To-do: Week starting Thursday 3rd February: Kurosawa, Breillat, Orson Welles, Francis Ford Coppola
Week starting Thursday 3rd February
Apocalypse Now: Redux, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam war epic, is screening on Thursday at the Astor.
ACMI is screening Bluebeard from French director Catherine Breillat on Sunday. Though well known for such sexual provocations as 1999’s Romance, this film is for the most part a traditional telling of the traditional fairytale. Breillat’s authorial interventions (the deliberately artificial aesthetic, the film’s framing device) are subtle and take a little work to make sense of. Conall called this film Breillat’s “sexiest, smartest and most subversive film”.
Also on Sunday, the Astor is screening a Busby Berkeley double feature in the afternoon: 1933’s Gold Diggers of 1933 and 42nd Street. In the evening, they are screening two classic noirs: Orson Welles‘ 1948 The Lady From Shanghai and Charles Vidor’s 1946 Gilda. Both films star Rita Hayworth.
On Monday, the Astor screens the cult favourite Withnail and I (1987) along with 1973’s Jimi Hendrix, a documentary of the legendary guitarist.
Wednesday is the Melbourne Cinematheque’s opening night for 2011. They are screening Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai from 1954. Do I really need to sell this one?
