Pierrot le Fou trailer

Here's the trailer we've shown in the theater (In case you missed it). Enjoy!

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Pierrot le Fou

OFFScreen Presents
Pierrot le Fou
A film by Jean-Luc Godard - France/Italy, 1965- 110 min.
Sunday, November 18
7:00 & 9:30 PM
Newcomb Hall Theater
Tickets $3

At turns a cross-country crime movie, a misogynist romance, a critique of the Vietnam war, and a meditation on the grammar of cinema, Pierrot le Fou marks a turning point in the career of Jean-Luc Godard. Combining the pop culture-laden playfulness of his early period with the militant political crusade of his works to follow, this film showcases the director's manic talents in an approachable format. As Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) abandons his wife to go on the lam with the babysitter (Anna Karina), it becomes clear that the plot serves mainly as a canvas for Godard's basic cinematic delights: bold splashes of saturated color, the feminine form, American cars, shifts in style and narrative, and sneakily complex editing and camerawork. Even after forty years, the film's "power to overwhelm and offend is undiminished." (Anthony Lane, The New Yorker)

Click here to read Anthony Lane's full review.

Additionally, this is the second and final installment in our Jean-Luc Godard Director's Series. Ari Blatt from the French Department will be present after the 7pm screening to lead a short discussion on the film and also the more general scope of Jean-Luc Godard's work.

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Mount Eerie / Woelv Show Cancelled

Just Announced:
The Mt. Eerie / Woelv show sponsored by Tyrannosaurus Rock that was going to be tonight in the Chapel has been cancelled. Spread the word.

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The Unforeseen: Human Rights Watch

OFFScreen and the Human Rights Watch Travelling Film Festival Present
THE UNFORESEEN
A film by Laura Dunn
Wednesday Nov. 14th, 7pm
Newcomb Hall Theater
93 Mins.
FREE

The Unforeseen, executive produced by Terrence Malick, follows the career of Gary Bradley, an ambitious west Texas farm boy who went to Austin and became one of the state's most powerful real estate developers in the boomtown growth era of the 1970s. When one of his developments threatened a local treasure, "Barton Springs," the community fought back and the subdivision became a lightning rod for environmental activism. The Unforeseen shows the negotiation between the destruction of the natural world and the American Dream in its debates over land, economics, property rights, and the public good.

Stay around after the film tomorrow night to take part in a discussion with Prof. Karen Firehock.

Also:
Other films left in the Film Festival include:
Tuesday, November 13 | Cabell 345 | 7pm
A Lesson in Belarusian
Presented by Amnesty International

Thursday, November 15 | Maury 209 | 8pm
Suffering and Smiling
Presented by the Organization of African Students

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A Woman is a Woman: Part I in the Godard Director's Series

OFFScreen Presents
A Woman is a Woman (Une Femme est Une Femme)
a film by Jean-Luc Godard
Italy/France, 1961 - 84 min.
Sunday, November 11
7:00 & 9:30 PM
Newcomb Hall Theater
Tickets $3

Jean-Luc Godard's third feature is the virtuosic director's sardonic take on a (neorealist) movie musical. Subverting and expanding the genre, JLG and longtime cinematographer Raoul Coutard fill the widescreen frame with bold colors and postmodern axioms in giant lettering. Youthfully playful and formally experimental, the film follows Parisian stripper Angela, played by Anna Karina (Mrs. Godard at the time). Bored with her career of disrobing, Angela decides she wants a baby in the next 24 hours. Her boyfriend is less enthusiastic, so Angela starts eyeing his best friend, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo. Cinematic in-jokes and spur of the moment musical numbers create a smartly eccentric, smirkingly Godardian "celebration of romance, sentiment, musical comedy, color film, the city of Paris, and the abundant charms of Ms. Karina." (A.O. Scott, New York Times)

Click here to read A.O. Scott's full review.

Also, be sure to join us the following week for a discussion of Godard's work with Ari Blatt, an Assistant Professor in the French Dept, following the 7pm screening of Pierrot le Fou!

check back for more details and events.

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VA Film Festival! - Brand Upon the Brain!

It is day TWO of the Virginia Film Festival. There were tons of people out to see Killer of Sheep with Charles Burnett last night, and I know a lot of people saw Honeydripper and Ghosts.

Tonight is My Brother's Wedding with Charles Burnett , Persepolis by Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi, The Savages with writer/director Tamara Jenkins and David Edelstein, and many many more. Best of all is GREY GARDENS! (free midnight showing at Gravity Lounge! BE THERE!)


Last in the festival but certainly not least,
BRAND UPON THE BRAIN!

Dir. Guy Maddin - USA/Canada, 2006
Sunday, November 4 - 7:00 & 9:30 PM - 95 min.
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT DOOR ONLY, NOT DOWNTOWN AT THE REGAL 6!!!

Canadian filmmaker and cinephile Guy Maddin once again deconstructs and reinvents the history of silent film in this quasi-autobiographical, expressionist dream set in a corrupt orphanage run by Maddin’s parents. A house painter named Guy, (Maddin’s fictional version of himself) travels home to visit his past and his family, constantly travelling between his childhood and the present. While Guy reconciles his muddled memories with what he sees before him, a harp-playing teenage detective duo notices strange circular wounds on the necks of the orphans cared for by Guy’s parents. Combining silent-era intertitles and narration by Isabella Rossellini, the film uses frenzied editing and hauntingly flourished over-acting to create “a feverishly imaginative Freudian vampire film.” (Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer)

Click here to check out the official site!

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