Weather update, Friday, August 29: Tonight’s screening will proceed as scheduled outside at the Highland Park Bowl. In the event of a rain backup, the announcement will be made here, or by calling 585.271.4090.
From Tuesday, August 26 through Saturday, August 30, George Eastman House and Business Association of the South Wedge Area (BASWA) will present five nights of FREE outdoor screenings at Rochester’s Highland Park Bowl. On a towering screen with booming stereo sound, we’ll screen some of Hollywood’s most cherished classics on 35mm film. Comedy, sci-fi, adventure, and horror: it’s all here under the stars. Showtime begins at sunset (approximately 7:30 p.m.). In case of bad weather conditions, screenings will move to the Dryden Theatre.
Live music will be performed before each screening from 6 to 7:30 p.m., followed by shorts, trailers, and animation from the Eastman House motion picture collection. To further offer the Dryden Theatre experience, each screening will be preceded by a live introduction from Jim Healy, Eastman House’s assistant curator of motion pictures.
See below for the full schedule of screenings. For additional information about parking and shuttle information, please follow this BASWA link.
For his initially reviled, now revered dark comedy Monsieur Verdoux, Charles Chaplin traded in his gentle Little Tramp persona to play a pragmatic (yet sympathetic) murderer who “liquidates” wealthy widows as a financial enterprise during the Great Depression. The tragicomic figure of Verdoux learns a valuable lesson: that a hypocritical society will be outraged by murder at the individual level, yet the same society will condone mass genocide when conducted by our warring nations. As Verdoux says, “Wars, conflicts—it’s all business.”
About half of the selections in the Dryden’s 19th Annual Rochester Labor Film Series, sponsored by the Rochester Labor Council, are morality fables like Verdoux, which depict the “pitfalls” (to borrow the title of one of the films) of big business, class conflict, and exploitation of workers. These titles include Edward Dmytryk’s stirring drama of immigrant construction laborers Christ in Concrete, made during Dmytryk’s brief exile in England and before he became a “friendly” witness to the House Committee on Un-American Activities; Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Pitfall, a classic ghost story set amidst the world of Japanese miners and migrant workers; Taxi! and Heroes for Sale, a double bill of fast-paced and progressive Warner Bros. features made during the notorious “pre-code” era; and George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead, perhaps the most politically aware of the director’s celebrated cycle of flesh-eating ghoul movies.
The rest of the lineup contains documentaries and features that offer examples of inspirational leaders who teach by example that people have the right to work for fair wages and in safe conditions, as well as the right to speak out—or sing out—when not treated fairly. The series kicks off with Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, an engaging portrait of the folk icon who shares his belief in the power of music as both a social and political force. Inspired by the writings of historian Howard Zinn, John Gianvito’s Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind pays homage to many leaders of the American progressive movement who have been forgotten by popular history through moving images of cemeteries, plaques, and monuments. The Women of Brukman is a rousing work of nonfiction about the group of suit factory workers in Argentina who took over the means of production when their bosses abandoned the plant. Acclaimed German director Volker Schlöndorff’s Strike is the true story of an ordinary woman, a shipyard welder, who eventually helped lay the foundation for Poland’s Solidarity movement.
If it’s true, as Chaplin’s Verdoux declares, that “business is a ruthless business,” then these ten films collectively suggest that working men and women have the potential to defeat this ruthlessness.
Jim Healy, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Motion Picture
Department
Screenings:
Friday, September 5 | Rochester Premiere
PETE SEEGER: THE POWER OF SONG (Jim Brown, US 2007, 93 min.)
Friday, September 12 | John Gianvito in Person! |
Rochester Premiere
PROFIT MOTIVE AND THE WHISPERING WIND (John Gianvito, US 2007, 58 min., Digital Projection) preceded by THE INTERNATIONALE (Peter Miller, US 2000, 30 min., Digital Projection)
Friday, September 19
CHRIST IN CONCRETE (SALT TO THE DEVIL/GIVE US THIS DAY, Edward Dmytryk, UK 1949, 120 min.)
Friday, September 26 | 8 p.m. | New 35mm print!
Sunday, September 28 | 4:30 p.m.
