The official blog of Laemmle Theatres
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz-nl5uXO7Y
Michael York and Richard Chamberlain will participate in a Q&A moderated by LA Film Critics Association President Stephen Farber following the 40th anniversary screening of THE FOUR MUSKETEERS on Tuesday, 9/29 at the Laemmle Royal in West LA.
Purchase your tickets in advance here. For more information about our Anniversary Classics series, visit http://www.laemmle.com/ac.
The gripping historical drama LABYRINTH OF LIES [Im Labyrinth des Schweigens], Germany’s official submission for the 2016 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, opens in Frankfurt in 1958. Nobody wants to look back to the time of the Hitler’s National Socialist regime. Young public prosecutor Johann Radmann comes across some documents that help initiate a trial against some members of the SS who served in Auschwitz. But both the horrors of the past and others’ hostility towards his work bring Johann close to a meltdown. It is nearly impossible for him to find his way through this maze; everybody seems to have been involved or guilty.
LABYRINTH OF LIES director/co-screenwriter Giulio Ricciarelli said this about his film: “I wanted to tell a story about personal courage, of fighting for what is right and taking a stand. And it is a story of redemption. In Frankfurt in 1963 Germans put Germans on trial for their crimes in the Holocaust. Eighteen years after the war, it was the first time ever Germany really confronted it’s past, and it was a turning point in our history of immense importance.
“In this age of globalization and inter-connectedness, this story reminds us that it is always individuals who bring about change and it is individuals who push forward civilization.
“The film begins in Germany in 1958. An atmosphere of frantic optimism and denial, a country rebuilding itself, only looking forward. Yet the shadow of its war crimes is catching up, literally around the corner. It will be a momentous task- can our heroes force a whole country to look at what it has done, to acknowledge its past?”
We’re celebrating the first anniversary of CULTURE VULTURE with a slew of stellar offerings that will take us into the new year.
For the uninitiated, CULTURE VULTURE is our weekly series of opera, stage and ballet/dance performances plus art exhibitions and documentaries.
These are often live performances that have been recorded – and they are typically breathtaking! If you are a lover of the high arts and have yet to experience Culture Vulture, you owe it to yourself to attend one of our upcoming programs.
Screenings take place Monday nights with repeat performances Tuesday afternoons.
Please note that we’ve shuffled the deck a bit with regard to venues. Culture Vulture will be continuing at the Playhouse, Claremont, and Town Center. In addition, it will be offered at the newly re-opened FINE ARTS in Beverly Hills. It will no longer run at the Royal, Music Hall, or NoHo.
There’s more! We’ve developed a new scheduling model that will make it easier for you to plan in advance. Each month will be calendared as follows:
1st Monday – Opera
2nd Monday – Ballet/Dance
3rd Monday – Stage
4th Monday – Art Exhibits/Documentaries
The 5th Monday (when it occurs) will be a surprise!
September 21 and 22: PAUL TAYLOR: CREATIVE DOMAIN (dance documentary)
September 28 and 29: THE IMPRESSIONISTS (exhibition)
October 5 and 6: AIDA (opera from Teatro alla Scalla)
October 12 and 13: L’HISTOIRE DE MANON (ballet from the Opera Nacional de Paris)
October 19 and 20: THEODORE BIKEL: IN THE SHOES OF SHOLOM ALEICHEM (stage production via the National Center for Jewish Film)
October 26 and 27: VINCENT VAN GOGH: A NEW WAY OF SEEING (exhibition)
November 2 and 3: RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY (opera from the Royal Opera House)
November 9 and 10: MOVIMENTOS: LA DANZA DE LA PUNTA AL TACON (dance from the Teatro Real, Madrid)
November 16 and 15: MAN AND SUPERMAN (stage production from the National Theatre, London)
November 23 and 24: PALIO
November 30 and December 1: THE THREE TENORS CHRISTMAS CONCERT (Wiener Konzerthaus)
December 7 and 8: THE MAGIC FLUTE (opera from Bregenzer Festspiele)
December 14 and 15: THE NUTCRACKER (ballet from the Bolshoi)
December 21 and 22: HAMLET (stage from the National Theatre)
“The director who has the strongest and most consistent influence on young French filmmakers is not Jean-Luc Godard, but Maurice Pialat.” — Arnaud Desplechin, filmmaker.
“To say that Pialat marched to the beat of a different drummer is to put it mildly. In fact, he didn’t really march at all. He ambled, and fuck anybody who got it into their head that they’d like to amble along with him. Or behind him. Or ahead of him.” — Kent Jones, film critic.
