a highly-opinionated selection of things happening around town, and sometimes out of town. this month's page here.
sun. feb. 1 la art book fair @ moca geffen the plague dogs 8 PM @ silent movie theater the ten commandments 7 PM @ ucla film archive telecaves @ mata joe gibbons: confessions of a sociopath @ filmforum @ spielberg @ egyptian desert fury 5:30 9:35 PM, the uninvited 7:30 PM @ new beverly mon. feb. 2 the plague dogs 10 PM @ silent movie theater dead meadow FREE @ the continental room (fullerton) two days one night, rust and bone @ aero the uninvited, desert fury @ new beverly annie hall @ arclight sherman oaks tue. feb. 3 the plague dogs @ silent movie theater gentlemen prefer blondes 1 PM @ lacma death laid an egg, the school that couldn't scream @ new beverly wed. feb. 4 good people go to hell saved people go to heaven FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ usc stark wie man sieht: in memory of filmmaker harun farocki: night four 7 PM @ filmforum @ goethe-institut plasmodian telecaves FREE @ hyperion tavern thu. feb. 5 dirt dress FREE @ harvard & stone blume in love @ veggiecloud le revelateur (w/ live score) @ silent movie theater passing fancy FREE 7 PM, woman of tokyo @ csun armer thunder soul FREE 4 PM @ la library edendale branch fri. feb. 6 the big lebowski MIDNIGHT @ nuart the loons, love revisited @ el cid the godfather, the godfather part ii @ egyptian cemetery man MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater annie hall, fingers @ lacma story of the last chrysanthemum @ ucla film archive sorcerer FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ usc norris the eskimo baby @ mush! to the movies: a polar film club @ filmforum @ velaslavasay panorama boyhood, dazed and confused @ aero face to face, the family @ new beverly jackie brown MIDNIGHT @ new beverly the peanut butter solution @ an evening with producer rock demers @ silent movie theater sat. feb. 7 saturday morning cartoons: mysteries 12 PM @ silent movie theater the cheat, the golden chance @ ucla film archive we got power: punk rock films by david markey 8 PM @ epfc blade runner (final cut) @ egyptian shadow of a doubt, laura @ aero the family 5:20 9:45 PM, face to face 7:30 PM @ new beverly hot fuzz MIDNIGHT @ new beverly boogie nights @ lacma sun. feb. 8 routine pleasures @ veggiecloud the phantom tollbooth (1970) 11 AM @ ucla film archive daredevils @ filmforum @ spielberg @ egyptian the peanut butter solution @ silent movie theater the apartment 5:00 9:45 PM, it happened one night 7:30 PM @ new beverly mon. feb. 9 folk music films FREE 6 PM @ documental @ unurban the grand budapest hotel, to be or not to be @ egyptian lee noble @ pehrspace it happened one night, the apartment @ new beverly terminator 2 FREE 5:30 PM @ la library edendale branch tue. feb. 10 corners, adult books @ echoplex how to marry a millionaire 1 PM @ lacma stephanie barber's jhana and the rats of james olds or 31 days/31 videos 8 PM @ epfc tiny ruins @ the echo peter kolovos @ human resources massacre mafia style, gone with the pope, bela lugosi meets a brooklyn gorilla @ new beverly wed. feb. 11 the warlocks, dream boys @ bootleg llyn foulkes one man band FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ usc stark wie man sieht: in memory of filmmaker harun farocki: night five 7 PM @ filmforum @ goethe-institut the lady eve, the palm beach story @ aero early spring FREE 7 PM @ jfla auditorium thu. feb. 12 animation breakdown: devin flynn & friends 10 PM @ silent movie theater dragnet girl FREE 7 PM, a story of floating weeds @ csun armer the blow, anna oxygen @ satellite the peanut butter solution @ silent movie theater wild tales FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ usc stark fri. feb. 13 four frightened people, this day and age @ ucla film archive return to oz FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ usc stark the goonies, pee-wee's big adventure @ lacma l.a. witch, cherry glazerr @ the echo jackie brown MIDNIGHT @ new beverly fuzz, cool ghouls, small wigs @ smell goodbye to language 3d 12:00 2:00 4:00 6:00 PM @ downtown independent sat. feb. 14 mantrap 12:30 PM @ the silent treatment @ silent movie theater black jack 3 PM @ silent movie theater casablanca 6:30 9:15 PM @ silent movie theater the plainsman @ ucla film archive blade runner (director's cut) 5 PM, fight club @ lacma casablanca @ aero triptides, cool ghouls @ everydaze music slow sun 8 PM @ epfc goodbye to language 3d 12:00 2:00 4:00 6:00 9:15 PM @ downtown independent sun. feb. 15 a new leaf @ veggiecloud l.a. zine fest 11AM-5PM FREE @ homenetmen the 47 ronin (pt. 1 & 2) 7 PM @ ucla film archive colleen green @ the smell festival of (in)appropriation #7 @ filmforum @ spielberg @ egyptian harold and maude @ aero casablanca 4:45 7:30 PM @ silent movie theater goodbye to language 3d 12:00 4:00 PM @ downtown independent leviathan FREE 7 PM @ reel grit @ afi mon. feb. 16 pina 3-D @ aero rescue party @ an evening with the space lady @ silent movie theater goodbye to language 3d 12:00 2:00 4:00 6:00 PM @ downtown independent footprints 4:30 PM @ hriff @ bellevarado studios double indemnity @ arclight sherman oaks the apartment @ arclight hollywood tue. feb. 17 river of no return 1 PM @ lacma how to shoot a crime FREE @ hammer leviathan (2014) FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ usc stark the magic blade, bastard swordsman @ new beverly wed. feb. 18 wie man sieht: in memory of filmmaker harun farocki: night six 7 PM @ filmforum @ goethe-institut the andromeda strain, colossus: the forbin project @ new beverly goodbye to language 3d 4:00 6:00 PM @ downtown independent eternal sunshine of the spotless mind @ arclight hollywood taxi driver @ arclight pasadena free angela and all political prisoners FREE 7 PM @ santa monica library main branch thu. feb. 19 the only son FREE 7 PM, there was a father @ csun armer heart of darkness: sex magick @ silent movie theater the andromeda strain, colossus: the forbin project @ new beverly space materials material place 8 PM @ epfc gosford park FREE 6 PM @ santa monica library ocean park branch fri. feb. 20 union pacific @ ucla film archive back to the future, return to oz @ lacma hope and glory @ aero jackie brown MIDNIGHT @ new beverly the color of pomegranates @ silent movie theater the duke of burgundy 9:45 PM @ silent movie theater in the realm of the senses, the blood spattered bride @ new beverly susan, el haru kuroi @ smell la vacanza 3 PM @ hriff @ bellevarado studios dropout 5 PM @ hriff @ bellevarado studios sat. feb. 21 kiss of the spider woman @ ucla film archive antibalas @ the broad stage wittgenstein 5 PM @ lacma invisible art visible artists 10:30 AM @ egyptian deliverance, the general (1998) @ aero the color of pomegranates 5 PM @ silent movie theater the duke of burgundy 7:15 PM @ silent movie theater the skid kid 9:45 PM @ silent movie theater e.t. MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater the blood spattered bride 5:20 9:45 PM, in the realm of the senses 7:30 PM @ new beverly hollywood underground film festival @ spielberg @ egyptian killer of sheep FREE 1 PM @ la central library sun. feb. 22 breaking away 5:10 9:30 PM, our winning season 7:30 PM @ new beverly post life @ smell mon. feb. 23 the duke of burgundy 9:15 PM @ silent movie theater our winning season, breaking away @ new beverly roco jet FREE @ stories lost in translation @ arclight hollywood frankenstein (1931) FREE 5:30 PM @ la library edendale branch endless bummer FREE @ the griffin tue. feb. 24 the seven year itch 1 PM @ lacma winter @ the echo queen and country @ aero serpico @ greg proops film club @ silent movie theater the duke of burgundy 10:40 PM @ silent movie theater a bullet for sandoval, cut-throats nine @ new beverly colleen green FREE 7 PM @ amoeba buzzard FREE (RSVP) @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges the player @ arclight hollywood twelve monkeys @ arclight pasadena wed. feb. 25 wie man sieht: in memory of filmmaker harun farocki: night seven 7 PM @ filmforum @ goethe-institut point blank, hell in the pacific @ aero the princess bride FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ an evening with cary elwes @ usc stark the hustler @ arclight hollywood no country for old men @ arclight pasadena shark toys FREE @ monty bar thu. feb. 26 late spring FREE 7 PM, a hen in the wind @ csun armer excalibur, zardoz @ aero rock & rule @ animation breakdown @ silent movie theater the duke of burgundy 10:30 PM @ silent movie theater rod serling's wonderful world of: propaganda FREE 5 PM, we two, the hate syndrome @ the crank @ ucla james bridges crime wave FREE @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges a fish called wanda @ arclight sherman oaks an unmarried woman @ veggiecloud fri. feb. 27 six organs of admittance @ echo jessica pratt @ carpenter house (long beach) the crusades, the godless girl @ ucla film archive triptides @ hollywood sound studios salad days: the dc punk revolution 8:30 11:00 PM @ regent theater the thing, runaway train @ new beverly jackie brown MIDNIGHT @ new beverly los angeles plays itself FREE 7 PM @ fred harvey room, union station colleen green @ hm157 the iron ministry FREE (RSVP) 1 PM @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges sat. feb. 28 jessica pratt @ the echo the producers, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum @ aero runaway train 5:10 9:45 PM, the thing 7:30 PM @ new beverly the new palestinian images: cinematic work by kamal aljafari 8 PM @ epfc lost soul: the doomed journey of richard stanley's island of dr. moreau 8:30 PM @ silent movie theater sun. mar. 1 lost soul: the doomed journey of richard stanley's island of dr. moreau 9 PM @ silent movie theater rashomon 5 PM @ majestic crest mon. mar. 2 llyn foulkes one man band FREE @ lacma tue. mar. 3 lost soul: the doomed journey of richard stanley's island of dr. moreau 10:15 PM @ silent movie theater project shirley: short films by shirley