MONSIEUR VERDOUX (Charles Chaplin, US 1947, 123 min.)
Friday, October 3
THE WOMEN OF BRUKMAN (LES FEMMES DE LA BRUKMAN, Isaac Isitan, Canada 2008, 90 min., Spanish/subtitles, Digital Projection)
Friday, October 10 | Rochester Premiere
STRIKE (STRAJK—DIE HELDIN VON DANZIG, Volker Schlöndorff, Germany/Poland 2006, 104 min., Polish/subtitles)
Friday, October 17
PITFALL (OTOSHIANA, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Japan 1962, 97 min., Japanese/subtitles)
Friday, October 24 | Pre-Code Double Feature
7 p.m. HEROES FOR SALE (William Wellman, US 1933, 73 min.)
& 8:30 p.m. TAXI! (Roy Del Ruth, USA 1932, 69 min.)
Two films for one admission price.
Friday, October 31
LAND OF THE DEAD (George A. Romero, US 2005, 93 min.)
Over three Sundays in October, the Dryden will feature a number of rarely screened works by influential pop artist and experimental filmmaker Andy Warhol, made during the icon’s most productive era, 1964 to 1966. All of the films will be shown in their original 16mm format, and several of the presentations will employ Warhol’s technique of side-by-side dual projections. The programs were curated by University of Rochester professor and Warhol specialist Douglas Crimp.
Restaurant, Outer and Inner Space, and Lupe (all screening October 5) all offer different guises of Warhol’s glamorous, doomed superstar Edie Sedgwick. Warhol’s supreme achievement, Chelsea Girls (October 19), utilizes two projectors to show the lives of a number of bizarre residents of New York’s famed Chelsea Hotel. Callie Angel, curator of the Andy Warhol Film Project, will present a special program of silent film “screen tests” featuring visitors to Warhol’s Factory from 1964 to 1967 on October 26.
Most Tuesdays in September through early December, the Dryden will present its annual series of marvelous movies from the era before synchronous sound. The films are presented in conjunction with the University of Rochester’s course in Silent Cinema, taught by George Eastman House Curator of Motion Pictures Patrick Loughney, and most screenings feature splendid live piano accompaniment from Rochester’s own Philip C. Carli.
Among the diverse offerings on this calendar are the official release version of Erich von Stroheim’s much-abused masterwork, Greed (September 9); D.W. Griffith’s The Avenging Conscience and The Musketeers of Pig Alley (September 16); South (September 23), the remarkable filmed record of Shackleton’s legendary journey to the arctic; Charles Chaplin’s seminal comedies The Kid and The Tramp (September 30); John Barrymore in the deliriously romantic When a Woman Loves (October 7), one of the first films released with a synchronous Vitaphone music score soundtrack; Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu’s Dragnet Girl (October 21); and just in time for Halloween (October 28), Robert Wiene’s expressionistic head trip, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Within each of us is the power to affect positive changes in the lives of people closest to us and within our communities. We can also influence our culture and the greater world around us. Certain films can help us to see, hear, and feel such power within us and inspire us to make a difference.
In September, the Dryden will launch a series of monthly screenings celebrating the power of the human spirit. These films have been selected in the hopes that they will stimulate thought, discussion, passion, and action. Each selection explores the potential to add meaning in one’s life through contributions, in all manner of ways, to the lives of others.
The series begins September 20 & 21, when we present three showings of A Man Named Pearl. Scott Galloway and Brent Pierson offer a documentary portrait of self-taught topiary gardener Pearl Fryar, whose dazzling, one-of-a-kind plant sculptures in his magical backyard have earned media and tourist attention and revived his once-declining hometown of Bishopville, located in the poorest county of South Carolina. A special panel discussion will follow the 8 p.m. program only on September 20.
On October 25, the second offering of the series is Encounter Point. This acclaimed film by Ronit Avni and Julia Bacha introduces citizens on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for whom an end to the fighting has become a personal crusade. Family members of slain Palestinians and Israelis, both military and civilian, share their stories and how they have turned their grief into a force for change in the region. A panel discussion will follow the screening. See the calendar section for details.
