Inception (2010)
As early as the silent era, filmmakers employed the flashback, a break in linear narrative, to convey something from the past and evoke memory. These fractures in an otherwise straightforward story became commonplace in the 1940s—when, film scholar David Bordwell argues, filmmakers began diving into characters and their psyches in numerous and daring ways—and are now an intrinsic part of our cinematic language. Dreams offer an exciting opportunity to incorporate strokes of surrealism ( Spellbound , 1945) and surprising flourishes into a plot line ( Inception , 2010). They break from convention and pivot us into unexpected stories, while memories both held ( Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , 2004) and forgotten ( Memento , 2000) complicate our relationship to reality while revealing unexpected scientific truths. This series examines filmmakers’ fascination with dreams and memory and invites leading scholars and scientists to shed light on the ever-intriguing topics of dreams, reality, and memory. Programmed by K.J. Relth-Miller. Notes by K.J. Relth-Miller and Robert Reneau. LIMITED SERIES I SEEM TO RECALL... MEMORIES AND DREAMS IN CINEMA JAN 16–FEB 13, 2025
I Seem to Recall… Memories and Dreams in Cinema is made possible by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.
Waking Life in 35mm Mon, Jan 20 | 7:30pm | TMT
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in 4K Thu, Jan 16 | 7:30pm | DGT Restoration World Premiere A heartbroken young man (Jim Carrey) discovers his ex-girlfriend has had her memories of their relationship erased, and he reluctantly undergoes the same procedure in this fantastical yet emotionally grounded romantic comedy-drama. Charlie Kaufman, director Michel Gondry, and Pierre Bismuth won an Oscar for the film’s imaginative original screenplay, which drew inspiration from Alain Resnais’s Je t’aime, je t’aime (1968) and Hiroshima mon amour (1959), both of which deal with themes of memory, forgetting, and loss. Cinematographer Ellen Kuras and production designer Dan Leigh worked closely with Gondry to create the film’s distinctive look that perfectly bridges fantasy and reality. DIRECTED BY: Michel Gondry. WRITTEN BY: Charlie Kaufman. STORY BY: Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry, Pierre Bismuth. WITH: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo. 2004. 108 min. USA. Color. English. Rated R. 4K DCP.
Wandering through filmmaker Richard Linklater’s home of Austin, Texas, the unnamed protagonist (Wiley Wiggins) floats between conversations with pop philosophers and studied existentialists to explore the heady concepts of lucid dreams and the nature of reality. The film’s free-associative nature is enhanced by its cinematic language: the digital rotoscoping of live-action footage by a cadre of artists is a visual trip that, paired with the film’s mind-bending conversations, expands the viewer’s consciousness. In his review, Roger Ebert wrote it was “hard to say how much of Richard Linklater’s Waking Life is a dream. I think all of it is.” DIRECTED/WRITTEN BY: Richard Linklater. WITH: Wiley Wiggins, Bill Wise, Robert C. Solomon, Kim Krizan. 2001. 99 min. USA. Color. English. Rated R. 35mm. Print courtesy of the DGA Motion Picture Industry Conservation Collection at the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
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