Summer Film Club: June

June is here so summer has, as far as I'm concerned, officially begun, and with it, our Summer Film Club.  The theme this year is Director Spotlight: Werner Herzog.  Each month we will be viewing TWO films by Werner Herzog, a feature film and a documentary.  I tried to pick a nice selection of some of his best, and most fascinating films.  Our first two films this month will be Heart of Glass and Little Dieter Needs to Fly.

The setting is an 18th century Bavarian town with a glassblowing factory that produces a brilliant red ruby glass.  When the master glass blower dies, the secret to producing the ruby glass is lost.   One of the most famous things about this film is that during shooting, almost all of the actors performed while under hypnosis.  Every actor in every scene was hypnotized, with the exception of the character Hias and the professional glassblowers who appear in the film.  The hypnotized actors give very strange performances, which Herzog intended to suggest the trance-like state of the townspeople in the story.  Herzog provided the actors with most of their dialogue, memorized during hypnosis.  However, many of the hypnotized actors’ gestures and movements occurred spontaneously during filming.

The film holds an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.  Roger Ebert awarded the film 4/4 stars, and added it to his list of Great Movies.  He said this of the film, “The interiors are darkly lit, with shadows gathered around them.  The music of Popol Vuh seems like melodies from purgatory.  Ordinary conversation is lacking, ordinary routines abandoned.  These are people solemnly waiting for…nothing.  Although some have found the film slow, I find it terrifying in its emptiness.  It is like looking down into a vertiginous fall at the edge of time.  Herzog fascinates me.  I feel a film like Heart of Glass comes as close to any single one of his titles to expressing the inchoate feelings in his heart. He was once asked what he would do if he had one day to live.  It’s a meaningless question, but I appreciated his answer: “Martin Luther said that if he knew the world were ending tomorrow, he would plant a tree.  I would start a new film.”


Our second film for this month is the documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly.

Little Dieter Needs to Fly tells the story of German-born American and Vietnam veteran, Dieter Dengler.  As a child, he watched his village destroyed by American warplanes, and one flew so close to his attic window that for a split-second he made eye contact with the pilot flashing past.  At that moment, Dieter Dengler knew that he needed to fly.  As an 18 year old, he came penniless to America.  He enlisted in the Navy to learn to fly.  He flew missions over Vietnam.  He was shot down, made a prisoner, became one of only seven men to escape from prison camps and survive.  He endured tortures by his captors and from nature: dysentery, insect bites, starvation, and hallucinations.  In this film, Dengler and Herzog take us on a journey through the experiences he had as a prisoner.

The film holds a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.  Roger Ebert awarded the film 3 1/2 out of 4 stars saying this of the film, "Herzog sees his mission as a filmmaker not to turn himself into a recording machine, but to be a collaborator.  He does not simply stand and watch, but arranges and adjusts and subtly enhances, so that the film takes the materials of Dengler's adventure and fashions it into a new thing.  Herzog starts with a balding middle-aged man driving down a country lane in a convertible, and listens, questions and shapes, until the life experience of Dieter Dengler becomes unforgettable.  What an astonishing man! we think.  But if we were to sit next to him on a plane, we might tell him we had seen his movie, and make a polite comment about it, and go back to our magazine.  It takes art to transform someone else's experience into our own."

If you haven't already checked out the trailers that were included in the last post, they are included here again:

Heart of Glass
Little Dieter Needs to Fly

I'm super excited for this summer's theme and I can't wait to share these films with you.  Hope to see you there!

Film Club Summer Series: Werner Herzog

Hello everyone!  I hope you're ready for a summer of great films because I, for one, can't wait.  This summer we will be exploring a few of the films of acclaimed director Werner Herzog.

Werner Herzog was born Werner Herzog Stipetic on September 5th, 1942 in Munich, Germany.  He made his first short film in 1962 at the age of 20, and his first feature length film 6 years later in 1968.  Since then has gone on to create a combination of over 63 shorts, documentaries and feature films, being nominated and winning many awards.

