Cinematheque Film Schedule

France | 2016 | Bertrand Tavernier

Veteran French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier, who was a passionate cinephile and film critic before he directed such movies as A Sunday in the Country and ‘Round Midnight, walks us through six decades of classic French cinema that moved him as a filmgoer and shaped him as an artist. Overflowing with anecdotes, insights, opinions, and clips, this exhilarating, very personal essay film (from a man who was once an assistant to Jean-Pierre Melville and a press...

United Kingdom | 1950 | Alfred Hitchcock

Perhaps the rarest Hitchcock feature from the director’s greatest decade (the 1950s), this mystery/thriller (with lots of comic relief) tells of an aspiring actress (Jane Wyman) who uses her performing prowess to try to prove that a friend accused of murder is innocent of the crime. With Marlene Dietrich. 110 min.

Spain | 2016 | Fernando Trueba

Penélope Cruz reunites with the director of the Oscar-winning Belle Epoque in this all-star farce about 1950s moviemaking in Franco’s Spain. Cruz plays a Spanish movie star who, after success in Hollywood, returns to Madrid to shoot a lavish American musical about Queen Isabella. But the production is beset with problems: the director (Clive Revill) is a drunk, the screenwriter (Mandy Patinkin) has been blacklisted, and the leading man (Cary Elwes) is both gay and...

United States | 2015 | Albert Maysles, Lynn True, David Usui, Nelson Walker III, Benjamin Wu

The final film by the late, great documentarian Albert Maysles (Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens) journeys into the hearts and minds of everyday passengers aboard Amtrak's Empire Builder, the busiest long-distance train route in America. The film unfolds as a series of interconnected vignettes, ranging from overheard conversations to moments of deep intimacy, in which diverse individuals in a fleeting community share their fears, hopes, and dreams. “A folk odyssey…A fitting farewell to an American ethnographer.”...

France | 2016 | Bertrand Tavernier

Veteran French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier, who was a passionate cinephile and film critic before he directed such movies as A Sunday in the Country and ‘Round Midnight, walks us through six decades of classic French cinema that moved him as a filmgoer and shaped him as an artist. Overflowing with anecdotes, insights, opinions, and clips, this exhilarating, very personal essay film (from a man who was once an assistant to Jean-Pierre Melville and a press...

United States | 2015 | Albert Maysles, Lynn True, David Usui, Nelson Walker III, Benjamin Wu

The final film by the late, great documentarian Albert Maysles (Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens) journeys into the hearts and minds of everyday passengers aboard Amtrak's Empire Builder, the busiest long-distance train route in America. The film unfolds as a series of interconnected vignettes, ranging from overheard conversations to moments of deep intimacy, in which diverse individuals in a fleeting community share their fears, hopes, and dreams. “A folk odyssey…A fitting farewell to an American ethnographer.”...

United Kingdom | 1950 | Alfred Hitchcock

Perhaps the rarest Hitchcock feature from the director’s greatest decade (the 1950s), this mystery/thriller (with lots of comic relief) tells of an aspiring actress (Jane Wyman) who uses her performing prowess to try to prove that a friend accused of murder is innocent of the crime. With Marlene Dietrich. 110 min.

Argentina | 2016 | Gastón Solnicki

An assortment of privileged adolescent girls and young women contemplate, with trepidation, their upcoming entry into the adult world—thus leaving a materially comfortable cocoon. This acclaimed and impeccably realized new feature, loosely inspired by Béla Bartók’s opera Bluebeard’s Castle, uses abstraction and architecture to suggest subcultures and states of mind. “Immaculately composed…[A] rapturous experimental narrative.” –Variety. Subtitles. DCP. 72 min.

United Kingdom, United States | 2006 | Christopher Nolan

Prior to the release of Dunkirk, Indiewire proclaimed this twisty mystery-thriller Christopher Nolan’s best film. Made just before The Dark Knight and Inception, the movie details a deadly feud between two rival magicians and illusionists (Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale) in 1890s London. With Scarlett Johansson, Michael Caine, Rebecca Hall, Andy Serkis, and, as Nikola Tesla, David Bowie. Scope. 130 min.

