8
9
this notorious oddity in Los Angeles for his own independent company. Featuring a score by a 22-year-old Frank Zappa written prior to the formation of The Mothers of Invention, this film about an insurance salesman with designs on becoming a literal rock-and-roll deity showcases one of the few independent spirits of 1960s American filmmaking. Note by Academy Museum Associate Director, Film Programs K.J. Relth-Miller. DIRECTED BY: Timothy Carey. WRITTEN BY: Timothy Carey. WITH: Timothy Carey, Paul Frees, Gil Barretto, Betty Rowland. 1962. 78 min. USA. B&W. English. DCP. Restored by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. Three by Jon Boorstin Sun, Dec 11 | 2pm | TMT In person: Jon Boorstin, Frank Gehry, and Pamela Weir-Quinton. Exploratorium A kaleidoscopic flurry of colorful light and a medley of sound make this ecstatic short, nominated for Documentary Short Subject at the 47th Academy Awards, a unique impression of the energy and joy waiting to be discovered at the titular San Francisco-based science and technology museum, which has been open and offering participatory experiences for guests of all ages since 1969. Note by Academy Museum Associate Director, Film Program K.J. Relth-Miller. DIRECTED BY: Jon Boorstin. 1974. 15 min. USA. Color. English. 35mm. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive. Kid City | Restoration World Premiere Documentarian Jon Boorstin follows architect Frank Gehry and his sister, Doreen Gehry Nelson, as they attempt a new method of teaching elementary school children in Los Angeles. With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the siblings work together on a pilot program of “design-based learning” that would restructure the typical classroom curriculum, replacing rote math or civics lessons with an imaginary city designed and built entirely by the students themselves. Note by Academy Film Archive Short Film preservationist Tessa Idlewine. DIRECTED BY: Jon Boorstin. WITH: Miriam Van Arsdol, Frank Gehry, Doreen Nelson. 1972. 29 min. USA. Color. English. 16mm. Restored in 2018 by the Academy Film Archive. People Who Make Things | Restoration World Premiere A portrait of three Los Angeles area residents who create things with their hands. Angelo Austin decorates wedding cakes; Dean Jeffries designs, manufactures, and paints custom cars; and Pamela Weir-Quinton creates wooden dolls. Jon Boorstin’s documentary short exists only in one faded 16mm print; all original negatives having been lost. Restored in 4K from this single element, the film showcases the resourcefulness, skill, and creativity that surround our city. Note by Academy Film Archive Short Film preservationist Tessa Idlewine. DIRECTED BY: Jon Boorstin. WITH: Angelo Austin, Dean Jeffries, Pamela Weir-Quinton. 1970. 20 min. USA. Color. English. DCP. Restored in 2016 by the Academy Film Archive.
Lady Windermere’s Fan with Forbidden Paradise Sat, Dec 10 | 7pm | DGT Lady Windermere’s Fan | Los Angeles Restoration Premiere Upon returning to London, the dazzlingly indiscreet Mrs. Erlynne (Irene Rich) becomes entangled in the affairs of the Windermere house, already being meddled with by charming Lord Darlington (Ronald Colman). Ernst Lubitsch’s pitch-perfect Oscar Wilde adaptation revels in the expressivity of the human face and the suggestive, telling detail revealed through witty editing. Largely shot on imposing sets or backlot streets, the film’s notable location sequence takes place at Toronto’s Woodbine Racetrack. Note by Academy Museum Senior Director, Film Programs Bernardo Rondeau. DIRECTED BY: Ernst Lubitsch. WRITTEN BY: Julien Josephson. WITH: Irene Rich, Ronald Colman, May McAvoy. 1925. 94 min. USA. Tinted and Toned. English intertitles. DCP. Restored by the Museum of Modern Art with the financial support of Matthew & Natalie Bernstein. Forbidden Paradise | Los Angeles Restoration Premiere The only American film that German-born director Ernst Lubitsch made with Polish-born star Pola Negri, a fellow European transplant, Forbidden Paradise is a sumptuous costume comedy about the seductions and infidelities of Empress Catherine the Great (Negri) as she tries to ward off a revolution at her doorstep. Staged against expressive, detail-laden sets designed by Hans Dreier (subsequent 22-time Oscar nominee for Art Direction), Forbidden Passage is lavishly madcap. Newly restored by the Museum of Modern Art from two incomplete nitrate prints and preservation negatives, this is the most comprehensive version of Lubitsch’s film in a century. Note by Academy Museum Senior Director, Film Programs Bernardo Rondeau. DIRECTED BY: Ernst Lubitsch. WRITTEN BY: Agnes Christine Johnston, Hans Kraly. WITH: Pola Negri, Rod La Rocque, Adolphe Menjou. 1924. 73 min. USA. Tinted and Toned. English intertitles. DCP. Restored by The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation. Orchestral score compiled and edited by Gillian B. Anderson, based on the music cue sheet issued for the film’s original release. Score conducted by Robert Israel.
