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Culture Vulture 2020 Commences.

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Begin the new year and the new decade by taking in some of the esoteric cinema of our Culture Vulture series, now entering its seventh year.

January 13 & 14 ~ THE PRADO MUSEUM: A COLLECTION OF WONDERS celebrates the 200th anniversary of the storied Prado Museum — one of the most-visited museums in the world.  Hosted by Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons, this cinematic journey offers viewers a spell-binding experience, telling the story of Spain and beyond, through the works of Vélazquez, Rubens, Titian, Mantegna, Bosch, Goya, El Greco, and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSIvsf5-COg

 

AFTERWARD January 20 & 21 ~ Jerusalem-born trauma expert Ofra Bloch forces herself to confront her demons in a journey that takes her to Germany, Israel and Palestine. Set against the current wave of fascism and anti-Semitism sweeping the globe, AFTERWARD delves into the secret wounds carried by victims as well as victimizers, through testimonies ranging from the horrifying to the hopeful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSw1jeyE6NI

 

GAUGUIN FROM THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON January 27 & 28 ~ This fascinating new cinema event, Gauguin from the National Gallery, London, opens with a brand-new documentary about the life and work of Paul Gauguin, one of the world’s most popular and important artists. Filmed in Tahiti, France, the Marquesas Islands and the UK, this cinematic film explores Gauguin’s extraordinary – and at times controversial – artistic achievement, with commentary from his descendants, artists and world experts. It is followed by an exclusive private view of the National Gallery exhibition, The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Gauguin Portraits.

https://vimeo.com/365857943?utm_source=Full+Exhibitor+List&utm_campaign=0f6f2c4ca5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_11_19_04_37&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_11aeb814de-0f6f2c4ca5-216267177

 

IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN February 3 & 4 ~ The makers of IN SEARCH OF MOZART return with a new feature-length bio-doc about Beethoven. Director Phil Grabsky brings together the world’s leading performers and experts on Beethoven to reveal new insights into the legendary composer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAkWBMdoBrQ

 

February 10 & 11 ~ EARTH was filmed at seven locations that humans have transformed on a grand scale: Entire mountains being moved in California; a tunnel being sliced through rock at the Brenner Pass; an open-cast mine in Hungary; a marble quarry in Italy; a copper mine in Spain; the salt mine used to store radioactive waste in Wolfenbüttel; and a tar sands landscape in Canada. Initially shown from above as abstract paintings, these terrains are subsequently explored on the ground: The film weaves together observational footage of machines in operation with conversations with the workers.

February 17 & 18 ~ MATTHEW BOURNE’S ROMEO + JULIET has been hailed as ‘the single most eagerly awaited dance show for 2019’ by The Daily Telegraph. This passionate and contemporary re-imagining of Shakespeare’s classic story of love and conflict is set in the not-too-distant future in ‘The Verona Institute.’ Here ‘difficult’ young people are mysteriously confined by a society that seeks to divide and crush their youthful spirit and individuality. Our two young lovers must follow their hearts as they risk everything to be together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsSFV8B4CI4

 

February 24 & 25 ~ GISELLE touches upon great and universal romantic themes. In this brand new production, renowned choreographer Alexei Ratmansky brings a fresh perspective to one of the oldest and greatest works of classical dance, giving the audience an opportunity to discover this iconic ballet anew.

Our 12th Annual Christmas Eve FIDDLER SING-ALONG is Just Around the Corner – Tickets On Sale!