United Kingdom, United States | 2006 | Christopher Nolan

Prior to the release of Dunkirk, Indiewire proclaimed this twisty mystery-thriller Christopher Nolan’s best film. Made just before The Dark Knight and Inception, the movie details a deadly feud between two rival magicians and illusionists (Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale) in 1890s London. With Scarlett Johansson, Michael Caine, Rebecca Hall, Andy Serkis, and, as Nikola Tesla, David Bowie. Scope. 130 min.

Belgium, France | 2016 | Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon

The husband-wife, actor-director team of Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon (The Fairy) carries on the longstanding French screen tradition of choreographed physical comedy and wordless clowning seen in the films of Jacques Tati, Pierre Etaix, et al. Lost in Paris, their fourth feature, is perhaps their funniest yet. Gordon plays a gangly Canadian librarian who makes her first trip to France in order to assist her 88-year-old Aunt Martha (the late Emmanuelle Riva). But when...

United States | 1979 | George T. Nierenberg

Here’s a new digital restoration (from the original camera negative) of a joyous dance documentary that, almost 40 years ago, helped reawaken interest in the then dying art of tap. Three veteran hoofers—Bunny Briggs, Chuck Green, and Harold “Sandman” Sims—are profiled in this toe-tapping classic that also features music by Lionel Hampton. It will be followed by Nierenberg’s sequel, About Tap (1985), in which Gregory Hines appears with three different dancers. “The(se) films, which I...

Belgium, France | 2016 | Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon

The husband-wife, actor-director team of Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon (The Fairy) carries on the longstanding French screen tradition of choreographed physical comedy and wordless clowning seen in the films of Jacques Tati, Pierre Etaix, et al. Lost in Paris, their fourth feature, is perhaps their funniest yet. Gordon plays a gangly Canadian librarian who makes her first trip to France in order to assist her 88-year-old Aunt Martha (the late Emmanuelle Riva). But when...

France, Portugal, Spain | 2016 | Albert Serra

French screen icon Jean-Pierre Léaud is the brilliant, fitting choice to star in this minimalist historical drama about the final days of France’s powerful Sun King—seen here as an ailing, all-too-mortal monarch surrounded by concerned doctors and counselors in his Versailles bed chamber. This one-of-a-kind work, a neglected candidate for best film of the year, is as serene and static as most movies are loud and busy. Subtitles. DCP. 115 min.

United States | 1979 | George T. Nierenberg

Here’s a new digital restoration (from the original camera negative) of a joyous dance documentary that, almost 40 years ago, helped reawaken interest in the then dying art of tap. Three veteran hoofers—Bunny Briggs, Chuck Green, and Harold “Sandman” Sims—are profiled in this toe-tapping classic that also features music by Lionel Hampton. It will be followed by Nierenberg’s sequel, About Tap (1985), in which Gregory Hines appears with three different dancers. “The(se) films, which I...

Germany, USSR | 1979 | Andrei Tarkovsky

Tarkovsky’s spiritual classic—one of the great modern movies—is best seen in a theater. Set in some post-apocalyptic future, the film follows a guide with special powers (a “stalker”) as he leads a writer and a scientist into a fenced-off, forbidden region, known as the Zone, that is part primeval forest, part post-industrial wasteland. The three men trek toward the Zone’s mysterious inner sanctum (the “Room”), where one’s deepest desires are said to come true. Subtitles....

Japan | 1969 | Toshio Matsumoto

Long unavailable in the U.S., this kaleidoscopic Japanese New Wave masterpiece is one of the most subversive and intoxicating films of the late 1960s: a headlong dive into a dazzling, unseen Tokyo night-world of drag queen bars and fabulous divas, fueled by booze, drugs, performance art, and black mascara. (Stanley Kubrick cited the film as a direct influence on A Clockwork Orange.) The film is set at Bar Genet, where the hot young “gay boy”...

United States | 1957 | Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick’s searing, anti-military drama is based on a true WWI incident: three randomly-selected French soldiers are unjustly tried for cowardice after the failure of an ill-conceived, suicidal attack. Initially banned in France. With Kirk Douglas. 88 min.

