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HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE (THEATRE ONE)
2:30PM
SATELLITES AND METEORITES
Directed by Rick Larkin. With Adam Fergus, Amy Huberman.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 84 min
Rick Larkin’s debut feature is a quirky and inventive love story set in the imagination of two coma patients, Daniel (Adam Fergus) and Lucinda (Amy Huberman). Confined to separate rooms and cut off from the outside world, the pair inhabits a subconscious dream world wherein they meet, court and fall in love. But their newfound love is threatened by the very doctors who try to revive them. Despite its many leaps of fancy, Satellites and Meteorites stays firmly grounded in the realities of human emotion and the joys and agonies of love and romance. Inventively scripted and genuinely disarming, the film features fine performances from Fergus and Huberman as the film’s somnambulant lovers.
Plays with:
FRANKIE
Directed by Darren Thorton.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 12 min.
Frankie is 15 and preparing for fatherhood. He is determined that he is going to be the best dad ever, but as his day goes on, he starts to realize how impossible this will be for him. Frankie is a funny and perceptive look at teenage fatherhood.
5:00PM
AT HOME WITH THE CLEARYS
BIFF AWARD WINNER: BEST DOCUMENTARY
Directed by Alison Millar.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 72 min.
Buried under concrete and controversy on the outskirts of Dublin lie the remains of Ireland’s ‘pop star priest’ - Father Michael Cleary, a beloved public figure who posthumously revealed to have fathered a child with his live-in housemaid. In 1991 student filmmaker Alison Millar moved into his house and started filming him. Fifteen years on, using her unseen archive, Millar revisits the secret life of a man who fooled her, his family and the entire nation. At Home With the Clearys paints a compelling picture of Father Cleary, his lover Phyllis Hamilton, and their son Ross who continues to grapple with the scandal’s devastating fallout. But the film’s concerns run deeper, probing the wider ramifications of the event and its impact on the character and reputation of the Irish Catholic Church. We are proud to award At Home With the Clearys this year’s Best Documentary Award.
7:00PM
ANTON
Directed by Graham Cantwell. With Anthony Fox, Gerard McSorley.
Ireland 2008, 35mm, color, 93 min.
Director Graham Cantwell and Producer Patrick Clarke in Person!
When Anton O’Neill (Anthony Fox) returns home after five years at sea, he finds that 1970’s Ireland is a radically different place to the one he left behind. Northern Ireland is in flames, and civil unrest has spilled south of the border to his beloved home in County Cavan. Anton’s attempts to create a life for himself and his young family are violently interrupted when his experience with explosives attracts the attention of dangerous subversives. Drawn into this illicit world against the wishes of his family, he is forced to choose between the woman he loves and the justice he believes in, all the while trying to stay one step ahead of Lynch (Gerard McSorley), a corrupt detective hell bent on framing him. Working from an engrossing script by lead actor Fox, director Graham Cantwell rarely lets the tension ease, building the drama to a fine and satisfying conclusion.
Plays with:
LOWLAND FELL
Directed by Michael Kinirons. With Jane McGrath, Conor Horgan.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 21 min.
This lush, erotically charged drama follows the exploits of three teenagers who uncover a midlands bog body on a late summer’s day. Beautifully shot and crafted, the film captures the elemental, pagan, and tumultuous nature of teenage sexuality.
9:00PM
KINGS
Directed by Tom Collins. With Colm Meaney, Brendan Conroy, Donal O’Kelly.
Ireland 2007, 35mm, color, 88 min.
Irish with English subtitles.
Fresh-faced and ambitious, a close-knit team of six young men sailed away from Ireland in 1977 with dreams of a better life. Thirty years later, they reunite at the wake after one of them suddenly dies. Hardened by years of disappointment and drink, they quickly realize that their bonds of friendship have weakened, provoking regret, jealousy and tension. As they reveal their guilty feelings about their dead friend and their past, they are confronted with the bitter reality of their lives - and the appalling truth of their friend’s death. Adapting Jimmy Murphy’s play “Kings of the Kilburn High Road,” director Tom Collins offers a powerful and wrenching study of the Irish abroad. Starring Colm Meaney, Brendan Conroy and Donal O’Kelly. Winner of 5 Irish Film and Television Awards.