This series will differ in schedule a bit from last year.  Last summer we met the last three weeks of July and the last three weeks of August.  This year we will meet on the regular Film Club night as well as the following Thursday, so it will be the 3rd and 4th Thursday of each month.  This is what the schedule looks like:



6/18- Heart of Glass
6/25- Little Dieter Needs to Fly

7/16- The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
7/23- Encounters at the End of the World

8/20- Stroszek
8/27- Cave of Forgotten Dreams

(Click the title of each film to see a trailer)

We will meet at 6:15pm each night, just like regular Film Club, with a little discussion after each film.  Herzog's films are far-reaching in their themes and subjects and lend themselves easily to discussion.  Werner Herzog is one of my favorite filmmakers currently making films, and one of the few directors, whom I admire, that I have had the pleasure of meeting personally.  I hope you will join us for as many films as you can!

May Film Club

Hey everybody!  Sorry it took me so long, but I've been working on some themes for the summer.  I think I came up with some good choices but ultimately that will be up to you guys to decide.  Before we get into it, let me first send out a gigantic thank you to everyone who came out to see My Winnipeg, I wasn't sure how everyone would take it since it's a little odd, but you guys were great, and we had a really great discussion afterwards!  It shouldn't surprise me, though, because you guys are awesome!  Film Club is definitely the best program at the library because of your support, so again, a million thanks to you all.
NOW, for the month of May, I've dug up another little quirky documentary film that, while on the surface appears very simple, is actually quite deep when you dig a little...well, deeper.  We will be watching the directorial debut of the (now) famous documentary filmmaker, Errol Morris.  The film in question is Gates of Heaven.

Gates of Heaven is a 1978 documentary film by Errol Morris about the pet cemetery business.  It was made when Morris was unknown and did much to launch his career.
The film, like Morris' other works, is unnarrated and the stories are told purely through interviews.  It is divided into two main sections.  The first concerns Floyd "Mac" McClure and his lifelong quest to allow pets to have a graceful burial.  McClure's business associates and his competitor, a manager of a rendering plant, are interviewed.  The second part concerns the Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park.  This operation is run by John "Cal" Harberts and his two sons.  This business is far more successful and continues to operate today, run by Cal's son Dan Harberts.

Noted director Werner Herzog pledged that he would eat the shoe he was wearing if Morris' film on this improbable subject was completed and shown in a public theater.  When the film was released, Herzog lived up to his wager and the consumption of his footwear was made into the short film Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.  Gates of Heaven launched Morris' career and is now viewed as a classic.  In 1991, Roger Ebert named it one of the ten best films ever made, and wrote that the film was an "underground legend," and in 1997 put it in his list of The Great Movies, saying this of the film, "There are many invitations to laughter during this remarkable documentary, but what Gates of Heaven finally made me feel was an aching poignancy about its subjects.  They say you can make a great documentary about almost anything, if only you see it well enough and truly, and this film proves it.  Gates of Heaven is a documentary about pet cemeteries and their owners.  It was filmed in Southern California, so of course we immediately anticipate a sardonic look at peculiarities of the Moonbeam State.  But then Gates of Heaven grows ever so much more complicated and frightening, until at the end it is about such large issues as love, immortality, failure, and the dogged elusiveness of the American Dream.  Gates of Heaven is so rich and thought-provoking, it achieves so much while seeming to strain so little, that it stays in your mind for tantalizing days."

This was, appropriately, the first film I saw by Errol Morris and I fell in love with it.  Morris is a very skilled filmmaker with an eye for the peculiar and the unique.  I hope you can make it out to this interesting film.

We will be meeting Thursday, May 21st at 6:15pm.  Hope to see you there!

