Release Date: March 13, 2009

Spring Films at the National Gallery of Art

Film still from Half Moon (Bahman Ghobadi, 2006, 35 mm, Kurdish and Persian with subtitles, 107 minutes), to be shown at the National Gallery of Art on Saturday, May 2, at 3:30 p.m. Image courtesy Strand Releasing.

Washington, DC—This spring, the National Gallery of Art's ongoing film program of classic cinema, documentary, avant-garde, and area premieres presents a number of important film series, including Saved by Anthology Film Archives, In Praise of Independents: The Flaherty, and A Short History of Color. The Gallery continues to celebrate its exhibition Looking In: Robert Frank's "The Americans" with a film series entitled By and About Robert Frank. Among notable film events are the Washington, DC, premiere of Puccini and the Girl (Puccini e la fanciulla) and Scott MacDonald's appearance in connection with the program Bruce Conner: A Tribute.

All films are shown in the East Building Auditorium. Programs are free of charge but seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis. Doors open approximately 30 minutes before each show. Programs are subject to change. For current information, visit our Web site, www.nga.gov/programs/film, or call (202) 842-6799.

Film Events

International Festival of Films on Art
Saturday, April 4, at 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 11, at 1:00 p.m.
Highlights of the renowned Montreal International Festival of Films on Art, currently in its 27th year, are screened in two installments.

On Saturday, April 4, Ellsworth Kelly: Fragments, a study of the artist's life in Paris (Edgar B. Howard and Tom Piper, 2007, 67 minutes), is followed by Achieving the Unachievable on M. C. Escher and number theorist Hendrik Lenstra (Jean Bergeron, 2007, 52 minutes); Andy Warhol: Denied, a look at the inner workings of the Warhol Art Authentication Board (Chris Rodley, 2006, 52 minutes); and Looking for an Icon, on photographs that attain time-honored status (Hans Pool and Maaik Krijgsman, 2007, 55 minutes).

On Saturday, April 11, Eileen Gray—Invitation to a Voyage looks at the career of this innovative and influential 20th-century designer (Jörg Bundschuh, 2006, 52 minutes), and Jimmy Rosenberg, the Father, the Son, and the Talent follows the life of the virtuoso guitarist known as "the new Django Reinhardt" (Jeroen Berkvens, 2006, 78 minutes).

Lecture and screening
From Giotto to Pasolini: Narrative in Fresco and Film
followed by Accattone
Sunday, April 5, at 4:00 p.m.
Art historian David Gariff discusses the life of Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) and his use of Italian medieval and Renaissance painting in his work. "What I see in my mind," said Pasolini, "are the frescoes of Giotto and Masaccio. I cannot conceive any [film] image, landscape, or composition outside the 14th century..." With its neorealist details, lowlife characters, Bach's St. Mattthew Passion on the music track, and Franco Citti's unadorned performance as Vittorio, Accattone—Pasolini's first feature—turns into a giant cinematic fresco. (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1961, 35 mm transfer to digital beta, Italian with subtitles, 120 minutes)

Bruce Conner: A Tribute
Introduction by Scott MacDonald
Sunday, April 26, at 4:30 p.m.
Iconoclastic creator of found-object assemblages and counterculture-induced 16 mm shorts, Bruce Conner (1933–2008) left a legacy that inspired the international art world for five decades. With an "astounding capacity to tie together the most disparate of media and ideas" (Bruce Jenkins), he became a collaboratator with David Byrne and Brian Eno; he also anticipated the music video. This program, organized in association with the Conner Family Trust, is introduced by film historian Scott MacDonald. Screened in original 16 mm format, the program includes Valse Triste (1979, five minutes), A Movie (1958, 12 minutes), Breakaway (five minutes), America Is Waiting (1982, four minutes), Marilyn Times Five (14 minutes), Easter Morning (2008, 10 minutes), and others. Special thanks to Jean Conner and Michelle Silva. (approximately 90 minutes total)

James Benning's RR
Saturday, May 9, at 2:30 p.m.
Avant-garde filmmaker James Benning has been recording his chronicles of the American landscape for forty years. RR, his new ode to freight trains and the vast terrain they traverse, is destined to be his final film in the handmade 16 mm format. The film's formalism belies at times "a spiritual kinship to American literature," Writes Jonathan Rosenbaum, "After one viewing, I feel I've barely scratched the surface of what seems somehow part of American literature-akin to the work of writers like Carl Sandburg, Thornton Wilder, and John Dos Passos as well as that of American painters and musicians." (James Benning, 2008, 16 mm, 110 minutes)

