La Vie Boheme at BMFI: Seven Facts about RENT

By Dan Santelli, Programming Intern, BMFI

First staged in January 1996, Jonathan Larson’s groundbreaking rock opera Rent has established itself as a capstone of the modern musical. Earning three Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for its original stage production, Rent has taken on a life of its own in America’s pop culture and has garnered a massive cult following of devoted fans dubbed “Rent-heads”.

Now, Bryn Mawr Film Institute is proud to host a special sing-along screening of director Chris Columbus’ film adaptation of the Broadway show on Tuesday, September 11 at 7:30 pm. Free popcorn if you wear a costume!




"Would you light my candle?" Adam Pascal and Rosario Dawson in Chris Columbus's 2005 film adaptation of Rent.

Show off on Tuesday night with these seven trivia facts about Rent.

SEVEN FACTS YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE KNOWN ABOUT RENT:

1. Originally conceived by playwright Billy Aronson, Rent is a musical update of Giacomo Puccini’s opera La bohème. The title of Puccini’s opera is directly referenced in Rent’s signature song, La Vie Boheme. That’s why members of the prestigious Opera Company of Philadelphia will perform a number from their production of La bohème prior to Bryn Mawr Film Institute's screening.
 
2. Lamentably, Rent’s creator Jonathan Larson passed away less than 24 hours before the premiere of his show in January 1996.
 
3. Larson pulled from personal life experiences to create his characters. For example, Maureen dumps the central figure, Mark, for Joanne in Rent, which mirrored a real-life event where Larson’s girlfriend left him for a woman.
 
4. With the exception of two principals, all the major performers in Columbus’ film are reprising the roles they played on stage.



Take Angel's advice: Wear a costume to BMFI's Rent sing-along! 
 
5. Despite capturing the look and feel of 1980s Greenwich Village, director Chris Columbus shot most of Rent on soundstages at Warner Bros. studios and select exteriors in San Francisco. Only one scene, which featured the La Vie Boheme number, was shot on location in New York City.
 
6. Producer Robert De Niro sought to have his long-time friend and collaborator, Martin Scorsese, direct the adaptation. When Scorsese fell through, Columbus stepped in to helm the film.
 
7. For casting the role of Maureen’s girlfriend, Joanne, director Columbus auditioned an array of talent from established stars to American Idol contestants. One of those Idol contestants was Jennifer Hudson, who ultimately lost the role to Tracie Thoms (Death Proof). Jennifer Hudson went on to portray Effie in Bill Condon’s screen adaptation of Dreamgirls (another Broadway sensation), for which she won her Oscar.

So what are you waiting for? Make a plan with your Rent-head friends, dress the parts (should you want free popcorn!), and warm up your vocal chords, as we celebrate the “Seasons of Love” at this unforgettable sing-along event.



The cast collectively sings "La Vie Boheme" in the famous Life Cafe in Greenwich Village.

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Dan Santelli, BMFI's Programming Intern, is a 2012 graduate of Temple University with a Bachelor's degree in Film and Media Arts. A lifelong cineaste, his favorite films (in no particular order) include Leon: The Professional, The Night of the Hunter, Touch of Evil, Blue Velvet, Brazil, Apocalypse Now, Dressed To Kill (1980), Halloween, and Les Yeux Sans Visage.

Dan Santelli: Why I Love THEY LIVE

BMFI concludes its summer season of The Late Show tonight at 11:30 pm with a screening of John Carpenter's 1988 cult classic, They Live. BMFI's Programming Intern, Dan Santelli, tells us why he loves this politically charged thriller. Dan will also introduce the film screening. Check back for additional posts by the BMFI staff and community members that explore the movies we love.

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Why I Love They Live
By Dan Santelli, Programming Intern, BMFI

As a movie lover, I’ve always held a personal—and admittedly contrarian—stance that societal problems and issues (be they contemporary or historical) are worked out better and are more attention grabbing when placed in the context of the genre film than that of the “prestige” film (a la Forrest Gump). With genre films, you know what to expect when you go to see one, which gives you a greater opportunity to uncover hidden subtexts and messages. Never has there been a better example of the transcending power of the genre film than John Carpenter’s 1988 thriller They Live, which will screen at BMFI tonight at 11:30 pm as the final entry in the summer season's Late Show series.

Director John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing) with cast members on the set of They Live.

