Film
December: First-Run Films
Four feature films receive their exclusive Cleveland theatrical premiere showings in December. Each film $8, CMA members $6, seniors 65 & over $5, students $4, or one Panorama voucher.
Santouri the Music Man
Friday, December 5, 7:00
Saturday, December 6, 1:30
Directed by Dariush Mehrjui. Banned in its home country, the latest film by master Iranian filmmaker Dariush Mehrjui (who also suffered censorship under the Shah) follows a popular singer-songwriter and player of the santoor (an ancient stringed instrument) as he spirals into heroin addiction. "Suggests that Iran’s current cultural repression and rampant drug addiction are no mere coincidence" –Variety. Cleveland theatrical premiere. (Iran, 2007, color, subtitles, 35mm, 106 min.)
The Crystal Liturgy: Olivier Messiaen
Sunday, December 7, 1:30
Directed by Olivier Mille, with Olivier Messiaen. This portrait of innovative, nature-loving French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992) contains interviews, archival film clips, and excerpts from his music. Presented as part of the museum’s Messiaen Centenary celebration (see page 12). Cleveland theatrical premiere. (France, 2002, color, subtitles, DVD, 57 min.)
Days and Clouds
Friday, December 12, 6:45
Sunday, December 14, 1:30
Directed by Silvio Soldini, with Margherita Buy and Antonio Albanese. The acclaimed new drama from the director of Bread and Tulips tells of a prosperous, middle-aged couple—recent empty-nesters—who face a crisis in their marriage when he reveals that he lost his job two months ago and their money is running out. "A brave film simply for daring to portray a nightmare lurking in the minds of middle-aged workers" –New York Times. Cleveland theatrical premiere. (Italy/Switzerland, 2007, color, subtitles, 35mm, 115 min.)
Love Comes Lately
Friday, December 19, 7:00
Sunday, December 21, 1:30
Directed by Jan Schütte, with Otto Tausig, Barbara Hershey, and Rhea Perlman. Based on three stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer, this delightful film tells of an octogenarian fiction writer and Lothario who has trouble suppressing his overactive imagination—and libido—during a lecture tour. Cleveland premiere. (Germany/Austria/USA, 2007, color, 35mm, 86 min.)
Lapse of Luxury
2008 Holiday Film Festival
These five classics of world cinema chronicle the demise of the 19th-century aristocracy, along with the democratic rise of the lower and middle classes. Admission to each film is $8, CMA members $6, seniors 65 & over $5, students $4, or one Panorama voucher.
The Leopard
Friday, December 26, 1:30
Directed by Luchino Visconti, with Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, and Alain Delon. This sumptuous historical epic is set in 19th-century Sicily at the time of Garibaldi and the unification of Italy. It tells of a prince and family patriarch whose aristocratic lifestyle is about to be swept away by the tide of history. Music by Nino Rota. (Italy/France, 1962, color, subtitles, 35mm, 188 min.)
The Magnificent Ambersons
Saturday, December 27, 1:30
Directed by Orson Welles, with Tim Holt, Joseph Cotten, and Agnes Moorehead. Orson Welles’s mutilated follow-up to Citizen Kane is still moving and sublime—and always appears high on lists of the best movies ever made. Based on a Booth Tarkington novel, it chronicles the decline of a great Midwestern family and the advent of the automobile at the cusp of the 20th century. (USA, 1942, b&w, 35mm, 88 min.)
Grand Illusion
Sunday, December 28, 1:30
Directed by Jean Renoir, with Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, and Erich von Stroheim. This humanistic masterpiece, one of the great anti-war movies, explores class differences among French prisoners and their German captors at a POW camp during WWI. (France, 1937, b&w, subtitles, 35mm, 117 min.)
The Earrings of Madame de . . .
Tuesday, December 30, 1:30
Directed by Max Ophuls, with Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer, and Vittorio De Sica. This elegant, rapturous film set in fin de siècle Paris is a high-society drama of adultery centered around a pair of earrings that continually changes hands. (France/Italy, 1953, b&w, subtitles, 35mm, 105 min.)
Russian Ark
Wednesday, December 31, 1:30
Directed by Alexander Sokurov. 300 years of Russian history are condensed into one continuous, 90-minute tracking shot through St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum (formerly the tzar’s Winter Palace) in this unprecedented art film. The camera follows a time-traveling 19th-century French diplomat as he wends his way through 33 rooms and corridors and around 2,000 costumed extras, eventually landing in the midst of the last great royal ball held during the reign of Nicholas II. (Russia/Germany, 2002, color, subtitles, 35mm, 96 min.)
Eisenstein and Prokofiev
Four Soviet classics by Sergei Eisenstein—all with music by Sergei Prokofiev—show on Wednesday nights this month. A restored classic by F. W. Murnau shares the bill with Eisenstein on January 28. Each program costs $8, CMA members $6, seniors 65 & over $5, students $4, or one Panorama voucher. Vouchers, in books of 10, can be purchased at the box office for $55, CMA members $45.
Ivan the Terrible, Part I
Wednesday, January 7, 7:00
Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, music by Sergei Prokofiev. Here’s the first new 35mm print in many years of a gripping, sumptuous historical drama by one of history’s greatest filmmakers. This two-part epic, which concludes next Wednesday, focuses on 16th-century tsar Ivan IV, who united feudal Russia under his leadership despite resistance from the boyars (privileged aristocracy). The movie’s monumental visuals borrow from grand opera, Kabuki theater, and Russian icon painting. Cleveland revival premiere! (USSR, 1944, b&w, subtitles, 96 min.)
