Hyde Park this fall will again be the epicenter of the most diverse film programming in Chicago. Post-Nouvelle Vage Godard sits alongside the hardboiled noir of John Garfield and Robert Ryan; the mean streets of 70s American Cinema next to the meaner bedrooms/campgrounds of 70s American horror; early Hollywood films starring, directed or scripted by women flank a survey of jazz music in films and films about jazz music.
Standard histories of Hollywood often overlook the great contribution made by powerful women in the positions of directors, screenwriters and actor-auteurs. The Women of Early Hollywood: Writers, Directors, Stars features rare pictures with stars like Lillian Gish (The Wind), Clara Bow (Mantrap), Greta Garbo (The Kiss), Mary Pickford (Sparrows), and showcases outstanding and unrecognized work from some of the best women screenwriters of the day: Marian Fremont (Griffiths True Heart Susie), Agnes Christie Johnson (King Vidors The Patsy), Anita Loos (Wild and Woolly), as well as work by women-directors, like The Blot (Lois Weber), Speed Limit (Alice Guy Blache), The Red Kimono (Dorothy Davenport) and Her Defiance (Cleo Madison). This series presents a compelling argument for the place of women writers, directors and stars in the early Hollywood canon.
The second part of Docs Jean-Luc Godard retrospective offers a generous sampling of his work post-Weekend. His stints as dogmatic Maoist, aesthete (as part of the Dziga Vertov group) and video artist will be explored. This series will give Chicagoans a chance to appraise his aesthetic and political development, and to view rare and controversial works from Sympathy for the Devil (certainly the only concert film of the Rolling Stones to include political murder and Marxist rants) to Godards self-conscious masterpiece about filmmaking, 1982s Passion. The super-rare 1990 film, Nouvelle Vage will be screened in Chicago for the first time in at least a decade. As a special treat, each screening will be accompanied by rare DVD screenings of video shorts, many unavailable in any format in North America.
The 1970s in America were a ripe time for horror. This genre doesnt get nearly the amount of respect it deserves, and hasnt gotten much respect from Doc lately. But Revisiting the American Nightmare will rectify all that. Films with taglines that just drag you to the theater (Deadbed the bed that eats) mix with frightening favorites, William Friedkins The Exorcist and John Carpenters Halloween. The modern gore that audiences flock to today (Saw, Hostel, etc.) wouldnt be the same without these lovably terrifying flicks. As a special treat, Halloween will screen twice on its eponymous night, with a costume contest at the midnight screening.
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