The premise of They Live is remarkably simple: Nada (WWE’s Rowdy Roddy Piper), a wandering construction worker, rolls into Los Angeles seeking a job. He discovers a box filled with sunglasses, which look as if they were stolen from the set of a Frankie Goes To Hollywood music video. When he tries on a pair, he realizes that the world he thought knew is merely a mirage created by power hungry, capitalist-minded extraterrestrials bent on brainwashing society with upper-class and conservative values.

From the get go, They Live is downright silly and preposterous, as all the Body Snatchers films and rip-offs inevitably are. And yet, this facet doesn’t undermine the movie as much as it only affirms Carpenter’s skill and assurance as a director. His deft, political touch involves us in the increasingly absurd tale of a burly, asocial hero as he blasts his way through Los Angeles conquering aliens and trading insults with them. It’d be too easy to criticize Piper’s characterization of Nada as less a full-fledged character than an expansion on his “Hot Rod” wrestling persona. Doing so misses the point. Much like Jack Torrance (Nicholson) in Kubrick’s The Shining, Nada is an archetype—a cipher standing in for the middle- and working-class Americans lost amidst the corruption and greed of the late ‘80s yuppie culture. Pitted in a world where friend could be foe and almost everyone’s against you, Nada carries the belligerent swagger of a conservative general (think Patton) with a liberal agenda.



John Nada (WWE Superstar "Rowdy" Roddy Piper) ready to kick some butt in They Live.

A USC film school grad who broke into the movies amidst the New Hollywood movement, Carpenter learned his craft by studying and lifting from masters such as John Ford, Sergio Leone, and Howard Hawks (his favorite director). With They Live, Carpenter indulges his love of the 1950s science fiction genre and their themes of Cold War paranoia (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing from Another World, Red Planet Mars). He uses the tropes while turning their underlying values on their head. What was once a genre telling the audience to “fear the outsider” and promote conservative values has been updated and injected with liberal minded ideology, as well as Carpenter’s contempt for the ‘80s approach to those right-wing politics.

They Live might not be Carpenter’s greatest film, but it remains an essential 1980s genre outing and the work of an oft-misunderstood auteur. Furthermore, it possesses a power that most non-genre films lack because it plays to the mass movie-going public by employing genre conventions while, simultaneously, expressing social/political fears and anxieties in the subtext. With They Live, John Carpenter transcends the genre tropes, while still adhering to them, and offers an elaborate, scrutinizing examination of—at least from Carpenter’s viewpoint—the “evils” of Reaganomics and the ills it inflicted upon society. You might not agree with Carpenter’s political agenda, but there’s no denying his ambitions.



"They" demand that you attend a screening of Mr. Carpenter's They Live.

In this respect, he ranks alongside fellow filmmaker and pop-satirist Joe Dante, whose vastly underappreciated Small Soldiers—a scathing anti-war satire disguised as a kids’ summer blockbuster—plays like a hybrid of Dante’s own Gremlins and They Live by creating an intelligent argument against the practice of packaging war for mass youth consumption. The Dante/Carpenter comparison could be explored further, on a surface level at least, as both directors are apparent cinephiles and Baby Boomers who grew up in the 50s and 60s, compulsively consuming science fiction and horror movies. This love is expressed through each director’s filmography, which divides critics, audiences, and cineastes, but has garnered both directors massive international cult followings (particularly in France). Their subversive wit, macabre interests, and scattershot bankability has ultimately forced them to work outside the studio system in order to express their love and craft.

Directors John Carpenter (above) and Joe Dante (below): Masters of the (Subversive) Macabre.

Of course, one can’t discuss They Live without noting what is, perhaps, the movie’s most memorable scene: an infamously prolonged slugfest between Piper and actor Keith David. Beginning around the 56-minute mark and lasting nearly five minutes, it’s a pile-driving, bruise-beating, no-holds-barred brawl that almost seems to have been extracted from a Chuck Norris movie. At least Carpenter has the sense of humor and intelligence to have fun with the scene—he noted in a making-of documentary that since he cast a notable wrestler as the lead, he might as well exploit his talents in the movie. As noted by film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum in his review of They Live, the Howard Hawks influence on Carpenter’s work might explain why he would extend this scene to the degree that he did: “buddies have to slug it out in order to become friends.” Boy, do they ever.

