FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Joyce Linehan for ArtsEmerson, 617-282-2510, [email protected]

ArtsEmerson: The World on Stage PRESENTS SEPTEMBER FILM PROGRAMMING

High resolution photos available on request Screeners are generally available on request for premieres.

(BOSTON) ArtsEmerson: The World on Stage begins its season of adventurous, independent and repertory films with a Dave Kehr-curated series including pre-Code films; Light Reading , an avant-garde showcase; and a celluloid tribute to John Malkovich, who appears live on stage in ArtsEmerson’s presentation of The Infernal Comedy at the Cutler Majestic Sept. 29 and 30. Films are screened at Emerson College’s Paramount Center (559 Washington St., Boston), in the Bright Family Screening Room. Tickets are $10, or $7.50 for members, and are available in advance at www.ArtsEmerson.org, or by calling 617-824-8400. Discounted tickets for seniors are $7.50, and $5 for all students with valid ID and children under 18. Discounted tickets are available in person at the Box Office only. For more information visit www.ArtsEmerson.org .

SEPTEMBER SCHEDULE

September 16 – 18 Movies Matter

When Movies Mattered: Reviews from a Transformative Decade , film critic Dave Kehr’s anthology of reviews written from 1974 and 1986 commemorates a period of passionately energetic film criticism and culture. Three decades later, Kehr continues to enlighten, unearthing films and directors lost in the gaps of both film appreciation and film history, and writing about them in his weekly DVD column in the New York Times ; “Further Research,” a new column launched in Film Comment ; and his blog. Movies Matter , a weekend celebrating the cultural value of movies and inspired by Kehr’s recently published book, features four films selected by Kehr, and the esteemed scholar will be on hand for the Sept. 16 screenings and book signing after Me and My Gal .

Raoul Walsh Before the Code—Friday Special Event Pricing: Two Films for $15! New York Times Film Critic Dave Kehr in Person!

Friday, Sept. 16, 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17, 2 p.m. Me and My Gal – New 35mm print! Directed by Raoul Walsh With , , Marion Burns U.S. 1932, 35mm, color, 79 minutes

Tracy and Bennett play a waterfront cop and his hash-slinging girlfriend in this raucous, working- class comedy. What plot there is centers on the gangster boyfriend who puts the pressure on Bennett’s sister (Burns), a bank employee, to facilitate a heist. But mostly the movie is a wonderfully casual series of gags and off-hand observations, filmed in a style that embraces both Walsh’s deep-focus realism and a surprising proto-modernism. ------

Friday, Sept. 16, 8:15 p.m. Sunday September 18, 2 p.m. Sailor’s Luck – New 35mm print! Directed by Raoul Walsh With James Dunn, Sally Eilers, Victor Jory U.S. 1933, 35mm, color, 64 minutes

Walsh followed Me and My Gal with this even more inventive and audacious comedy, which features Fox’s leading star couple of the moment, James Dunn and Sally Eilers. He’s a sailor on shore leave; she’s an unemployed looker trying to get a job as a lifeguard, even though she can’t swim. It’s love—which, in Walsh’s world, always carries a powerful current of sexuality—at first sight, but first the couple has to overcome a number of comic misunderstandings and scrapes. ------

Saturday Sept. 17, 6:30 p.m. The Driver Directed by Walter Hill With Ryan O’Neal, Bruce Dern, Isabelle Adjani U.S. 1978, 35mm, color, 91 minutes

The most intriguing entry among Kehr’s reviews in the “New Hollywood” section of When Movies Mattered , The Driver is a neo-noir chase film set in a lifeless downtown Los Angeles. The pursuer is a manipulative and manic cop (Dern); the (O’Neal) is a professional getaway driver, a man for whom “the act of driving is his entire existence” (Kehr). Nearly one third of the film’s screen time is comprised of car chases, described by Kehr as virtuoso sequences—“studies of motion through time.” ------

Saturday Sept. 17, 8:30 p.m. The American Friend (Der amerikanische Freund) Directed by Wim Wenders With Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz, Lisa Kreuzer West Germany/France 1977, 35mm, color, 127 minutes German, French and English with English subtitles

In his 1978 review of The American Friend , Kehr posits Wenders as the “quietest talent” among the German New Wave filmmakers. An adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Ripley’s Game , The American Friend is as “enjoyable a thriller as it is moving and accomplished as a work of art” (Kehr). Its story hinges on the chance meeting of two men—underworld criminal Ripley (Hopper) and family man and craftsman Zimmerman (Ganz)—whose relationship forms around shared murder.