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UPDATE! We’re pleased to announce our Fiddler Hosts for 2019!  Click here for bios.
(skip to main article)

Town Center 5
Stephen Sass (4:30pm) – of the Jewish Historical Society of Southern CA – BUY TIX
Cantor Mike Stein (7:30pm) – NEW! – singer, fiddler, and Grammy winning artist – BUY TIX

NoHo 7
Cantor Aviva Rosenbloom – Jewish songwriter and woman cantor pioneer –  BUY TIX

Royal
Isaac Wade  – accomplished thespian and Laemmle General Manager  – BUY TIX

The Fine Arts Theatre
Kenny Ellis (7:30pm) – entertainer, comedian, singer of Hanukah Swings! – BUY TIX

Playhouse
Judy Sofer – of Jewish Federation of the San Gabriel and Pamona Valleys – BUY TIX
Jason Moss – of Jewish Federation of the San Gabriel and Pamona Valleys – BUY TIX

Lumiere Music Hall
Dan Messinger – NEW! – writer, comedian and renowned baker – BUY TIX

Claremont 5
Cantor Paul Buch  – of Temple Beth Israel – BUY TIX

Jump below to find out more about our hosts.

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Can you believe it’s the 12th year of our Christmas Eve FIDDLER SING-ALONG!?  Join us in coming together as a community to celebrate the song, shtick, and shenanigans of Laemmle’s legendary Christmas Eve experience.

For 2019, this ever-popular event will be occurring in several of our neighborhood venues (see below for full listing and ticket links).  PLUS, due to the convergence of Xmas and Chanukah (3rd night!), we’ll be celebrating the Festival of Lights with candle lighting and song.

(Jump down to watch the Sing-A-Long trailer.  For tickets, visit Laemmle.com/Fiddler).

In addition to movie and song, the evening will feature TRIVIA with PRIZES being awarded to Fiddler buffs with the quickest recall.  Dressing in COSTUME is not required, but highly encouraged! Who knows, perhaps the best costume will garner a prize?  Or perhaps this is the year you’ll be given an opportunity to do your best Tevye or Golde impression?  That will be up to the emcee.  Indeed, each location will feature its own host (to be announced).

As Greg Laemmle is fond of saying “Christmas Eve isn’t just Chinese food!”  He elaborates, “This is your once-a-year chance to be the star of the shtetl. Join with friends and neighbors and sing your heart out alongside Fiddler’s screen legends. And it’s okay if you haven’t memorized all the songs. We provide the lyrics.”

Song highlights include the iconic “TRADITION”, “IF I WERE A RICH MAN”,  “TO LIFE”, “SUNRISE SUNSET”, “DO YOU LOVE ME?” and “ANATEVKA”, among many, many more.

Don’t be late! Those who wish to attend the program are advised to purchase tickets in advance as the program has traditionally sold to capacity. We welcome all those in the community who are looking for an alternative Christmas Eve.

See you in the shtetl…

PROGRAM DETAILS
DATE: Tuesday, December 24th
TIME: 7:30pm

PRICING:
General – $18
Senior 62 & Over / Child 11 & Under – $15
Premiere Card General – $15
Premiere Card Senior 62 & Over / Child 11 & Under – $12
Note: Premiere Card pricing not available at the Fine Arts Theatre or Lumiere Music Hall.

LOCATIONS:
Claremont – Get Tickets
The Fine Arts in Beverly Hills – Get Tickets
Lumiere Music Hall – Get Tickets
North Hollywood – Get Tickets
Playhouse in Pasadena – Get Tickets
Royal in West L.A. – Get Tickets
Town Center in Encino – Get Tickets


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=CnuyNaOEBt4&feature=emb_logo

Fiddler Hosts – 2019

Mike Stein at the Town Center 5 (Encino, 7:30pm show)
Cantor and world renowned performer, composer and recording artist MIKE STEIN will be our 7:30pm host at the Town Center 5 in Encino. A GRAMMY AWARD WINNER (cELLAbration) and nominee (Dreamosaurus), his songs have been recorded by the late PATSY MONTANA and have been included in many films. He has recorded fiddle for artists such as MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER and TOM PAXTON. Stein also serves as the cantor at Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills, California. He has taught extensively in communities in Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Poland. He has produced albums for the late THEODORE BIKEL, the Abayudaya and the Lemba Jews of Zimbabwe. Stein is the father of three sons who are accomplished musicians of their own. Together with his wife, Kelley, they perform nationally with their group, The Rolling Steins. Stein’s appearance will benefit our community partner, the JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. BUY TIX