They Live is crude, lewd, trashy, goofy, and sensationally silly. At the same time, it’s an endlessly entertaining and thoughtful rumination on the ‘80s culture, with messages and themes which continue to be relevant today, post-9/11. Piper more than holds his own amidst the chaos and, while he’s by no means the world’s greatest actor, develops a persona that’s charismatic and charming. He’s a classic John Wayne-inspired Carpenter hero. Alongside the (lovingly) cheesy humor and rough-and-ready special effects is director Carpenter working to provoke thought in his audiences with stimulating political allegories and social criticism. It’s a singular, ridiculous hoot and Carpenter wouldn’t have it any other way. Even if you don’t agree with the subtext, it’s impossible not to appreciate the sublime ridiculousness of a movie that contains the line “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass…and I’m all out of bubblegum.”



They Live, We Sleep: Sunglass vision reveals the aliens in hiding.

Below is the They Live "making-of" documentary referenced above. Enjoy!

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Dan Santelli, BMFI's Programming Intern, is a 2012 graduate of Temple University with a Bachelor's degree in Film and Media Arts. A lifelong cineaste, his favorite films (in no particular order) include Leon: The Professional, The Night of the Hunter, Touch of Evil, Blue Velvet, Brazil, Apocalypse Now, Dressed To Kill (1980), Halloween, and Les Yeux Sans Visage.

Dan Santelli: Why I Love BRAZIL

BMFI will screen Terry Gilliam's cult favorite Brazil next Friday as part of The Late Show's tribute to "'80's Hollywood Oddities". BMFI's Programming Intern, Dan Santelli, tells us why he loves this bizarre sci-fi comedy. (You can find another perspective on Brazil from BMFI Patron, Student, and Volunteer, Gus Cileone.) Check back for additional posts by BMFI staff and community members that explore the movies we love.

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Why I Love Brazil
By Daniel Santelli Jr., BMFI Programming Intern

One of the reasons I go to the movies is to see something I can’t see anywhere else. Cinema, like many other art forms, has the power to transport the spectator to another world and visualize sights beyond those of the real world and our imaginations. Even movies grounded in a realistic location possess the power to defamiliarize its setting when the narrative is injected with a heightened sense of fantasy (Leon: The Professional is a popular example, Eyes Without a Face a more obscure one). By the time I was eight, I’d made my way through classics such as The Wizard of Oz, The Night of the Hunter, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, King Kong, and Hitchcock’s Psycho—the latter without the consent of my parents. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before I would encounter the wondrous cinematic nirvana that is Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, which is showing at BMFI as part of The Late Show series on Friday, July 6 at 11:30 pm.

Sam Lowry: Dream warrior (Jonathan Pryce) takes flight in Brazil.

Nothing short of a masterwork, Brazil’s episodic narrative concerns Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), a working-class, thirty-something, low-level government employee. He’s content with his position and frustrated by his friends' and mother's persistent attempts to promote him. His job becomes even more hectic when a faulty computing error sends out an incorrect arrest warrant. These conflicts combine to cause Lowry’s life and career to spiral out of control. His only escape into pure happiness is through his dreams, where he’s dressed in metallic armor and sports mechanical wings. The film is populated with an array of bizarrely wonderful characters, including Sam Lowry’s plastic surgery-obsessed mother (Katherine Helmond), Sam’s long-time friend, Jack (Michael Palin), and Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro, in a small, but pivotal role), a heating engineer/freedom fighter.

Noir-ish lighting greets Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), as he arrives for his first day of work at Information Retrieval in Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

Having grown up in Boardman, Ohio, I can say that it was, more or less, like being raised inside of a cardboard box. There’s little to do in the way of sightseeing and very limited opportunities for children to engage in activities outside of sports and the library. Being the son of a musician-turned-psychologist (Mom) and a steel engineer (Dad), it seems almost baffling that my principal interest would be movies. Furthermore, my insatiable desire for movies grew into a near unhealthy obsession, proved by my constant request to stay up late to watch Turner Classic Movies and my sneaking downstairs to watch my father’s video collection after dark on Saturdays—which is how I finally saw Brazil.

Viewing the movie in 1998 on VHS, I was confounded by the movie's politics, but entranced by the surreal visuals and sight gags. The sight of Robert De Niro wrestling through an endless maze of air ducts and wires was always a chief favorite. In fact, it inspired me to replicate the look of the Tuttle character for a failed Halloween costume. Even for a 132-minute film, there was never a moment in which I was bored and, more than any movie at the time, I identified with the plight of the main character, Sam Lowry.

 

Sam Lowry, slugging through yet another dull day of bureaucratic madness at Information Dispersal.