New Masters of European Cinema
Hunky Blues—American Dream
Washington premiere
Péter Forgács in person
Sunday, May 10, at 4:30 p.m.
Erasmus Award recipient Péter Forgács' latest film interprets the lives of ordinary Hungarians who arrived in the United States in the early 20th century. Reconstructing their history from evocative reels of home movie footage and forgotten audio recordings, Forgács creates pure poetry from these implausible sources. Following the screening, he discusses his film. Presented in association with the Hungarian Cultural Center and Extremely Hungary, a celebration of the country's contemporary arts and their impact on American culture. (Péter Forgács, 2009, HD-Cam, 75 minutes)

Monsieur Verdoux
Saturday, May 23, at 2:30 p.m.
A formerly well-off French banker resorts to finding wealthy women to marry and then murders them for their money. At first mocked by critics and movie-goers alike, Monsieur Verdoux has come into its own as one of the great black comedies of the 20th century. "As savagely funny as anything since Ben Jonson's Volpone"—Gerald Mast. (Charles Chaplin, 1947, 35 mm, 124 minutes)

Puccini and the Girl (Puccini e la fanciulla)
Washington premiere
Sunday, May 24, at 2:00 p.m.
With a color scheme akin to the palette of the Macchiaioli painters treasured by the composer and minimal dialogue to mimic the cinema of the period, Puccini and the Girl re-creates a little-known episode from Giacomo Puccini's life—ultimately a resource for his opera La fanciulla del west. (Paolo Benvenuti and Paola Baroni, 2008, 35 mm, Italian with subtitles, 84 minutes)

Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies
Washington premiere
Sunday, May 31, at 2:00 p.m.
Early cinema's intriguing and still undetermined relationship to the invention of cubism in Paris is the subject of a new documentary. Contrasting film clips with paintings to gauge the possible contact between cubism's inventors and the new movies, various artists, filmmakers, archivists, and historians offer their theories on a long-overlooked link. (Arne Glimcher, 2008, HD-Cam, 60 minutes)

The Idealist
followed by My Father's Studio
Sunday, June 21, at 4:30 p.m.
James Beveridge—documentary filmmaker extraordinaire and a cofounder of the National Film Board of Canada—was hardly known at all to his daughter Nina. The Idealist is Nina's effort to claim her father's legacy and to capture the true flavor of his remarkable life. (Nina Beveridge, 2004, digital beta, 76 minutes)

In My Father's Studio, Montreal filmmaker Jennifer Alleyn inherits her father Edmund Alleyn's painting studio. Finding herself drawn more and more into the private space of his art, she makes this film to fathom her father's psyche. (Jennifer Alleyn, 2008, Canada, 70 minutes)

Film Series

By and About Robert Frank
In association with the exhibition Looking In: Robert Frank's "The Americans," this series brings together a variety of moving image works. It includes seven of Robert Frank's recent films, three documentaries on the artist completed at different points in his career, and a program entitled "For Robert," consisting of works inspired by Frank's films and photography..

Fire in the East: A Portrait of Robert Frank
Wednesday, April 1, at 12:30 p.m.
Thursday, April 2, at 12:30 p.m.
Friday, April 3, at 12:30 p.m.
One of the earliest films to document Robert Frank's career, Fire in the East includes interviews with Allen Ginsberg, Emile de Antonio, Jonas Mekas, Rudy Wurlitzer, June Leaf, and John Szarkowski, among others. (Philip Brookman and Amy Brookman, 1986, video, 28 minutes)

Robert Frank: Recent Films
Saturdays, April 18 and 25, at 1:00 p.m.
Friends and family, the poetry and pain of existence, New York and Nova Scotia, and the artist's fixations and fascinations shape the content of Robert Frank's films. This selection includes work completed between 1996 and 2005. The Present (1996, 35 mm, 24 minutes); Flamingo (1997, digital beta, 7 minutes); I Remember (1998, digital beta, 5 minutes); Sanyu (1999, digital beta, 27 minutes); Paper Route (2002, digital beta, 23 minutes); and True Story (2004, digital beta, 26 minutes)

Leaving Home, Coming Home: Robert Frank
Gerald Fox in person
Sunday, April 19, at 4:30 p.m.
Frank's straightforward reflections on the course of his own path-breaking career as photographer and filmmaker form the core of the only feature-length documentary ever completed on his life. British director and producer Gerald Fox discusses the film following the screening. (Gerald Fox, 2005, HD-Cam, 85 minutes)

