nwFilmCenter

Janus Classics

Founded in 1956, Janus Films was one of the first—and happily the longest surviving—distributors to bring what are now revered as the classics of world cinematic masterpieces to American audiences. Through the pioneering and steady efforts of Janus, the great films of Ingmar Bergman, Francois Truffaut, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, Roberto Rosselini, Luis Buñuel—the list goes on and on—became the foundations of art house cinema and an influence and inspiration for subsequent generations of filmmakers and audiences. This series salutes Janus' first 50 years—a brief sampling of the treasures in a singular library. Later in the year (send us your requests) we'll mine another selection of classics deservedly appreciated on the big screen with pristine 35mm prints. While Janus is rooted in preserving the theatrical experience, The Criterion Collection, their excellent line of DVDs, offers the seminal works of world cinema to film lovers everywhere. "The Janus Films icon—the black and white image, the lettering, the two faces on the seemingly ancient coin—meant that you were going to see something special, something new, something completely different from anything you'd ever seen before."—Martin Scorsese.

Fri, May 25, 2007 at 7 PM Sat, May 26, 2007 at 9 PM	THE 400 BLOWS DIRECTOR: FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT FRANCE Truffaut's autobiographical first feature remains for many his best film. Drawing upon his early years as an orphan, Truffaut gives subtle and realistic meaning to the Chinese proverb about the 400 blows of childhood. Jean-Pierre Leaud plays Antoine Doniel, a neglected 12-year-old who rebels against school and escapes to freedom. The second of five films in his "Doniel" cycle, this early French New Wave milestone is one of the most poignant and moving studies of childhood ever put on film—honest, funny, unsentimental and full of passion—in Truffaut's words, "to show adolescence as the painful experience that it is." ( 98 min ) Double feature with JULES AND JIM. Double features cost an additional $2 to stay for both films. To purchase an advanced ticket for the double feature, be sure to select the DOUBLE FEATURE rather than the single ticket. Click here to buy tickets for the double feature. ^ Top
Fri, May 25, 2007 at 9 PM Sat, May 26, 2007 at 7 PM	JULES AND JIM DIRECTOR: FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT FRANCE One of the French New Wave's great period pieces and one of Truffaut's greatest love stories, JULES AND JIM offers a nostalgic look at a ménage a trios that begins before the first World War and concludes with the outbreak of Nazism. But it is in between these historical events that this magical adaptation of the Henri-Pierre Roche novel takes shape. The story of two men who share a romantic relationship with the same woman is based on Truffaut's reflection that "the couple is not a satisfying concept, but is there an alternative?" Starring Oskar Werner, Henri Serre and Jeanne Moreau, the film is a lyrical character study that celebrates freedom, love, loyalty and life at its most passionate and tragic. ( 105 min ) Double feature with THE 400 BLOWS. Double features cost an additional $2 to stay for both films. To purchase an advanced ticket for the double feature, be sure to select the DOUBLE FEATURE rather than the single ticket. Click here to buy tickets for the double feature. ^ Top
Sat, Jun 2, 2007 at 7 PM Sun, Jun 3, 2007 at 5 PM	WILD STRAWBERRIES DIRECTOR: INGMAR BERGMAN SWEDEN One of Bergman's most cherished films, WILD STRAWBERRIES floats between the present, past and the world of dreams as it reflects on the life of a man near the end of his years. An elderly professor (Swedish silent film director Victor Sjostrom) is traveling cross-country to receive an honorary degree. On the way, he encounters two young hitchhikers, and they, along with members of his immediate family, provoke thoughts and dreams of how he lived—and might have otherwise lived—his life. In this profoundly moving study of the underpinnings of one man's loneliness and self-imposed isolation, moments of revelation truly stir the heart. ( 93 min ) Double feature with CRIA. Double features cost an additional $2 to stay for both films. To purchase an advanced ticket for the double feature, be sure to select the DOUBLE FEATURE rather than the single ticket. Click here to buy tickets for the double feature. ^ Top