From September 25th to October 1st the Royal Theater will host a collection of masterworks by French filmmaker Maurice Pialat (1925-2003). We’ll be screening five of his ten feature films: 1987’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner, “Under the Sun of Satan,” with Gérard Depardieu and Sandrine Bonnaire; “Loulou,” a tale of tortured love with Isabelle Huppert and Depardieu; “Van Gogh,” a chronicle of the last days of the artist; family drama “The Mouth Agape,” with Nathalie Baye; and the slice-of-life film about teenagers in suburban France “Graduate First.”
Maurice Pialat’s influence in the years after his death in 2003 was everywhere, but while he was alive he wasn’t part of any movement. A late bloomer who was 40 before he finished his first fiction feature (1968’s “Naked Childhood”), he missed the New Wave—a fact he seemed to resent, though his irascible personality likely meant he wouldn’t have belonged to any club which would have had him as a member.
Pialat made rule-breaking, violently disorienting movies full of temporal leaps and jagged improvisations, impolite movies about insoluble dilemmas and impossible personalities—women and men who can’t or won’t allow themselves to be tamed, and the tug-of-war between desire and responsibility. While intensely grounded in the cinema, citing the Lumière Brothers as his masters, Pialat rejected cinephile culture and lunged headlong into the material stuff of life, love, sex, and death. (He’s often compared to John Cassavetes, but this overlooks the particularities of both men.) Pialat’s films aren’t exercises but exorcisms, wounded howls at the injustice of existence whose anguished power is intensified by an acute awareness of the beauty of being alive. In a national cinema often associated with dainty sophistication, Maurice Pialat is the epitome of raw power.
FULL SCHEDULE:
Friday, 9/25
12:00PM – GRADUATE FIRST
02:00PM – VAN GOGH
05:15PM – UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN
07:35PM – LOULOU
10:15PM – THE MOUTH AGAPE
Saturday, 9/26
12:00PM – THE MOUTH AGAPE
02:00PM – GRADUATE FIRST
04:05PM – VAN GOGH
07:25PM – UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN
09:45PM – LOULOU
Sunday, 9/27
12:00PM – LOULOU
02:40PM – THE MOUTH AGAPE
04:40PM – GRADUATE FIRST
06:45PM – VAN GOGH
10:00PM – UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN
Monday, 9/28
12:00PM – UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN
02:15PM – LOULOU
04:55PM – THE MOUTH AGAPE
07:00PM – GRADUATE FIRST
09:00PM – VAN GOGH
Tuesday, 9/29
12:00PM – VAN GOGH
03:15PM – UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN
05:30PM – LOULOU
08:10PM – THE MOUTH AGAPE
10:10PM – GRADUATE FIRST
Wednesday, 9/30
12:00PM – GRADUATE FIRST
02:10PM – VAN GOGH
05:30PM – THE MOUTH AGAPE
07:30PM – UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN
09:45PM – LOULOU
Thursday, 10/01
12:00PM – THE MOUTH AGAPE
02:00PM – GRADUATE FIRST
04:10PM – VAN GOGH
07:25PM – LOULOU
10:00PM – UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN
Zhang Yimou’s new film is set in the last days of China’s Cultural Revolution, following a newly-released political prisoner (Chen Daoming) as he tries to reconnect with his wife (frequent Yimou collaborator Gong Li), who is stricken with amnesia. We open the movie 9/9 at the Royal, 9/18 at the Playhouse and 10/2 at the Town Center. The director wrote this about his powerful new work: “Based on Yan Geling’s novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi, COMING HOME is a love story about joy and sadness, as well as separation and reunion. We used the end of the original story – with Lu Yanshi returning home – as the starting point of the script. Everyone knows that Chen Daoming and Gong Li are the finest actors working in China, and they were my first and only choices for their respective roles. I’ve learned a lot from working with them. They offered a lot of constructive opinions about even the smallest details in the story. That’s why their contribution to the film extends far beyond the portrayal of the characters.
“Having a so-called “rising star” in the daughter’s role was not a must as her character serves a very important function in the story. When I first met [Zhang] Huiwen, I noticed her bright shining eyes, which resembled the aura of young Red Guards. It was what I needed. For the second part of the film, I needed to change the way her eyes look. They should look as if they are in a trance, always hesitant. Huiwen had the ability to do that.
“This type of film is very difficult to make. It needs to be made in a state of serenity. If I thought about benefits and profits even a little, then I would lose my way. That’s why, for me, this film represents a return to an earlier state of mind and an older approach to creativity. The most important thing for me is whether the audience will keep this film in their hearts and whether they will truly remember the emotions behind COMING HOME.”