Malkovich’s Moving Types On the occasion of John Malkovich’s appearance on the ArtsEmerson stage in The Infernal Comedy , three of the actor’s notable screen performances are highlighted. Deviations from the popular imagination’s conception of typical Malkovich casting (menacing, often dangerous characters), these critically acclaimed films demonstrate Malkovich’s excellence embodying intelligent, non-sinister roles as well as his varied collaborations with directors in the U.S. and around the globe, within both Hollywood and the more rarefied world of European art cinema.

“I don't think I'm easy to type. I don't want to be typed." –John Malkovich

Friday Sept. 23, 6 p.m. Sunday Sept. 25, 2 p.m. The Killing Fields Directed by Roland Joffé With John Malkovich, Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor UK 1984, 35mm, color, 141 minutes

Winner of three Academy Awards, The Killing Fields is a dramatic rendering of New York Times journalist Sydney Schanberg’s remarkable memoir about his experiences in Cambodia during its civil war, and his friendship with a Cambodian man who struggled to survive once the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh. Malkovich, who plays famed American photojournalist Al Rockoff, won acclaim for his performance, including the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor. ------

Friday Sept. 23, 8:45 p.m. Saturday Sept. 24, 6 p.m. A Talking Picture (Um filme falado) Directed by Manoel de Oliveira With Leonor Silveira, John Malkovich, Catherine Deneuve Portugal 2003, 35mm, color, 96 minutes

Set in July 2001, as a history professor (Silveira) and her daughter embark in Lisbon on a cruise with stops at the places that fill the historian’s imagination, from Pompeii to the pyramids at Giza. On ship a trio of 20 th century goddesses—Delphine (Deneuve), Aphrodite (Stefania Sandrelli), and Helena (Irene Papas)—dine with ship captain John Malkovich, sharing fin-de- siècle regrets in a film sailing in seas darkened by Oliveira’s fin-du-monde mood. (Adapted from Pacific Film Archive notes) ------

Saturday Sept. 24, 2 p.m. Empire of the Sun Directed by Steven Spielberg With John Malkovich, Christian Bale, Miranda Richardson U.S. 1987, 35mm, color, 152 minutes

Spielberg’s adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s coming of age novel follows Jim Graham (13 year old Bale), a British boy caught in the upheaval of the 1941 Japanese invasion of Shanghai. Separated from his family and later taken as a prisoner of war—along with Basie (Malkovich), an American sailor who has befriended him—Jim finds in a Japanese internment camp a substitute for his lost home even as he witnesses violence and brutality that strip him of his childhood innocence. ------

Sunday Sept. 25, 6 p.m. Being John Malkovich Directed by Spike Jonze With John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, John Malkovich U.S. 1999, 35mm, color, 112 minutes

The film that unforgettably and inventively articulates Malkovich’s mysterious allure. A secret portal on the 7 ½ floor of a Manhattan office building—a magical transporter into the very being of John Malkovich. “Why Malkovich? Perhaps because, in his brainy-balding, downtown- anonymous way, he himself possesses a kind of virtual mystique; he's like an ordinary guy who has taken on the existence of a star” (Owen Gleiberman).

Saturday Sept. 24, 8:15 Radical Light: Stories Untold U.S. 1968-1999, 16mm and video, color, 99 minutes Film Curator Kathy Geritz in Person

The satiric, sensual, and striking stories in this program represent some of the ways in which the tale can commingle with the telling to produce oddly original offspring. Featuring films by George Kuchar, James Broughton, Curt McDowell and Anne McGuire. Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area was curated by Kathy Geritz and Steve Seid (Pacific Film Archive) and Steve Anker (California Institute of the Arts). The tour is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol and the William H. Donner Foundations.

Emerson Presents—Film Historian Eric Schaefer in Person Friday Sept. 30, 6 p.m. Scum of the Earth Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis With William Kerwin, Allison Louise Downe, Lawrence J. Aberwood U.S. 1963, 35mm, black and white, 73 min.

