Thu., January 29
The Man with a Movie Camera Dziga Vertov, born Denis
Abramovich Kaufman, was one of the leading Russian film theorists of
the early-20th century. His concept of “Kino Pravda” (cinematic truth)
was never more compellingly illustrated than in this 1929 masterpiece,
a documentary in name only, that takes us into the whirring, frenetic
workings of a composite city (filmed in Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa) where
a lone cameraman is shown dodging traffic and capturing reality. The
parade of images is intensely, gorgeously stimulating, filled with
elaborate tracking shots, double exposures, freeze-frames, and other
extravagant uses of film language (67 min). Lecture by Jean-Pierre
Gorin. Judith Rosenberg on piano. Preceded by a short: À
propos de Nice (27 min., 1930). (PFA, 7:30)
Friday, January 30
One Man’s War A pastiche of “quotations” from Ernst Junger’s
“Parisian Diaries” on the Nazi occupation of Paris, French newsreel
footage, so-called Aryan music by Hans Pfiltzner and Richard Strauss
along with so-called degenerate music by Arnold Schonberg and Franz
Schreker, et al, all add up to a frightening picture of war and the
lies we devise to evade its abnormal reality. Written and directed by
Edgardo Cozarinski. With the voice of Niels Arestrup (105 min., 1981).
(PFA, 7:30)
Sat., January 31
Thunderbolt A rarely seen, early sound film by Josef von
Sternberg about a gangster and a bank clerk in love with the same girl,
and the dire consequences for all (92 min., 1929). (PFA, 4:00)
Letter to Jane: An Investigation of a Still A product of the
then recently formed French Dziga Vertov film collective, led by
Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, which deconstructs a notorious
news photograph of Jane Fonda surrounded by Vietnamese communists in
Hanoi (52 min., 1972). Preceded by a short: LBJ (20 min., 1968).
(PFA, 6:00)
Everything for Sale A tribute to the late Polish actor
Zbigniew Cybulski (regarded as the Polish James Dean), who was killed
in a freak accident in 1967. Director Andrzej Wajda weaves fact and
fiction in this film-within-a-film that is highlighted by interviews
with the actor’s wife and other associates. Daniel Olbrychski stars in
the title role (97 min., 1968). (PFA, 8:30)
Sun., February 1
The Blue Angel Adapted from a Heinrich Mann novel, Josef von
Sternberg’s film traces the downfall of an authoritarian high school
teacher (Emil Jannings) who falls in love with nightclub singer Lola
Lola of the ambiguous half-smile (Marlene Dietrich in the role that
launched her career). Dietrich’s sulking sexuality dominates the movie,
which otherwise is steeped in the thick Germanic expressionistic
atmosphere of the era (108 min., 1930). (PFA, 2:00)
Shoot the Messenger A well-meaning black Briton struggles
with issue of identity and race in this bold and dynamic BBC film from
director Ngozi Onwurah (100 min., 2006). (PFA, 4:45)
Tuesday, February 3
A Diary for Timothy English director Humphrey Jennings’ most
accomplished and arguably greatest film is a portrait of the
battle-weary home front in 1944 and 1945 (40 min., 1945). Followed by
The Passerby, a 1995 Donald McWilliams film about a man who
finds a full suitcase abandoned by the side of road (58 min.). (PFA,
7:30)
Wed., February 4
I Was Born, But … Yasujiro Ozu, the consummate Japanese
formalist (Late Spring, Tokyo Story), made this light,
understated comedy — about middle-class mores and the problem
children have understanding their parents’ often absurdly comic
behavior — in 1932, just as he was beginning to develop the acute
social consciousness that would result in his solemn masterpieces of
the late ’40s and early ’50s. A sympathetic, perceptive study of family
relations — Ozu’s perennial subject (92 min., 1932). (PFA,
3:00)
Man of Marble Andrzej Wajda’s heroine, Agnieszka, is smart,
sarcastic, talented, and thoroughly contemporary and striking in her
blue jeans and her head-held-high gait as she stalks the subject of her
student documentary film — Mateusz Birkut, a bricklayer who in
the 1950s was elevated to the rank of national hero because of his
speed in laying bricks. At that time his portrait appeared everywhere
— in papers, on wall posters, in news films — but now he’s
dropped completely from sight and nobody in the government will talk to
him. Her film — and Wajda’s by extension — thus becomes a
comparative study of Stalinist Poland and non-Stalinist Poland, as well
as a fascinating analysis of the insidious nature of film, not just its
ability to create and nurture mass illusions, but also its central role
in the state’s program for the manufacture of a hallucinatory social
reality (153 min., 1977). (PFA, 7:00)
Palestine Is Still the Issue John Pilger’s 2002 film with the
same name as one he made in 1974 argues that though Palestinians are
still unjustly stateless and humiliated, they’ve begun to rise up
against their occupiers. (Humanist Hall, Oakland, 7:30)