Plays with:
MARTIN
Directed by Seán Branigan.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 18 min.
A dark, violent character study of an aggressive man fighting his inner demons until his bright 15-year-old daughter becomes a glimmer of hope in an otherwise worthless life.
NOVEMBER 15 (SATURDAY) HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE (THEATRE TWO)
12:00PM
KENNEDY’S CADETS
Directed by Geraldine Hefferman.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 52 min. Irish with English subtitles.
In November 1963, 26 young Irish Cadets, at Jackie Kennedy’s request, were flown to Washington to perform a guard of honor at John F Kennedy’s gravesite in Arlington. For this group of 18 and 19 year-olds from Ireland, it was the duty of a lifetime, one they have never forgotten. Kennedy’s Cadets revisits this important moment in Irish-American history and returns to Kennedy’s gravesite in Arlington with several members of the original Irish Cadets, now all in their late 60s.
Plays with:
AN TROID FHUILTEACH | A BLOODY CANVAS
Directed by Andrew Gallimore. Ireland 2007, video, color, 54 min. Irish with English subtitles.
On St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin, 1923, a Senegalese heavyweight champion and a journeyman boxer from Claire met in the ring for the most bizarre world championship fight in boxing history. Set against the backdrop of the Irish Civil War, the fight was a sensation attracting the attention of the world’s sporting press. But the story behind it, and its impact on the newly formed Irish Free State, is more fascinating still. An Troid Fuilteach revisits this unknown chapter in Irish history, recapturing the excitement and political turmoil that underscored it.
2:00PM
RUA | RED
Directed by Mary Crumlish.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 55 min. Irish with English subtitles.
Rua takes an in-depth look at the history and culture of red hair and its threatened disappearance from the world’s gene pool. In doing so it celebrates the rare and magical nature of a characteristic that is often seen as a distasteful attribute best hidden or colored over. The documentary interweaves interviews with medical and cultural commentators with lively accounts of ordinary people giving their views and experiences of being red haired today. A rich collection of sources from archive footage, paintings, poems and other artistic representations of the subject illustrate the film’s themes.
Plays with:
CHIPPERS
Directed by Nino Tropiano.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 52 min.
Chippers tells the story of Dublin’s well-established community of four thousand Italians who have owned chip shops in the city since the early 1900’s. Five different families tell their stories and offer insight into the experience of how a small community has preserved their cultural identity and link with their country of origin, while at the same time seamlessly assimilating into their host country. Chippers is a nostalgic, melancholic and at times funny portrait of the early struggle and integration of this unique community.
4:00PM
GET COLLINS
Directed by Steve Carson.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 55 min.
This stylized documentary creatively blends dramatizations and interviews to uncover the intelligence war waged by guerilla fighter Michael Collins during Ireland’s struggle for independence against the British Empire. In reality, it was murky struggle of deception, betrayal and assassination but it played a crucial role in the winning of Irish independence. Get Collins is a bold and invigorating document of those times and of the people who gave birth to the modern Irish nation.
Plays with:
BREAKOUT
Directed by Brendan Byrne.
United Kingdom 2008, video, color 59 min.
Breakout tells the fascinating story of the 1983 Maze Prison escape, the most audacious prison break since Colditz and the biggest ever in Irish history. In total 38 prisoners escaped from the Maze and many were subsequently recaptured. But the event proved a propaganda triumph for the IRA and an embarrassment to British officials and Maze prison staff. Featuring interviews with the men who planned and executed it and for the first time, a prison officer, Breakout uses a wealth of footage from the period to recreate the conditions of the prisoners and the political climate that underscored their daring escape.