Radical Archaeologies: Films by Greta Snider Fri, Dec 16 | 7:30pm | TMT In person: Greta Snider. Greta Snider emerged as a filmmaker from the 1980s San Francisco DIY/punk scene with a vital and multi-layered perspective, examining the margins of society, identity, and experience. Alternative narratives, subcultures, and lifestyles are explored with great sensitivity, humor, and a genuinely fresh reorientation of vision that engages the audience on numerous emotional, intellectual, and visceral levels. Snider frequently works very materially with the film medium, whether through hand-processing, optical printing, or other tactile approaches. Often exploring difficult and complex concepts such as grief, trauma, sexuality, abortion, death, and pleasure, Snider’s activation of the film material creates an immersive and immediate space for her investigations to unfold. Despite the intensity of her themes, these films are extremely stimulating, deeply insightful, and often incredibly fun. The Academy Film Archive is home to Greta Snider’s collection, and this program will feature numerous North American restoration premieres from the Archive. Programmed and note by Academy Film Archive Senior Film Preservationist Mark Toscano. All films directed by Greta Snider; all restored prints courtesy of the Academy Film Archive. Total program runtime: 72 min. Please note: this program contains some explicit content. No one under 18 admitted. Hardcore Home Movie | North American Restoration Premiere 1989. 5 min. USA. B&W. English. 16mm. Blood Story | Restoration World Premiere 1990. 4 min. USA. Color. English. 16mm. Our Gay Brothers | Restoration World Premiere 1993. 9 min. USA. B&W, Color. English. 16mm. Futility | North American Restoration Premiere 1989. 9 min. USA. B&W. English. 16mm. Quarry Movie | North American Restoration Premiere 1999. 10 min. USA. Color. English. 16mm. Portland | North American Restoration Premiere 1996. 12 min. USA. B&W. English. 16mm. Flight | North American Restoration Premiere 1997. 5 min. USA. B&W. Silent. 16mm. No-Zone 1993. 18 min. USA. B&W, Color. English. 16mm.
Death of a Bureaucrat
Preservation Conversation: Death of a Bureaucrat Mon, Dec 12 | 7:30pm | TMT Free for Museum Members. A conversation about preserving Cuban visual culture with Academy Film Archive Preservation Officer Joe Lindner and UCLA Librarian for Digital Collection Development T-Kay Sangwand will follow the screening. Death of a Bureaucrat | North American Restoration Premiere Tomás Gutiérrez Alea was the most internationally successful director from post-revolutionary Cuba. The blackest of comedies, this film satirizes the byzantine nature of bureaucracy, and is thus still a favorite of Cuban audiences. The protagonist, known only as the Nephew (Salvador Wood), simply wants to help his aunt get her late husband’s pension—but his uncle, a loyal Cuban Socialist patriot, was buried with his official work card. An escalating series of “official” responses leads to increasingly dark slapstick chaos. The original camera negative for the film suffered severe damage from mold, humidity, and acetate deterioration; a digital restoration was performed in 2019. Note by Academy Film Archive Preservation Officer Joe Lindner. DIRECTED BY: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. WRITTEN BY: Alfredo L. del Cueto, Ramón F. Suárez, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. WITH: Salvador Wood, Silvia Planas, Manuel Estanillo. 1966. 86 min. Cuba. B&W. Spanish. 4K DCP. Restored by the Academy Film Archive and the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industrias Cinematográficos. It Thu, Dec 15 | 7:30pm | TMT | Restoration World Premiere Clara Bow reached flapper immortality in this sparingly titled pre-Code classic. The film is a dramatized expansion by British-born romance specialist Elinor Glyn of the very concept she explored in the pages of Cosmopolitan : an enigmatic, irresistible allure she identified simply as “It.” In the film, Bow plays shop girl Betty Lou who tries to romance the heir to the Waltham department store fortune (Spanish-born Antonio Moreno), in the hope of escaping poverty. Bursting with Roaring Twenties flourishes—Bow’s signature bob, perilous Coney Island fairground high jinks, top hats and tails— It sparks with a high-energy friction of comedy and melodrama. Note by Academy Museum Senior Director, Film Programs Bernardo Rondeau. DIRECTED BY: Clarence Badger. WRITTEN BY: Elinor Glyn, Hope Loring, Louis D. Lighton. WITH: Clara Bow, Antonio Moreno, William Austin. 1927. 72 min. USA. B&W. English. Silent DCP. Restored by Paramount
Aventurera Sat, Dec 17 | 3pm | TMT
Widely considered the greatest film in Mexico’s singular rumbera genre, Aventurera is a pitch-black film noir punctuated by Afro-Caribbean musical numbers. Cuban- born dancer-singer Ninón Sevilla stars as a proper young lady who, within ten minutes, witnesses a parent’s suicide, is sold into prostitution, and transformed into a nightclub sensation. Through these hairpin turns; the rules of female portrayal are rewritten. Elegantly rendered in inky black- and-white by legendary Golden Age of Mexican Cinema
The World’s Greatest Sinner
The World’s Greatest Sinner Sat, Dec 10 | 10pm | TMT | Restoration World Premiere While character actor Timothy Carey is best remembered for portraying tough guys in East of Eden (1955) and Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), he was interested in exploring the edgy possibilities of non-commercial filmmaking on his own. In 1962, Carey wrote, directed, produced, and starred in
Powered by FlippingBook