Interestingly enough, it’s important to note that Sam Lowry is one of the few “reactionary” characters in modern movies. In a time when screenwriters and directors are consistently reminded that characters should act on personal motivation and in response to the actions of opposing characters, it’s a breath of fresh air to view this unusual characterization of a man who simply reacts to the situations around him. Sure, Sam Lowry’s objective could be labeled as “to achieve happiness”, but he’s already achieved it at the beginning of the picture. He’s a middle-class individual working as a low-level typist in a bureaucratic office, but persistently states that he’s content with his position. Only when he accepts promotion to Information Retrieval—because he wants to discover the identity of a mysterious woman (Kim Griest) in his dreams—is he bewildered by the increased workload and sinks into sadness. Lowry’s tendency to react, as opposed to act, resembles film scholar David Bordwell’s dictum on character psychology (identified as “psychological causation”) in art films in his essay “The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice”:

“…whereas the characters of the classical narrative have clear-cut traits and objectives, the characters of the art cinema lack defined desires and goals. Characters may act for inconsistent reasons (Marcello in La Dolce Vita) or may question themselves about their goals (Borg in Wild Strawberries and the Knight in The Seventh Seal). Choices are vague or nonexistent” (96).

Oddly enough, Sam Lowry is one of the film characters with whom I most identify. As a teenager, you’d find me seated amongst horror fan boys in the local movie house watching obscure Lucio Fulci movies. Other times, I’d simply be at home reading up on Freud, dutifully finishing homework, or attempting to crack the code on how to write a proper, filmic setpiece. Many of my peers might’ve perceived these activities as mundane, but, like Lowry, I stuck to what got me the most pleasure out of life. My attitude towards grade school was almost a mirror image of Lowry’s attitude toward work: make one’s way through the day and don't allow oneself to get involved in anything that would terminate one’s own happiness.

Dream warrior Sam Lowry unmasks the dreaded metallic samurai haunting his nightmares in Brazil.

I might not possess all the “reactionary” characteristics of Sam Lowry that I once did; I’ve since become someone who ambitiously pursues new opportunities and challenges. Nevertheless, I believe that any post-graduate in their early 20s can identify Lowry’s state of aloofness. No matter what someone’s plans, hopes, and dreams are, the life of a post-graduate is strange, mysterious, conflicting, and life-changing. You’re not sure what’s coming at you, let alone whether you can deal with it or not, and one simply tries make it through life one day at a time. Lowry very much embodies this: he is baffled by the society he lives in, the corrupt government, and, despite being in his thirties, is still unsure enough to state “I don’t know what I want” in one particular scene. As Sam Lowry, Mr. Pryce is eloquent and sincere, compelling yet vulnerable, and perhaps Gilliam’s answer to Woody Allen’s recurring central characters. He’s an idealist living in a world where every citizen’s future is mapped out from the get-go.

Sam Lowry's dream girl, Jill Layton (Kim Greist).

Having revisited Brazil at least a dozen times, I’m surprised at how fresh the movie after the 27 years since its release. While there is some material that is of its time, there is a timeless quality to the political commentary that makes the humor endure. I often find myself laughing hysterically at one particular bit when Sam enters his new office at Information Retrieval and engages in a tug-of-war over desk space with the conspicuous Harvey Lime (played by the film’s screenwriter and frequent Gilliam collaborator, Charles McKeown).

None of this would be possible without the directorial vision of Terry Gilliam, one of cinema’s great visionaries. He marries the melancholic tone of Orwell’s 1984 with the absurdist humor of Monty Python to create a poignant satire of modern society. His mannerist camerawork and staging border on feverish and hallucinatory, but that just furthers the effect. His most significant achievement was making a movie that is at once political, personal, and visionary—there’s no other movie that looks, sounds, or even remotely feels like it. It’s purely a tightrope act: Gilliam climbs the ladder, walks across the tightrope, keeps on going, and never looks down.

Director Terry Gilliam's surreal signature style envelops every nightmarish frame of Brazil.

Alongside David Lynch’s equally deranged and surreal Blue Velvet, Brazil remains, for me, the highpoint of 1980s cinema. Not everyone agreed. America’s most popular film critic, Roger Ebert, found the movie “very hard to follow” and claimed that it was “awash in elaborate special effects, sensational sets, apocalyptic scenes of destruction and a general lack of discipline.” Pauline Kael praised Gilliam’s vision as an “original, bravura piece of moviemaking,” but found the drama lacking and Pryce’s performance to be “charmless”. The film’s reputation and popularity have risen dramatically since its release; now it is a cult film favorite and considered a modern masterpiece. Even more so, the film’s satirical jabs at ‘80s politics and pop culture (Helmond’s plastic surgery process is simultaneously abhorrent and humorous) have positioned it in a pantheon alongside Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove as one of cinema’s most potent satires. At the very least, Brazil is a visual feast for the eyes. At the best of times, it’s transcendent. As Ebert used to note, it’s the kind of movie you get when the inmates start taking over the asylum.