Sat, Jun 2, 2007 at 9 PM Sun, Jun 3, 2007 at 7 PM	CRIA DIRECTOR: CARLOS SAURA SPAIN Saura's most acclaimed film charts the sometimes funny, sometimes painful, often absurd process of shedding childhood fears and illusions. Set in Madrid to the lilting refrains of a 60s pop classic, the story is Jeanette's version of the José Perales song "Porqué te vas?" Ana Torrent (SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE) is young Ana, who was witness to (and perhaps responsible for) her father's death and also communicates with the spirit of her beloved mother (Geraldine Chaplin). As she wanders through a tragically curtailed childhood, Ana is convinced she holds the power of life and death. As an adult just as her grandmother endlessly leafs through old family photos, Ana reflects back on her childhood trying to comprehend and come to terms with the presence of the past. ( 110 min ) Double feature with WILD STRAWBERRIES. Double features cost an additional $2 to stay for both films. To purchase an advanced ticket for the double feature, be sure to select the DOUBLE FEATURE rather than the single ticket. Click here to buy tickets for the double feature. ^ Top
Fri, Jun 8, 2007 at 7 PM Sat, Jun 9, 2007 at 8:45 PM	BEAUTY AND THE BEAST DIRECTOR: JEAN COCTEAU FRANCE French visionary poet, playwright and painter Jean Cocteau's first film dreamily visualizes the awesome beauty of the 18th century fairy tale by Madame Leprince de Beaumont. The tale of a young woman's love for an agonized beast is one of the cinema's most poetic works, forging inventive relationships between special make-up effects, photography and art direction. Shot by noted French cinematographer Henri Alekan and featuring an exquisite score by George Auric, Cocteau's atmospheric film, with its shadowy castle and billowing curtains, perfectly suits this timeless tale of innocence, hope and of the power of redemption through love. ( 90 min ) Double feature with BALLAD OF A SOLDIER. Double features cost an additional $2 to stay for both films. To purchase an advanced ticket for the double feature, be sure to select the DOUBLE FEATURE rather than the single ticket. Click here to buy tickets for the double feature. ^ Top
Fri, Jun 8, 2007 at 8:45 PM Sat, Jun 9, 2007 at 7 PM	BALLAD OF A SOLDIER DIRECTOR: GRIGORI CHUKHRAI USSR "This picaresque tale was a great classic of post-war Soviet realism—but don't let that put you off. Ivashov makes a touching figure as the teenage WW II combatant who wins four day's leave as a reward for an act of courage against the Nazis, heads for home to repair his old mother's leaking roof, yet finds himself constantly waylaid on his journey by people who need his help. Chuckhrai's film may come from the stylistically more conservative wing of the Russian cinema, but its careful detail and underlying emotional clout are never in doubt."—TIME OUT. ( 89 min ) Double feature with BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Double features cost an additional $2 to stay for both films. To purchase an advanced ticket for the double feature, be sure to select the DOUBLE FEATURE rather than the single ticket. Click here to buy tickets for the double feature. ^ Top
Sun, Jun 10, 2007 at 7 PM	VIRIDIANA DIRECTOR: LUIS BUNUEL SPAIN/MEXICO Buñuel returned to Spain after a 23-year exile to direct this devastating attack on religion and society. Although immediately banned by the Franco government—who found it no more likable than his scandalous L'AGE D'OR—it found an international audience by winning the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Viridiana (Sylvia Pinal), a pious innocent about to take her vows, is sent by her Mother Superior to visit her lonely uncle and is more than shocked when he suggests she slip into his dead wife's wedding dress, stretch out in a coffin, and put on a crown of thorns. Fleeing the convent, she sets out to pursue an independent Christian life but discovers that her religion is not only corrupt, but is corrupting. Buñuel's favorite themes—sexuality, religion, and madness—climax with his infamously blasphemous vision of the Last Supper as a banquet of drunken thieves, beggars, and whores. ( 91 min ) ^ Top
Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 7 PM	THE LADY VANISHES DIRECTOR: ALFRED HITCHCOCK GREAT BRITIAN One of Hitchcock's most beloved films and the one that propelled his career to Hollywood, THE LADY VANISHES offers a seamless blend of humor and suspense. Margaret Lockwood, a vacationing debutante, and Michael Redgrave, a young collector of folksongs, become involved in mysterious foreign espionage when an elderly governess (Dame May Whitty) disappears from the transcontinental train on which they are passengers. Even those who know every turn of the plot can watch this thriller again and again and marvel at Hitchcock's masterful illusions. ( 96 min ) ^ Top