Ivan the Terrible, Part II:
The Boyars’ Plot
Wednesday, January 14, 7:00
Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, music by Sergei Prokofiev. In the dramatic conclusion to Eisenstein’s opulent, operatic epic (see 1/7), which was banned by Stalin for over ten years, Tsar Ivan solidifies his position of power on the throne. Contains Eisenstein’s only color sequence. New 35mm print! Cleveland revival premiere. (USSR, 1946/1958, b&w/color, subtitles, 90 min.)
Alexander Nevsky
Wednesday, January 21, 7:00
Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, music by Sergei Prokofiev. This stirring saga of a 13th-century prince who drives Teutonic invaders from Russia was one of the few Eisenstein films to win immediate favor with Soviet officials. They even re-released it during WWII to rally the populace against the encroaching Nazis. New 35mm print. (USSR, 1938, b&w, subtitles, 107 min.)
Double Feature!
Wednesday, January 28, 6:45
Bezhin Meadow (reconstruction)
Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, with music by Sergei Prokofiev.
The Last Laugh (restored version)
Directed by F. W. Murnau, with Emil Jannings. A 30-min. reconstruction of Sergei Eisenstein’s lost, unfinished 1937 farm drama Bezhin Meadow precedes a screening of one of the great silent features, The Last Laugh, which tells its story (a proud, uniformed doorman at a luxury hotel is demoted to washroom attendant) with gliding camera movements and virtually no intertitles. This new DVD showcases a 2003 German restoration of the film (longer and less choppy than the export version) as well as the movie’s original orchestral score. (Germany, 1924, b&w, 90 min.)
New Films
Weekend screenings are devoted to new films, most Cleveland premieres. See above for location and prices.
Azur & Asmar
Friday, January 2, 7:00
Sunday, January 4, 1:30
Directed by Michel Ocelot. This beautiful animated fable from the director of Kirikou and the Sorceress is a plea for racial and religious tolerance. Set in medieval times somewhere in the Middle East, the movie follows two childhood friends—one Aryan, one Arab—who grow up to become rivals in a search for a fairy princess. In English. Rated PG. Cleveland premiere. (France/Belgium/Italy/Spain, 2006, color, 35mm, 99 min.)
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Friday, January 9, 7:00
Sunday, January 11, 1:30
Directed by Wayne Wang. In the acclaimed new film from the director of The Joy Luck Club, a Beijing widower travels to America so that he can help his divorced daughter sort out her emotional problems. But she doesn’t want his help. A subtle, quietly effective examination of the generation gap. "Wang remains a master explorer of the landscape of the human heart" –The Los Angeles Times. Cleveland premiere. (USA, 2007, color, subtitles, 35mm, 83 min.)
Ballast
Friday, January 16, 7:00
Sunday, January 18, 1:30
Directed by Lance Hammer. This lavishly praised, low-key, naturalistic drama is set in the Mississippi Delta in wintertime. A poor black man commits suicide and his ex-wife, son, and identical-twin brother struggle to come to terms with the tragedy. Best Director, 2008 Sundance Film Festival. "An extraordinary debut" –Variety. Cleveland premiere. (USA, 2008, color, 35mm, 96 min.)
Dalai Lama Renaissance
Friday, January 23, 7:00
Sunday, January 25, 1:30
Directed by Khashyar Darvich, narrated by Harrison Ford. On the cusp of the 21st century, the Dalai Lama invited 40 of the West’s most innovative thinkers—from quantum physicists to religious scholars—to come together at his residence in the Himalayan mountains and brainstorm about how to solve the world’s most pressing problems. This award-winning documentary records that extraordinary gathering. California-based filmmaker Khashyar Darvich, a Baldwin-Wallace alum, answers questions after both screenings. Cleveland premiere. (USA, 2007, color, 35mm, 81 min.)
Momma’s Man
Friday, January 30, 7:00
Directed by Azazel Jacobs, with Ken and Flo Jacobs. This fresh, funny, acclaimed drama focuses on a young L.A. father and husband who stays at his parents’ downtown loft, his childhood home, while on a business trip to New York. But his parents (played by the filmmaker’s real-life mom and dad) grow concerned when he keeps postponing his return to his own family. "This is independent cinema defined" –The New York Times. (USA, 2008, color, 35mm, 94 min.)
Cunningham Films
Two documentaries focus on innovative American dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham. Films show in the Morley Lecture Hall. Each film $8, CMA members $6, seniors 65 & over $5, students $4, or one Panorama voucher.
Merce Cunningham: A Lifetime of Dance
Sunday, February 1, 1:30
Directed by Charles Atlas, with Merce Cunningham and John Cage. This overview of the life and work of dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham includes ample performance clips and commentary on his innovations. (USA, 2000, color, DVD, 90 min.)
Cage/Cunningham
Wednesday, February 4, 7:00
Directed by Elliot Caplan, with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Rudolf Nureyev. This artful documentary celebrates the decades-long partnership and collaborations between composer John Cage and dancer/choreog-rapher Merce Cunningham. (France/USA, 1991, color, Beta SP, 100 min.)