I was fortunate enough to call exploitation producer David F. Friedman (1923-2011) a friend and mentor for almost 25 years. The self-proclaimed “Mighty Monarch of the Exploitation Film World,” Friedman was a pioneer in the field throughout his long career. For Scum of the Earth he teamed with director Herschell Gordon Lewis for a cautionary tale about a college-bound girl drawn into the “dirty pictures” racket. –Eric Schaefer, author of Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959

Emerson Presents! is a monthly program celebrating the work of Emerson’s vibrant Visual and Media Arts Faculty.

About ArtsEmerson ArtsEmerson is the organization established by Emerson College to program the Paramount Paramount Mainstage, Cutler Majestic Theatre and other venues at Emerson’s Paramount Center. The inaugural season includes over 100 performances of 18 different productions, including world premieres, Boston debuts and works being developed in the new facilities created by Emerson College. ArtsEmerson, under the artistic leadership of Rob Orchard, will give Boston audiences a new level of cultural choice, bringing professional American and international work to its four distinct venues: the beautifully restored 590-seat Paramount Mainstage; the versatile, intimate Jackie Liebergott Black Box Theatre (“The Jackie”), which can seat up to 150 people; the state-of the art 170-seat Bright Family Screening Room (all located within the new Paramount Center a cornerstone in the revitalization of downtown Boston); and the beloved, historic 1,186-seat Cutler Majestic Theatre in the heart of the Theatre District, fully restored by Emerson in 2003. For more information, visit www.artsemerson.org .

About Emerson College Located in Boston, Massachusetts, opposite the historic Boston Common and in the heart of the city’s Theatre District, Emerson is the only four-year private college in the United States devoted to teaching communication and the arts in a liberal arts context. The College has 3,453 undergraduates and 837 graduate students from across the United States and 50 countries. Supported by state-of-the-art facilities and a renowned faculty, students participate in more than 60 student organizations and performance groups, 14 NCAA teams, student publications, honor societies, television stations including the Emerson Channel, and WERS-FM, the nation’s highest rated student-run radio station. Emerson is internationally known for its study and internship programs in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., the Netherlands, China, and the Czech Republic. For more information, visit www.emerson.edu .

-30- On sale now at ArtsEmerson: September 13–25, 2011, HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH: OUR VALUES IN QUESTION , Jackie Liebergott Black Box, Paramount Center September 17, 2011 CONCERT: Why? , Paramount Center Mainstage September 24, 2011, CONCERT: Girls, Paramount Center Mainstage September 27–October 2, 2011, Laurie Anderson’s DELUSION – Boston Premiere, Paramount Center Mainstage September 29 and 30, 2011, THE INFERNAL COMEDY starring John Malkovich, Cutler Majestic Theatre October 12—16, 2011, THE SPEAKER’S PROGRESS, Sulayman Al-Bassam Theatre, Paramount Center Mainstage October 25—30, 2011, YOU BETTER SIT DOWN: TALES FROM MY PARENTS’ DIVORCE, Paramount Center Mainstage November 1—6, 2011, MABOU MINES DOLLHOUSE, Cutler Majestic Theatre November 7—12, 2011, MOBY DICK, Jackie Liebergott Black Box, Paramount Center November 15—20, 2011, ANGEL REAPERS – A Shaker musical, Cutler Majestic Theatre January 20—29, 2012, SUGAR – World Premiere, Jackie Liebergott Black Box, Paramount Center February 7 —12, 2012, 69˚S.– (The Shackleton Adventure), Paramount Center Mainstage February 29 —March 4, 2012, CIRCA, Paramount Center Mainstage March 13—18, 2012, AMERIVILLE, Paramount Center Mainstage March 24—April 1, 2012, THE ANDERSEN PROJECT – Robert Lepage, Cutler Majestic Theatre March 29—April 1, 2012, TOMÁŠ KUBÍNEK: CERTIFIED LUNATIC & MASTER OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, Paramount Center Mainstage April 13—22, 2012, CAFÉ VARIATIONS , Cutler Majestic Theatre

For a complete list of film programming in the Bright Family Screening Center, visit http://bit.ly/aecinema