Fri, Jun 15, 2007 at 9:15 PM Sat, Jun 16, 2007 at 7 PM	KNIFE IN THE WATER DIRECTOR: ROMAN POLANSKI POLAND Roman Polanski's striking Lodz Film School thesis project remains one of his best works. Jerzy Skolimowski's taut script explores the hidden violence lurking beneath male rivalry as an older man and his wife take a young man aboard a sailboat for the day on the lake. Under sail, the wife soon has the stranger vying for her attention and as storm clouds gather a series of strange games unfold, including one with a knife. Soon, only two remain on board. ( 95 min ) Double feature with WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM Saturday June 16. Double features cost an additional $2 to stay for both films. To purchase an advanced ticket for the double feature, be sure to select the DOUBLE FEATURE rather than the single ticket. Click here to buy tickets for the double feature. ^ Top
Sat, Jun 16, 2007 at 9 PM Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 7 PM	WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM DIRECTOR: DUSAN MAKAVEJEV YUGOSLAVIA A sensation when it was released, Makavejev's wild film is part essay, part political inquiry and part documentary on Wilhelm Reich, all bound up around the story of a female liberationist. "WR tackles crucial, and perennial, problems in culture, sexuality, and politics. It honors, critically yet nostalgically, a pioneer attempt to reconcile Marx and Freud. It's the first and [among] the boldest exploration[s] of social breakdown in Eastern European Communisms. It's vivid testimony to the U.S. 'counter-cultures' of the 60s and 70s. Provoking wider reflections, it's a flagship of that still-developing genre, 'philosophical cinema.' ... Its mixture of genres, styles, 'languages' and moods (burlesque, tragedy...) makes it a pioneer of 'post-modernisms' (whatever that may be). As a 'mainstream avant-garde' movie, it merits its place in the pantheon, and, last but not least, yields great pleasure, emotional and aesthetic."—BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE. ( 80 min ) Double feature with KNIFE IN THE WATER Saturday June 16. Double features cost an additional $2 to stay for both films. To purchase an advanced ticket for the double feature, be sure to select the DOUBLE FEATURE rather than the single ticket. Click here to buy tickets for the double feature. ^ Top
Fri, Jun 22, 2007 at 9 PM	RULES OF THE GAME DIRECTOR: JEAN RENOIR FRANCE The "game" is life: Renoir and cinematographer Henri Cartier-Bresson paint a broad canvas taking as the subject the foibles of bourgeois French society. At a weekend hunting party on the eve of World War II, amorous escapades abound among the aristocratic guests and the servants in a Gallic "Upstairs, Downstairs." The refusal of one guest to play by society's rules sparks a chain of events that ends in tragedy, providing, in Renoir's words, a "dramatic fantasy" of a "a rich, complex society. . .dancing on a volcano." ( 96 min ) ^ Top
Sat, Jun 23, 2007 at 7 PM Sun, Jun 24, 2007 at 6 PM	CHILDREN OF PARADISE DIRECTOR: MARCEL CARNE FRANCE One of the triumphs of French cinema, CHILDREN OF PARADISE is a dazzling and moving evocation of the forces of romanticism and social change in mid-19th-century Paris. While set in the 1840's, Jacques Prevert's screenplay offers a courageous response to the German occupation of France during World War II as it deals with themes of artistic freedom and expression. With epic scope, Carne creates a swirling world of passions and larger-than-life characters in a world of art and artifice where fate takes control. The story of four men's unrequited love for a woman who symbolizes beauty, the film loosely draws upon the lives of the great French actor Frederick Lemaitre (Pierre Brasseur) and the much-honored mime Baptiste Deburau (Jean-Louise Barrault) as it ingeniously meshes theater, politics and classism. ( 188 min ) ^ Top
Sat, Jun 30, 2007 at 7 PM	IL POSTO DIRECTOR: ERMANNO OLMI ITALY Humane, heartbreaking, and sometimes painfully funny, IL POSTO chronicles the (mis)fortunes of a young Milanese man who applies for a job in a large firm, suffers the alienation and humiliations of office life, and strikes up a relationship with a secretary (played by Olmi's wife) in hopes of escaping both his smothering family and his numbing work routine. Shot with a non-professional cast, "[IL Posto] has a precise sense of timing and reveals Olmi's brilliant talent for capturing the comic, pompous and sometimes sad way people behave"-Georges Sadoul. Winner of the Grand Prize, London Film Festival and Critics' Prize at the Venice Film Festival. ( 90 min ) ^ Top