6:00PM
DAMBÉ - THE MALI PROJECT
Directed by Dearbhla Glynn.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 93 min.
Dearbhla Glynn’s arresting documentary is musical journey through modern day Africa and a portrait of traveling players Liam O’Maonlai and Paddy Keenan. In 2006 O’Maonlai and Keenan teamed up to travel to a number of music events in Mali culminating in a unique performance at the world’s most remote music festival “Festival au Desert.” Glynn’s camera traced their odyssey, taking in the sites and cultures along the way. The result is a vibrant celebration of the power of music to cross borders and unite people everywhere. The Irish Independent: “Engrossing, visually rich and surprisingly moving.”
8:00PM
RONNIE DREW TRIBUTE
One of Ireland’s finest musicians, Ronnie Drew passed away earlier this year after a long battle with cancer. We offer the following program in tribute to the man who for many had become the voice of Dublin.
RONNIE DREW: SEPTEMBER SONG
Directed by Sinead O’Brien. With Bono, Billy Connolly, Damien Dempsey.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 49 min.
An affectionate and intimate portrait of Dublin’s best loved singing legend, September Song traces the life and career of Ronnie Drew from his childhood upbringing in Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin through the formation of his revolutionary folk band The Dubliners in 1962 and the subsequent decades spent as one of the country’s most important and influential folk singers. Few artists have managed to capture the charm and the grit of Dublin as Ronnie Drew and September Song is a fitting tribute to the city’s great balladeer.
Plays with:
O’DONOGHUE’S OPERA
Directed by Kevin Sheldon. With Ronnie Drew, The Dubliners.
Ireland 1965, video, black and white, 37 min.
Starring the inimitable Ronnie Drew alongside his fellow band members in The Dubliners, O’Donoghue’s Opera is a hilarious freewheelin’ comic opera (and Ireland’s first musical film) which has gone largely unseen since its debut at the height of the Irish folk revival in the mid-1960s. Based on the ballad ‘The Night That Larry Was Stretched’, sung by a young Johnny Moynihan, Drew finds himself caught in a hangman’s noose as a reward for his dubious career as ‘the best burglar in all Ireland’. This tongue-in-cheek film has the flavor of an Irish Spaghetti Western and captures the spirit of Dublin camaraderie like no other work before or since: the Guinness, the music, the wit and the grit, it’s all there in abundance. |
Rua, screens at 2pm at the Harvard Film Archive.
At Home With The Clearys, 2008 Best Documentary Award winner, screens at 5pm at the Harvard Film Archive.
Anton, screens at 7pm at Harvard Film Archive.
Kings, screens at 9pm at Harvard Film Archive. |
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HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE (THEATRE ONE)
2:00PM
32A
Directed by Marion Quinn. With Aidan Quinn, Orla Brady, Ailish McCarthy.
Ireland, 2007, 35mm, color 90 min.
Set in northside Dublin in 1979, Marion Quinn’s heart-warming debut film centers on 13-year-old Maeve Brennan and her trio of friends Ruth, Orla and Claire. As the girls enter young womanhood the world about them begins to change and with it their friendship. The innocent Maeve develops a fascination with bras and becomes smitten with a 16-year-old boy. And while her friends attempt to educate her in the ways of boys and dating, reality has its own lessons and as the year winds to a close it is an older and wiser Maeve who faces the yawning possibilities of adulthood. A warm and nostalgic coming-of-age film, 32A won the 2007 Best First Film Award at the Galway Film Fleadh and features (2007) Excellent Award honoree Aidan Quinn as Maeve’s stern but loving father.
Plays with:
JANEY MARY
Directed by Paul Brady.
Ireland 2008, video, b&w, 20 min.
Based on an original short story by author James Plunkett, Janey Mary tells the heartfelt tale of a five-year-old girl in 1940’s Dublin, who is sent out by her mother onto the cold winter streets to beg for food.
4:30PM
SHORTS PROGRAM
SPACEMAN THREE
Directed by Hugh O’Connor.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 10 min.
