| UNITED STATES |
| THE AGRONOMIST |
Jonathan Demme |
Jonathan Demme’s career as a feature
filmmaker has been paralleled by personal documentaries focusing
on human rights issues and an interest in Hatian culture.
His new film is an impassioned portrait and celebration of
the late Haitian radio personality Jean Dominique, who courageously
and charismatically campaigned for democracy in the tiny island
nation. As longtime owner and operator of Radio Haiti Inter,
Haiti’s only free radio station, Dominique battled with
a long succession of oppressive regimes, living (sometimes
in exile in the U.S.) as a symbol of freedom, the voice of
the people and the conscience of the country. Although Dominique’s
education was in agriculture, his life was dedicated to justice,
a story Demme tells with an inspiring assembly of interviews
and historic footage that at once capture a man with singular
dedication and optimism and a third-world country beset by
an all-to-common set of social, political and economic realties.
(91 mins.) Print courtesy of ThinkFilm.
Selected Filmography:
Melvin and Howard (80), Stop Making Sense (84), Something
Wild (86), Swimming To Cambodia (87), Silence of the Lambs
(91), Cousin Bobby (92), Mandela (96), Storefront Hitchcock
(98).
SHOWTIMES: 2/19, 6:30pm B1 and
2/22, 2:45pm B2. |
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| BRIGHT LEAVES |
Ross McElwee |
Ross McElwee’s first-person meditations
have practically defined a genre of personal documentary and
his new film is a delightful, inspired addition to the collection.
McElwee returns to his North Carolina birthplace to research
the story of his family’s history in the tobacco industry
and why it went up in smoke. Did the unscrupulous Dukes, the
first family of tobacco, swindle his relatives out of their
rightful share of an empire? Did Gary Cooper really portray
a character based on McElwee’s tobacco-baron grandfather
in the 1950 Michael Curtiz movie Bright Leaf? Maybe it should
have been McElwee, instead of Duke, University? In the process
of wrapping his mind around the “what ifs” and
maybes, McElwee wittily muses on the tobacco business and
lifestyle in the South, the allure and legacy of smoking in
American culture, and offers a host of thought provoking ironies
observed on a very personal journey down Tobacco Road. (107
mins.) Print courtesy of First Run Features.
Filmography:
Charleen (78), Space Coast (78), Resident Exile (81), Backyard
(84), Sherman’s March: A Meditation On The Possibility
Of Romantic Love In The South During An Era Of Nuclear Weapons
Proliferation (86), Something To Do With The Wall (90), Time
Indefinite (93), Six O’Clock News (96), Kosuth (97),
Curating (02).
SHOWTIMES: 2/14, 1pm B1 and
2/15, 7pm GU. |
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| CHARLIE: THE LIFE AND ART OF CHARLES CHAPLIN |
Richard
Schickel |
As this fascinating overview of his life and
work makes clear, there was much more to Charles Chaplin (1889-1977)
than the figure of the Little Tramp, one of the 20th-century’s
most enduring icons. Beyond being a brillant actor, Chaplin’s
astonishing career included writer, composer, director, producer
and distributor, all intermingled with a controversial and
much-publicized private life that included numerous love affairs,
four marriages, a paternity suit scandal and political persecution
that led him to self-imposed exile in Europe. Using rare footage
interwoven with scenes from his greatest films and from newly
recorded interviews, film critic and scholar Richard Schickel
provides an engrossing portrait of a screen legend. Featuring
commentary by Andrew Sarris, Bill Irwin, David Raksin, David
Robinson, David Thompson, Jeanine Basinger, Jeffrey Vance,
Johnny Depp, Marcel Marceau, Martin Scorsese, Milos Forman,
Norman Lloyd, Robert Downey, Jr., Sir Richard Attenborough,
Sydney Pollack (narrator) and Woody Allen. (131 mins.) Courtesy
of Warner Brothers Video.
Selected Filmography: Elia
Kazan: A Director’s Journey (95), Eastwood On Eastwood
(98), Shooting War (00), Woody Allen: A Life In Film (02).
SHOWTIMES: 2/14, 1pm and 2/15,
3:30pm B2. |
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| THE CONTROL ROOM |
Jehane
Noujaim |
“To maintain support for warfare, governments
strive to keep the enemy as an abstract idea; once the opposition
is perceived as consisting of flesh and blood—and having
a common humanity, intellect, spirituality, and grief—a
nation’s enthusiasm for bloodshed tends to fade. Since
Vietnam, war has been transmitted by television into living
rooms—and what is perceived there can have a powerful
impact on public support for military engagements. Noujaim’s
startlingly courageous film provides a rare window into the
international perception of the Iraq War, courtesy of Al Jazeera,
the Arab world’s most popular news outlet. Roundly criticized
by Cabinet members and Pentagon officials for reporting with
a pro-Iraqi bias, and strongly condemned for frequently airing
civilian causalities as well as footage of American POWs,
the station showed the world everything about the Iraq War
that the Bush administration did not want it to see. In Noujaim’s
film, Al Jazeera is portrayed as the home base of dedicated
journalists, whose passion for truth and open information
are easily the equal of their American counterparts, and who
pay a deadly price for it. The Control Room is an astonishing
film that challenges our com-placency and, perhaps, our assumptions.”—Sundance
Film Festival. Print courtesy of the filmmaker. (83 mins.)
Selected Filmography: Startup.com (91).
