NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART SUMMER 09 FILM PROGRAM 4th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC Mailing address 2000B South Club Drive, Landover, MD 20785 SALUTE TO LE FROM VAULT TO CARL THEODOR ALAIN RESNAIS: GEORGE C. STONEY: FESTIVAL DES SCREEN: NEW FROM NOVEL DREYER: THE THE ELOQUENCE AMERICAN 3 CONTINENTS PRESERVATION TO SCREEN LATE WORKS OF MEMORY DOCUMENTARIAN Manhatta Last at Year Marienbad The Gaucho calendar page cover page four page three page two page one Last at Year Marienbad (Bruce Man with a Movie Camera Manhatta Last at Year Marienbad Pandora and the Flying Dutchman ( P details from SUMMER09 hotofest), P osner), (Bruce ( P Mélo Muriel hotofest), Antonio das Mortes P osner) ( ( P P ( hotofest) hotofest), ( P hotofest), (nostalgia) P ( hotofest) P hotofest) Vampyr ( Vampyr ( ( H P ollis Frampton), hotofest) P ( hotofest), P hotofest), ( P hotofest) El Perro Negro: Stories from the Spanish Civil War preceded by Guernica Sunday September 27 at 4:30 Film Events Media artist Péter Forgács has assembled this unparalleled collage of footage from the Spanish Civil War using the home movies of two talented amateurs, Joan Salvans and Ernesto Diaz Noriega. An extraordinary view of contempo- Stanley William Hayter: rary Spain during the chaotic 1930s, El Perro Negro: Stories from the Spanish From Surrealism to Abstraction Civil War was created for Forgács’ ongoing personal chronicles of twentieth- Sunday July 5 at 2:00 century European history. (Péter Forgács, 2005, HD-Cam, 84 minutes) Guernica combines motifs from Picasso’s epic painting with Paul Éluard’s Three archival films on the British painter and printmaker are featured in poetic text on the besieged Spanish town. (Alain Resnais and Robert Hessens, association with the exhibition Stanley William Hayter: From Surrealism to 1950, 35 mm, 13 minutes) Abstraction. The first,A New Way of Gravure (Jess Paley, 1950, 12 minutes), shows the artist at work in Atelier 17; the second, The Other Side of the Mirror (Julian Hayter, 1976, 30 minutes), is a documentary by the artist’s son; and the third is Stanley William Hayter: The Artist as Teacher (Ohio State University, 1970, 12 minutes). (54 minutes total) Salute to Le Festival Visible Silence: Marsden Hartley, Painter and Poet Introduction by Michael Maglaras des 3 Continents Saturday July 11 at 1:00 A new film essay on the American modernist from Lewiston, Maine — whose Le Festival des 3 Continents, held annually since 1979 in Nantes, France, peripatetic life, personal tragedy, and original style have made him a topic of presents a distinctive selection of new fiction, documentary, and classic endless fascination — is discussed by the filmmaker Michael Maglaras. (2008, art cinema from Africa, Asia, and South America to critics, filmmakers, digital beta, 65 minutes) and scholars from around the world. Devoted to raising awareness of important and interesting production outside the mainstream, F3C was Man with a Movie Camera the first festival to endorse, for example, China’s Hou Hsiao-hsien and Alloy Orchestra on stage Iran’s Abbas Kiarostami. The National Gallery is pleased to join the Freer Saturday August 1 at 3:30 Gallery of Art and the Embassy of France in saluting this vital forum on its thirtieth anniversary. Seven Latin American films from past festivals The Alloy Orchestra returns to the National Gallery to perform its stirring will be shown at the Gallery, African films at the Embassy of France, original score for Vertov’s legendary silent masterpiece, an avant-garde por- and Asian films at the Freer Gallery. trayal of urban life, work, and leisure in Soviet cities that ultimately advanced the arc of experimental filmmaking. (Dziga Vertov, 1929, 35 mm, silent with Acts of Men (Atos dos Homens) live music, 70 minutes) followed by Antonio das Mortes Introduction by critic Jean-Philippe Tessé Saturday July 4 at 3:00 North of Rio de Janeiro, the towns of Brazil’s coastal Baixada Fluminense are notorious for vigilantism, “clean-up campaigns” that have been running wild for nearly a half-century. As Acts of Men tours the once picturesque Baixada, the filmmakers find remnants of recent attacks, fearful relatives of former victims (speaking in off-camera interviews), and evidence of police participa- tion in the general mayhem. (Kiko Goifman, 2006, 35 mm, Portuguese with subtitles, 76 minutes) Retelling a legend in verse and song, Antonio das Mortes — mainstay of Brazil’s famed Cinema Nôvo — remains a tour de force of experimentation filmed in the scorchedsertão . A mercenary killer of peasant rebel-bandits (cangaceiros), Antonio is slowly and steadily lured to the peasant cause. Restored print courtesy of the Rocha family. (Glauber Rocha, 1968, 35 mm, Portuguese with live subtitles, 96 minutes) Silvia Prieto Introduction by critic Jean-Philippe Tessé Sunday July 5 at 4:30 Léon