clarke 8 PM @ filmforum @ epfc mean streets FREE 6 PM @ santa monica library ocean park branch bob and the trees FREE (RSVP) @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges wed. mar. 4 wie man sieht: in memory of filmmaker harun farocki: night eight 7 PM @ filmforum @ goethe-institut thu. mar. 5 early summer FREE 7 PM @ csun armer mike watt and the secondmen, small wigs FREE @ harvard and stone david holzman's diary @ veggiecloud fri. mar. 6 the crawdaddys @ casbah (SD) the thoughts that once we had 8:30 PM @ redcat sat. mar. 7 the loons, the unclaimed @ redwood dead meadow (11:30), the warlocks (10:15), drinking flowers (10:00) @ bootleg ezra buchla @ pehrspace kim gordon (book reading) 3 PM @ moca grand love you madly - a portrait of duke ellington (opening concert) 3 PM @ william grant still arts center sun. mar. 8 bouquet FREE 6 PM @ origami the hidden fortress 5 PM @ majestic crest jim mcbride trio of films @ veggiecloud wed. mar. 11 blank tapes @ the echo everything is terrible! legends @ silent movie theater thu. mar. 12 tokyo story FREE 7 PM @ csun armer naomi punk @ take off meat market @ smell fri. mar. 13 wand @ the echo the golem (1920) 9 PM @ hm157 sun. mar. 15 high and low 5 PM @ majestic crest glen and randa @ veggiecloud wed. mar. 18 anita: speaking truth to power FREE 7 PM @ santa monica library main branch thu. mar. 19 early spring FREE 7 PM @ csun armer fri. mar. 20 sea lions @ the echo nanook of the north @ mush! to the movies: a polar film club @ filmforum @ velaslavasay panorama becky stark FREE @ stories sat. mar. 21 grouper @ hollywood forever sun. mar. 22 moon duo @ the observatory (santa ana) yojimbo 5 PM @ majestic crest the big easy @ veggiecloud mon. mar. 23 the road warrior FREE 5:30 PM @ la library edendale branch tue. mar. 24 moon duo @ los globos wed. mar. 25 ravished armenia FREE @ hammer thu. mar. 26 tokyo twilight FREE 7 PM @ csun armer fri. mar. 27 king khan & bbq show @ jewel's catch one colleen green @ echo sat. mar. 28 white fence, jacco gardner, endless bummer @ echo roky erickson, weezer, gang of four, black angels, mystic braves, cosmonauts, bleached, corners, together pangea, tomorrow's tulips, etc @ burgerama @ bservatory (santa ana) sun. mar. 29 white fence, jacco gardner, colleen green, ty segall, thee oh sees, king khan & bbq show, black lips, nick waterhouse, tobacco, audacity, etc @ burgerama @ observatory (santa ana) seven samurai 5 PM @ majestic crest mon. mar. 30 transforming spaces: new films from l.a. filmmakers 8:30 PM @ redcat thu. apr. 2 equinox flower FREE 7 PM @ csun armer sun. apr. 5 his name is alive, bell gardens @ the echo mon. apr. 6 the films of gregory j. markopoulos 8:30 PM @ redcat wed. apr. 8 tame impala @ fox theater mon. apr. 13 luna @ echo tue. apr. 14 fka twigs @ ace hotel theatre aghet - ein volkermord FREE @ hammer thu. apr. 16 floating weeds FREE 7 PM @ csun armer sat. apr. 18 charles bradley @ the roxy the ox-bow incident 1:30 PM @ autry sun. apr. 19 nasa space universe @ space 42 mon. apr. 20 perfumed nightmare 8:30 PM @ redcat tue. apr. 21 ty segall (solo acoustic) @ satellite thu. apr. 23 late autumn FREE 7 PM @ csun armer the postman always rings twice @ alex theatre fri. apr. 24 fuzz, endless bummer @ el rey sat. apr. 25 endless bummer, susan, heathers, etc @ thirty two thirty five fest @ jewel's catch one river of fundament 5 PM @ ucla royce hall mon. apr. 27 the blood of jesus 8:30 PM @ redcat thu. apr. 30 the end of summer FREE 7 PM, good morning @ csun armer fri. may 1 sleater-kinney @ palladium sun. may 3 lightning bolt @ echoplex mon. may 4 flowers of shanghai 8:30 PM @ redcat thu. may 7 an autumn afternoon FREE 7 PM @ csun armer fri. may 15 nashville ramblers FREE @ the barclay (south pasadena) sat. may 16 sleep, true widow, dead meadow, earth, etc. @ psycho california @ the observatory (santa ana) nashville ramblers @ til two club (san diego) sun. may 17 pentagram, om, earthless, etc. @ psycho california @ the observatory (santa ana) thu. may 28 neutral milk hotel, the minders @ north park theatre (san diego) fri. may 29 neutral milk hotel, the minders @ observatory (santa ana) sat. may 30 neutral milk hotel, the minders @ pappy & harriet's (pioneertown) wire @ echoplex sun. may 31 neutral milk hotel, the minders @ ventura theatre (ventura) WHAT IT IS: AGHET - EIN VOLKERMORD The prizewinning film Aghet – Ein Völkermord (Armenian for "the catastrophe") by acclaimed German film maker Eric Friedler tells the story of the Armenian genocide, one of the darkest chapters of the First World War. Though there is an international consensus that up to 1.5 million Armenians died in the Ottoman Turkish Empire the Armenian genocide is still not recognized by Turkey as a historical fact. Aghet – Ein Völkermord deals with the political motives for this continuing silence. This innovative German documentary relies on authentic testimonies by European and American personnel stationed in the Near East at the time and Armenian survivors. Famous German actors give these eyewitnesses finally the opportunity to make their voices heard. Director Eric Friedler joins us for a discussion following the screening. (2010, Dir. Eric Friedler, 90 min). ANIMATION BREAKDOWN: DEVIN FLYNN & FRIENDS Most well known for his Webby-awarded series Y’all So Stupid, Devin Flynn has animated for an all-star selection of tripped-out wonders: Wonder Showzen, Aquateen Hunger Force Movie, Xavier: Renegade Angel and Yo Gabba Gabba, as well as music videos for Flying Lotus and The Alchemist. Join Devin and friends for a night of weird and wooly clips! An Autumn Afternoon (1962), 113 mins. The last film by Yasujiro Ozu was also his final masterpiece, a gently heartbreaking story about a man’s dignified resignation to life’s shifting currents and society’s modernization. Though the widower Shuhei (frequent Ozu leading man Chishu Ryu) has been living comfortably for years with his grown daughter, a series of events leads him to accept and encourage her marriage and departure from their home. As elegantly composed and achingly tender as any of the Japanese master’s films, An Autumn Afternoon is one of cinema’s fondest farewells. THE BIG EASY (1987, Dir: Jim McBride) Featuring one of the greatest sex scenes on film, The Big Easy casts Dennis Quaid as a maybe-corrupt New Orleans police lieutenant, and Ellen Barkin as the district attorney investigating him—and simultaneously carrying on a hot romance with him in a city of elastic mores. Steamy, slippery New Orleans is itself a major player, providing the perfectly soiled yet charming backdrop to questions of passion and evenhandedness. BLACK JACK Sometimes the line between childhood and adulthood is fine; amongst the afternoon’s short subjects and feature presentation, let’s dance that line beautifully — the space between fantasy and reality, dark and light, love and lunacy. Primarily known for his impeccable takes on social realism, British film icon Ken Loach (The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Riff Raff) took a different tack for 1979’s Black Jack — think Moonrise Kingdom, but for the 18th century. Here, Loach reinterprets the period-piece drama, weaving traveling circuses and insane asylums with the nothing-else-matters nature of First Love at such a young age. He looks closely at escape, rescue, theft, and love, connecting them all in a masterful, observational light, birthing an adventure on the tip of his finger without ever interfering. Dir. Ken Loach, 1979, DCP, 105 min. THE BLOOD OF JESUS “A masterpiece of folk cinema that has scarcely lost its power to astonish.” – Village Voice, March 2008 Spencer Williams (1893–1969) was among the very first African American independent filmmakers, and his great cultural morality tale, The Blood of Jesus (1941, 57 min.), is a landmark of American cinema. Still known primarily as a radio and screen actor (Andy in Amos ’n’ Andy), Williams made more than a dozen films with all-black casts. He traveled the South to show his work in church basements, and The Blood of Jesus was a huge hit with African American audiences for years. A story of sin and redemption, the film’s vivid depiction of spiritualism and folk beliefs has a power that few big-budget movies have ever achieved. Scholar Jacqueline Stewart, who is preparing a biography of Williams, introduces the work. In person: Jacqueline Stewart BLUME IN LOVE (1973, Dir: Paul Mazursky) In a series of flashbacks, coxcombical divorce lawyer Stephen Blume (George Segal) recalls the infidelities that led to the breakup of his marriage, but discovers he’s still in love with his wife. Now he’ll have to get past her new boyfriend, a burnout musician named Elmo played an unflappably suave Kris Kristofferson. BOB AND THE TREES Bob has a problem: A skunk bit a pig. Now his wooded property is being quarantined for rabies and he must contract himself out to cut trees elsewhere. When a competitor sets him up, matters go from bad to worse as Bob faces a series of difficulties with his farm, family and livelihood. With only rap music and a nine iron as outlets for his frustration, Bob is pushed to the limits of his capabilities to pull out of this spiraling mess. The film, set in beautiful Berkshires Mountains of rural Massachusetts, uses real woodcutters and real families as actors. Using a loosely scripted, but well structured narrative allows the subjects to easily act out the nuanced dilemmas from their own lives. Gorgeous cinematography by Sundance favorite DPs Chris Teague and Danny Vecchione intimately follows Bob through interactions with his workers, wife, son and livestock in a way that only a real farmer/logger could. The series of misfortunes that befall Bob, which seem to take on the ominous presence of an oncoming plague, in many ways serve as an allegory for the tribulations of American rural life today. “Perceptively scripted, nimbly shot and efficiently produced, Ongaro’s debut is well suited for a broad regional audience, and with the right handling, could break through on the national art house circuit as well.” Justin Lowe, The Hollywood Reporter “For a film about logging, BOB AND THE TREES is strangely compelling, a tonal ambient score amps up the tension as Bob becomes more unhinged with worry about his business.” Katie Walsh, Indiewire “(An) immersive verite style drama.” Ben Kenigsberg, Variety Director: Diego Ongaro. Cast: Bob Tarasuk, Polly MacIntyre, Matt Gallagher, Winthrop Barrett, Nathaniel Gregory. 