SHOWTIMES: 2/21, 1pm and 2/22,
7:30pm WH. |
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| LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF |
Thom Andersen |
“Movies bury their traces, choosing for
us what to watch, then moving on to something else. They do
the work of our voluntary attention, and so we must suppress
that faculty as we watch. But what if we watch with our voluntary
attention, instead of letting the movies direct us? If we
can appreciate documentaries for their dramatic qualities,
perhaps we can appreciate fiction films for their documentary
revelations.”—Thom Andersen. Andersen’s
wickedly observant essay about the way the city of Los Angeles
is represented in the movies sharpens our awareness of film
elements sometimes taken for granted. His playful and endlessly
fascinating historical analysis surveys both well-known films
(Chinatown, Double Indemnity, Blade Runner, L.A. Confidential
…) and rarer finds (The Exiles, Messiah of Evil, Bush
Mama, Killer of Sheep…), creating a journey that is
both nostalgic and insightful. Andersen charmingly interjects
his own perceptions as a Los Angeles native, enriching this
epic and comprehensive historical tour with visits to famed
locations and a fascinating examination of the relationship
between the city in fact and the city on celluloid—not
just how “Hollywood” distorts Los Angeles, but
how the city allows its history, geography and politics to
be defined by the movies in which it has starred. A must for
all American movie and LA lovers. (169 mins.) Beta. Sponsored
by Alaska Airlines.
Selected Filmography: Melting
(65), Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (74).
SHOWTIMES: 2/22, 3:30pm and
2/23, 7pm WH. |
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| MAYOR OF THE SUNSET STRIP |
George
Hickenlooper |
“Sixties scenemaker, impresario of glitter
rock and cutting-edge DJ in the era of punk and post-punk,
Rodney Bingenheimer has been at the center of LA’s pop
music life for four decades. But what does it really mean
to be at the center of a swirling and nebulous world of celebrity
and publicity? George Hickenlooper’s remarkable portrait
of Rodney takes us on a comic and heartbreaking tour inside
the rock biz. Motivated by a genuine passion for music and
a Warholian fascination with fame, Bingenheimer started out
as a stand-in for Davy Jones on ‘The Monkees’
and has since been an influential figure on the LA scene.
Rodney was always the person you had to see in order to see
the stars, and we get flying visits here from an extraordinarily
mixed bag of celebs including David Bowie, Cher, Mick Jagger,
Joan Jett, Brian Wilson, Ray Manzarek, Debbie Harry, and dozens
more—not to mention groupie legends Pamela Des Barres,
the G.T.O.’s and notorious record producer Kim Fowley.
But finally, and unforgettably, Hickenlooper leaves us with
what’s left after the party’s over and everyone’s
gone home”—New York Film Festival. “I’m
with one of the Vanilla Fudge, I know Sonny and Cher, I meditated
with George Harrison, The Hollies are my best friends and
I had lunch with Grace Slick yesterday!”—Rodney.
(94 min.) Print courtesy of IDP.
Selected Filmography:
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (91), Some
Folks Call It a Slingblade (93), Dogtown (97), The Big Brass
Ring (99), The Man From Elysian Fields (01).
SHOWTIMES: 2/21, 6:30pm and
2/22, 1pm WH. |
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| MY ARCHITECT |
Nathaniel
Kahn |
A son gets to know the father he really never
knew. Louis I. Kahn, a giant among modernist 20th-century
architects, left a legacy of brilliantly designed and engineered
buildings—including the Salk Institute, Kimball Art
Museum, Yale Center for British Art—which challenges
us to discover new relationships between light, space, texture
and the spirit of the creator. Kahn’s personal life
was even more mysterious than his work’s inspiration,
and his death, alone, broke and anonymous a in Penn Station
bathroom in 1974 revealed that he led not a double but a triple
life, shuttling between his legitimate family and two different
women and the children they had. One of those, his son Nathaniel,
age 11 at the time of his father’s death, takes us on
a personal journey to consider the contradictions of this
complicated genius and eccentric parent. Kahn’s riveting
journey—from Philadelphia to far-flung parts of the
United States, Israel, India and Bangladesh—fluidly
reveals connections with professional associates, friends
and family members while conveying the meaning of his work
by applying the design ideas of his architecture to cinematic
structure. (116 mins.) Print courtesy of New Yorker Films.
Sponsored by Fletcher Farr Ayotte Architects.
First Feature.
SHOWTIME: 2/14, 3:15pm WH. |
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| THE NEW AMERICANS |
Steve James,
Susana Aikin, Carlos Aparicio, Jerry Blumenthal, Indu Krishnan,
Gordon Quinn,
Renee Tajima-Peña |
Producer and director Steve James’ (Hoop
Dreams, Stevie) engrossing new film, made for The Independent
Television Service with six other episode directors, follows
the lives of new, non-European immigrants to the United States.
They started filming in 1998 in the countries of origin, revealing
both the great individual differences and common hopes shared
by a modern Palestinian woman who wants freedom and a career,
an Indian computer programmer who wants to get ahead, two
Dominican baseball players who have been discovered by the
Dodgers’ baseball organization, a Nigerian refugee who
cannot go back home and a Mexican family trying to finally
make a home together. Despite their differences, the similarities
of their stories are moving: the tears of departure, the often
naïve dreams of freedom, wealth and happiness, the pressure
from relatives to send them money and the disappointing realities
after arriving. As we get to know the characters over the
course of their up and down journeys—visa battles, relocation,
education, job search, the fallout of 9/11, a struggling economy,
warm support and sometimes cool discrimination—moving
personal stories unfold that at once reveal America’s
great blessings and opportunities and the reality of the difficulties
generations of new-comers have had to overcome in trying to
realize them. (363 mins; shown in two parts) Print courtesy
of Kartemquin Films. Sponsored by OPB.
Selected Filmography:
Hoop Dreams (94), Prefontaine (97), Stevie (02).
SHOWTIMES: Part I – 2/16,
3pm WH; Part II – 2/17, 4pm WH. |
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