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Melbourne Cinémathèque 2020 Screenings FEBRUARY 12–26 MARCH 4–18 MELBOURNE CINÉMATHÈQUE ENING NIGH VITTORIO DE SICA: LIGHT AND SHADOW: 2020 SCREENINGS OP T CINEMA, ITALIAN STYLE THE MERCURIAL STARDOM OF MARLENE DIETRICH Presented by the Melbourne • subscription to the ACMI Member Cinémathèque and ACMI. E-news WEDNESDAY 5 FEBRUARY Vittorio De Sica (1901–1974) WEDNESDAY 12 FEBRUARY WEDNESDAY 19 FEBRUARY WEDNESDAY 26 FEBRUARY As a trendsetter who pushed the WEDNESDAY 4 MARCH • 3 x single passes to bring a friend will forever be associated with boundaries of conventional gender Curated by the Melbourne to a Cinémathèque screening any The opening night of our 2020 pro- neorealism, the movement he 6:30pm 6:30pm 6:30pm performance, and a femme fatale 6:30pm Cinémathèque. time in the calendar year gram features recent restorations of consolidated with a string of of the silver screen, Marlene BICYCLE THIEVES THE GARDEN OF TWO WOMEN DISHONORED key works by two of the towering fig- influential masterpieces detailing Dietrich’s (1901–1992) sexuality Supported by Film Victoria, the ures of post-World War II European the hardships of working-class life Vittorio De Sica (1948) THE FINZI-CONTINIS Vittorio De Sica (1960) was provocative, as was the exotic Josef von Sternberg (1931) City of Melbourne Arts Grants FILM CLASSIFICATIONS: 89 mins – PG 101 mins – M 91 mins – Unclassified 15 + cinema: Bernardo Bertolucci and immediately after World War II. Yet Vittorio De Sica (1970) “foreignness” she displayed in her Program and School of Media and Where a film is labelled “Unclassified Jacques Rivette. Both filmmakers the actor and director, across a A poetic tragicomedy and a 94 mins – M Based on Alberto Moravia’s novel, Hollywood films. Beloved for her Based on the legendary exploits of Communication, RMIT University. 15+” viewers are required to be 15 emerged as key figures in the 1960s, career spanning six decades, ranged knack of reinventing herself, Dietrich landmark of neorealism, De Sica’s De Sica’s final great film adapts this Cesare Zavattini-scripted tale Mata Hari, Sternberg’s extravagant years or older, unless accompanied each betraying and confirming their widely in his stylistic approaches and was a woman who very consciously most celebrated film follows a man Giorgio Bassani’s monumental of survival in war-torn Italy is one reimagining of his native Vienna VENUES by an adult. strong affinity with the history of 6:30pm concerns. He explored Commedia managed her career and fastidiously whose bicycle – his livelihood and novel about the years leading up of De Sica’s most celebrated later during World War I is a delirious February 5 – April 29 cinema and other art forms. This all’italiana and fabulist fantasy, and cultivated her image. In 1920s Berlin, Where a film is labelled “Unclassified THE SPIDER’S STRATAGEM only salvation in depressed postwar to the fascist destruction of the films. Cesira (Sophia Loren) and her but grounded mixture of irreverent The Capitol, 113 Swanston Street, program profiles two of their less made socially incisive romantic Dietrich acted on the stage and in 18+” viewers are required to be 18 Bernardo Bertolucci (1970) Rome – is taken by a thief, setting Jewish community of Ferrara. teenage daughter (Eleonora Brown) historicism and romantic melodrama. Melbourne widely seen but central works from comedies and frothy sex comedies. silent films, drawing wide appeal for years or older. 100 mins – Unclassified 15 + off a desperate chase through the Viewed through the prism of a are on the run, fleeing the Allied One of the director’s greatest works, this seminal period, opening with He worked in Los Angeles as well as the skills she developed as a chorus war-ravaged city. Filmed on location, single, privileged family, it’s an bombing raids throughout Europe. it features a piercingly nonchalant May 6 – December 16 Bertolucci’s appropriately labyrin- The son of a martyred anti-fascist Rome and his late work, such as the girl in vaudeville-style entertainment. Articles on many films in the program this iconic film’s simple construction elegiac swansong comparable with This fictional story was partly based performance by Dietrich as an ACMI, Federation Square, Melbourne thine and mercurial adaptation of a hero travels to a small Italian village elegiac triumph The Garden of the Her breakthrough performance as can be found in CTEQ Annotations and unadorned style belie an Visconti’s redolent masterpiece on the appalling events of May alluring sex worker and spy who short story by Jorge Luis Borges. searching for the truth behind his Finzi-Continis, successfully combines Lola Lola in The Blue Angel in 1930 on Film, online at aching emotional power and richly The Leopard. Winning an Academy 1944 in rural Lazio, during what betrays her country for love. This MELBOURNE Released within months of The father’s death, only to unravel a web neorealist principles with Hollywood brought her international acclaim, ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP www.sensesofcinema.com detailed moral ambiguity. Co-written Award for Best Foreign