STEVE SASS at the Town Center 5 (Encino, 4:30pm Show)
Community leader STEPHEN SASS currently serves as President of the JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. As founding president of the BREED STREET SHUL PROJECT, he has been instrumental in the ongoing revitalization of one of L.A’s earliest synagogues built in 1915 in Boyle Heights. He co-wrote and executive-produced “Meet Me at Brooklyn & Soto” an award-winning documentary on East L.A.’s Jewish Heritage. What’s more, Sass is the chair of the L.A. COUNTY HISTORICAL LANDMARKS AND RECORDS COMMISSION, appointed by Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. In professional life, he is the Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs for HBO. Sass’ appearance will support our partner, Jewish Historical Society of Southern California. BUY TIX

Cantor AVIVA ROSENBLOOM at the NoHo 7 (N. Hollywood)
Creator of the FEMINIST SHABBAT at Temple Israel of Hollywood and female cantor pioneer AVIVA ROSENBLOOM headlines proceedings at Laemmle’s NOHO 7. An anti-war activist and veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, Rosenbloom’s life trajectory changed after a transformational trip to Israel. With the realization that Jewish music was her calling, her journey soon led her to become the first full-time woman Cantor in Los Angeles. She served as Cantor at TEMPLE ISRAEL OF HOLLYWOOD for over 30 years from 1975 to 2008. She is also a songwriter, with several recordings of Jewish music to her credit, including the career retrospective “Viva Aviva: A Life in Song.” BUY TIX

KENNY ELLIS at the Fine Arts Theatre (Beverly Hills)
Known as “The Man Behind the Matzoh Ball,” cantor and comedian KENNY ELLIS will be our host at the Fine Arts Theatres in Beverly Hills. He appears in support of our partner, the LOS ANGELES JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL. As a cantor and comedian, Ellis has entertained audiences all around the globe. His television credits include recent appearances on CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM as well as LAW & ORDER. Ellis achieved further success with HANUKKAH SWINGS! a recording that broke new ground as the first ever big band Hanukkah album. Large YouTube audiences have enjoyed “Swingin’ Dreidel” and other tracks from the hit record. BUY TIX

JUDY SOFER at the Playhouse 7 (Pasadena, 4:30pm Show))
Cantor JUDY SOFER is the Cultural Arts Program Coordinator of the JEWISH FEDERATION of the Greater San Gabriel and Pomona Valley’s Cultural Arts program, as well as the Cantor at TEMPLE BETH SHALOM of Long Beach. She began her music and theatre studies at UC Irvine. While living in Israel from 1974-1985, she performed at Tel Aviv’s CAMERI THEATER and appeared in a number of programs for Israeli educational television. Sofer also toured the country with her own children’s theater and taught music and piano. Upon her return to California, she received the Award for Excellence in Children’s Theater for her play, A Journey to Noteland. She is well known for conducting Adult and Teen Choirs, and producing/directing concerts and show throughout the Greater Los Angeles area. BUY TIX

jason-photo_02_edit_cropJASON MOSS at the Playhouse 7 (Pasadena, 7:30pm Show))
Executive Director of the JEWISH FEDERATION of the Greater San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys JASON MOSS will be our host at the Playhouse 7 in Pasadena. Under his leadership, the Federation has doubled its programming with the creation of such programs as the Cultural Arts Program, PJ LIBRARY, a nationally recognized program to reach and connect with unaffiliated Jewish families. In addition, Moss recently launched JLife SGPV, a lifestyle magazine celebrating Jewish life in the San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys. BUY TIX

ISAAC WADE at the Royal (West L.A.)
Laemmle’s very own ISAAC WADE is the General Manager of our Monica Film Center location and has been working with the company for over 16 years. He will be hosting at the LAEMMLE ROYAL. Wade is the former GM of the storied LAEMMLE SUNSET 5 in W. Hollywood as well as the company’s signature ROYAL venue in West L.A. Additionally, the talented Wade is an accomplished thespian, working overseas and with several local companies such as the L.A. THEATRE ENSEMBLE and cARTel: THE ARTS COLLABORATIVE. During his youth in Kansas, he performed the role of TEVYE in the Galena High School production of Fiddler. Laemmle audiences who love and appreciate Wade in his role as theater manager are in for a treat as he reveals yet another facet of his dynamic persona. BUY TIX