Here's an excerpt from the film, courtesy of The Criterion Collection:

http://www.criterion.com/films/28354-gates-of-heaven

April Film Club

Good April to you all!  Thank you to everyone who was able to make it out for our viewing of The Wind that Shakes the Barley, it was a good turn out and we had some new faces (huzzah!)  and we had a real good discussion following the film.  Also, isn't this spring weather great?  Except for that recent bout of snow, the horrid winter seems to have finally passed and we can enjoy life again, (another huzzah!).  For the great month of April I have decided to show one of my favorite films.  It is admittedly strange, but it is such a lovely film, I think you'll all enjoy it.  This month we are watching Guy Maddin's excellent My Winnipeg.

My Winnipeg is a 2007 film directed and written by Guy Maddin with dialogue by George Toles.  Described by Maddin as a "docu-fantasia" that melds personal history, civic tragedy, and mystical hypothesizing," the film is a surrealist mockumentary about Winnipeg, Maddin's home town.  A New York Times article described the film's unconventional take on the documentary style by noting that it "skates along an icy edge between dreams and lucidity, fact and fiction, cinema and psychotherapy."  Although ostensibly a documentary, My Winnipeg contains a series of fictional episodes and an overall story trajectory concerning the author-narrator-character "Guy Maddin" and his desire to produce a film as a way to finally leave/escape the city of Winnipeg.

The film currently holds a certified fresh rating of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes out of 82 critical reviews.  Roger Ebert awarded the film 4/4 stars saying this of Maddin's work, "If you love movies in the very sinews of your imagination, you should experience the work of Guy Maddin.  If you have never heard of him, I am not surprised.  Now you have.  A new Maddin movie doesn't play in every multiplex, city or state.  If you hear of one opening, seize the day.  Or search where obscure films can be found.  You will be plunged into the mind of a man who thinks in the images of old silent films, disreputable documentaries, movies that never were, from eras beyond comprehension.  His imagination frees the lurid possibilities of the banal.  He rewrites history; when that fails, he creates it."

This is one of my all time favorite films.  Watching it is such a joy and reminds me, every second of its duration, just why I love film so much.  Few films achieve this, and fewer directors are able to produce something that elicits that feeling in me, but Maddin is one of them, and My Winnipeg is among the very best.

I hope that you can come out and join us for this wonderful film!  We will be meeting Thursday, April 16th at 6:15pm

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56t5N_XFcxQ

March Film Club

Hello friends, thank you to all you brave souls that made it out in the bitter cold to come see (500) Days of Summer, we had a great turn out and pretty good discussion following.  For the month of March, following my usual tradition of showing a film regarding the Irish, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, I've decided to show Ken Loach's The Wind that Shakes the Barley.

The Wind that Shakes the Barley is a 2006 Irish war drama directed by Ken Loach, set during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1922) and the Irish Civil War (1922-1923).  This drama tells the fictional story of two County Cork brothers, Damien O'Donovan (Cillian Murphy) and Teddy O'Donovan (Padraic Delaney), who join the Irish Republican Army to fight for Irish independence form the United Kingdom.  It takes its title from the Robert Dwyer Joyce song "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" a song set during the 1798 rebellion in Ireland and featured early in the film.  Widely praised, the film won the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.  The film got a positive reaction from film critics.  As of January 5, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 88% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 102 reviews.

Jim Emerson, film critic and former editor for Roger Ebert, awarded the film 4/4 stars saying this of the film: "You don't have to know about the history of the "the troubles" in Northern Ireland to be swept up in the human drama of Ken Loach's "The Wind that Shakes the Barley," which won the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.  With almost tactile immediacy-you can almost smell the smoke and the wild grasses in the hills, feel the rain and the fog in your bones-this movie places you shoulder to shoulder with people who are living and dying for their country, their families, their friends and their principles."

This is very excellent, often gritty, film about some of the volatile history of Ireland.  Ken Loach crafts a moving and compelling drama and I hope you can make it out for this wonderful film!

We will be meeting Thursday, March 19th at 6:15pm.