91 min./ Digital Projection BUZZARD When Marty, a slacker telemarketer with a penchant for heavy metal and 80s horror movies, tries to scam his own company and it backfires, he ends up on the lam. Worried about getting caught, Marty stays at friends’ houses, low rent motels and on the streets of Detroit using increasingly desperate means to cash his fraudulent checks. Armed with only a Nintendo Power Glove fashioned as a Freddy Krueger claw, Marty must face the authorities and his own mounting paranoia to survive “The movie, thought it is aggressively satirical and sometimes shocking, is in the end hauntingly sad.” A. O. Scott, New York Times “A vigorous and strangely compelling character study, a sustained burst of punk rock ferocity, and one of the most original American films to emerge in some time.” Calum Marsh, Village Voice “Potrykus’ deadpan script finds new themes in American capitalism and an imaginative way of eating Bugles.” Jim Brunzell III, Minneapolis Star Tribune Director/Writer: Joel Potrykus. Cast: Joshua Burge, Joel Potrykus, Teri Ann Nelson, Jason Roth, Joe Anderson. 97 min./ Digital Projection The Cheat (1915) Edith Hardy, a social climbing stockbroker's wife, is bored by her husband's frugality, and complains of the same to wealthy Japanese importer Hirushu Tori, a member of her glittering social circle. Treasurer of a charitable fund, Edith rashly sinks $10,000 in an investment which quickly goes south. Seeking help from Tori, Edith luridly falls under his influence until the scandal blows wide open. Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Co., Inc. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Screenwriter: Hector Turnbull, Jeanie Macpherson. Cinematographer: Alvin Wyckoff. Cast: Fannie Ward, Sessue Hayakawa, Jack Dean, James Neill, Hazel Childers. 35mm, b/w, silent, 59 min. In-person: Betty Lasky. Live musical accompaniment provided by Cliff Retallick. CRIME WAVE “Creates an off-kilter universe with echoes of Frank Tashlin, George Kuchar and Walt Disney." - Guy Maddin "One of the greatest and yet most perversely overlooked debuts in English Canadian movie history" - Steve Gravestock, TIFF Never before released theatrically in the United States, this Winnepeg cult classic was recently digitally restored by the Toronto International Film Festival. In a surprising twist, Melnitz Movies will not be screening the digital restoration, but its filmmaker John Paizs’ personal print, featuring the original Dr. Jolly in the motel scene. Paizs himself is Steven Penny, a screenwriter determined to write the greatest color crime movie, but who finds he is only able to write beginnings and endings. As Penny's writers block becomes increasingly dire, his young neighbor (Eva Kovacs), who has developed an obsession with him, happens upon an ad for a script doctor in “the color crime quarterly” that could be his salvation and so he sets out to meet the mysterious Dr. Jolly. 80 MIN / CANADA / COLOR / 1985 / 16MM / ENGLISH The Crusades (1935) In the quest to reclaim Jerusalem from Islamic warrior Saladin, Richard the Lionhearted sees an opportunity to escape a politically expedient marriage, but soon finds it necessary to grudgingly take a bride (Berengaria, princess of Navarre) as a condition of assistance from her father in his campaign. Their budding romance, developing an ever-loftier tone, becomes the film’s tender heart as Richard finds purpose in battle, and even solidarity with Saladin himself. Paramount Productions, Inc. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Screenwriting: Harold Lamb, Dudley Nichols, Waldemar Young. Cinematographer: Victor Milner. Editor: Anne Bauchens. Cast: Henry Wilcoxon, Loretta Young, Ian Keith, C. Aubrey Smith, Alan Hale. 35mm, b/w, 125 min. DAREDEVILS Filmmaker Stephanie Barber in person! Filmforum welcomes back filmmaker Stephanie Barber for the Los Angeles premiere of her first feature film, DAREDEVILS. A portrait of risk and language, DAREDEVILS, presents the experimental narrative of a writer as she interviews a well-known artist and feels the reverberations of their discussion throughout her day. Visually spare, still and verbose, the video considers three formal handlings of language—a dialog, two monologues and a song. “Here, the excitement of ideas, and of seeing, functions like the rising and falling of serotonin levels, moments of ecstasy leading to inevitably painful ends. Moments bend within that split second when happiness turns into melancholy on contact with the intellect.” -- From “Notes on Daredevils” by Rachael Rakes DAVID HOLZMAN'S DIARY (1967, Dir: Jim McBride) “A primordial metafiction, autofiction, mockumentary, and time capsule of sights and sounds, ideas and moods, politics and history…one of the greatest first films.” -Richard Brody, The New Yorker L.M. Kit Carson plays David, a would-be filmmaker living in Manhattan, who turns his camera on himself, his messy room, and his messy life. The film takes on, in casual, table-talk terms, everything from voyeurism, to hipness, to the myopia of cinematic objectives—all in the pursuit of meaning. *Jim McBride In Conversation with Peter Markham to follow Dragnet Girl (1933), 100 mins. Tokiko leads a double-life as an office typist and the mistress of a retired champion boxer and small-time ringleader named Jyoji. Hiroshi, a new recruit to the gang, hero worships Jyoji and neglects his studies. Hiroshi's sister Kazuko begs Jyoji to spare her brother from their shady dealings, but inadvertently casts a spell on Jyoji. After several reversals, Jyoji returns to Tokiko's arms. They decide to come clean, but not before pulling one last job to help Hiroshi and Kazuko. DROPOUT Director: Tinto Brass Dropout, which stars (then-and-now) real-life couple Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero who produced and financed the film themselves, tells the tale of a couple who meet in swinging London and run away together to have a series of adventures with societies dropouts. This premiere restoration, has unseen material from the Tinto Brass archives, and was completed in cooperation with Tinto Brass and Alexander Tuschinski, to give viewers the most complete version of the directors original vision, in the highest quality available in the world. THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY “By turns kinky, dryly comic and compellingly surreal — as well as boasting gorgeous, gothic cinematography and an enveloping score by orchestral pop duo Cat’s Eyes — The Duke of Burgundy is, like U.K. filmmaker Peter Strickland’s previous work Berberian Sound Studio, a richly immersive sensory experience. Taking its title from a rare species of butterfly, the film follows the increasingly intimate relationship between wealthy amateur butterfly scientist Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen, of acclaimed Danish television drama Borgen) and her newly hired housekeeper Evelyn (Berberian‘s Chiara D’Anna). As Cynthia’s demands begin to betray a sado-masochistic streak, Evelyn becomes less a domestic servant than an outright sex slave, submitting to her progressive humiliations with a surprising relish. In another director’s hands, this material might easily have tipped into the schlocky or the severe. Strickland, however, once again demonstrates a marvellous gift for modulating tone, pitching the tenor of his film in a strange, beguiling register somewhere between Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour and Joseph Losey’s The Servant.” (Toronto Int’l Film Festival) Dir. Peter Strickland, 2014, DCP, 104 min. Early Spring (1956), 145 mins In his first film after the commercial and critical success of Tokyo Story, Ozu examines life in postwar Japan through the eyes of a young salaryman, dissatisfied with career and marriage, who begins an affair with a flirtatious co-worker. Early Summer (1951), 125 mins The Mamiya family is seeking a husband for their daughter, Noriko, but she has ideas of her own. Played by the extraordinary Setsuko Hara, Noriko impulsively chooses her childhood friend, at once fulfilling her family’s desires while tearing them apart. A seemingly simple story, Early Summer is one of Yasujiro Ozu’s most complex works—a nuanced examination of life’s changes across three generations. The Criterion Collection is proud to present one of the director’s most enduring classics. The End of Summer (1961), 103 mins. The Kohayakawa family is thrown into distress when childlike father Manbei takes up with his old mistress, in one of Ozu’s most deftly modulated blendings of comedy and tragedy. Equinox Flower (1958), 118 mins. Later in his career, Ozu started becoming increasingly sympathetic with the younger generation, a shift that was cemented in Equinox Flower, his gorgeously detailed first color film, about an old-fashioned father and his newfangled daughter. The Eskimo Baby Germany, 1918, 65 min., B&W, Digital Projection Directed by Heinz Schall Silent with score by Maud Nelissen This rare, winning German silent film stars comedy diva Asta Nielsen as Ivigtut, and Freddy Wingardh as a young polar explorer, Knud Prätorius (whose character is, perhaps, modeled on Danish explorer and anthropologist Knud Rasmusen). Prätorius brings Ivigtut back home with him to Berlin from her Eskimo village, where she experiences a confounding and comical Western culture. EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE! LEGENDS Once a millenium, something emerges from the darkest corner of the universe and enlightens us to the true meaning of being. Something so mystickal, so magickal, and so mind-splitting that all concepts before its existence sounds stupid and boring. Of course, we are talking about Everything Is Terrible! The Legends show is a culmination of the first seven (of 777) years of work from the video alchemists at EIT! These mindfreaks have taken thousands of forgotten VHS tapes, chewed them up, and spit them back to their young via daily website postings, six movies, and world tours. In that time, they’ve exposed us to wonders such as massaging cat ladies, apocalyptic facial exercises, pizzas parties in hell, and our immortal party-god, Duane. Nobody could have predicted the cultural, psychological, and illuminating impact EIT! would have on our consciousness, but seeing all their greatest works chronicled in one place reminds us that in the right hands, garbage can be turned into gold! It is time pack up your copies of Jerry Maguire and accept the fact that your life up until this moment has been pointless. FACE TO FACE This Italian western contains subtle political undertones as it chronicles the exploits of a tubercular history professor who journeys to the American Southwest to recuperate. There he becomes fascinated by an outlaw who befriends him. The intelligent prof uses his brains to assist the outlaw. Violence ensues until the prof kills the outlaw who has been oppressing and taking advantage of him. Directed By: Sergio Sollima. 