DAN MESSINGER at the Lumiere Music Hall (Beverly Hills)
World-class baker and entertainer DAN MESSINGER will be our host at the Lumiere Music Hall in Beverly Hills. Messinger is the owner of Bibi’s Bakery and Café and the founder of The Kosher Cookie Company.  Prior to entering the world of baking, Dan was a writer, producer and standup comic, performing for audiences across North America.  He is a longtime fan of Fiddler on The Roof and is so delighted by Sholem Aleichem that he sings a song about him every Friday … he is also a loyal member of “Team Horse.” BUY TIX

Paul Buch_prCantor PAUL BUCH at the Claremont 5 (Claremont)
Cantor PAUL BUCH has served Temple Beth Israel in Claremont since 2003. He came to the cantorate after a 25 year career in TV and film production in Los Angeles, New York, and Portland. In addition to his cantorial duties, Buch is President of the Claremont Interfaith Council and serves on the Faith-Based Roundtable of the Pomona Unified School District. He is also Chair of the City of Claremont’s Human Relations Committee and serves on an advisory committee at the Claremont School of Theology. This will be his sixth year as our Fiddler host in Claremont! BUY TIX

Show Me the Popcorn! Buy Tickets Online and Save on Concessions.

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Listen up Laemmle-ites!

For a limited time, receive $1 off concessions for EACH ticket you buy on Lammle.com.  We know, “unthinkable!”  But we made it happen.

Here’s the scoop:

• Good at all Laemmle locations EXCEPT the Fine Arts.

• No menu restrictions – good for ANY concession item!  “Even booze?” you ask.  “Yes, indeed!” we reply.

• Not valid for merchandise.

• You can only use savings for ONE purchase, in-person, during the show you purchased tickets for.

• You can’t redeem it for cash.  Meaning, there’s no money back if the price of your order comes in below the value of your discount. (But hey, if that does happen, you’ll get your entire order gratis!  Not too shabby.)

To access these savings, simply buy your next movie on our website.  Your ticket confirmation info will specify the amount of your discount.  Just print out or be ready to present on your phone at the concessions stand.

Of course, such things never last!  Offer expires on December 12th.

So get in while the gettin’ is good…

 

LAEMMLE LIVE presents: American Youth Symphony with Rich Capparela December 15

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LAEMMLE LIVE proudly ushers in the 2019 holiday season with the new American Youth Symphony Brass Ensemble, performing classical and holiday melodies. Beloved radio host Rich Capparela returns to host the festivities.

Forrest Johnston, trumpet

Tyler Norris, trumpet

Valerie Ankeney, french horn

Michael Dolin, trombone

Errol Rhoden, tuba

Founded in 1964 by renowned conductor Mehli Mehta, the American Youth Symphony inspires the future of classical music by training the next generation of professional musicians and building new audiences for orchestral music.  AYS presents ambitious seasons that feature thoughtful programming of exceptionally high quality, covering a breadth of symphonic music, including beloved classics, film scores, chamber works, and contemporary pieces. AYS is committed to reflecting the diversity of Los Angeles in its programming, representing artists and composers of all genders, generations, and ethnicities. AYS is also committed to equity within the orchestra, by holding blind, free auditions, and by paying musicians instead of charging tuition. AYS concerts are presented for free or low cost, at world-class concert halls and local community venues alike, with the goal of welcoming anyone who is interested to enjoy this beautiful art form. https://aysymphony.org/

RSVP USING EVENTBRITE

This is a Free Event
Sunday, December 15, 2019
11:00 AM
Monica Film Center

GOING ATTRACTIONS, a Love Letter to Historic Movie Theaters, to Premiere October 24 at Our Historic Ahrya Fine Arts with Director & Expert Q&A’s.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Culture Vulture series present GOING ATTRACTIONS: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace, a tribute to the spectacular monuments created as temples for the enjoyment of movies.