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yvHe_ksnDA

February Film Club

Hey everybody, hope you survived the snow storm we just had!  First of all, let me thank everybody who made it out to our showing of Luis Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel, we had a good turn out and a good discussion.  If you weren't able to make it, we do offer it for rental at the library.  Now, on to business.
Now, as you all know, I am a fan of the romantic comedies, HUGE fan.  Ok, that's not true, not even slightly, but, there are a few romances that I don't find horrible.  For the month of February, we will be watching one of these movies.  This month's film club film will be Marc Webb's directorial debut: (500) Days of Summer.

(500) Days of Summer is a 2009 American romantic comedy-drama film written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, directed by Marc Webb, and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel.  The film employs a nonlinear narrative structure, with the story based upon its male protagonist and his memories of a failed relationship.  It premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and garnered critical acclaim, becoming a successful "sleeper hit".  Many critics lauded the film as one of the best from 2009 and drew comparisons to other acclaimed films such as Annie Hall and High Fidelity.  As I mentioned, the film is presented in a nonlinear narrative, as it jumps from various days within the 500-day span of Tom and Summer's relationship, indicated by an animation that includes the day's number.

The film received positive reviews from critics upon its release.  Based on over 214 professional reviews, it obtained a certified fresh seal on Rotten Tomatoes with an approval rating of 86%.  The consensus describes the film as "A clever, offbeat romantic comedy, (500) Days of Summer is refreshingly honest and utterly charming."  Film critic Roger Ebert awarded the film 4/4 stars saying this of the film, "Tom opens the film by announcing it will not be your typical love story.  Are you like me, and when you realize a movie is on autopilot you get impatient with it?  How long can the characters pretend they don't know how the story will end?  Here is a rare movie that begins by telling us how it will end and is about how the hero has no idea why."

This film is one of those rare romantic-comedies that I don't hate or find a chore to watch.  Come on out and join us for this wonderful little film.

We will be meeting Thursday, Feb. 19th at 6:15pm.  Hope to see you there!

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsD0NpFSADM

January Film Club

Hey everybody, welcome to the new year!  2015 is here and we're going to kick off this brand new year of Film Club with one of my favorite surrealist films from the ever subversive Luis Bunuel.  We will be watching his 1962 film, The Exterminating Angel.

The Exterminating Angel was written and directed by Luis Bunuel.  Following the scandal surrounding his previous film, Viridiana, Bunuel returned to Mexico to shoot another film.  This film was originally titled The Outcasts of Providence Street but was later renamed The Exterminating Angel.  It is considered by Mexican film critics as the 16th best film of the Mexican cinmea and one of the best 1,000 films by the New York Times.  

During a formal dinner party at the lavish mansion of Senor Edmundo Nobile and his wife, Lucia, the servants unaccountably leave their posts until only the major-domo is left.  After dinner the guests adjourn to the music room, where on of the women, Blanca, plays a piano sonata.  Later, when they might normally be expected to return home, the guests unaccountably remove their jackets, loosen their gowns, and settle down for the night on couches, chairs, and the floor.  By morning it is apparent that, for some inexplicable reason, they are psychologically, but not physically, trapped in the music room.  Days pass, and their plight intensifies; they become quarrelsom, hostile, and hysterical- only Dr. Carlos Conde, applying logic and reason, manages to keep his cool and guide the guests through the ordeal the best he can.

The film currently holds a 95% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert awarded the film 4/4 stars, later adding it to his list of Great Movies.  He says of the film: "Luis Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel (1962) is a macabre comedy, a mordant view of human nature that suggests we harbor savage instincts and unspeakable secrets.  Take a group of prosperous dinner guests and pen them up long enough, he suggests, and they'll turn on one another like rats in an overpopulation study."  He goes on to say about the director: "Bunuel belongs to a group of great directors who obsessively reworked the themes that haunted them.  There is little stylistically to link Ozu, Hitchcock, Herzog, Bergman, Fassbinder or Bunuel, except for this common thread: Some deep wound or hunger was imprinted on them early in life, and they worked all of their careers to heal or cherish it."

The Exterminating Angel is one of Bunuel's most provocative and unforgettable works.  I hope you can all make it out to this strange and wonderful film!

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stwZpwHyvuY