JAN 7
WED 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE – VISITING ARTIST
ALL THE VERMEERS IN NEW YORK
US 1990
DIRECTOR: JON JOST When Mark (Stephen Lack) meets the alluring and mysterious Anna (Emmanuelle Chaulet) in the Metropolitan Museum's Vermeer Room, he finds anything but the solace he seeks from his stressful life as a Wall Street broker in the erratic late 1980s. In Anna, a French actress with both eyes on his heart and wallet, he thinks he has found the beauty and passion that have always eluded him. Jost’s lyrical, witty film evokes the splendor of New York's art and financial worlds while scrutinizing the corruption and decadence that linger beneath the city's opulent surfaces. "A poignant, romantic fable about the eternal discrepancy between art and life."—Kevin Thomas, LOS ANGELES TIMES.". . . an elegantly incisive and gorgeously romantic comedy of manners."—Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE. (87 mins.)

JAN 8
THU 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE – VISITING ARTIST
THE BED YOU SLEEP IN
US 1993
DIRECTOR: JON JOST The third part of Jost’s so-called trilogy (after LAST CHANTS FOR A SLOW DANCE, 1977 and SURE FIRE, 1990) about rural America was filmed on the Oregon coast. Jost offers a haunting portrait of a stoic lumber mill owner (Tom Blair), who in the face of unsettling economic realities is about to have a personal, as well as business, crisis. Using his protagonist as a metaphoric symbol for a culture at odds with its own truths, Jost raises questions rather than offer resolutions—observation rather than instruction. “A tragic, beautiful, and mysterious film that alternates between all-American landscapes (many of them composed as diptychs) and an unraveling nuclear family, this is as evocative and apocalyptic as Jost's cinema gets—a film full of unanswered questions that will nag at you for days even as it makes fully understandable the sort of feelings about this country that drove Jost into European exile not long after it was completed. It's part of the aching horror and lucidity of Jost's vision that he can't regard himself and the U.S. as wholly separate entities.”—Jonathan Rosenbaum, CHICAGO READER.

Jon Jost will teach a two-day digital VIDEO workshop January 10-11, followed by a screening of his recent digital feature OUI NON (2002), January 11. Please see the School of Film schedule (PG 9) for class information.

JAN 9 10 11 12
FRI 7 P.M.; SAT 5, 7 & 9 P.M. ; SUN 5 & 7 PM; MON 7 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
TO BE AND TO HAVE
FRANCE 2002
DIRECTOR: NICHOLAS PHILIBERT One of the audience favorites at last year's Portland International Film Festival, Philibert's (IN THE LAND OF THE DEAF) film is a valentine for anyone who treasures the importance of schools and education. In isolated communities throughout France, there still exist so-called "single-class schools," bringing together children of all ages, in one class around one teacher. This moving and funny film quietly observes one such school in Auvergne, and the mutually dependent bond between teacher and pupils. Philibert spent months quietly observing the daily rituals, petty squabbles, furrowed brows, curiosity, petulance and hurt feelings that accompany the learning process. As the year passes, we come to know these children individually, and we experience through their small triumphs and frustrations the richness and wonder of their coming to know life. Few have the patience and wisdom of teacher Georges Lopez, but we share in his dedication, passion and joy just as surely as the 13 young minds that are learning "to be" and "to have." "Warm, incredibly effective and truly moving, this is one of the greatest documentaries to come out in a long while. Teachers and parents everywhere should study this film."—THE OREGONIAN. " It is not really about the French educational system, rural life, or even the way children learn. It is, rather, the portrait of an artist, a man whose work combines discipline and inspiration and unfolds mysteriously and imperceptibly. The film is also a meditation on the enigma of young lives and minds." A. O. Scott, NEW YORK TIMES. Best Documentary, 2002 European Film Awards. (104 mins.)

JAN 11
SUN 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE – VISITING ARTIST
OUI NON
ITALY 2002
DIRECTOR: JON JOST Jost has created an arresting and challenging film that plays with the form of the burgeoning digital medium and its content. “OUI NON is not easily categorized. Neither drama nor documentary, it is an exercise in improvisation that was shot on location in Paris and pays homage to the myth of Parisian romance, the French Impressionists and French cinema. The film charts the creation of an acted story between a pair of young performers, whose tale increasingly encroaches on real life. While, on the one hand the film tells a classic love story between a boy and a girl, Jost eschews narrative conventions and creates a wholly original work.”—ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL. “OUI NON is about looking, not story-telling; it’s about the people who exist outside of film. . . It asks the viewer to set aside the habits of a spectator, the expectation and anticipation of ‘a story’, of ‘narrative tension’ and instead to simply look and observe as life. For me, it is very much a transitional film, a step from one place to another.”–J.J. (115 mins.)

JAN 20 - TUESDAY 7PM
GUILD THEATER
OPEN SCREENING Regional film and video makers are invited to bring or send work for open screening. Admission is free and there is no charge to show work. To confirm a place in the program and insure we have the equipment you require, please call (503) 276-4264. Free admission.

PLEASE HAVE YOUR WORKS DELIVERED TO THE FILM CENTER BY JANUARY 16.

JAN 30 31
FRI 7 P.M., SAT 4:30 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
THE DECAY OF FICTION
US 2003
DIRECTOR: PAT O'NEILL Optical alchemist Pat O'Neill's (WATER & POWER) newest film is a beautiful, mysterious, and evocative work shot in the legendary Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles and calling up long lost visions of film noir dreamscapes and Hollywood's past. "An intersection of fact and hallucination in an abandoned luxury hotel...The walls of the Ambassador are cracked and peeling, the lawns are brown, and mushrooms grow in the damp carpets of the Coconut Grove. The pool is empty, and the ballroom where Bobby Kennedy died is shuttered and locked. A tall, elegant blonde stands transparently on the terrace of her bungalow, smoking and watching the sun rise. Voices and tinkles waft across the lawn. A contingent of vaguely sinister men arrives and asks for Jack. Jack is expecting trouble, but not this kind of trouble. Louise, a guest, replays a nightmare in which she drowns Pauline so that she can marry Dean. The sun sets and rises again. Two detectives seem to turn up everywhere, searching for Communist literature and telling one another pointless stories of underworld intrigue. . .".—NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL (77 mins.)

FEB 1
SUN 4 & 7 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
FAHRENHEIT 451
GREAT BRITAIN 1966
DIRECTOR: FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT Douglas Fairbanks’ irresistibly engaging vigor was made for D’Artagnan, the valiant hero of Alexander Dumas’ classic story. Bold, dashing D’Artagnan and his friends Athos, Porthos and Aramis cross swords with the wicked Cardinal Richelieu (Adolphe Menjou) who is plotting with the Countess de Winter to depose King Louis XIII of France and his beautiful wife Queen Anne (Marguerite De La Motte). The four gallants (“All for one and one for all”) ride for King, glory, country, romance and adventure in one of the classic swashbucklers of the silent era. (124 mins.)