When a veteran astro-geologist withdraws from a vital rock-collecting mission, only one person can replace him - his Irish research assistant, played with typical comic aplomb by Irish comedian Pat Shortt.
AN RANGER
Directed by PJ Dillon.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 10 min.
Ireland 1854. A soldier returns after serving abroad for 20 years to find his family dead from famine.
WHATEVER TURNS YOU ON
Directed by Declan Cassidy.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 4 min.
A suspicious security man, a nervous shop assistant and a homeless man on a mission are the protagonists in this comic but poignant film.
TIME PASSING
Directed by Robert Manson.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 10 min.
A story about two men in a hospital bedroom. The window acts as the only portal to the outside world, becoming a great commodity to one and the subject of jealousy for the other.
RAGE
Directed by John Corcoran.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 9 min.
A young woman battles with flashbacks of her childhood as she awaits news that may change her life forever.
THE DOOR
Directed by Juanita Wilson.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 18 min.
A father’s desperate attempt to come to terms with the devastating affects of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster provides the context for this moving examination of human dignity in the face of unimaginable tragedy.
ATLANTIC
Directed by Conor Ferguson.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 4 min.
A poignant and atmospheric tale of a lonely farmer passing his days, oblivious to the letter that’s on its way to him from the woman he once loved - a letter that could change his life.
FOIREANN CODLADH
Directed by Danann Breathnach.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 15 min. Irish with English subtitles.
A young businessman retires to a sleepy village, having purchased the cottage of his dreams. Once installed, however, he finds he can get no sleep - and suspects the villagers may be trying to retire him altogether.
TART
Directed by Mairtin de Barra.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 12 min.
Director Mairtin de Barra in Person!
In a modern day nursing home, Sean sits, having lost the capability to speak, trying to live in his memories. An unusual and tragic story of love, life and memory.
DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE
Directed by Luke McManus.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 11 min.
What happens when a face on the street triggers memories of past encounters? Danger High Voltage is the story of two very different people whose paths intertwine at Ireland’s Electric Picnic music festival.
OF BEST INTENTIONS
Directed by Jessica Bermingham.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 14 min.
The film follows the story of five individuals who set out with noble intentions only to find themselves reeking havoc in the lives of others.
7:00PM
THE BUSKER
Directed by Stephen Croke. With Alex Alexander, Ayla Bareau, Liam O’Maonlai.
US 2008, 35mm, color, 87 min.
Writer/Director Stephen Croke in Person!
After the tragic death of his father, Seamus, a young violinist from Boston, falls for Ruby a free-spirited African-American girl. Their developing relationship is threatened by the racial tension that surrounds them as well as Seamus’ dream of pursing music in London. Writer/director Stephen Croke sensitively portrays the drama of young love with honesty and great charm and draws winning performances from his two young leads, Alex Alexander as Seamus and Ayla Bareau as Ruby. Featuring the music of the Hothouse Flowers, Luka Bloom, Kila and others. The Boston Irish Reporter: “an amazing achievement . . . the film abounds in memory invoking imagery . . . complemented by a moving soundtrack.”
Plays with:
DING DONG DENNY’S HISTORY OF IRELAND
Directed by Cathal Gaffney.
Ireland 2007, video, color, 5 min.
A tourist walks into a Dublin pub looking for directions and encounters Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly at the bar who insists on telling him the ‘real’ history of Ireland over a number of pints. Another winning animated short from the Brown Bag Films studios in Dublin.
HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE (THEATRE TWO)
2:30PM
JOHN HENRY FOLEY: SCULPTOR OF THE EMPIRE
Directed by Sé Merry Doyle.
Ireland 2008, video, color 55 min.