An American Journey
Wednesday, April 22, at 12:30 p.m.
Thursday, April 23, at 12:30 p.m.
Friday, April 24, at 12:30 p.m.
Following Robert Frank's footsteps fifty years after The Americans, French filmmaker Philippe Séclier retraces Frank's trip around the United States in 1955 and 1956. Using the same unplanned approach Frank pioneered, and working with a small digital camera, Séclier explores the impact of The Americans on photography and culture. (Philippe Séclier, 2008, digital beta, 60 minutes)

For Robert
Saturday, April 25, at 3:30 p.m.
A selection of poetic avant-garde works by various artists, selected for this program by independent curator Michael Shamberg in honor of Robert Frank's photography and films: Junkopia (Chris Marker, 6 minutes); New York City Weights and Measures (Jem Cohen, 6 minutes); p.s. beirut (Michael Shamberg, 7 minutes); Notes on Iceland (Melody Owen, 3 minutes); Notes of the St. Lawrence River (Melody Owen, 3 minutes); After Writing (Mary Helena Clark, 4 minutes); Monsanto (Paula Gaitán, 22 minutes); Nocturne (Avenue A, no lens) (Joel Schlemowitz, 3 minutes); Ah liberty! (Ben Rivers, 19 minutes); Summer Cannibals (Robert Frank, 4 minutes); Run (Robert Frank, 4 minutes); Playback (Pere Portabella, 8 minutes). (89 minutes total)

Saved by Anthology Film Archives
Anthology Film Archives, the New York film museum dedicated to the independent and avant-garde, was established in 1969. Jonas Mekas, Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, and Stan Brakhage were among the founders. Now known around the world for its collections and exhibitions, Anthology created the Independent Film Preservation program in the early 1970s to save works by 20th-century American experimental filmmakers such as Joseph Cornell, Maya Deren, Bruce Baillie, Jordan Belson, Paul Sharits, Stan Brakhage, and Harry Smith, to name only a few. This series samples some recent preservation by Anthology and was organized in association with archivist Andrew Lampert.

George Kuchar and Robert Downey Sr.:
A Town called Tempest
followed by Chafed Elbows
Saturday, April 11, at 3:30 p.m.
Vintage parody from the legendary George Kuchar features "the essential talents of Larry Leibowitz and his cousin from Hawaii, Zelda Kaiser. Only they could make this tale of true fanaticism come alive"—Andrew Lampert. (George Kuchar, 1963, 8 mm to 16 mm, 33 minutes)

In Chafed Elbows hapless Walter Dinsmore undergoes his annual November breakdown, impersonates a cop, has an affair with his mother, goes to heaven, and becomes a singer in a rock band—but not necessarily in that order. "A commercial success that raised the flag of the underground scene, shot with a 35 mm still camera and processed at Walgreens. . ."—Andrew Lampert. (Robert Downey Sr., 1966, 35 mm, 57 minutes)

Robert Breer: Reinventing Drawing
Sunday, April 12, at 4:30
The four-decade-long career of American animator Robert Breer has managed to encompass painting, sculpture, and filmmaking while finding new ways to construe perspective, color, and motion. Retaining his childlike spontaneity and humor in hundreds of handmade animations, Breer has inspired generations of other filmmakers. Anthology's recent restorations—this sampling includes twelve films—vividly recapture his early oeuvre: Recreation (1956, 16 mm to 35 mm, 1.5 minutes); Jamestown Balloos (1957, 16 mm to 35 mm, 6 minutes); Eyewash (1959, 16 mm to 35 mm, 3 minutes); Eyewash (different edit, 1959, 16 mm to 35 mm, 3 minutes); Blazes (1961, 16 mm to 35 mm, 3 minutes); Fist Fight (1964, 16 mm to 35 mm, 9 minutes); 66 (1966, 16 mm to 35 mm, 5.5 minutes); 69 (1969, 16 mm to 35 mm, 4.5 minutes); 70 (1970, 16 mm to 35 mm, 5 minutes); Fuji (1974, 16 mm to 35 mm, 9 minutes); 77 (1977, 16 mm to 35 mm, 6.5 minutes); and Swiss Army Knife with Rat and Pigeon (1981, 16 mm to 35 mm, 6.5 minutes). (approximately 72 minutes total)

