Dear Readers,
The Argus Arts editors sent me the following email a couple of days ago:
“In case you didn’t know, Friday’s Argus is the last Friday edition, and thus last Arts section, of the year. To summarize: Last Friday + last Arts + your impending graduation = your last column.”
No shit.
Well, that’s it then.
This year’s Film Series ends this weekend, with “The Incredibles,” a truly brilliant movie. And I’m not going to quote The Doors, because, in truth, I do not see this as “the end, my friends.” This is the beginning of something new.
Sounds clichéd. Probably because it is. Okay, this is the end. This is most definitely the end.
On Wednesday night I went to the last ever Film Series screening in the CFA Cinema. The film was “Distant,” from Turkey. I was hoping that it’d be a sort of big deal, that we’d all say goodbye to that beast of a screening facility. The crowd wasn’t too huge, but I guess that wasn’t a surprise, considering the relative obscurity of the film that we were showing. But I think that it was a perfect send-off. We were a small group of people sharing an experience, and the rest of the campus was outside that building. They did not share our experience. You could have walked by and not known what was happening on the other side of those big stone slabs. I don’t intend to be elitist here. It was nothing explosive. You did not miss an event. It was not a theater full of people wildly dancing to the Talking Heads, or a packed house laughing at “Spellbound,” or freaking out over “Audition.” It was a half-full audience, respectfully enjoying a slow, quiet, and great movie that barely got a release in the States. And, as always, there was a technical problem in the middle of the movie and we had to wait a few minutes for it to be fixed. Something always goes wrong in there, and I could not have imagined a more fitting farewell. I thought of all the hours I had spent in there: watching movies, projecting movies, filming my own movie in there. And then, after the movie, I left.
We’ve reached a crossroads: this is the end of one thing and the beginning of something new. Next year, the series will be housed entirely in the (no longer brand new) Center for Film Studies. And to condition you rabid film freakazoids, we’re showing the last film of the year in that lovely and loud new screening room. If you have not seen “The Incredibles,” you are wrong. Dead wrong. And if you have seen “The Incredibles,” you are right. Let’s all be right and see it together in glorious 35mm and make this a celebratory kick-off for the future Film Series. Samuel L. Jackson and Sarah Vowell in the same movie? Yes. “The Incredibles,” is in the CFS at 7:30 only, on Friday and Saturday, $4.
And this weekend also begins the presentations of my fellow Film Studies majors’ thesis projects in the Center for Film Studies. The SCREENPLAY presentations are at 2pm on Sunday, the HISTORY/THEORY presentations are at 7:30pm on Monday, and then next Thursday through Sunday at 7:30 are the DIGITAL VIDEO AND 16MM FILMS. Digitals Thursday and Saturday, 16mm Friday and Sunday. Please come check these out. We’ve been working hard all year and we’re ready to share.
In my four years, I’ve been privileged to be a part of the Film Series. When I was applying to colleges, I saw a poster for the Film Series during my tour at Wes and knew that I had to come here. I saw the series as a goldmine without end. And it is. Here, you have an opportunity to get turned on to all sorts of movies that you’ve never seen before, or, in some cases, never even heard of. A number of movies that I genuinely love are movies that I experienced for the first time in the Wesleyan Film Series: “In The Mood For Love,” “Underworld USA,” “Shoot The Piano Player,” “Lagaan,” “La Strada,” “Band of Outsiders,” “Y Tu Mama Tambien,” “Love Me Tonight,” “Songs From The Second Floor,” “Distant.” Some I had heard of before, others I had not. Either way, I am thankful.
The Film Board this year was Audrey Golden, Dan Janvey, Jeremy Marks, Jordan Schulkin, and graduating seniors Olga Abramson, Mike Drucker, Max Goldblatt, Dylan Osborn and Lana Wilson. We want to thank you for coming to see these movies. It means the world to us.
All things go. All things grow.
Fin.
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