This week in the film series:
EASTERN PROMISES
USA. Dir: David Cronenberg. 2007
FRIDAY, February 1, 7:30 p.m. $4
Directors who hope their next film will be greeted with the coveted epithet “intelligent thriller” should be sure to feature an unlikely but brutal weapon. “No Country for Old Men” supplanted traditional guns with a compressed air tank; “Eastern Promises” arms members of the Russian mafia with lethal linoleum knives. Here, as in “A History of Violence,” Cronenberg’s interest lies more in the ritualistic tensions of violence than in commenting on contemporary conflict. But whereas “History” bore practically no relation to the actual world of Italian-American organized crime, “Promises” makes use of recent research into the international impact of the Russian mob to fascinating, sinister effect.
BARRY LYNDON
UK. Dir: Stanley Kubrick. 1975.
SATURDAY, February 2, 7:30 p.m. Free!
Even the most devoted English majors probably won’t get around to reading William Makepeace Thackeray’s “The Luck of Barry Lyndon” (later re-published as “The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.”), a lengthy novel about an Irish man who fights for both the British and the Prussians during the Seven Years’ War, marries into a decadent noble family, and ends his life in destitution. But this tragic picaresque serves as the improbable fodder for Stanley Kubrick’s most beautifully realized adaptation. In addition to the novel, Kubrick draws on 18th century painting, arranging his actors in luscious multi-tiered landscapes and densely composed interiors. The clichés of period pictures—highway robbery, ceremonial duels, gratuitous breast exposure—are here, but they are rendered with wit and affection. Kubrick seems to capture the spirit of Thackeray’s novel: Rococo sensuality seen through the lens of 19th century drollery.
ZODIAC
USA. Dir: David Fincher. 2007
WEDNESDAY, February 6, 7:30 p.m. $4
After directing the (rousing but) juvenile “Fight Club” and the sophomoric “Panic Room,” David Fincher finally undertook a consummately adult project. “Zodiac” portrays the investigations surrounding a serial killer who terrorized idyllic San Francisco for decades while goading the police and the press with a series of encrypted letters. Generations of bureaucrats attempt to decipher a maddeningly labyrinthine set of clues, with little payoff. Imprudently released in early March and marketed as a routine slasher/procedural, “Zodiac” registered modestly with US audiences, grossing $33 million (about a third as much as the widely-panned “Evan Almighty”). Thoughtful viewers, however, appreciated the film’s unpredictable structure and dark visual sensibility (while “Barry Lyndon” cinematographer John Alcott made use of NASA-designed lenses to shoot in candlelight, Fincher and cinematographer Harris Savides employ HD technology to present night scenes in impossibly deep focus). Critics in particular zealously campaigned for “Zodiac,” deeming it an underappreciated masterpiece in their 2007 top-ten lists.
THE EAGLE
USA. Dir: Clarence Brown. 1925.
Thursday, February 7, 7:30 p.m. $5
Like many commanding female monarchs, Catherine the Great was rumored to sleep in her stables (as my Russian literature professor memorably put it, “once a horse fucker, always a horse fucker”). Although director Clarence Brown spares the Czarina from all accusations of bestiality in his adaptation of Alexander Pushkin’s “Dubrovsky,” he has little sympathy for the enlightened despot, or the rest of the Russian elite. Rudolph Valentino stars as the Zorro-like “Black Eagle,” anonymously stealing from the aristocracy to benefit the serfs. Appropriately, this revolutionary silent film will be accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra which features Roger Miller of Mission of Burma, the notoriously radical (and literate) post-punk band from Boston. The orchestra’s exuberant original scores involve creative use of electronic instruments and found objects, making this performance one of the most unique events on our calendar.
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