Our annual season of films from cinema’s earliest era continues on most Tuesdays in March and April. From Sweden arrives The Phantom Chariot (screening March 2), a haunting and influential fable by Victor Sjöström. One of the very few Japanese actors to make a successful transition to Hollywood features was Sessue Hayakawa, who will be featured in O Mimi San and The Devil’s Claim (both screening on March 16). On March 23, we’ll offer a cavalcade of comedy shorts from the legendary producer Hal Roach, starring his most popular performers: Laurel and Hardy, Charley Chase, and Our Gang. Marlene Dietrich, in one of her few silent film appearances, stars in the German classic, I Kiss Your Hand, Madame (March 30). W.C. Fields’s considerable gift for pantomime is on display in So’s Your Old Man (April 6). The early days of an enduring genre will be examined in a short film selection entitled Broncho Billy and Beyond: Early Westerns (April 13). Rochester’s own Louise Brooks stars alongside Richard Arlen and the burly Wallace Beery in William Wellman’s Beggars of Life (April 20). Each of these programs will feature live piano accompaniment from Philip C. Carli. The series concludes April 27 with a screening of the recently restored, once-lost foreign version of Lewis Milestone’s remarkable anti-war epic, All Quiet on the Western Front, preserved by the Library of Congress. This dialogue-free version, featuring a music score on the soundtrack, is often thought to be superior to the talkie version we know best today. See it for yourself to decide!

In addition, on March 19 the Dryden will present a special screening of Mary Pickford in The Poor Little Rich Girl, accompanied by a new score composed by Philip Carli and performed by the Flour City Orchestra. This special event is sponsored by the Humanities Project of the University of Rochester’s College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering, in collaboration with George Eastman House and the Eastman School of Music. Special ticket prices: $15, $10 members and students. No Take-10 tickets or passes.

Following up last year’s popular salute to one of American cinema’s most charismatic leading men, we’ve put together another lineup in homage to the acting and filmmaking talents of the great Paul Newman. In one of his most important early roles, Newman is a social-climbing lawyer who risks it all to defend pal Robert Vaughn (in an Oscar®-nominated role) in The Young Philadelphians (screening April 7). Released the same year as The Hustler, Newman plays another of his familiar creatures of ambition—this time a Wall Street speculator opposite real-life wife Joanne Woodward—in From the Terrace (April 14). Perhaps the most popular film he ever made, Newman teamed for a second time with Robert Redford as a pair of 30s con artists in the Oscar®-winning Best Picture, The Sting (April 16). Newman began his career behind the camera directing Woodward to an Oscar®-nominated performance in Rachel, Rachel (April 18) and made his sophomore effort with the Ken Kesey adaptation, Sometimes a Great Notion (April 21). Newman finally won a much-deserved Best Actor Oscar® for his second go-round as pool hustler “Fast” Eddie Felson in Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money (April 28).

In addition to 21 Below and Daytime Drinking, the Dryden is the only local venue that will offer theatrical screenings of these recently released acclaimed features and documentaries:

HOME – March 5

THE SUN – March 6

WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS – March 13

THE MAID – March 26 and 28

LOURDES – April 3 and 4

THE MAN FROM LONDON – April 17

(NAJ SUL, Noh Young-Seok, South Korea 2008, 116 min., Korean/subtitles)

South Korean cinema has enjoyed a considerable revival in the last decade, particularly with the kinetic, action-packed genre exercises from filmmakers like Park Chan Wook (Old Boy) and Bong Joon-Ho (The Host). But another strain of features has also been emerging, films like those by Hong Sang-soo (Woman on the Beach), which can best be described as low-key, character-driven black comedies. Daytime Drinking, the feature debut of Noh Young-Seok, belongs more to this latter group, but it has a willingness to go for the occasional big laugh and a somewhat perverse, Kafkaesque sense of dread that recalls the situation in Martin Scorsese’s brilliant After Hours.

At the beginning of Noh’s very funny comedy of errors, our hero, Hyuk-Jin, gets terribly drunk with his buddies after being dumped by his girlfriend. Pressured to accept an invitation for a weekend getaway with his friends, he arrives in a cold, distant province to find that his now-sober pals have all neglected to show up. Alone, he embarks on a strange road trip, encountering a series of individuals who continually misunderstand him and encourage him to drink until he’s blotto. These encounters typically end with hostility being unleashed upon Hyuk-Jin, and there’s more than one occurrence where he literally loses his pants.

Hyuk-Jin’s absurd journey offers a sort of deadpan variation on The Hangover, though it casts a more thoughtful and critical eye on a society not unlike our own where hazing and high-pressure drinking situations are not uncommon among men of all ages. Director Noh’s considerable talent, however, lies in his rare ability to put these serious ideas across with a light, assured touch. He’s a filmmaker to watch for.

Daytime Drinking will screen on April 9 at 8 p.m.

—Jim Healy, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Motion Picture Department

George Eastman House has joined with 360 | 365 (formerly the High Falls Film Festival) to bring you the 360 | 365 George Eastman House Film Festival, a five-day paradise for movie lovers May 5 to 10 at the Dryden and Little Theatres. Additionally, the Dryden will be home to the 360 | 365 George Eastman House New Director Series, a bi-monthly program that will present the first area screenings of recent works from directors making their first or second feature-length effort.

The New Director Series begins March 20 with 21 Below, an emotionally powerful new documentary filmed largely in Buffalo. 21 Below tells the compelling and multi-faceted story of one American family in crisis. Pregnant with her first child, Sharon returns to Buffalo to repair the relationship between her mother and her younger sister, Karen, who is pregnant with her third child and caring for one daughter dying from a rare genetic disease. Richly complex and inspiring, 21 Below unfolds as a compassionate portrait of a family coming apart and the compromises required for reconciliation. Director Samantha Buck will appear in person to introduce and answer questions after the screening. No Take-10 tickets or passes.