United States | 2017 | Marc Meyers

The awkward teenage years of Bath Township resident and future serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer are dramatized in this new, shot-in-northeast-Ohio feature based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Dahmer’s Revere High School classmate, John “Derf” Backderf. Ross Lynch plays the troubled teen; Anne Heche is his mother. Vincent Kartheiser, Alex Wolff, and Dallas Roberts also star. Filmmaker Marc Meyers, producer Jody Girgenti, and author/cartoonist "Derf" Backderf will answer audience questions after the screening. DCP. 107...

United States | 1957 | Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick’s searing, anti-military drama is based on a true WWI incident: three randomly-selected French soldiers are unjustly tried for cowardice after the failure of an ill-conceived, suicidal attack. Initially banned in France. With Kirk Douglas. 88 min.

France, Switzerland | 2016 |

Emmanuelle Devos and Nathalie Baye star in this Hitchcockian thriller about a distraught, vengeful woman who tracks down the car she believes was involved in the hit-and-run death of her son. “A first-rate showcase for two of French cinema’s finest actors, both of whom do career-high work here.” –NY Times. Subtitles. DCP. 89 min.

Israel | 2016 | Ori Sivan

In his award-winning and musically-enchanting drama, filmmaker Ori Sivan (In Treatment) transposes the foundational Biblical story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar to modern-day Israel. Hagar is a Palestinian horn player who is accepted into Jerusalem’s Philharmonic Orchestra, led by maestro Abraham, whose wife (Sarah) is principal harpist. Each woman gives a son to Abraham, and both boys grow up to become virtuosos. But the family is pulled apart, and the best hope for reunification seems...

France, Switzerland | 2016 |

Emmanuelle Devos and Nathalie Baye star in this Hitchcockian thriller about a distraught, vengeful woman who tracks down the car she believes was involved in the hit-and-run death of her son. “A first-rate showcase for two of French cinema’s finest actors, both of whom do career-high work here.” –NY Times. Subtitles. DCP. 89 min.

United States | 1974 | John Carpenter

John Carpenter’s first feature, a spoof of 2001, began life as a student film made at USC. It’s a low-budget comedy, starring and co-written by Dan O’Bannon (Alien), about four laid-back hippie astronauts on a deep space mission. They come out of their bored, stoned stupor when a sentient, talking, HAL-like smart bomb threatens to blow up their own ship. Blu-ray. 83 min.

Japan | 1969 | Toshio Matsumoto

Long unavailable in the U.S., this kaleidoscopic Japanese New Wave masterpiece is one of the most subversive and intoxicating films of the late 1960s: a headlong dive into a dazzling, unseen Tokyo night-world of drag queen bars and fabulous divas, fueled by booze, drugs, performance art, and black mascara. (Stanley Kubrick cited the film as a direct influence on A Clockwork Orange.) The film is set at Bar Genet, where the hot young “gay boy”...

United States | 1978 | John Carpenter

In John Carpenter’s most famous film, deranged murderer Michael Myers escapes from the sanitarium and returns to his old haunts on trick or treat night—presumably to kill again. With Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, and P.J. Soles; Carpenter also composed the music. Will be followed by a short in which Carpenter talks about the film, discusses his influences, and explains how Halloween became the highest grossing independent film of all time. DCP. Total 105 min.

France | 2016 | Sébastien Laudenbach

One of the Brothers Grimm’s lesser-known fairytales is brought to exquisite life in this hand-drawn animated feature that has a unique, impressionistic look derived from lines and layers of lush colors. The movie follows a virginal young girl who is accidentally sold to the Devil by her greedy father. Contains nudity, violence, death, and subtitles, so it is not for children. “Dazzlingly imaginative.” –NY Times. Subtitles. DCP. 76 min.

France | 2016 | Sébastien Laudenbach

One of the Brothers Grimm’s lesser-known fairytales is brought to exquisite life in this hand-drawn animated feature that has a unique, impressionistic look derived from lines and layers of lush colors. The movie follows a virginal young girl who is accidentally sold to the Devil by her greedy father. Contains nudity, violence, death, and subtitles, so it is not for children. “Dazzlingly imaginative.” –NY Times. Subtitles. DCP. 76 min.