A Mixed Bag
Saturday, April 18, at 3:30 p.m.
The final program of new preservation from Anthology is an assortment of classic avant-garde and includes Straight and Narrow (Beverly and Tony Conrad, 1970, 16 mm, sound by Terry Riley and John Cale, preserved with support from The National Film Preservation Foundation, 10 minutes); The Dream Merchant (Lawrence Jordan, 1965, 16 mm, 3 minutes); Notes on the Circus (Jonas Mekas, 1966, 16 mm, preserved with support from The National Film Preservation Foundation, 12 minutes); Film Number 11: Mirror Animations (Harry Smith, c. 1957, 16 mm to 35 mm, preserved with support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, 3:35 minutes); Nine Variations on a Dance Theme (Hilary Harris, 1966, 35 mm, 13 minutes); T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G (Paul Sharits, 1968, 16 mm, 12 minutes); and Fuses (Carolee Schneemann, 1965–1967, 16 mm, preserved with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the University of Chicago Film Studies Center, 29 minutes). (83 minutes total)

In Praise of Independents: The Flaherty
The Flaherty Seminar, an annual forum for critics, students, academics, and filmmakers focusing each year on a particular topic, is unique in American film culture. Screenings and discussions occur over an intense six days. Named for American maverick filmmaker Robert Flaherty and now in its fifty-fourth year, the most recent Flaherty was devoted to "The Age of Migration." The National Gallery salutes this unique program with a selection of films from the latest seminar.

Squiggle
followed by Lefkosía and Border
Saturday, May 2, at 2:00 p.m.
An affecting view of traditional art and architecture in Andrah Pradesh, India, Squiggle is also a personal essay on the filmmaker's long-awaited homecoming. (Oliver Husain, 2005, digital beta, 21 minutes)

Part of a triptych on the European Union's ever-expanding and increasingly militarized borders, Lefkosía records from a distance a checkpoint dividing Greek South Cyprus and Turkish North Cyprus, silently questioning the difficult conditions within this split nation. (Lonnie van Brummelen, 2005, 35 mm, silent, 14 minutes)

Near France's Sangatte Red Cross camp, Border secretly and dramatically films—at night with a small video camera—refugees who seek to reach England. (Laura Waddington, 2004, digital beta, 27 minutes)

Half Moon
Saturday, May 2, at 3:30 p.m.
In Bahman Ghobadi's compelling portrayal of a Kurdish musician and his band traveling through the Iran-Iraq border regions as they attempt to stage a concert, the comic amassing of absurdities and the "music of incredible power" (Peter Sellars) outshines even the film's rousing storyline to craft a graceful testimony to the spirit. (Bahman Ghobadi, 2006, 35 mm, Kurdish and Persian with subtitles, 107 minutes)

Colossal Youth
Sunday, May 3, at 4:00 p.m.
Tired but proud Cape Verdean laborer Ventura makes an odyssey through the ruins of his old home in Lisbon's Fontaínhas ghetto, then returns to the antiseptic neighborhood where he has relocated. As he pursues family and finds only memories, the film blurs the boundaries between fiction, documentary, and experimentation. "Scenes are united by his search, and by astonishing lighting and framing of decaying walls and rugged visages (‘as if invoking Vermeer,' said Manohla Dargis)" —Jason Sanders. (Pedro Costa, 2006, 35 mm, Portuguese with subtitles, 155 minutes)

Profils paysans: The French Farm
Magnum photographer and distinguished photojournalist Raymond Depardon (b. 1942) spent a decade documenting rural life in the France's Rhone region near Villefranche-sur-Saône. A native of the area, Depardon was familiar with its history and folkways. His resulting trilogy reflects with remarkable sensitivity the current conditions for local farm residents as well as the depth of his own rural roots.

L'approche
Saturday, May 16, at 2:00 p.m.
The first portion of Profils paysans, filmed in the south of France, invokes an urge for simplicity and natural beauty even as older farms turn into estates and agriculture into enterprise. The European Union's rules, while uprooting younger farmers and a few who have worked the land for generations, are mocked by many who wish to retain a traditional life. (Raymond Depardon, 2001, 35 mm, French with subtitles, 90 minutes)

Le quotidien
Saturday, May 16, at 4:00 p.m.
In the sequel to L'approche, subjects of the earlier film return to reveal what has happened after the passing of several years. Depardon's camera remains detached, and it becomes clear that his subjects could not survive an urban setting with its complicated etiquette and pecking order. "I make a film in strokes. It's not a case of taking on a single issue. For me, there is no message"—Raymond Depardon. (Raymond Depardon, 2005, 35 mm, French with subtitles, 80 minutes)

La vie moderne
Sunday, May 17, at 4:30
Depardon's latest film and final entry in his cycle Profils paysans is more pensive than sad as it chronicles, plainly and poetically, the disappearing French rural culture. People who still inhabit the Cévennes in the south of France seem resolved to endure despite their loneliness, modernity's unrelenting thrust, and a sense that the young people have gone. (Raymond Depardon, 2008, 35 mm, French and Occitan with subtitles, 88 minutes)

The Film Memoir
Three recent examples of film as personal narrative illustrate the vitality and variety of the "film memoir" genre. At the heart of each of these works is a hint of a common human experience. "Every man has within him the entire human condition"—Michel de Montaigne.