1 hr. 50 min. THE FAMILY CITTÀ VIOLENTA 1970, 100 min, Italy, Dir: Sergio Sollima Killer Charles Bronson is chased by double crossers while on a vacation with main squeeze Jill Ireland and, after mucho mayhem, left for dead. But Bronson re-emerges from prison to hunt through the New Orleans underworld for his traitorous comrades. He gets more than he bargained for, running into duplicitous Ireland and her new hubby, mob boss Telly Savalas, who wants to hire Bronson - and won’t take no for an answer. “One stylish action scene after another…whipped into a frenzy by Ennio Morricone's shredded electro soundtrack...” - Grady Hendrix, New York Sun. The Festival of (In)appropriation #7 Curators Jaimie Baron and Greg Cohen and filmmaker Maria Magnusson in person! The Festival of (In)appropriation returns to Filmforum with its seventh program of cutting-edge experimental found footage shorts. Whether you call it collage, compilation, found footage, détournement, or recycled cinema, the incorporation of previously shot materials into new artworks is a practice that has generated novel juxtapositions of elements which have produced new meanings and ideas that may not have been intended by the original makers, that are, in other words “inappropriate.” Founded in 2009, the Festival of (In)appropriation is a yearly showcase of contemporary short audiovisual works that appropriate film or video footage and repurpose it in “inappropriate” and inventive ways. This year’s show is curated by Jaimie Baron, Greg Cohen, and Lauren Berliner. The Films of Gregory J. Markopoulos “One of the true visionaries of the post-WWII American avant garde” – Harvard Film Archive A great figure of American independent cinema, Gregory J. Markopoulos (1928–1992) made some of the key films of the postwar avant-garde. Poetic, romantic and formally rigorous, his work was deeply rooted in mythological associations and the ritual dimensions of cinema. Despite Markopoulos’ huge influence as a filmmaker and polemicist in the new American Cinema of the 1960s, his films have been largely unavailable until now. The program this evening includes Bliss (1967, 7 min.) and Gammelion (1968, 54 min.), which are among the first films made by Markopoulos after he left the U.S. for Europe and represent a major step toward the epic form of his 80-hour magnum opus, Eniaios. In person: Curator Mark Webber, editor and publisher of Film As Film: The Collected Writings Of Gregory J. Markopoulos FINGERS Written and directed by James Toback; with Harvey Keitel, Tisa Farrow, Jim Brown, Michael V. Gazzo, Marian Seldes. James Toback, screenwriter of the original The Gambler, made his film-directing debut with this edgy urban drama. Harvey Keitel gives a darkly magnetic performance as Jimmy “Fingers” Angelelli, a brilliant young pianist with a penchant for Bach who squanders his potential by working as a collector for his loan-shark father (Michael V. Gazzo, The Godfather Part II’s Frankie Pentangeli). Featuring charismatic performances by Jim Brown as Jimmy’s mentor and Tisa Farrow (Mia’s sister) as his muse, Fingers is a prime example of ’70s cinema at its boldest and most personal. Toback’s friend Pauline Kael called it “a howl of ambition” and “exuberantly melodramatic," and the film was remade by French director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) in 2005 as The Beat That My Heart Skipped. Albert Wolsky, the seven-time Academy Award nominee who won Costume Design Oscars for All That Jazz and Bugsy, created the gritty yet stylish looks of Keitel and his costars. 1978, 91 minutes, color, DCP Floating Weeds (1959), 119 mins. In 1959, Yasujiro Ozu remade his 1934 silent classic A Story of Floating Weeds in color with the celebrated cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon, Ugetsu). Setting his later version in a seaside location, Ozu otherwise preserves the details of his elegantly simple plot wherein an aging actor returns to a small town with his troupe and reunities with his former lover and illegitimate son, a scenario that enrages his current mistress and results in heartbreak for all. Together, the films offer a unique glimpse into the evolution of one of cinema’s greatest directors. A Story of Floating Weeds reveals Ozu in the midst of developing his mode of expression; Floating Weeds reveals his distinct style at its pinnacle. In each, the director captures the joy and sadness in everyday life. FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI “An emotionally shattering masterpiece... Flowers of Shanghai is one of the most sublimely beautiful films I’ve ever seen, and one of the most unbearably sad.” – Manohla Dargis The breathtaking cinema of Hou Hsiao-Hsien, the leading figure of the Taiwanese new Wave, is the subject of a retrospective that spans more than three decades. As one of the participating venues, REDCAT shows a new 35mm print of Hou’s richly textured masterpiece Flowers of Shanghai (Haishanghua, 1998, 125 min.). An heir to the great modernist legacy—with its use of elegantly staged long takes, performances by many non-professional actors, and a radically elliptical mode of storytelling—Hou has created a body of work that has opened up exciting new horizons for the medium. FOOTPRINTS Director: Bill Plympton A surreal new film from animated filmmaking legend Bill Plympton. HRIFF is honored to again showcase this independent film legend. Four Frightened People (1934) A British socialite, an introverted chemist (Herbert Marshall), a famous journalist and a mousy schoolteacher (Claudette Colbert) renegotiate their personas and power relations when they are put off of a cruise ship beset with disease, and must survive the Malayan jungle with only the help of a native guide. Tellingly, in director Cecil B. DeMille's world, the jungle humbles the self-important, and brings out the animal in the formerly meek, infusing this absurdist DeMille curiosity with trenchant social commentary. Paramount Productions, Inc. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Screenwriter: Bartlett Cormack, Lenore Coffee. Cinematographer: Karl Struss. Editor: Anne Bauchens. Cast: Claudette Colbert, Herbert Marshall, Mary Boland, William Gargan, Leo Carrillo. 35mm, b/w, 95 min. The 47 Ronin (Pt. 1 & 2) (Japan, 1941) Genroku Chushingura In the early years of the 18th century, the retainers of slain Lord Asano, led by the loyal Oichi, set out to avenge themselves against the man whose treachery was responsible for their master’s death over a matter of court protocol. The most famous version of the most famous of Japanese tales, this epic was produced at the behest of the military government with propagandistic intent, but was made with a conviction, humanity and graphic genius that transcend the circumstances of its production. Koa Eiga, Shochiku Co. Ltd. Producer: Nobutaro Shirai. Director: Kenji Mizoguchi. Screenwriter: Yoshikata Yoda, Kenichiro Hara. Based on the play by Seika Mayama. Cinematographer: Kohei Sugiyama. Editor: Takata Kuji. Cast: Chojuro Kawarasaki, Yoshizaburo Arashi, Utaemon Ichikawa, Mano Misamu, Shizue Yamagishi. 35mm, b/w, in Japanese with English subtitles, 241 mins. GLEN AND RANDA (1971, Dir: Jim McBride) Twenty years after The Bomb, Glenn (Steven Curry) and Randa (Shelley Plimpton, mother of Martha) wander across a post-apocalyptic, unremembered America in search of an imagined Western city. They are spurred on by a run-in with a junk-selling magician, who shows them an old map of Idaho and a Wonder Woman comic book set in a city where people fly. Along with McBride and Lorenzo Hart, cult novelist Rudolph Wurlitzer wrote the screenplay. Jonathan Rosenbaum writes: “Glen and Randa pays nostalgic tribute to the sort of junk and gratuitous rituals that fill up civilizations and living rooms; but unlike them, it examines these emblems at the point of extinction.” The Godless Girl (1929) In this curious exposé, atheist high school student Judith fervently spreads her message to fellow pupils, leading to a violent and tragic clash with faithful campus Christians. Both Judith and Christian student Bob are transported to reform school, where hardships bridge the distance between them. This UCLA Film & Television Archive restoration represents a rare artifact from the early days of sound-on-film, offering music and some dialogue, while an all-silent version was also released. DeMille Pictures Corp. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Screenwriter: Jeanie Macpherson. Cinematographer: Peverell Marley. Editor: Anne Bauchens. Cast: Lina Basquette, Marie Prevost, Noah Beery, Eddie Quillan, Mary Jane Irving. 35mm, b/w, 128 min. The Golden Chance (1915) Seamstress Mary Denby sews to survive, taking up the slack left by her unemployed and alcoholic husband, Steve. Mary is invited by her wealthy employer to masquerade as a society girl to attract the attention of a wealthy businessman, Roger. Learning of the scheme, Steve plots to exploit Roger or kill him. The violent outcome vaults Mary to a new world, fraught with moral complexity. Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Co., Inc. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Screenwriter: Jeanie Macpherson. Cinematographer: Alvin Wyckoff. Cast: Cleo Ridgely, Horace B. Carpenter, Edythe Chapman, Wallace Reid, Ernest Joy. 35mm, b/w, silent, 74 min. In-person: Betty Lasky. Live musical accompaniment provided by Cliff Retallick. Good Morning (1959), 93 mins. Ozu’s hilarious Technicolor reworking of his silent I Was Born, But . . . , Good Morning (Ohayô) is the story of two young boys in suburban Tokyo who take a vow of silence after their parents refuse to buy them a television set. Shot from the perspective of the petulant brothers, Good Morning is an enchantingly satirical portrait of family life that gives rise to gags about romance, gossip, and the consumerism of modern Japan. Good People Go to Hell, Saved People Go to Heaven Good People Go to Hell, Saved People Go to Heaven explores evangelical End Times belief and culture along the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. To evangelical believers, the hurricanes of 2005 were signs of the oncoming Rapture, and a direct message from God that Americans must redeem themselves from sin. The film begins with a stark image of an itinerant Christian cross-carrier named Lance. Dressed like a popular culture image of Jesus, Lance preaches End Times gospel as he walks the back highways along the Mississippi River. To Lance and fellow born-again Christians, Jesus will return to “rapture the faithful,” to literally lift believers into heavenly skies while the rest of humankind is left behind to suffer apocalyptic horrors. Lance tends to the poor, the hungry, and the broken. And he prays for the world’s sinners—all non-Christians. HEART OF DARKNESS: SEX MAGICK A staple in New York’s downtown stand-up scene, Greg Barris is the creator of Heart Of Darkness: a psychedelic showcase of comedy, live music and fringe scientists that just recently had its 20th sold-out show in a row, at Union Hall in Brooklyn! Heart Of Darkness has been a frequent TimeOut New York critic’s pick, and has also been hailed by the Village Voice and the New Yorker as well. Tonight’s immersive act of transformative live psychomagic features Greg Barris, Rory Scovel, Kate Berlant, Everything is Terrible and Superjail! A Hen in the Wind (1948), 84 mins. With her husband away at the frontline battlefields dressmaker Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka) supports herself and young son, Hiroshi, as best she can. Opportunistic vendors inflate the cost of scarce goods making existence extremely difficult. To survive an emergency when Hiroshi becomes ill, Tokiko is forced into prostitution one night, in the local brothel, to pay for his required healthcare. Upon her husbands return home, she confesses the unfortunate truth, unaware that making him cognoscent of her independent act, brought on by desperation, may be savagely misconstrued. She is unprepared for the extent of his outburst. Hollywood Underground Film Festival A curated series of underground shorts, the inaugural Hollywood Underground Film Festival will showcase the best in contemporary weird cinema from Los Angeles and elsewhere. The program celebrates outsider film in a psychotronic menagerie of the experimental, fantastic, avant-garde and other cinematic forms yet to be named. Going boldly beyond the edge of anything decent or holy, the Hollywood Underground Film Festival focuses an inclusive, wide-angle lens on the best in bizarre, transgressive and marginal moviemaking. 120 min. Program includes: "Red Luck," Dir. Mike Olenick. "Crow Hand," Dir. Brian Lonano. "Up the Valley and Beyond," Dir. Todd Rosken. "Fishfucker," Dir. Brandon Daley, Dennis Johnson. "Reckoning 3," Dir. Kent Lambert. "Sheila Scorned," Dir. Mara Tasker. "Sex Boss," Dir. Jackson Stewart. "MOMENTS excerpt #7," Dir. Clu & John Gulager. "Lana Turner Overdrive," Dir. Michael Frost. "I'm Doyle Spitz!," Dir. Carr Cavender. "Moving," Dir. Marc Horowitz. "Half Life," Dir. April Simmons. "Anonymous Mortician," Dir. Joseph Bennett. "From God's Mouth To Your Ears," Dir. Joseph Bennett. HOPE AND GLORY 1987, Sony Pictures Repertory, 113 min, UK, USA, Dir: John Boorman Writer-director-producer John Boorman earned three Oscar nominations for his semi-autobiographical look at a boy growing up in Britain during WWII. As the rest of his family struggles to survive the London air raids, young Billy Rohan (Sebastian Rice-Edwards) sees the disruptions of war as an invitation to play. “It's hard to believe that a great comedy could be made of the Blitz but John Boorman has done it.” - Pauline Kael, Hooked. HOW TO SHOOT A CRIME Drawn from police archives and conversations with Brian Weil, who was filming the aftermath of over sixty murders in Miami, How to Shoot a Crime (1987) is a film about framing death. This eighteen-minute experimental narrative inspires debates on surveillance, photographic journalism, media manipulation, and the role of the witness in artistic practice. Cultural theorist Sylvère Lotringer and author Chris Kraus discuss their collaborative film. JIM MCBRIDE TRIO OF FILMS MY GIRLFRIEND’S WEDDING (1969); PICTURES FROM LIFE’S OTHER SIDE (1971); MY SON’S WEDDING TO MY SISTER-IN-LAW (2009) all Dir: Jim McBride A trio of autobiographical films that, together, form an impressionistic (or diagrammatic in the final’s case) portrait of interwoven family. Shot over the course of a single day, My Girlfriend’s Wedding chronicles the green-card marriage of McBride’s then partner, the frank and free-spirited Clarissa, to another man.Pictures from Life’s Other Side follows the couple’s cross-country move out west with Clarissa’s son from a previous relationship in tow, and a new baby on the way. That child, the filmmaker’s son Jesse, marries a member of McBride’s extended family in the final short of the series, a full circle ending to a rich body of work, which elevates the home movie to an indelible realm beyond pure document. Joe Gibbons: Confessions of a Sociopath The experimental film world was blown away (“shocked” is not the right word, really) by the news just this month that acclaimed and singular filmmaker Joe Gibbons had been arrested for robbing a pair of northeastern banks. Not only that, but the only weapon he had employed in doing so was one with which he had extensive familiarity: a video camera, almost certainly documenting the robberies for inclusion in an in-progress work. The New York Post, in their condescending coverage of Gibbons’ apprehension (“Bank Robber Appears to be Screwball Former Professor”), referred to his “art” and his identity as a “visual artist” exactly like that - in quote marks. Well, to hell with the New York Post and to hell with the banks, Joe Gibbons is not only an artist, but a truly great artist, one who has for decades blended autobiography and fantasy into a richly confessional, bitingly hilarious, unparalleled first-person media/dream-fulfillment. The “Joe” in Gibbons’ films is not simply Joe Gibbons, and the already blurry distinction between his movie identity and real-guy Joe is smeared out of proportion and recognition the more of his work you see. He pushes deep, carefully hidden buttons of shame, hilarity, discomfort, and incredulity within us as his viewers/friends/victims/confidants, unpacking his neuroses and pretensions like a weird-smelling, slightly overstuffed carry-on bag being disallowed on the plane. Ultimately Joe Gibbons is the underworld king of the filmic first-person; there are scant few pretenders to his throne - no one even wants to try or would know where to begin. (Mark Toscano). For this screening, Filmforum is grateful to share Gibbons’ semi(?)-autobiographical masterwork Confessions of a Sociopath (2001- ) and other items to be determined. Joe is currently in a New York jail cell, but his honorarium for this program will be placed in a support fund being set up by his friends while he’s temporarily indisposed. Late Autumn (1960), 128 mins. The great actress and Ozu regular Setsuko Hara plays a mother gently trying to persuade her daughter to marry in this glowing portrait of family love and conflict—a reworking of Ozu’s 1949 masterpiece Late Spring. Late Spring (1949), 108 mins. One of the most powerful of Yasujiro Ozu’s family portraits, Late Spring (Banshun) tells the story of a widowed father who feels compelled to marry off his beloved only daughter. Eminent Ozu players Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara command this poignant tale of love and loss in postwar Japan, which remains as potent today as ever—and a strong justification for its maker’s inclusion in the pantheon of cinema’s greatest directors. LA VACANZA Director: Tinto Brass The second film to team the real-life couple of Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero with director Tinto Brass, is perhaps their greatest collaboration; a story about women in society, and the very nature of sanity, with mediations on the absurd corruption inherent in power. New english subtitles created by HRIFF specifically for our rare HRIFF translated and Tinto Brass approved print of this hard-to-find masterpiece. LE REVELATEUR For those who favor the hallucinatory and the abstract, start revving your psychedelic engines for a dose of French master Philippe Garrel’s potent, shimmering physicality. Tragically unknown in the U.S. despite a significant global