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The Great Transition:
World Cinema in the 1960s

Lecturer: Jonathan Rosenbaum

From Jan. 25 through May 7, we offer a series of fourteen programs entitled The Great Transition: World Cinema in the 1960s, with weekly lecture/discussions by Jonathan Rosenbaum, internationally renowned film critic for the Chicago Reader and author of numerous books including Discovering Orson Welles. The series is made possible in part through the sponsorship of American Airlines, the Film Center’s Educational Underwriter, and is presented in cooperation with the School of the Art Institute’s Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism. Additional screenings of the films on Friday do not include Jonathan Rosenbaum’s lecture. Admission to all Great Transition programs is $4 for Film Center members; usual admission prices apply for non-members.

-- Martin Rubin

In between Italian neorealism and the European new waves, one can find a ferment of creativity in many different cinemas around the world. This two-part series investigates the phenomenon in all its complexity and diversity. In Part Two, devoted to the 1960s, emphasis will be placed on the new waves of France, Great Britain, and Africa, as exemplified by such films as Alphaville, The Knack, and Black Girl. Also included will be Hollywood and American independent films that showed the influence of those new waves, including Shadows, The Hustler, and The Connection, as well as films by old masters such as Ingmar Bergman, Luis Buñuel, and John Ford.

-- Jonathan Rosenbaum

BLACK GIRL
(LA NOIRE DE...)
1966, Ousmane Sembene, Senegal, 65 min.
With Mbissine Thérèse Diop, Anne-Marie Jelinck

A scathing treatment of the myth of decolonization, Sembene’s first feature is widely considered the founding work of African cinema. Diouna, a Senegalese maid taken to the Riviera by her French employers, discovers that, outside of Africa, she lacks status, dignity, and even identity--she is no longer Diouna, but her employer’s “black girl.” In French with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)

Friday, February 29, 6:15 pm
Wednesday, March 5, 6:00 pm

Restored print!
THE CONNECTION
1961, Shirley Clarke, USA, 110 min.
With Warren Finnerty, Carl Lee

New Wave, cinema verité, the Beat movement, jazz improv, and postmodern reflexivity all come together in Clarke’s groundbreaking film, recently restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. A group of junkies agree to let a documentary cameraman film them in a Manhattan loft while they wait for their pusher to arrive. THE CONNECTION--Preservation funded by The Film Foundation. 35mm archival print courtesy of Lewis Allen Productions. (MR)

Wednesday, March 12, 6:00 pm

W.R.: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM
1971, Dusan Makavejev, Yugoslavia, 85 min.
With Milena Dravic, Ivica Vidovic

“An insanely brilliant comedy.”--Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Boldly mixing fiction and documentary, pornography and politics, this key work of the 1960s starts out as a documentary on radical psychotherapist Wilhelm Reich, but its collage aesthetic expands to include Stalinist propaganda, a bizarre romance between a sexy Yugoslavian party-liner and a Russian ice skater, and sketches of NY scenesters such as Jackie Curtis, Tuli Kupferberg, and plaster-caster Nancy Godfrey. In English and Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)

Wednesday, March 19, 6:00 pm

MR. FREEDOM
1969, William Klein, France, 95 min.
With Delphine Seyrig, John Abbey

Called “conceivably the most anti-American movie ever made” (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader), this high-Pop political cartoon by expatriate photographer Klein centers on an all-American superhero (Abbey) who is sent to France to prevent a communist takeover. The cast includes Donald Pleasance, Serge Gainsbourg, Philippe Noiret, Yves Montand, and Sami Frey as Jesus Christ. In English and French with English subtitles. 35mm print courtesy of the Walker Art Center and William Klein. (MR)

Wednesday, March 26, 6:00 pm

THE KNACK . . .AND HOW TO GET IT
1965, Richard Lester, U.K., 84 min.
With Rita Tushingham, Michael Crawford

Lester capitalized on the success of A HARD DAY’S NIGHT to take his slice-and-dice, neo-screwball style to new extremes in this kaleidoscopic sex farce that won the Grand Prize at Cannes. Based on a play by Ann Jellicoe, the story concerns a self-styled Don Juan (Ray Brooks) who tutors his naïve roommate (Crawford) in the fine art of ladykilling, with a fresh-from-the-boonies bird (Tushingham) as his graduation project. 35mm. (MR)

Wednesday, April 2, 6:00 pm

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Upcoming films in The Great Transition:

April 4 and 9
VIRIDIANA
1961, Luis Buñuel, Spain, 90 min.
With Silvia Pinal, Fernando Rey

April 11 and 16
THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE
1962, John Ford, USA, 123 min.
With John Wayne, James Stewart

April 18 and 25
THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT
1967, Jacques Demy, France, 125 min.
With Catherine Deneuve, Gene Kelly

May 2 and 7
PLAY TIME
1967, Jacques Tati, France, 124 min.
With Jacques Tati

Schedule subject to change; please check our Gazette or website.