United States | 1978 | John Carpenter

In John Carpenter’s most famous film, deranged murderer Michael Myers escapes from the sanitarium and returns to his old haunts on trick or treat night—presumably to kill again. With Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, and P.J. Soles; Carpenter also composed the music. Will be followed by a short in which Carpenter talks about the film, discusses his influences, and explains how Halloween became the highest grossing independent film of all time. DCP. Total 105 min.

United States | 1928 | William A. Wellman

Louise Brooks’ best American film was made shortly before she left for Germany and found everlasting fame in G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box and Diary of a Lost Girl. Here she plays a young woman who flees her cruel stepfather and, dressed in boy’s clothing, rides the rails with hobos. Wallace Beery and Richard Arlen co-star. This silent has a new music score by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Beggars of Life is based on...

France, Italy, West Germany | 1975 | Andrzej Zuławski

Romy Schneider won the first ever César Award (French Oscar) for Best Actress for her performance in this film that the always intemperate Polish-French auteur Andrzej Zuławski made just before Possession. Schneider plays an unhappy softcore actress who becomes the obsession of a paparazzo; the shutterbug proceeds to borrow money and bankroll an experimental stage production of Richard III for her—but it also stars a demented German actor (Klaus Kinski)! With Jacques Dutronc and...

United States | 1986 | David Byrne

David Byrne, in cowboy hat and convertible, introduces us to some of the eccentric residents of the (fictional) town of Virgil, Texas, as they prepare for the “celebration of specialness” that will commemorate their burg’s sesquicentennial. Many of the film’s “true stories” were gleaned from American tabloids. With John Goodman, Spalding Gray, Swoosie Kurtz, and musical numbers by the Talking Heads and others. 89 min.

United States | 2017 | Michael Almereyda

Hampton Fancher (b. 1938) may be best known as the co-writer of Blade Runner (and its upcoming sequel). But he has also been a TV and movie actor, flamenco dancer, producer, director, dropout, lover, and husband during a colorful life full of dangerous escapades. Fancher himself narrates his story (and vintage film clips do the rest) in this fascinating, free-form profile produced by Wes Anderson. “A unique, breezy pastiche that’s as nostalgic as a TV...

United States | 1986 | David Byrne

David Byrne, in cowboy hat and convertible, introduces us to some of the eccentric residents of the (fictional) town of Virgil, Texas, as they prepare for the “celebration of specialness” that will commemorate their burg’s sesquicentennial. Many of the film’s “true stories” were gleaned from American tabloids. With John Goodman, Spalding Gray, Swoosie Kurtz, and musical numbers by the Talking Heads and others. 89 min.

France, Italy, West Germany | 1975 | Andrzej Zuławski

Romy Schneider won the first ever César Award (French Oscar) for Best Actress for her performance in this film that the always intemperate Polish-French auteur Andrzej Zuławski made just before Possession. Schneider plays an unhappy softcore actress who becomes the obsession of a paparazzo; the shutterbug proceeds to borrow money and bankroll an experimental stage production of Richard III for her—but it also stars a demented German actor (Klaus Kinski)! With Jacques Dutronc and...

France | 1967 | Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard anticipated the political upheaval of May ‘68 with this polemical comedy about a group of disenchanted French young people (Jean-Pierre Léaud, Juliet Berto, Godard’s then-wife Anne Wiazemsky, et al.) who set up a Maoist cell in their apartment and try to put their revolutionary ideals into practice. A dazzling Pop Art collage of posters, slogans, and words, the film captures the era’s young radicals in all their earnestness and naiveté. “It may be...

United States | 1976 | John Carpenter

Frequently cited as John Carpenter’s best film, this taut mash-up of Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo and George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (see 10/27 at 9:25) is set at a decommissioned Los Angeles police precinct house on the night before it is permanently closed. A ruthless gang of armed street criminals lays siege to the building, and since the phones are disconnected, only a skeleton LAPD crew (and a convicted killer) are there...

United States | 2017 | Kogonada

Columbus, Indiana, is known for its concentration of modernist buildings by Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Robert Venturi, César Pelli, and others. This architectural mecca is the setting for this tender, low-key indie drama, the first feature by celebrated video essayist Kogonada and one of the most acclaimed movies of the year. The film follows two people—a disenchanted Korean-American man (John Cho) who has come to Columbus to attend to his comatose father, and a young...