It was a disaster, ladies and gentlemen. A lot has been said about the election already, so I won’t bog you down with my views on the matter. As Nov. 2 drew nearer, we were told that this would be the most important election of our lives. And though things turned out extremely shitty, the most important thing now is what we do next. We’re all in this together and we must take this one day at a time. How am I dealing? The honest truth is that I am watching movies and they are making me feel better.
On Wednesday, my brother Robert and I sat in the second row of the CFA Cinema and watched Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” It was the day after the election and we were, admittedly, pretty miserable. But we watched this movie together and shared the experience with more people—a nice crowd, but not packed. We laughed together at the threat of nuclear annihilation. And it was incredibly cathartic. As Jeremy Marks ’07 said when he introduced the film, “Things could be a lot worse.” It was an amazing movie to watch right after learning that four more years is now a reality, not just a threat. The cold war setting and the warmongering depicted are really not a far cry from our political climate. And for a moment there, near the end, I was laughing as Dr. Strangelove (played by Peter Sellers) calls the president (also played by Sellers) Mein Fuhrer, and I forgot all about the election.
Maybe you don’t subscribe to the escapist school. But I believe that if you interact with art and it has an emotional impact on you, then a positive event has occurred. The Film Series can provide this. As minister of propaganda for the Film Series, I am going to be honest with you. The purpose of this column is to get you to go see the movies we show. If nobody goes, then we lose money (because renting the films is extremely expensive) and there is no more Film Series. Which is a sad thing. Recently, not as many people as we would like have been going to see the movies we program. This is understandable. People have work to do, papers to write. We are here to attend a university first; everything else comes after that. But it certainly makes me sad to know that I, or someone I care about, might be completely oblivious to the fact that a film that could profoundly affect them is playing a couple buildings away. I try to see the movies that are out there, and I encourage you to do the same.
And the beautiful thing is that when a lot of people go to the Film Series together, it can become an amazing shared experience. Remember “Stop Making Sense?” YES! Like that! Just as the Cinema was transformed, let’s transform the Film Series into something meaningful! We’re showing some amazing movies in the coming weeks of the semester. And the stuff we have picked for the spring is even better. But we need YOU to help us continue to program these movies.
That said, here’s what we are showing this weekend, continuing our mournful Election Week:
Friday and Saturday in the CFA Cinema: Erroll Morris’s “The Fog of War” subtitled “Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.” Morris is a master documentarian, having directed such classics as “Gates of Heaven,” “The Thin Blue Line” and “Fast, Cheap & Out of Control.” “The Fog of War” won Best Documentary of 2003 in the Academy Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards, the Chicago Society of Film Critics, the Los Angeles Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review. The film focuses on McNamara, Secretary of Defense during both the Vietnam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. McNamara is a vilified figure and, in Morris’s portrait, the man is candidly front and center, speaking about how he succeeded and how he failed. Morris is the master of the interview, and in capturing his subjects he utilizes a special device of his own invention, called the Interrotron. Functioning like a teleprompter, the Interrotron is basically a camera with mirrors that allows the interview subject to look directly into the camera and see the interviewer rather than the lens. McNamara becomes more relaxed and conversational and it seems that he is truly speaking to us. The film features an amazing Philip Glass score and brilliantly integrated archival footage. This is a masterfully made documentary that enables us to get inside the mind of an important decision maker in the history of American foreign policy. And although it’s subject matter is the past, the lessons of McNamara urgently warn us about our present and future.
At 7:30 and 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday, in the CFA Cinema. $4.
Simultaneously and for free in the science center:
Friday at 7:30 and 10 p.m.: Robert Redford is “The Candidate” in a film about the trials and tribulations of an election campaign. If Redford had run against Bush, would he have won?
Saturday at 7:30 and 10 p.m.: If one movie will make you feel good about how corrupt our government is, it’s Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington,” starring Jimmy Stewart as the little guy in Washington who stands up for his beliefs. Swoon!
And, kicking off next week, which, in my honest and humble opinion, is the most EXCITING week of films of the entire semester:
Jean-Claude Brisseau’s “Secret Things.” You most likely had not heard of this film before looking at the Film Series calendar. Well, I’ve seen it, and let me just say that it is extremely titillating. Bring a date. Get excited. This movie is the ultimate way to escape the reality of post-election blues: wall to wall sex. People will be talking about this one at the proverbial water coolers on Thursday, you dig?
And, at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, in the Center for Film Studies:
“The Economics of Entertainment: The Impact of Technology on Distribution and Consumption in Entertainment,” a lecture by Gordon Crawford ’69 named by BusinessWeek as one of the media world’s savviest investors. Crawford is senior vice president of the money management firm Capital Research and Management and a leading research analyst covering the entertainment industry. This is an exciting opportunity to hear about another aspect of the film world.
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