The film’s L.A. run kicks off Thursday, October 24 with the world theatrical premiere at the historic Ahrya Fine Arts, followed by a discussion with filmmaker April Wright and subject Escott O. Norton, executive director of the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation. Several of the film’s other subjects will be in attendance as well!

Other countries built palaces for royalty. In the United States, we built them to watch movies.

Following the premiere, GOING ATTRACTIONS will play for a week, from October 25-31, at the Music Hall (showtimes here), and Monday, October 28 & Tuesday, October 29 at four additional Laemmle theatres — the Claremont, Playhouse, Royal and Town Center — as part of the Culture Vulture series (see list of shows and ticketing links below).

GOING ATTRACTIONS captures the splendor and grandeur of the great historic cinemas of the U.S., built when movies were the acme of entertainment and the stories were larger than life, as were the venues designed to show them: Giant screens, thousands of seats, ornate interiors, amazing marquees, in-house organs and orchestras, and air conditioning back when peoples’ homes had none. The film also tracks the eventual decline of the palaces, through to today’s current preservation efforts — with a special focus on Los Angeles, which enjoys two separate historic theater districts (downtown and Hollywood).

“I feel passionately about both the text — these beautiful structures —  and the subtext of GOING ATTRACTIONS, how we have changed so much in the past 50 years as a people in how we spend our time, socialize and experience entertainment,” director April Wright said. “Our content is personalized now, at our fingertips — but I fear we are losing something important by not having the local, communal experiences we used to have with our friends, families and fellow movie-going audiences.”

“Awesome and Wonderful!” — TC Kirkham, ECinemaOne

Escott O. Norton, who will participate in a Q&A at the October 24 premiere.

Culture Vulture screenings:

Claremont:
Oct. 28, 7:30 pm
Oct. 29, 1 pm
Playhouse:
Oct. 28, 7:30 pm
Oct. 29, 1 pm
Royal:
Oct. 28, 7:30 pm
Oct. 29, 1 pm
Town Center:
Oct. 28, 7:30 pm
Oct. 29, 1 pm

Speakers after three of the Culture Vulture screenings:

Mon., Oct. 28 7:30 pm at the Playhouse: David Saffer, LAHTF board member, and Ross Melnick, film historian, UCSB professor
Mon., Oct. 28 7:30 pm at the Royal: Mike Hume, LAHTF board member and filmmaker April Wright
Tue., Oct. 29 1 pm at the Town Center: filmmaker April Wright
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9bMiEt8_xQ

Forty-Fifth Anniversary Screenings of Louis Malle’s LACOMBE LUCIEN on October 16th

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present our Anniversary Classics Abroad program for October: Louis Malle’s LACOMBE LUCIEN, nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of 1974.

The film was one of the movies, following Marcel Ophuls’ monumental documentary ‘The Sorrow and the Pity,’ that scrutinized French collaboration with the Nazis during World War II.

Malle’s movie tells a fictional but provocative story, written by the director and novelist Patrick Modiano, about a teenage boy who savors the power he accrues when he joins the Gestapo during the final months of the war.

LACOMBE LUCIEN takes place in 1944, after the Allies have landed in Normandy but the Nazis are still fighting to retain their hold on the country. Lucien Lacombe is an uneducated peasant boy who first tries to escape his humdrum life by volunteering for the Resistance.

When they reject him for being too young, he stumbles into an opportunity working for the Gestapo in his town and discovers a taste and talent for brutality. His loyalties are complicated, however, when he falls in love with a beautiful Jewish girl who is in hiding with her father and grandmother.

Malle found a brand new actor, Pierre Blaise, to play the part of Lucien. He was working as a woodcutter when Malle discovered him. Although his debut performance was highly acclaimed, Blaise’s career was cut tragically short when he died in a car crash just a year after the release of the film. But Aurore Clement, cast as the young Jewish girl, went on to have a long and rewarding career in French cinema, even appearing in some American movies like ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘Paris, Texas.’

Distinguished European actors Therese Giehse and Holger Lowenadler filled out the cast. Lowenadler, who played Clement’s cultivated father, was voted best supporting actor of the year by both the National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review.

Critics praised the film for its dispassionate insight into how perfectly ordinary people could be seduced by a taste of power and violence. Pauline Kael wrote, “Malle’s film is a long, close look at the banality of evil; it is—not incidentally—one of the least banal movies ever made.”

The New York Times’ Vincent Canby wrote, “’Lacombe Lucien’ is easily Mr. Malle’s most ambitious, most provocative film.” Leonard Maltin called it a “subtle, complex tale of guilt, innocence, and the amorality of power; masterfully directed.”

Although it is a vivid historical recreation, the film remains startlingly timely in its examination of the deadly lure of fascism.

LACOMBE LUCIEN screens Wednesday, October 16, at 7PM in Glendale, Pasadena, and West LA. Click here for tickets.

New Restoration of Joseph Losey’s MR. KLEIN Starring Alain Delon and Jeanne Moreau Opens October 11 at the Playhouse, Royal & Town Center.

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Joseph Losey’s MR. KLEIN (1976), a long-unseen masterwork from the director of The Servant and Accident and writer Franco Solinas (The Battle of Algiers), starring Alain Delon, with a special appearance by Jeanne Moreau, opens Friday, October 11 at Laemmle’s Playhouse/Pasadena, Royal/West L.A. and Town Center/Encino.

MR. KLEIN was blacklisted American director Losey’s first film in French, with a screenplay by Solinas and assistant director Fernando Morandi, and an uncredited Costa-Gavras (Z), who was originally to direct. In a full-length article in a recent issue of the New Yorker, critic Anthony Lane calls Rialto Picture’s reissue of MR. KLEIN “an event” and adds that “all good films come to those who wait.” Lane compares MR. KLEIN to another film about the Occupation, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows, which Rialto released in the U.S. for the first time in 2006.

Alain Delon in Joseph Losey’s MR. KLEIN (1976). Courtesy: Rialto Pictures/Studiocanal

An indictment of French complicity on the eve of the infamous Vélodrome d’Hiver roundup, with Claude Levy (one of the chief interviewees in Marcel Ophüls’ The Sorrow and the Pity) as historical consultant, MR. KLEIN was received coldly by French audiences, who objected to its depiction of wartime collaboration. Yet it still went on to represent France for the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or and would win three Césars (French Oscars) for Best Film, Director, and Production Design by the legendary Alexandre Trauner, whose remarkable credits include everything from Marcel Carné’s Children of Paradise and Jules Dassin’s Rififi to Orson Welles’ Othello and Billy Wilder’s The Apartment.

Occupied Paris, 1942. Alain Delon’s Catholic Robert Klein seems to be sitting pretty, with attractive mistress Juliet Berto (Rivette’s Céline and Julie Go Boating), and an apartment crammed full of expensive paintings, sculpture, tapestries — and mirrors — most of which he’s bought at fire sale prices from Jews eager to emigrate/flee. But then he finds a Jewish newspaper delivered to his doorstep, and the protests and desperate search for his Aryan heritage begins, so desperate that his attempts to establish his identity start to come second to a frenzied search for his doppelgänger, a search that comes to an unforeseen, but perhaps inevitable end.

“For hunters of rarities and students of wartime oppression, the emergence of MR. KLEIN will be an event to match that of another fierce appraisal of Occupied France, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows, which finally arrived on American screens in 2006, thirty-seven years after it was made. All good films come to those who wait.”
— Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

“MR. KLEIN remains as strong and thought-provoking a film as it was over 40 years ago.” — Mitchell Abidor, Jewish Currents

“Long unseen and worth revisiting…a historical reconstruction with a modernist tone, evoking both Kafka and Borges.” — J. Hoberman

“Played off Losey’s acquired paranoia from the McCarthy days…it has insidious things to say about the bonhomie of collaboration…Delon’s KLEIN, numb but deeply intelligent, cut off from society by some masquerade but then through the discovery of alienation itself, is extraordinary…It is a film of frozen, listless faces, the perfect currency of occupation.” — David Thomson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkvEzNeiQLI&feature=youtu.be

Paulo Sorrentino and Toni Servillo Conjure Berlusconi in LORO, Opening September 27 at the Royal and October 4 at the Playhouse, Claremont & Town Center.