This is the story of the famous Dublin-born 19th Century sculptor John Henry Foley, responsible for the Daniel O’Connell Monument in Dublin. He went against the grain with his fellow Irish men and undertook projects like the Albert Memorial Hall in London and a host of Imperialist works in India. Foley’s art suffered because of his association with the empire, particularly after Ireland and India gained their independence. From renowned documentary filmmaker Sé Merry Doyle, Sculptor of the Empire examines the question of what do we do with art when it no longer reflects the political attitudes of the day.
Plays with:
LIBERTY HALL
Directed by Paddy Cahill.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 24 min.
Director Paddy Cahill explores the history and significance of the building of Liberty Hall situated along Eden Quay in Dublin. Despite being the city’s tallest building, and certainly one of its most iconic, Liberty Hall nonetheless remains an underrated and often ignored feat of architecture - a fact which Cahill explores and seeks to redress in this fascinating and insightful documentary.
4:00PM
SHORT DOCS PROGRAM
CEOLCHUAIRT: NUA EABHRAC | THE IRISH HOOFER
Directed by Paddy Hayes.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 25 min. Irish with English subtitles.
Producer Laura Ní Cheallaigh in Person!
Conamara sean-nós dancer, Seosamh Ó Neachtain heads to the boroughs of New York City as he attempts to explore the links between tap and sean-nós dancing before taking on New York’s finest tap exponent in a historical ‘dance off’ in the heart of Times Square.
AN TÓSTAL
Directed by Mikey Ó Flatharta.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 27 min. Irish with English subtitles.
In 1955 Beartla Darba, Pádraig Darba and Réamonn Jimmy won the All Ireland Rowing Championship known as “An Tóstal”. Remarkably all of them were under eighteen at the time and had beaten all the best of teams from all over Ireland. 52 years later they reunite and re-live that fateful date back in 1955.
NEAD AN DREOILÍN | THE WREN’S NEST
Directed by James Kelly.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 25 min. Irish with English subtitles.
This unique and beautifully crafted collection of short films from filmmaker James Kelly explores the poetry of six living Irish language poets. A fresh and innovative piece of work, these films present poetry to the viewer in a way that is at once powerful and poignant. Image and sound are richly interwoven, as beautifully shot contemporary footage combines with carefully chosen archive footage, to lyrically and poetically reflect the themes explored in each of the poems.
6:00PM
STRIAPACHA | HOOKERS
Directed by Virginia Gilbert.
Ireland 2008, video, color, 113 min. Irish with English subtitles.
This three-part documentary series explores the history of prostitution in Ireland from the 18th century to the present day. Interweaving historical footage with the first hand stories of women involved in prostitution - from famed Madams like Mrs Leeson or Bella Cohen to the women who were known as the Wrens of the Curragh - Striapacha is a lively and provocative documentary that sheds light on the nature of Irish society, and asks why, in twenty-first century Ireland, we have still not managed to tackle the realities of the sex trade. All three episodes - “Enlightened Vice,” “Poor, Unfortunate Girl,” and “The Pleasure Chest” - are shown here in their entirety. Please note that owing to the subject matter Striapacha features material of a highly sexual and explicit nature.
10:00PM | JURYS HOTEL BOSTON
RECEPTION [Free to Public]
Join us back at Jurys Hotel Boston (350 Stuart Street, Boston) to relax and unwind. Its been a long weekend - but there’s still more to come! |
32A, screens at 2pm at the Harvard Film Archive.
The Busker, screens at 7pm at the Harvard Film Archive. |
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HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE (THEATRE ONE)
7:00PM
AN EVENING WITH JOHN BOORMAN
THE GENERAL
Directed by John Boorman. With Brendan Gleeson, Adrian Dunbar.
UK 1998, 35mm, black & white, 124 min.