Morin, Priest Sunday September 6 at 4:30 A star of the new Argentine cinema, Martín Rejtman reveals an affection for vintage Hollywood comedy in Silvia Prieto, his delightfully deadpan, absurd- New Wave forebear and auteur maudit Jean-Pierre Melville accepted an offer ist portrayal of life among the younger set in Buenos Aires. Silvia (Rosario to adapt Béatrix Beck’s Prix Goncourt-winning novel Léon Morin, prêtre, a Blefari), dissatisfied with her daily routine, decides on her twenty-seventh book Melville considered “the most accurate picture of the French under the birthday to change her lifestyle, with near ruinous results. “Rejtman gives the Occupation.” A young widow (Emmanuelle Riva), relocated to a provincial manic comedy of Lubitsch and Hawks a dose of quaaludes and gin” — Jason town, experiences a spiritual turn toward God and her handsome confessor, Sanders. (Martín Rejtman, 1999, 35 mm, Spanish with subtitles, 92 minutes) the village priest (Jean-Paul Belmondo). “Maximum emotional and metaphysi- cal toughness to inveigle the most skeptical of observers into acknowledging the operation of divine grace” — Chris Petit. (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1961, 35 mm, French with subtitles, 114 minutes) one They Don’t Wear Black Tie (Eles Não Usam Black-Tie) The Raven Sunday July 12 at 4:30 followed by La Chute de la maison Usher Philip Carli on piano In a colorful working-class quarter in São Paulo, Tião and Maria, faithful lov- Saturday July 18 at 1:00 ers and friends, find their respective families, caught in webs of poverty and factory strikes, are at odds with their forthcoming marriage. Basing his film on Vignettes from Edgar Allen Poe’s life and from his popular love poem a 1960s play by Gianfrancesco Guarnieri, Leon Hirszman’s brilliant direction The Raven compose this early screen adaptation. Surviving in a rare 28 mm earned him a special jury prize in Cannes and a Golden Lion in Venice. print (28 mm was used for amateur filmmaking at the time), it was recently (Leon Hirszman, 1981, 35 mm, Portuguese with live subtitles, 130 minutes) preserved on 35 mm by George Eastman House, with funding provided by Saving America’s Treasures. (Charles Brabin, 1915, 35 mm, silent, 57 minutes) The Realm of Fortune (El imperio de la fortuna) La Chute de la maison Usher is French avant-gardist Jean Epstein’s mix Saturday July 18 at 4:00 of motifs from several Edgar Allen Poe tales. “My general impression [of his work],” said Epstein. The film’s spare beauty, dramatic lighting, and interest- Juan Rulfo’s short story El gallo de oro was the source for Arturo Ripstein’s ing effects make up for the outré tweaking of Poe’s texts. Luis Buñuel coau- resplendent tale of a poor Mexican peasant who sets out with one injured thored the screenplay. (Jean Epstein, 1928, 35 mm, silent, 63 minutes) gamecock to find his fortune in village gambling and cockfighting.El imperio de la fortuna was, in part, an homage to Luis Buñuel’s work in Mexico. (Arturo ‘A Santanotte Ripstein, 1985, 35 mm, Spanish with subtitles, 130 minutes) Saturday July 25 at 1:00 A Week Alone (Una semana solos) ‘A Santanotte is a beautiful example of the Neapolitan film genresceneggiata preceded by A Stain in the Water (“scenes with songs”), based on theatrical forms (café chantant, dialect the- Sunday July 19 at 4:30 ater) and inspired by popular songs. Italy’s first woman director, Elvira Notari, shot the film on location in Naples’ working-class neighborhoods. A record- Argentine director Célina Murga and her group of largely adolescent actors ing of the great tenor Fernando De Lucia (c. 1922) performing ‘A Santanotte shape a spare yet gripping portrait of life within a fashionable gated commu- (well known at the time) accompanies the film. (Elvira Notari for Dora Film, nity. While parents are away, the children take charge, behaving more or less 1922, 35 mm, silent with Italian intertitles translated live, 62 minutes) as they please. Oddly, no one even tries to run away. In this condition of conformity, a stranger joins them. “A contemporary, if less urgent, version The Cigarette Girl from Mosselprom of Lord of the Flies” — Gustavus Kundahl. (Célina Murga, 2008, 35 mm, Andrew Simpson on piano Spanish with subtitles, 110 minutes) Saturday July 25 at 3:30 The short A Stain in the Water (Una mancha en el agua) records the direc- tor’s experience with the mighty Paraná River. (Pablo Romano, 2005, digital Cigarette seller Zina from a state-run Mosselprom shop attracts the atten- video, 20 minutes) tion of three men — bookkeeper Nikodim, cameraman Latugin, and Oliver MacBride, an American in Moscow on business. This satire of city life, mock- ing everything from movie-making to interaction between the sexes, was one of the most successful of all Soviet silents. “A bourgeois comedy,” noted some contemporary critics. Preserved by La Cinémathèque de Toulouse.