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Sex, drugs, power, and vice: welcome to the mid-2000s Italy of Silvio Berlusconi, the egomaniac billionaire Prime Minister who presides over an empire of scandal and corruption. Sergio (Riccardo Scamarcio) is an ambitious young hustler managing an escort service catering to the rich and powerful. Determined to move up in the world, Sergio sets his sights on the biggest client of all: Berlusconi (Toni Servillo), the disgraced, psychotically charming businessman and ex-PM currently plotting his political comeback. As Berlusconi attempts to bribe his way back to power, Sergio devises his own equally audacious scheme to win the mogul’s attention. Exploding with eye-popping, extravagantly surreal set-pieces, the dazzling, daring new film from Academy Award-winning director Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty) is both a wickedly subversive satire and a furious elegy for a country crumbling while its leaders enrich themselves.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT:

Loro, a film in two parts, is a fictional story, a sort of costume drama, which narrates probable or invented facts that took place in Italy, between 2006 and 2010.

Using a variety of characters, Loro seeks to sketch, through glances or intuitions, a moment of history – now definitively closed – which, in a very synthetic vision of events, might be defined as amoral and decadent, but also extraordinarily vital.

And Them [Loro] also seeks to describe certain Italians, simultaneously new and old. Souls in an imaginary, modern purgatory who decide, on the basis of heterogeneous impulses such as ambition, admiration, love, self-interest, personal advantage, to try to revolve around a sort of paradise in flesh and blood: a man by the name of Silvio Berlusconi.

Toni Servillo e Elena Sofia Ricci. Foto di Gianni Fiorito.

These Italians, to my eyes, contain a contradiction: they are predictable but indecipherable. A contradiction which is a mystery. An Italian mystery which the film tries to deal with, but without being judgmental. Inspired only by a desire to understand, and adopting a tone which today, rightly, is considered revolutionary: a tone of tenderness.

But here comes another Italian. Silvio Berlusconi. The way I imagined him.

The story of the man, above all, and only in a marginal way of the politician.

Someone might object that we know plenty not only about the politician, but also about the man.

I doubt that.

Nella foto Toni Servillo. Foto di Gianni Fiorito.

A man, as far as I am concerned, is the result of his feelings more than a biographical total of facts. Therefore, within this story, the choice of facts to be recounted does not follow a principle of relevance dictated by the news agenda of those days, but only tries to dig, groping in the dark, in the man’s conscience.

What, then, are the feelings that stimulated Silvio Berlusconi’s days in this period? What are the emotions, the fears, the delusions of this man in dealing with events that appear to loom like mountains? This, for me, is another mystery the film deals with.

Men of power in the generations before that of Berlusconi were other mysteries, because they were unapproachable. Remember there was a time when we spoke of the disembodiment of power.

Toni Servillo. Photo by Gianni-Fiorito.

Silvio Berlusconi, instead, is probably the first man of power to be an approachable mystery. He has always been a tireless narrator of himself: think, for example, of the picture story Una storia italiana that he had sent to everyone in Italy in 2001, and for this reason too he inevitably became a symbol. And symbols, unlike mere mortals, are public property. And therefore, in this sense, he also represents a part of all Italians.

But, naturally, Silvio Berlusconi is much more. And it is not easy to provide a synthesis. For this reason I have to appeal to a much better man than me: Hemingway.

In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway writes: “Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bullfighters.” Paraphrasing things, perhaps the most concise image we can have of Silvio Berlusconi is that of a bullfighter. ~ Paolo Sorrentino

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SC9H6LnZxc