following, Garrel has charted an unlikely course from avant-garde provocateur to festival favorite in a revelatory four-decade career. Tonight, one of his earliest, most incendiary shorts is live-scored by harpist Mary Lattimore and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Ziegler, whose recent albums for the Thrill Jockey label (Slant of Light and The Withdrawing Room) weave an elaborate web of picturesque synthscapes. Le Révélateur — made during Garrel’s youthful “Zanzibar Collective” period spent on the Paris ‘68 frontlines — “is a fractured and elliptical, but instinctive, elemental, and haunting rumination on the process of awakening, maturation, psychological trauma, and transformation of childhood memory” (Strictly Film School) Dir. Philippe Garrel, 1968, digital presentation, 67 min. LOST SOUL: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY'S ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU The outlandish rumors behind the making of the 1996 sci-fi/horror mish-mosh The Island of Dr. Moreau are the stuff of legend: a brilliant Young Turk director who, after being fired at the end of the first day of shooting, clandestinely sneaking back onto the set disguised as a “mutant animal” extra; actress Fairuza Balk fleeing across Australia to try and escape the scene; Marlon Brando insisting on appearing in whiteface and demanding that the world’s tiniest living human become his co-star; Val Kilmer living up to the hype of his (ahem) reputation. David Gregory’s new doc reveals a true story far more nutz than those mostly-true rumors, and shows how gifted filmmaker Richard Stanley’s vision was blown to pieces by an unreal conflagration of epically bad decisions, torrential weather, giant battling egos, clueless studio suits and bizarre group behavior — to become one of the most magnificently derailed production tales in Hollywood history. A Cinefamily staff favorite, this is a must-see for all fans of behind-the-scenes movie madness. Dir. David Gregory, 2014, DCP, 97 min. MANTRAP According to Clara Bow, the Twenties’ “It” girl herself: “the best silent picture I ever made”. Proving she wasn’t just a pair of bare ankles, the then-20-year-old took it upon herself to upgrade her scripted Mantrap character Alverna from boring and drab to a flirtatious minx. Clara foregrounds a delicious love triangle amongst a charming number of classic L.A. palm trees in what director Victor Fleming (The Wizard of Oz, Gone With The Wind) stages as the backwoods of Canada. The silent era provided one of our culture’s first forums for female sexual empowerment — and Clara’s effortless embodiment of emancipated eroticism here makes Mantrap the vehicle for her fantastic breakthrough performance. Dir. Victor Fleming, 1926, 35mm, 86 min. (Archival print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive) Nanook of the North US, 1922, 79 min., B&W, Digital Projection Directed by Robert Flaherty Silent with score by Timothy Brock In this ground-breaking work, Flaherty essentially originated the common form of documentary in telling the tale of Nanook and Nyla - glimpses into the life of a protagonist as he faces challenges in nature. PRECEDED BY: The Idea of North US, 1995, 14 min., B&W, 16mm Projection Directed by Rebecca Baron "In the guise of chronicling the final moments of three polar explorers marooned on an ice floe a century ago, Baron's film investigates the limitations of images and other forms of record as a means of knowing the past and the paradoxical interplay of film time, historical time, real time and the fixed moment of the photograph. Marrying matter-of-fact voiceover and allusive sound fragments, evidence and illustration, in Baron’s words, "meaning is set adrift"."--New York Film Festival, 1997, Views from the Avant-Garde program notes A NEW LEAF (1971, Dir: Elaine May) Walter Matthau plays a spoiled heir whose inheritance has run out. Just in time, he finds a clumsy, bookish heiress, played by May herself, and hatches a sinister plan to get his lavish lifestyle back. The New Palestinian Images: Cinematic Work by Kamal Aljafari Kamal Aljafari’s films, The Roof (2006) and Port of Memory (2009), mix documentary, fiction and autobiography to render an experimental portrait of life in the Palestinian towns of Ramleh and Jaffa. Both places now belong to the municipality of Tel Aviv, Israel. The films focus on images of the mundane, everyday, seemingly banal routines of Aljafari’s community juxtaposed with the disappearing landscape of what once was a robust port, or a fully functioning Palestinian town. As viewers, we are consistently moving between different spaces: the already there of the ruin, the disappeared landscape, the demolitions of Palestinian homes, the development of new ones, the construction of the wall, and the complete erasure of the old Palestinian homes and cemeteries, to make way for the new developed condos and parks. In this way, Aljafari’s films invite us to dwell in the most fragile of places: disappearance-in-progress. They ask us to engage with the following: How does one capture what has already disappeared and is disappearing? Aljafari’s films draw on a different type of political inquiry that manifests in the non-representational form of the image through the architecture of time, and the constitution of a new cinematic Palestinian space. PROGRAM CURATOR NASRIN HIMADA IN ATTENDANCE! The Only Son (1936), 82 mins. Yasujiro Ozu’s first talkie, the uncommonly poignant The Only Son is among the Japanese director’s greatest works. In its simple story about a good-natured mother who gives up everything to ensure her son’s education and future, Ozu touches on universal themes of sacrifice, family, love, and disappointment. Spanning many years, The Only Son is a family portrait in miniature, shot and edited with its maker’s customary exquisite control. Passing Fancy (1933), 101 mins. The first of many films featuring the endearing single-dad Kihachi (played wonderfully by Takeshi Sakamoto), Passing Fancy is a humorous and heartfelt study of a close, if fraught, father-son relationship. With an ever more sophisticated visual style and understanding of fragile human relationships, Ozu seamlessly weaves rib-tickling comedy and weighty family drama for this distinguished precursor to a brilliant career. THE PEANUT BUTTER SOLUTION Montreal-based impresario Rock Demers is the Walt Disney of Canada: starting in the ‘60s, he was the largest indie distributor of kids’ films in North America — and in the ‘80s, he produced the long-running “Tales For All” film series, featuring The Peanut Butter Solution: one of our favorite unusual childrens’ films ever created. Flying in just for this show (2/6 only), Rock joins us for an evening of engrossing tales from the kid biz, followed by a 35mm show of Peanut Butter. Plus, author Kier-la Janisse (“House of Psychotic Women”) will be in the house to present her newest book: “Kid Power”, the hot-off-the-press anthology on child empowerment in classic film and TV (featuring an interview with Rock by Cinefamily’s own Bret Berg.) During its late-’80s appearances on HBO and home video, The Peanut Butter Solution permanently imprinted a trail of indelible, surrealistic images onto the minds of an entire generation of young’uns. This mind-melting Canadian feature is easily one of the most dark and unique childrens’ films ever produced — and we’ve seen enough of them over the years to say that with pure confidence. It’s so strange that, at first glance, its origins must be beyond explanation — until you find out that it was directed by Mark Rubbo (leftist political documentarian and official village painter of Quebec’s Morin Heights), and co-written by Vojtech Jasny (one of the most creative filmic luminaries from the ‘60s Czech New Wave.) After 11-year-old Michael loses all his hair from peeking inside a burned-down hobo squat, the ghosts of two bums teach him a secret hair-regeneration formula. But when Michael screws up the recipe, his hair starts growing…and growing…and growing. As crazy as this “puberty panic” scenario sounds, it doesn’t even begin to describe the madness that is The Peanut Butter Solution. Dir. Michael Rubbo, 1985, 35mm, 94 min. PERFUMED NIGHTMARE "One of the most original and poetic works of cinema made anywhere in the seventies." – Werner Herzog Filipino director Kidlat Tahimik reprises his famous semi- autobiographical fable Perfumed Nightmare (1977, 93 min.), a work of rare brilliance. Raised in “a cocoon of American dreams,” the young Kidlat, a bus driver in a town near Manila, dispenses with documentary convention and himself assumes the role of protagonist on a journey of self-discovery. As president of the local Werner von Braun fan club, Kidlat dreams of Cape Canaveral and American technological prowess, but grows disenchanted with Western cultural colonialism as he travels from the countryside to France and Germany. Staged and improvised accounts of Kidlat’s seriocomic experiences commingle with newsreels of politicians, footage of puberty rituals, and lyrical interludes extolling the beauty of the Philippine landscape— creating an astonishingly original cinematic texture. In person: Kidlat Tahimik THE PLAGUE DOGS This rarely-screened masterpiece of animation is a disturbingly poignant experience you’ll not soon forget. A fascinating follow-up to 1978’s landmark Watership Down, The Plague Dogs can be bleak, but is totally absorbing in the way that any pulse-pounding, life-or-death human (or anthropomorphized) drama can be. Determined to escape the confines of an evil laboratory, two dogs make a flight for freedom into the rugged hills. When they accidentally break a vial used by plague researchers on their way out, the human world launches the deadliest hunt. Here is a world where animals are not a blank slate for our ideals and morality, but are the direct expression of the animals themselves; Humanity is the bad guy, and the audience is not left off the hook. The film’s starkness is lent a further heaviosity by top-tier British voice talents like John Hurt, Nigel Hawthorne, Judy Geeson and Patrick Stewart. With a beautifully lifelike visual style (Pixar’s Brad Bird was among the film’s animation crew), this rare 35mm presentation will leave you astounded. Dir. Martin Rosen, 1982, 35mm, 103 min. The Plainsman (1937) As profiteers sell sophisticated rifles to Indians, General George Custer enlists newly-married and domesticated "Buffalo" Bill Cody (James Ellison) to transport ammunitions to a key fort, and "Wild" Bill Hickok (Gary Cooper), a confirmed bachelor but carrying a torch for stagecoach drive "Calamity" Jane (Jean Arthur), to neutralize warlike Sioux Chief Yellow Hand. Mixed results await the iconic American heroes of this epic adventure, whose friendship forms the centerpiece of this nostalgic apologia to American expansionism. Paramount Pictures, Inc. Producer: Cecil B. DeMille. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Screenwriter: Waldemar Young, Harold Lamb, Lynn Riggs. Cinematographer: Victor Milner, George Robinson. Editor: Anne Bauchens. Cast: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, James Ellison, Charles Bickford, Helen Burgess. 35mm, b/w, 113 min. PROJECT SHIRLEY: SHORT FILMS BY SHIRLEY CLARKE “Dancer, bride, runaway wife, radical filmmaker and pioneer — Shirley Clarke is one of the great undertold stories of American independent cinema.” — Manohla Dargis, New York Times Filmforum is delighted to host the forces behind Milestone Films tonight as we present some of Shirley Clarke’s wonderful short films, from her earliest dance films, Dance in The Sun and Bullfight through the avant-garde classic Bridges-Go-Round, to her 1970s video experiments in dance and drama such as Trans and Tongues. Dennis Doros and Amy Heller of Milestone Films in person! QUEEN AND COUNTRY 2014, BBC Worldwide North America, 105 min, UK, Dir: John Boorman In this assured sequel to HOPE AND GLORY, Bill Rohan (Callum Turner) has grown up and is ready for service during the Korean War. But rather than shipping off to combat, both Bill and his friend Percy (Caleb Landry Jones) become army instructors, remaining in England to bedevil their superior officer (a wonderfully fastidious David Thewlis), search for romance and spend time with the Rohan family members so beloved from the earlier film. Discussion following with director John Boorman. RAVISHED ARMENIA The 1919 silent film Ravished Armenia tells the incredible story of Aurora Mardiganian, an Armenian girl caught up in the 1915 Armenian Genocide. After witnessing the murder of her family, Aurora was kidnapped, forced to march over fourteen hundred miles, and sold into slavery before finally escaping to Europe and then the U.S.. Her story was the basis for a hugely popular book and film, starring Aurora herself, which was seen by thousands of people around the world. Filmmaker Carla Garapedian, from the Armenian Film Foundation, and Anthony Slide, author of Ravished Armenia and the Story of Aurora Mardiganian and former film historian of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, bring Aurora’s story to life with rare film clips and photos. RESCUE PARTY Orbiting to the Cinefamily LIVE from a distant galaxy known as San Francisco comes the legendary street performer and interstellar sensation the Space Lady, for a night of cosmic synthesizer sounds and 16mm shorts from the outer limits of filmmaking. After years of stopping people in their tracks and transporting them to dimensions unknown with the help of her winged helmet and Casiotone, The Space Lady aka Susan Dietrich Schneider became a staple of the Bay Area outsider music scene. Her ethereal, echo-laden arrangements transform popular interstellar standards, “Major Tom,” and “Radar Love,” while originals like, “Synthesize Me” have won her a new generation of starry-eyed admirers via her recent Greatest Hits compilation. Now that she’s touring, we’re proud to welcome a rarely-seen star of our solar system for an unforgettable night of music. Plus, we’ll dig into our archives to present a mix of spaced-out films on NASA, zero-gravity, relativity, and the Moon, plus the extra-terrestrial-filled Arthur C. Clarke adaptation, Rescue Party. Pre-show DJ set by Nanny Cantaloupe. Blast-off! Rescue Party Dir. Bernard Wilets, 1978, 16mm, 25 min. RIVER OF FUNDAMENT Written and directed by Matthew Barney Music composed and directed by Jonathan Bepler Produced by Matthew Barney and Laurenz Foundation A radical reinvention of Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings, this epic film is the latest work by world-renowned art visionary Matthew Barney in collaboration with composer Jonathan Bepler. Barney and Bepler fuse narrative cinema, live performance, sculpture and opera, reconstructing Mailer’s hypersexual story of Egyptian gods and the seven stages of death alongside the rise and fall of the American car industry. Alluring, authentic and intense, this vast, multidimensional experience is interspersed with remarkable live performances filmed over six years. The film’s cast includes Paul Giamatti, Elaine Stritch, Aimee Mullins, Milford Graves and Maggie Gyllenhaal. ROCK & RULE Nelvana Animation/Rock & Rule veterans Tom Sito, Lenora Hume, Darlie Brewster & David Scott Smith in person. Show hosted by The Lego Movie co-director Phil Lord! Imagine a post-apocalyptic America where flying cars roam Nuke York, the citizens have cross-pollinated with the vermin to create rodent folks, and immortality is ensured by stealing someone’s voice. Now imagine this freaky-deaky landscape all set to a blazing soundtrack by Cheap Trick, Debbie Harry, Iggy Pop and basically every other rock star of the early-’80s. Put them together and you have Rock & Rule, a far-out animated rollercoaster ride through mutant discotheques and spooky back alleys that follows Mok, an aging Lou Reed-like rock star trying to forever secure his place in history by any diabolical means necessary. This means kidnapping a young singer (the aptly named Angel), drugging her band mates and terrorizing his hometown! Staying true to its Eighties roots, the film features truly great synth beats, which serve to enhance a dose stylish animation way, way ahead of its time. Dir. Clive A. Smith, 1983, HD presentation, 77 min. ROUTINE PLEASURES (1986, Dir: Jean-Pierre Gorin) In this documentary essay, Gorin explores the painting career of legendary film critic Manny Farber, as well as a group of model train enthusiasts. The film looks at American landscapes, real and imagined, and the urge to recreate the past, to contain it. SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS: MYSTERIES The wind blows sinisterly through the trees…an owl howls in the night..a group of teenagers and their random mascot bursts forth from a Gothic house, running for their lives. Will it be Old Man Rivers, who owns the abandoned amusement park? Will it be the dastardly Dr. Claw? If your childhood was anything like ours, then these images are firmly a part of it. From the small sleuths to the daring nitwit detectives, from knee-high P.I.s to Rescue Rangers, cartoon crime solvers and mystery gangs have been a welcome staple since we can remember. Plus, nothing says Saturday Morning like cartoon procedurals’ comforting takes on routine, closure and smalltown weirdos with a beef against roving packs of whippersnappers. So follow the footprints, polish your magnifying glass and prepare your Scooby Snacks, ‘cause this month’s show is a winding trip through the spooky cartoon mysteries of the past. THE SKID KID Living proof that the less budget to go around, the more you must rely on creativity to create something truly unique and beautiful. In 1991, filmmaker Glen Gruner armed himself with an 8mm camera and an avalanche of acid-washed jeans to make what can best be described as Slacker meets Batman (replace Austin, TX or Gotham with Union, Missouri.) In this quaint cesspool of car thieves, murderers and all-around bad dudes, only an orphaned homeless high schooler named Scooter Spielberg (Gary Wolf, heartthrob Scott Wolf’s brother!) can bring order to chaos. When Scooter recovers a pair of magical boots from the charred remains of some unlucky bastard, he now has the power to drag his butt along the ground very quickly around town in order to fight crime. Yes, there’s many things to confuse you about this film. Many, many, many things — but once you see Scooter fueling his boots with RC Cola, the inner kid in you will not give a shit. This is really one of the most underrated films we’ve ever seen, and we’re amazed this hasn’t been shown before. Dir. Glen Gruner, 1991, analog presentation, approx. 