L'aimée
Washington premiere
Sunday, May 24, at 4:30 p.m.
Family ties and faded memories are invoked in Arnaud Desplechin's beautiful memoir about life in the town of Roubaix on the French-Belgian border. Bernard Hermann's Vertigo score, and other artfully chosen details, enhance a stirring meditation on the makeup of a complex family while revealing the milieu of one of France's most prominent young filmmakers. (Arnaud Desplechin, 2007, 35 mm, French with subtitles, 70 minutes)

My Winnipeg
Saturday, May 30, at 2:00 and 4:00 p.m.
In the midst of the capricious craziness of Guy Maddin's latest memoir, the filmmaker's much maligned Canadian hometown becomes a city of mystery and a vehicle for his own ruminations on a variety of themes, including family members and virtually all of his past movies. "For Guy Maddin, the whole world is Winnipeg"—J. Hoberman. (Guy Maddin, 2007, 35 mm, 80 minutes)

The Beaches of Agnès (Les Plages d'Agnès)
Washington premiere
Sunday, May 31, at 4:30
With their profound but whimsical storytelling, Agnès Varda's films remain the unsung gems of the French new wave. Still filming today at age 80, Varda recently completed The Beaches of Agnès, a stirring summation of her life and career. Recollections of long-ago family outings to seaside towns become the curious entry points into her extraordinary past. (Agnès Varda, 2008, 35 mm, French with subtitles, 110 minutes)

The Film Novels of Karel Vachek
The director of the documentary department at Prague's legendary FAMU (film school of the Academy of Performing Arts), Karel Vachek has created one of the most original bodies of work in the history of Czech cinema. His film novels—enormous in scope, ambition, and duration—are improvisational and intuitive but also highly structured and philosophical. Hand-held cameras relentlessly prowl, eavesdropping on politicians at ribbon-cuttings and plunging headlong into heated discussions, recording the absurdities at ceremonies even as the voluble director acts as agent provocateur in his own interviews with seers, pundits, crackpots, and passersby. Following twenty years of manual labor from 1968 on, Vachek returned to film in the wake of the Velvet Revolution and proceeded to produce this enormous four-part kaleidoscope of the Czech Republic, post-freedom.

New Hyperion or Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
Saturday, June 6, at 1:30 p.m.
On the eve of Czechoslovakia's first free parliamentary elections and a papal visit, party leaders, actors, heads of state, philosophers, and union bosses look forward and back, as President Václav Havel and philosopher Ivan Sviták propose sharply differing political views in parallel. (1992, 35 mm, Czech, English, French with subtitles, 207 minutes with intermission)

What Is to Be Done? (A Journey from Prague to Český Krumlov, or How I Formed a New Government)
Saturday, June 13, at 1:30 p.m.
Vachek visits an ailing Ivan Sviták, then takes two busloads of talkative, opinionated artists and scholars on a trek to the newly designated UNESCO World Heritage Site, Český Krumlov. They view a golden coach in a church, night pageants on torch-lit river rafts, and a variety of party leaders—a portrait of the new Czech Republic post the Slovakian split. (1996, 35 mm, Czech, English, French with subtitles, 216 minutes with intermission)

Bohemia Docta or the Labyrinth of the World and the Lust-House of the Heart (A Divine Comedy)
Saturday, June 20, at 1:30 p.m.
Working from an unrealized screenplay of the 1970s and ideas of the seventeenth-century historian Bohuslav Balbín, Vachek introduces, at irregular intervals, Bohemian castles, various kinds of Czech mushrooms, a lost procommunist opera, and the rock group Plastic People of the Universe. "The entire movie is one great Dadaist poem"—Monika Valentová. (2000, 35 mm, Czech, English, French with subtitles, 254 minutes with intermission)