John Boorman’s career-long fascination with ambivalent or ambiguous protagonists reaches an apogee in the veritable antihero of The General, a character closely modeled on real-life Dublin gangster Martin Cahill, who in the 1980s managed to run afoul not just of the law but also the Catholic Church and the IRA. (Boorman himself had a run-in with Cahill, who burgled the director’s house, stealing the “Gold Record” for Deliverance’s “Dueling Banjos.”) In marked contrast to the large-scale canvases of Hope and Glory or The Emerald Forest, The General’s sober black-and-white cinematography marked a return to the simplicity of Boorman’s early BBC documentaries and the unadorned force of Point Blank. Yet the film is also a pointed examination of Dublin in the 1990s - wracked by drugs and gangland crime, on the verge of an economic upswing, and steadily loosing contact with its parochial inner-city communal spirit.
Followed by:
2008 EXCELLENCE AWARD CEREMONY
Join us for a special celebration of the career of John Boorman before the 2008 Excellence Award honoree joins us on stage to accept his award and answer questions from the audience. The evening’s line-up will include a career overview, with clips from select films presented by Festival Director Peter Flynn.
BRATTLE THEATRE
10PM
POINT BLANK
Directed by John Boorman. With Lee Marvin, Angie Dickenson, John Vernon.
US 1967, 35mm, color, 92 min.
Lee Marvin is Walker, a tough, if principled, gunman who is betrayed by his partner Reese (John Vernon) after a successful heist. Reese leaves Walker for dead (shot several times in an empty cell in Alcatraz prison) and escapes with Walker’s beautiful wife Lynne (Sharon Acker). Walker, of course does not die, and sets out to avenge his betrayal and reclaim his rightful piece of the monetary pie. A taut, tense and stylish noir thriller, Boorman’s American film debut is an electrifying take on the Hollywood gangster film and boasts a powerful performance from one of its greatest postwar stars, Lee Marvin. Also plays Saturday, Nov. 22, at 12pm at the Brattle Theatre. |
John Boorman |
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HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE (THEATRE ONE)
7:00PM
HELL IN THE PACIFIC
Directed by John Boorman. With Lee Marvin, Toshirô Mifune.
US 1968, 35mm, color, 103 min.
John Boorman in Person!
One of the most inspired casting decisions of 20th century cinema pairs Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune as a United States Marine and a Japanese officer stranded together on a deserted Pacific island during World War II. The initial hostility and distrust brought on by the soldiers’ unwillingness and inability to communicate eventually gives way to a fragile, tense relationship forged by their struggle to survive the harsh conditions of the island. For Boorman’s second film with Marvin after Point Blank, the actors and director drew on Marvin’s own hellish experiences in the Pacific War. The typically Boormanian trial by fire undergone by Marvin and Mifune gives way to a reflective variation on the war film, that eschews combat for deeper inner and inter-personal conflicts.
Followed by:
TWO NUDES BATHING
Directed by John Boorman. With John Hurt, Charley Boorman, Angeline Ball.
UK 1995, 35mm, color, 35 min.
The painting “Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters” which hangs in the Louvre Museum, is the enigmatic inspiration for John Boorman’s sprightly excursion into erotica. The painting famously depicts two women naked in a bath, one provocatively fingering a nipple of the other. In Boorman’s allegory about the liberatory power of art, a handsome young painter introduces two sisters to the pleasures of the flesh in defiance of their tyrannical father.
BRATTLE THEATRE
10PM
ZARDOZ
Directed by John Boorman. With Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling.
USA 1974, 35mm, color, 105 min.
John Boorman’s foray into science fiction stands today as one of the most unique and audacious entries in the genre - a bewilderingly imaginative blend of Jungian mythology, fairy tale motifs and striking visuals all corralled into a complex (some might say mind-blending) meditation on institutionalized religion and imperialism. Set in the far future, the story concerns a utopian society populated by the Eternals, a race of humans who have achieved immortality and who play God with the savage inhabitants of the so-called Outlands. Foremost among these Outland barbarians is Zed (Sean Connery), a violent warrior who infiltrates the world of the Eternals and brings about their downfall. Boorman has rarely been so daring and the result a true cult classic - in the very best sense of the word. Also plays Monday, Nov. 23, at 9:30pm at the Brattle Theatre. |
Zardoz, screens at 10pm at the Brattle Threatre and again at 9:30pm on Monday, 24 at the Brattle. |
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HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE (THEATRE ONE)
3:00PM
HOPE AND GLORY
Directed by John Boorman. With Sebastian Rice-Edwards, Sarah Miles.