90 min. SLOW SUN: AN EVENING OF SOUND/FILM PERFORMANCES SLOW SUN presents poetic and hallucinatory collisions of sound and image in two performances charting the dynamic trajectories of “visual music” in its transcendental forms. Expanded cinema performances by John Davis & Tooth / Byron Westbrook & Paul Clipson. Space Materials, Material Place Filmmaker Jeremy Moss, whose work has screened around the globe from the Crossroads Film Festival in San Francisco to the Arkipel International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival in Indonesia, brings a 60-minute program of recent moving image work. In the summer of 2011, Moss began expanding beyond his narrative training to fully explore lyrical and structural tendencies, creating the Super 8 surrealist documentary THOSE INESCAPABLE SLIVERS OF CELLULOID, the abstract hand-made 16mm films produced at the Independent Imaging Retreat, THE SIGHT and CICATRIX, the dance for camera pieces in collaboration with choreographer Pamela Vail, (UN)TETHERED, CHROMA, and THAT DIZZYING CREST, and the essay film in collaboration with writer Erik Anderson, THE BLUE RECORD. As a program, these works cohesively embody an immersive optical and sonic experience revealing cinema’s capacity for both meditative expression and the rigors of collaboration. FILMMAKER IN ATTENDANCE! STEPHANIE BARBER’S JHANA AND THE RATS OF JAMES OLDS or 31 DAYS/31 VIDEOS Between June 25th and August 7th 2011 Stephanie Barber moved her studio into the Baltimore Museum of Art where she created a new video each day in a central gallery open to museum visitors. The goal of this project, entitled Jhana and the rats of James Olds or 31 days/31 videos, was to create a series of short, poetic videos in the playful and serious footprints of Oulipo games and daily meditations; creating one new video each day. The exhibit was both a constantly changing installation as well as a collaborative performance in which museum visitors were present as spectator and often creative partner. Barber will show a selection from the series of 31 videos with discussions and storytelling between each piece. FILMMAKER IN ATTENDANCE! A Story of Floating Weeds (1934), 86 mins. In 1959, Yasujiro Ozu remade his 1934 silent classic A Story of Floating Weeds in color with the celebrated cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon, Ugetsu). Setting his later version in a seaside location, Ozu otherwise preserves the details of his elegantly simple plot wherein an aging actor returns to a small town with his troupe and reunities with his former lover and illegitimate son, a scenario that enrages his current mistress and results in heartbreak for all. Together, the films offer a unique glimpse into the evolution of one of cinema’s greatest directors. A Story of Floating Weeds reveals Ozu in the midst of developing his mode of expression; Floating Weeds reveals his distinct style at its pinnacle. In each, the director captures the joy and sadness in everyday life. Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (Japan, 1939) Zangiku Monogatari In 19th-century Meiji-era Tokyo, a young actor, Kikunosuke, breaks away from his adoptive father’s Kabuki practice after a family servant, Otoku, is dismissed. When they are reunited as lovers, Otoku encourages Kikunosuke to rededicate himself to his art—he is an oyama, playing female roles, but she is the one who makes the ultimate sacrifice. Director Kenji Mizoguchi’s first film for Shochiku Studios is a key work in defining his mature style, encapsulating his ideas on the vampiric nature of artistic production, and altogether making for what scholar Joan Mellen called “one of the most brilliant satires of the Japanese family system.” Shochiku Co. Ltd. Producer: Nobutaro Shirai. Director: Kenji Mizoguchi. Screenwriter: Yoshikata Yoda. Based on the novel by Shofu Muramatsu. Cinematographer: Shigeto Miki, Yozo Fuji. Editor: Koshi Kawahigashi. Cast: Shôtarô Hanayagi, Kokichi Takada, Gonjuro Kawarazaki, Kakuko Mori, Yoko Kawarazaki. 35mm, b/w, in Japanese with English subtitles, 143 min. There Was a Father (1942), 87 mins. Yasujiro Ozu’s frequent leading man Chishu Ryu is riveting as Shuhei, a widowed high school teacher who finds that the more he tries to do what is best for his son’s future, the more they are separated. This Day and Age (1933) In director Cecil B. DeMille's modern-dress follow-up to The Sign of the Cross (1932), a group of high school students, temporarily acting as public officials (police chief, district attorney) as part of an educational exercise, take advantage of their positions to entrap and try a dangerous criminal who has murdered a local tailor. A thunderous paean to public engagement, the film rings with typically DeMillean moral certitude, pitting good citizens against lawless gangsters. Paramount Pictures, Inc. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Screenwriter: Bartlett Cormack. Cinematographer: Peverell Marley. Editor: Anne Bauchens. Cast: Charles Bickford, Richard Cromwell, Judith Allen, Harry Green, Bradley Page. 35mm, b/w, 86 min. THE THOUGHTS THAT ONCE WE HAD Los Angeles Premiere One of America's foremost practitioners of the essay film returns to REDCAT with a major new work inspired by the writings of Gilles Deleuze on cinema. Andersen's The Thoughts That Once We Had (2014, 108 min.) is a richly layered journey through cinematic history, masterfully edited as it playfully moves across decades and genres, and suffused at every turn by the renowned filmmaker and critic’s lifelong passion for the movies. Andersen’s newly remastered Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003) is a modern classic, ranked among the 50 greatest documentaries of all time in Sight & Sound magazine’s critics poll. His other works include The Tony Longo Trilogy (2014), Reconversao (2012), Get Out of The Car (2010), Red Hollywood (1996) and Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (1974). In person: Thom Andersen Tokyo Story (1953), 137 mins. A profoundly stirring evocation of elemental humanity and universal heartbreak,Tokyo Story is the crowning achievement of the unparalleled Yasujiro Ozu. The film, which follows an aging couple’s journey to visit their grown children in bustling postwar Tokyo, surveys the rich and complex world of family life with the director’s customary delicacy and incisive perspective on social mores. Featuring lovely performances from Ozu regulars Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara, Tokyo Story plumbs and deepens the director’s recurring theme of generational conflict, creating what is without question one of cinema’s mightiest masterpieces. Tokyo Twilight (1957), 141 mins. One of Ozu’s most piercing portraits of family strife, Tokyo Twilight follows the parallel paths of two sisters contending with an absent mother, unwanted pregnancy, and marital discord. Transforming Spaces: New Films from L.A. Filmmakers This program of experimental work reflects creative approaches by which Angeleno filmmakers are engaging with real or imagined spaces and shaping those encounters into distinctly cinematic experiences. Landscape becomes a meditative space in Kate Brown’s Utah (2014, 20 min.) while it abstracts into sensual tapestries in Abigail Severance’s latest Kinesthesia Series entry (2014, 8 min.). Laura Kraning turns to heavy industry in Port Noir (2014, 11 min.) and recasts its structures as haunted mazes. The cinema itself becomes a shared space for reflecting on time and sensation in Madison Brookshire’s About 11 Minutes (2014, 11 min.), whereas in Janie Geiser’s The Hummingbird Wars (2014, 10 min.), the screen serves in its familiar role as window, one that magically blends a treasure trove of found objects into a luminous spectral domain. Union Pacific (1939) With America building two railways destined to meet in the middle, corrupt banker Asa Barrows stands to gain an advantage if the Central Pacific Railway is finished first—and sets out to sabotage the Union Pacific Railway by any means. The ensuing plot puts Barrow's troublemaker Dick Allen (Robert Preston) and Union Pacific troubleshooter Jeff Butler (Joel McCrea) at odds, as they also vie for the affection of train engineer's daughter Mollie Monahan (Barbara Stanwyck). Paramount Pictures, Inc. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Screenwriter: Walter DeLeon, C. Gardner Sullivan, Jesse Lasky, Jr. Cinematographer: Victor Milner. Editor: Anne Bauchens. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Akim Tamiroff, Robert Preston, Anthony Quinn. 35mm, b/w, 135 min. AN UNMARRIED WOMAN (1976, Dir: Paul Mazursky) A story of 1970's women’s sexual liberation. Jill Clayburgh stars as Erica, a woman who’s been left by her husband and finds herself living alone in New York City for the first time. Pauline Kael writes: “Jill Clayburgh has a cracked, warbly voice — a modern polluted-city huskiness...When Erica's life falls apart and her reactions go out of control, Clayburgh's floating, not-quite-sure, not-quite-here quality is just right." WILD TALES Inequality, injustice and the demands of the world we live in cause stress and depression for many people. Some of them, however, explode. This is a movie about those people. Vulnerable in the face of a reality that shifts and suddenly turns unpredictable, the characters of Wild Tales cross the thin line that divides civilization and barbarism. A lover’s betrayal, a return to the repressed past and the violence woven into everyday encounters drive the characters to madness as they cede to the undeniable pleasure of losing control. 122 minutes. Written and Directed by Damián Szifron. Wittgenstein Iconoclastic English director Derek Jarman’s biographical film about the Austrian-born philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein is one of his last and most stylistically inventive creations. Filming for only two weeks in a London studio on a minuscule budget, Jarman presents Wittgenstein’s story in a form far removed from the traditional biopic, with scenes from the life of the philosopher (played as a child by Clancy Chassay and as an adult by Karl Johnson) presented on minimalist sets, heightened by Sandy Powell’s colorful and imaginative costuming. Jarman went on to make only one more feature before his death in 1994, the experimental Blue, and Wittgenstein’s supporting cast includes British cinema veteran (and mother of Daniel Day-Lewis) Jill Balcon, Michael Gough as Bertrand Russell and Jarman regular Tilda Swinton as Lady Ottoline Morrell. 1993, 70 minutes, color, DCP | Directed by Derek Jarman; written by Jarman, Terry Eagleton, Ken Butler; with Karl Johnson, Michael Gough, Tilda Swinton, John Quentin, Kevin Collins, Clancy Chassay. Woman of Tokyo (1933), 47 mins. To put her brother Ryo through college, Chikako works as a diligent typist by day, and moonlights as a scholar's translator - or so she has Ryo believe. However, her chaste reputation is put into question when a police investigation suggests that she might lead a double life, both as an office worker, and a cabaret hostess. When Ryo's girlfriend Harue discloses the findings of her policeman brother Kinoshita, a violent confrontation ensues, leading to Ryo's suicide.