Who Will Watch the Watchman? Dalibor, or The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin
Saturday, June 27, at 1:30 p.m.
As the camera wanders over, around, and through Prague's lavish National Theater, director J. A. Pitínský coaches singers through a rehearsal of Smetana's tragic opera Dalibor. Intercut with the tale of the 15th-century knight who, imprisoned, refused to name names, Vachek interviews, on the plush red velvet seats of the empty theater, a whole series of latter-day rebels. (2002, 35 mm, English and Czech with subtitles, 242 minutes with intermission)

A Short History of Color
From its beginnings in the late 19th century, the cinema has relied on color to carry its message. Dozens of technical processes have, with varying degrees of success, enhanced the viewer's experience. While black-and-white has its place in cinematic history, the conventions of color—yellow for outdoors, purple for early evening, blue for the sea, and amber for fire, to name but a few—have been a constant. This series includes three illustrated talks on color's attributes, technologies, and transformations during the first half of the 20th century as well as a selection of examples.

Film Color before 1928
Discussion by Charles O'Brien
Sunday, June 7, at 2:00
The prominence today of color technique in filmmaking and film criticism is stimulating new inquiry into color history. Charles O'Brien, professor of film studies at Concordia University in Montreal, describes the situation prior to 1928 with a focus on color practices such as tinting and toning and the innovative dye-color stencil systems developed by Pathé Frères. He also outlines ways in which this reliance on manipulating the image anticipates aspects of today's digital color technology. A selection of short films follows, including Fireworks, A Little Jules Verne, Metamorphoses, and The Witches Cave by Pathé; several hand-painted shorts by George Méliès; and a restored print of The Londale Operator from 1911 by D. W. Griffith. (approximately 95 minutes total)

Technicolor on Location: Unreality in the Great Outdoors
Lecture by David Pierce
Sunday, June 14, at 2:00 p.m.
Archivist and historian David Pierce discusses the early history of Technicolor, the most widespread process for color film production during the 1930s and 1940s. Since the company generally preferred the controlled conditions of the studio, the huge camera and crew required for plein-air cinematography left location shooting as the exception, not the rule. Filmmakers often ventured out-of-doors, however, and the following films show a range of attempts to provide views of nature in support of an overall aesthetic, culminating in a sophisticated melding of color, design, music, sound, and performance by master filmmaker Michael Powell.

Follow Thru
Sunday, June 14, at 3:00 p.m.
Of the all-color musicals produced during the earliest years of sound technology, this adaptation of the Broadway play includes the best combination of cast (Nancy Carroll and Buddy Rogers), music (the DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson hit Button Up Your Overcoat), and pure folly. Preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive from the original two-color Technicolor negative held by the Library of
Congress. (Lloyd Corrigan and Buddy Schwab, 1930, 35 mm, 92 minutes)

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
Preceded by Service with a Smile
Sunday, June 14, at 5:00 p.m.
The very first time Technicolor was used in outdoor locations was for this saga of two feuding families, set in the Appalachians and based on a popular romantic novel by John Fox. The stellar cast includes Sylvia Sidney, Fred MacMurray, and Henry Fonda. (Henry Hathaway, 1936, 35 mm, 102 minutes) Service with a Smile supplies a side-splitting romp with ex-Ziegfeld star Leon Errol, owner of a gas station with one petrol pump. (Roy Mack, 1934, 35 mm, 17 minutes)

Can't Help Singing
Preceded by La Cucaracha
Introduction by David Pierce
Sunday, June 21, at 2:00 p.m.
Rich senator's daughter Deanna Durbin, determined to catch California-bound cavalry officer David Bruce, cajoles card shark Robert Paige to carry her west in his wagon. Bolstered by Jerome Kern's music, dramatic location shooting in Utah, and a glorious Technicolor palette, Can't Help Singing was the only color vehicle for the hugely popular Durbin. (Frank Ryan, 1944, 35 mm, print from UCLA Film and Television Archive, 90 minutes)

The characters of La Cucaracha, the first live-action short in three-strip Technicolor, are every bit as intense as the film's hues. From UCLA with preservation funded by The Film Foundation. (Lloyd Corrigan, 1934, 35 mm, 21 minutes)

Gone to Earth
Sunday, June 28, at 4:00 p.m.
A rarely seen gem from the team of Powell and Pressburger, Gone to Earth was filmed on location in rural Shropshire, England. Colorful stock characters and a sophisticated melding of color, design, music, and sound shape an extraordinary experience. This restored print of the original version represents one of the British cinema's major achievements. (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1950, 35 mm, 110 minutes)

General Information

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