UK 1987, 35mm, color, 113 min.
Many of Boorman’s best works center around a protagonist whose placid existence is suddenly transformed by a strange and violent eruption from the outside world. In Hope and Glory, it is Bill, a nine year-old living in London, whose life is upturned and intensified by the brutality of the 1940-41 Blitz. As the grownups worry, the adolescents flirt and fall in love, and the children rejoice in the freedom afforded by the disruptions of the bombing. The film is perhaps Boorman’s most classical, linking streamlined storytelling at its most entertaining to the director’s fascination with the anarchic side of human nature that is both troubling and cathartic.
7:00PM
DELIVERANCE
Directed by John Boorman. With John Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty.
US 1972, 35mm, color, 110 min.
One of the high points of the 1970s “New Hollywood,” Deliverance was a hugely influential critical and commercial success. Boorman’s classic film lays bare two key Seventies preoccupations-anxiety about the environment and uncertainty about the meaning and worth of masculinity-into a brilliantly brooding existential horror story about a group of four middle aged Atlanta men whose weekend canoe trip in the woods turns into a fight for their lives. While a faithful adaptation of the riveting novel by poet James Dickey, who also wrote the screenplay, Deliverance is also an important extension of the critique of violence central to key Boorman films such as Point Break and Hell in the Pacific.
9:15PM
CATCH US IF YOU CAN (AKA HAVING A WILD WEEKEND)
Directed by John Boorman. With Dave Clark, Barbara Ferris, Lenny Davidson.
UK 1965, 35mm, black & white, 91 min.
Conceived by the Dave Clark Five as an answer to the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, Catch Us If You Can is both an expression of the spirit of Swinging London in the 1960s and a prescient critique of its inevitable commodification. The story tells of a famous young model (Barbara Ferris, in a part designed for Marianne Faithfull) who flees the set of a television commercial with a stuntman. Their subsequent road trip in a white Jaguar leads to encounters with beatniks, military training exercises and a costume ball, all the while being chased by henchmen from the ad agency. The film’s style blends New Wave playfulness with the analytic coolness that underpins much of Boorman’s work. “We drew a portrait of a shallow, materialistic society, controlled and manipulated by advertising where youth was a commodity. It was a bleak picture, but expressed as comedy.”-J.B.
BRATTLE THEATRE
9:30PM
EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC
Directed by John Boorman. With Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Max Von Sydow.
USA 1977, 35mm, color, 118 min.
Set four years after the events of the first film, The Heretic centers on Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton) has been summoned by the church to investigate the exorcism of young Regan (played once again by Linda Blair). Lamont must first travel to Africa to uncover the true identity of the demon before returning to Regan who once again is beginning to show signs of possession. Unfairly criticized on its initial release, The Heretic today proves a tantalizing and highly original take on the original film’s mythos, trading graphic gross-out horror for baroque musings on faith, religion and the transformative power of redemption. Rarely has a horror film looked this beautiful. |
Deliverance, screens at 7pm at the Harvard Film Archive. |
From the land of award winning film “Once” comes the the 10th Annual Magners Irish Film Festival running from Thursday, Nov. 13 to Monday, Nov. 24. The festival will screen close to 50 features, documentaries and short films. Included in the program are this year’s BIFF Award Winners: BEST FILM: Eden; BEST DOCUMENTARY: At Home With The Clearys; BEST SHORT FICTION: The Basket Case; and DIRECTOR’S CHOICE: Vox Humana (notes for a small opera). The 2008 Excellence Award honoree is John Boorman.
Eden, 2008 Best Film Award winner.
Vox Humana (notes for a small opera), 2008 Director’s Choice Award winner
Excalibur
