigni. Night on Earth (February 27) re-teamed Jarmusch with Benigni, plus a host of other great performers (including Gena Rowlands, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Rosie Perez, and Beatrice Dalle) for five stories about cab rides around the world.
Join us in January as we journey to the stars with five of Hollywood’s best science-fiction films from the last two decades. We begin on January 8 when Arnold Schwarzenegger goes to Mars in Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall, the last great special-effects epic made before the age of computer-generated imagery. Star Trek: First Contact (January 15) is generally considered the best of the Next Generation series of Trek films, with a story that employs time travel and an invasion of the zombie-like Borg army. Astronauts are sent to reignite the dying sun in Sunshine (January 22). Paul Verhoeven’s pop masterpiece Starship Troopers (January 26) is an action-packed gorefest adapted from Robert Heinlein’s novel. When Joss Whedon’s Western-with-spaceships TV series Firefly was cancelled midway through its first season, the outcry from fans was so great that Whedon created a feature-length extension for theaters. The resulting film, Serenity (January 29), was a hit with Firefly fans, but it’s also attained a cult of its own.
On February 1, the Dryden Theatre will host a special evening of music and movies when New York-based The BQE Project presents a new score to accompany Buster Keaton’s comedy classic Battling Butler. The Project’s director, Tom Nazziola, who was trained at Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, composed the score. As a bonus, the eight-piece ensemble will also perform Nazziola’s score for a vintage Felix the Cat cartoon, Sure-Locked Homes. Tickets for this special event are $15, $10 members and students. Advance tickets are available at http://dryden.eastmanhouse.org, the admissions desk, Dryden Theatre box office, or (585) 271-3361 ext. 295. No Take-10 tickets or passes.
We will welcome the much-admired contemporary novelist, essayist, and short story author Jonathan Lethem to the Dryden on February 9. Lethem, whose works include Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude, is also a committed cinephile and contributor of several vital essays on the subject of movies and movie-going. One of Lethem’s favorite films is Nicholas Ray’s 1956 masterpiece, Bigger Than Life, a menacing depiction of American suburban life filmed in CinemaScope™ starring James Mason. Lethem will introduce the Bigger Than Life and discuss his love for movies following the screening.
John Turturro, Steve Kurtz, John Curran, and Antonio Ferrera will be respectively present for the screenings of Romance & Cigarettes (January 11), Strange Culture (January 25), Praise and Down Rusty Down (January 27), and The Gates (February 15).
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Jim Healy, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Motion Picture Department
While we continue to offer our usual selection of archival treasures in January and February, the Dryden will also present the local premieres of seven unique and innovative new films, some of which offer exciting variations on cinematic traditions.
On Friday, January 11, famed actor and filmmaker John Turturro (Do the Right Thing, Barton Fink) will personally present his film Romance & Cigarettes, starring James Gandolfini, Kate Winslet, Susan Sarandon, Steve Buscemi, and Christopher Walken.
Guy Maddin’s Brand Upon the Brain! (screening January 12) mixes late silent-era movies (featuring narration by Isabella Rossellini, a lush music score, and sound effects) with a perversely original exploration of the director’s personal hang-ups.
Abel Raises Cain (January 18) also takes a decidedly personal approach to the life of professional media hoaxer Alan Abel, who inspired everyone from Jerry Springer to Sasha Baron Cohen. Abel’s daughter, Jenny, co-directed this funny and unexpectedly touching documentary.
Mixing familiar documentary techniques with re-enactments, Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Strange Culture (January 25) tells the harrowing story of Buffalo-based couple Hope and Steve Kurtz. Hope’s (played by actress Tilda Swinton) sudden death from heart failure in 2004 set off a series of events resulting in her husband being investigated for bioterrorism, and still facing federal mail- and wire-fraud charges that could send him to prison for 20 years. Steve Kurtz will appear in person at the screening.
The latest work from direct cinema pioneer Albert Maysles is The Gates (February 15), a documentary about Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s massive public art project in New York’s Central Park. Maysles and brother David began filming in the late 1970s to capture the artists’ many struggles over 25 years to realize their dream project. Co-director Antonio Ferrera will introduce and answer questions following the screening.
Heddy Honigmann’s Forever (February 23) takes us inside Paris’s famed Père Lachaise cemetery, where countless visitors pay homage to their idols: Proust, Wilde, Chopin, and many more. This lovely new documentary offers a different perspective on immortality through interviews with those who have been profoundly touched by the legacies of these artistic greats.
A follow-up to his celebrated first feature, Killer of Sheep (screening February 22), Charles Burnett’s My Brother’s Wedding returns to Watts in Los Angeles. Recently re-edited by Burnett, My Brother’s Wedding—The Director’s Cut (February 29) poignantly observes a young man pressured to choose between his friends and a more middle-class lifestyle.
Jim Healy, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Motion Picture Department
On Wednesdays in January, the Dryden Theatre will present a five-feature retrospective of one of the world’s most acclaimed filmmakers: Portuguese director Pedro Costa. Since his debut with 1989’s The Blood (screening January 2), Costa’s work has been increasingly admired and championed by film critics, programmers, cineastes, and cinephiles around the world. Rarely screened in the US, you’ll now have an opportunity to discover this truly cutting-edge filmmaker for yourself.
Costa focuses on places and individuals existing on the outer fringes of society, particularly citizens of Cape Verde, a colonial republic of Portugal from 1460 to 1975. For Casa de Lava, a haunting story about a mysterious culture (January 9), Costa filmed on location in the Cape Verde Islands; and for his highly praised, loosely connected trilogy—Bones (January 16), In Vanda’s Room (January 23), and Colossal Youth (January 30)—Costa’s camera visited Cape Verdean immigrants housed in the slums and projects of Lisbon.
Taking a determinedly humanist perspective and lighting style frequently compared to the Dutch painter Vermeer, Costa favors long takes for his non-professional cast members to deliver their own vivid and powerful monologues on life, love, and loss. Leisurely paced and decidedly non-traditional, Costa’s films demand an audience’s attention, but like the work of other film artists to whom he’s been compared—Bresson, Antonioni, Ozu—these strangely beautiful movies deliver an emotional power unlike anything else in the cinema for the open-minded viewer.
Jim Healy, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Motion Picture Department
Still Lives: The Films of Pedro Costa was organized by Ricardo Matos Cabo, Lisbon; Instituto de Cinema e Audiovisual; Cinemateca Portuguesa-Museu do Cinema; João Bénard da Costa; Instituto Camões.