One of the most important and influential filmmakers in China, and a core member of China’s “Fifth Generation” directors, Zhang Yimou started his career as a cinematographer and became a director in 1987. Over the years, Zhang has directed films which received accolades from around the world: RED SORGHUM (1987, Golden Bear winner at the Berlin International Film Festival), JU DOU (1990, In Competition at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards®), RAISE THE RED LANTERN (1991, Silver Lion winner at the Venice International Film Festival and nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards®), TO LIVE (1994, Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival), to name a few.
In 2002, his martial arts epic HERO ushered in a new era of blockbusters for Chinese cinema, and was followed by the equally successful HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (2004), and CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER (2006)
As we move into the Fall season, there are several new Anniversary Classics screenings scheduled for September, all at the Royal Theatre in West L.A.
First up on September 17th is the 55th anniversary of Director Elia Kazan’s WILD RIVER, an underappreciated gem from 1960 starring Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick, Jo Van Fleet, and featuring the film debut of our guest star, two-time Oscar nominee Bruce Dern, who will appear for a Q&A following the screening on Thursday the 17th at 7:30PM at the Royal.
Cloris Leachman will participate in a Q&A following the September 24th screening of CRAZY MAMA (1975). CRAZY MAMA was one of the early movies directed by Oscar winner Jonathan Demme.
On September 29th, we feature the 40th anniversary of Director Richard Lester’s THE FOUR MUSKETEERS (1975), with a special reunion of two of its co-stars, Michael York and Richard Chamberlain, who will appear for a Q&A at the screening at 7 PM.
Tickets for all three screenings are on sale now. Do not wait to buy tickets; these shows will sell out. For tickets and info on upcoming screenings, bookmark http://www.laemmle.com/ac.
Also, check out the Laemmle’s Anniversary Classics Facebook group: https://facebook.com/groups/laemmlesanniversaryclassics/
An excitingly fresh take on some classic themes and ideas, THE SECOND MOTHER centers around Val, a hard-working live-in housekeeper in modern day Sao Paulo. Val is perfectly content to take care of every one of her wealthy employers’ needs, from cooking and cleaning to being a surrogate mother to their teenage son, who she has raised since he was a toddler. But when Val’s estranged daughter Jessica suddenly shows up the unspoken but intrinsic class barriers that exist within the home are thrown into disarray. Jessica is smart, confident, and ambitious, and refuses to accept the upstairs/downstairs dynamic, testing relationships and loyalties and forcing everyone to reconsider what family really means.
Variety film critic Geoff Berkshire called THE SECOND MOTHER “immensely endearing” and “a savvy, socially conscious crowdpleaser that occupies a rare middle ground between genteel and intellectual world cinema.” Hollywood Reporter writer Boyd van Hoeij declared “beautifully written and acted with precision, this film’s a winner.” We are extremely pleased to open THE SECOND MOTHER on August 28th at the Royal, September 4th at the Playhouse and Town Center, and September 11th at the Claremont.
Aviva Kempner’s Rosenwald, which we open at the Royal, Playhouse and Town Center on August 28th and the Claremont on September 5th, is the incredible story of Julius Rosenwald, who never finished high school but rose to become the president of Sears. Influenced by the writings of the educator Booker T. Washington, this Jewish philanthropist joined forces with African American communities during the Jim Crow South to build over 5,300 schools during the early part of the 20th century. The film sheds light on this silent partner of the pre-Civil Rights Movement. Rosenwald awarded fellowship grants to a who’s who of African American intellectuals and artists including: Marian Anderson, James Baldwin, the father and uncle of civil rights leader Julian Bond, Ralph Bunche, W. E. B. DuBois, Katherine Dunham, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Gordon Parks, Jacob Lawrence and Augusta Savage along with Woody Guthrie. Inspired by the Jewish ideals of tzedakah (charity) and tikkunolam (repairing the world) and a deep concern over racial inequality in America, Julius Rosenwald used his wealth to become one of America’s most effective philanthropists. Because of his modesty, Rosenwald’s philanthropy and social activism are not well known today. He gave away $62 million in his lifetime.
In a Forward article titled “Is Julius Rosenwald Our Greatest Philanthropist,?” Ms. Kempner (The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg) recently spoke about his latest film, saying “to me, Julius Rosenwald is the best antidote to Donald Trump. You see how pompous rich people can be, but Rosenwald is quite the contrary; he is one of the greatest examples for American Jews of tzedakah, tikkun olam , and repairing the world without fanfare — doing it just because he wants to make a difference.”