Language the Italians call the Marocchinate. brilliantly designed and costumed Conformist, The Spider’s Stratagem of myths, mysteries and lies. In this grandeur and technique. Born in a contract with Paramount and a Admission for 12 months from date with Cesare Zavattini, it was voted Film and the Golden Bear at Berlin, Loren’s extraordinary performance (by Travis Banton) espionage tale demonstrates both the full range of intimate, mesmeric film based on a Sora, near Rome, De Sica spent his collaborative partner, Josef von of purchase: the greatest film of all time in the it features Dominique Sanda (who won the Best Actress Oscar, the provides a lucid portrait of a woman Bertolucci’s work and his character- short story by Jorge Luis Borges and early years in Naples. His bank-clerk Sternberg, who would help define Full $173 / Concession $153 inaugural Sight & Sound critics poll had just completed The Conformist first ever for a non-English-language forced to use her sexuality in a istic preoccupation with the legacies exquisitely shot in vibrant shades father encouraged his entry into act- her persona across the seven (GST inclusive) and remains a powerful rumination for Bertolucci), Lino Capolicchio and movie. With Jean-Paul Belmondo. hostile patriarchal world. Co-stars of history, place and identity. The by Franco Di Giacomo and Vittorio ing and by the 1930s De Sica was a extraordinary features they made CINÉMATHÈQUE on cycles of oppression. Courtesy of Helmut Berger. 35mm print courtesy Courtesy of Cinecittà Luce. Victor McLaglen. exquisite recent restoration of Storaro, Bertolucci’s delicately matinee idol, with a debonair screen together including Dishonored Cinecittà Luce. of Cinecittà Luce. MINI MEMBERSHIP Rivette’s La religieuse profiles an elusive and deftly non-linear style persona akin to Cary Grant’s. He and The Scarlet Empress. Dietrich Admission to 3 consecutive nights extraordinary central performance grapples with themes of historical would continue to act his entire life, went on to star in further classic 8:15pm from date of purchase: by the late Anna Karina, while legacy, cultural inheritance and the often cheerfully taking on lightweight Hollywood films such as Desire, DESIRE Full $32 / Concession $27 Melbourne Cinémathèque Inc. also highlighting the Melbourne intersection of sex, violence and roles to fund his own films, while Angel, Destry Rides Again and A Frank Borzage (1936) (GST inclusive) ABN 59 987 473 440 2020 Cinémathèque’s overriding goal of ideology. With Alida Valli. 35mm print parlaying his acting talent into a Foreign Affair for key directors 95 mins – G Apt. 1104, Manchester Unity Building, profiling challenging works of film courtesy of Cinecittà Luce. directorial empathy with performers like Borzage, Lubitsch and Wilder. 220 Collins Street, history in optimal conditions. both professional and amateur. It was Although she still made intermittent Borzage’s elegant, streamlined FRIENDS OF CINÉMATHÈQUE Melbourne VIC 3000 while acting on a film in 1935 that movies such as Wilder’s Witness for romantic comedy in the style Admission for 12 months from date 8:25pm De Sica met screenwriter Cesare the Prosecution, Dietrich spent most of Lubitsch (who co-produced) of purchase: Website: LA RELIGIEUSE Zavattini, leading to a partnership of the 1950s to the 1970s touring translates the latter’s sophisticated Full $295 / Concession $265 SCREENINGS 8:25pm www.melbournecinematheque.org 8:10pm worldliness into a characteristically Jacques Rivette (1966) that defined not only both men’s 8:15pm the world as a marquee live-show (GST inclusive) 140 mins – Unclassified 15 + careers but also the neorealist MIRACLE IN MILAN MARRIAGE ITALIAN STYLE performer, harking back (but always soulful romanticism. Dietrich stars SHOESHINE Email: movement. Of De Sica’s 33 films, Vittorio De Sica (1964) renewed) to the early days of her as the vivacious, cultured jewel thief The Friends of Cinémathèque Rivette’s bold second feature is a Vittorio De Sica (1951) melbournecinematheque@ Zavattini worked on the scripts of 20 Vittorio De Sica (1946) 102 mins – M career. As a true icon of popular who cons a naïve automotive engi- membership is a way for you to controversial adaptation of Denis 97 mins – G westnet.com.au or so, a number of which appear in 87 mins – M culture, she remains a powerful neer (Gary Cooper) into smuggling support the vitality and continued Diderot’s late 18th-century novel One of the many films De Sica made One of the most famous Italian a necklace from France into Spain, this season. Working with Zavattini, In post-World War II Rome, two signifier in an ever-larger arena of operation of the Melbourne detailing the virtual incarceration of in collaboration with screenwriter comedies of all time stars the only for love to blossom despite Join our weekly reminder list: De Sica would direct four films that shoeshine boys become involved cultural discourses including per- Cinémathèque, an independently a young woman forced to enter a Cesare Zavattini, this Chaplinesque sizzling, irrepressible duo of Sophia their moral differences.
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