Oscar® and Grammy®-winning composer and recording artist Isaac Hayes (1945–2008) was one of the most vibrant and vital American performers of the last several decades, whether singing on stage or acting in feature films. In memory of Hayes and in honor of Black History Month, the Dryden will present four consecutive Tuesdays in February paying homage to Isaac Hayes. February 3 features an ultra-rare concert documentary from 1973, The Black Moses of Soul. On February 10 is Gordon Parks’ blaxploitation classic Shaft, starring Richard Roundtree and featuring Hayes’ Academy Award®-winning title song and score. Then, Hayes writes the music and holds his own as a leading man in the fast and funny Truck Turner (February 17). Hayes lends his deep voice to Chef, a character that earned him a whole new generation of fans, in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (February 24). Hayes fans also won’t want to miss him as the villainous Duke in John Carpenter’s Escape from New York, playing on a special double feature with Escape from L.A. on February 20.
Francis Ford Coppola’s deservedly championed The Godfatherand The Godfather, Part II will screen in new 35mm prints the weekend of January 2–4. These “Coppola Restorations” have undergone frame-by-frame examination and restoration using state-of-the-art digital technology. François Truffaut’s fable-like 1970 film The Wild Child will be shown January 17 & 18 in a new print that revives the delicate black-and-white cinematography of Nestor Almendros (Days of Heaven). A stunning new edition of Max Ophüls’s Lola Montès (January 23–25) restores the film’s original stereo soundtrack and brings Ophüls’s remarkable color scheme back to life. George Eastman House has supervised the new 35mm preservation of the 1930s MGM hit Dancing Lady, featuring Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Fred Astaire, and the Three Stooges. The screening of Dancing Lady on February 15 will commence a regular series of film preservations supervised and presented by our Motion Picture Department staff.
Pioneering animators John Hubley (1914–1977) and wife Faith Hubley (1924–2001) were known for their experimental styles and a tendency to evoke genuine human emotions. The Hubleys frequently cast their own children as voice actors for their films. One of their daughters, Emily Hubley, became a celebrated animator and filmmaker herself. On February 7, Emily Hubley will appear in person to present the Rochester Premiere of her feature film The Toe Tactic, which combines live action and animation. The story of an unfocused woman on an emotional and quirkily funny journey who finds her life intersecting with a variety of NYC residents and a chorus of cartoon advisers, The Toe Tactic recalls the individualistic spirit of the elder Hubleys’ work. On February 8, Emily Hubley will present a “Hubley Family Animation Celebration” featuring numerous award-winning short films from Faith, John, and Emily that span six decades. These two screening events are co-presented by George Eastman House and the Rochester High Falls International Film Festival.
In addition to the other new foreign and independent movies making their first local screenings in the Dryden Theatre, our ongoing Human Spirit series presents the Rochester Premiere of Chris Smith’s The Pool on January 31 and February 1. The Human Spirit series films have been selected in the hopes that they will stimulate thought, discussion, passion, and action. Each selection explores the potential of adding meaning to one’s life through contributions, in all manner of ways, to the lives of others.
The Pool is only the second feature from prize-winning filmmaker Smith, who gained an enthusiastic cult following for his 1999 documentary American Movie. Appearing at first be a complete departure for Smith, The Pool tells the fictional story of 18-year-old Venkatesh, who just barely earns a living cleaning out hotel rooms and selling plastic bags in the city of Goa, India. When he meets the upper-class family who owns the glimmering swimming pool where he longs to dive, Venkatesh sees the possibility to escape from his tough existence.
Though filmed almost entirely in Goa in English and Hindi, Milwaukee based Smith makes the story his own through another tale about an outsider seeking to better himself and explore a world beyond his experience. It’s primarily this quality that Venkatesh shares with would be horror maestro Mark Borchardt of American Movie. Inspired by the great neorealist works of cinema, Smith has delivered a genuinely heartwarming and humanistic film that never strikes a false note.
Most films, especially commercial narrative movies, are meant to be comprehended and consumed. Our entertainment is served up to us like a fast-food cheeseburger: we know what to expect and it meets our needs. The great films, it seems, offer up something to feel and experience, and continue to surprise and delight us long after their images have ceased to flicker on screen.
Consider Pere Portabella’s Warsaw Bridge such a film. This wonderfully mad lost masterpiece was originally made in 1990, but never secured any distribution in the US, and is now being presented in a brand-new 35mm print on February 6 & 8. Catalan director Portabella, who usually makes about one film a decade, was once a producer for Luis Buñuel. His films have an absurdist quality similar to Buñuel’s, but Portabella keeps his work apart by exploring his own obsessions and a certain tradition of European culture. In May 2008, Dryden audiences had a chance to see his most recent film, The Silence Before Bach, which offered up a number of enchanting episodes, all unrelated except for their individual celebration of J.S. Bach’s music.
Warsaw Bridge is ostensibly the story of a romantic triangle between a novelist, a conductor, and a marine-biology professor, but
Portabella’s film is actually a love letter to the possibilities of cinema, filled with non sequiturs and nonsense. The filmmaker has assembled a series of bizarre images and surreal sequences that play out like a beautiful dream: an unusual concert in a shopping arcade; a verbal chess match; an opera performed at a fish market; credits that appear 30 minutes into the film; and much more. Unlike any other movie ever made, Warsaw Bridge isn’t just something to watch. It provides an experience to savor and feel.