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Dan Santelli, BMFI's Programming Intern, is a 2012 graduate of Temple University with a Bachelor's degree in Film and Media Arts. A lifelong cineaste, his favorite films (in no particular order) include Leon: The Professional, The Night of the Hunter, Touch of Evil, Blue Velvet, Brazil, Apocalypse Now, Dressed To Kill (1980), Halloween, and Les Yeux Sans Visage.

A Look at The Late Show: '80s Hollywood Oddities

This summer, BMFI's The Late Show series is showing some true "'80s Hollywood Oddities", selected studio pictures from the decade of excess that have spawned cult followings and break the conventions of Hollywood. BMFI's Programming Intern, Dan Santelli, discusses the five films featured and what makes them unique.

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A Look at The Late Show: '80s Hollywood Oddities
By Dan Santelli, Jr., BMFI Programming Intern

Beginning this Friday, the summer season of BMFI’s The Late Show series will kick off with an 11:30 pm screening of Jim Henson and Frank Oz’s dark fantasy, The Dark Crystal. The Late Show’s theme this summer is “'80s Hollywood Oddities”, a selection of some of the more offbeat outings from the American studios amidst a decade of excess, including films by American independent maverick John Carpenter, puppet wizards Jim Henson and Frank Oz, television-director-turned-studio-director Robert Greenwald, and Monty Python’s very own expatriate, Terry Gilliam. In each of their films, these directors were able bypass the studio’s ideology to produce films for mass consumption and create strange, perverse, and personal expressions that have stood the test of time. Even if the films’ box-office performance was mediocre at best—The Dark Crystal and They Live were the only two genuine hits—their idiosyncratic styles have garnered cult followings.

The evil Skeksis plan to stop Jen from accomplishing his quest in The Dark Crystal.

The 1982 feature The Dark Crystal follows the adventures of a “Gelfling” on a quest to retrieve the missing piece of a magical crystal. Finding the shard and completing the crystal is the only possible method of restoring order on his planet. What lies beneath the veneer of this "family-friendly," Tolkien-inspired fable is a bizarre, mythical tale featuring some of the strangest creatures ever to emerge from the Jim Henson Workshop and several set-pieces exhibiting an array of grotesque visuals—it’s not every day you see a vulture-like King crumble and fall apart postmortem in a movie purported to be aimed at children.

The samurai warrior blocks our hero's progress during a dream sequence in Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

On July 6, BMFI will screen the director’s cut of Terry Gilliam’s 1985 dystopian, black-comedy Brazil. Running at 142 minutes, the director’s cut restores approximately ten minutes of footage (most of which expands the film’s nightmarish ending) and reconceives the film’s central dream sequence—in which our hero, bureaucrat Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), battles a giant, metallic samurai—as a full set-piece. The film’s many aesthetic pleasures and visionary depiction of a retro-future gone horribly wrong are enough to warrant a big-screen experience, regardless of whether you’ve seen the movie or not. Furthermore, Brazil’s critique of humanity’s dependence on technology and reworking of Orwellian themes has influenced a number of science-fiction films.

Men of the hour: actor Kurt Russell (left) and director John Carpenter (right) on the set of Big Trouble in Little China.

Two John Carpenter films, 1986’s Big Trouble in Little China (showing on July 28) and 1988’s They Live (showing on August 24), will be screened as well. In Big Trouble, all-American trucker Jack Burton (Carpenter favorite Kurt Russell) finds himself in the middle of a mystical battle between ancient forces while helping to rescue a damsel-in-distress. All of which leads up to a climactic battle with the evil sorcerer Lo Pan (James Hong). While there may be little in the way of a sociological critique, director Carpenter’s sheer audacity to combine the spirit of Howard Hawks with martial arts, humor, and full-blooded action is nothing short of revelatory and an escape from mindless by-the-numbers formulas. A $25 million studio blockbuster, Big Trouble’s poor performance at the box office—due in part to poor marketing and being released amidst the hype of James Cameron’s Aliens—led Carpenter to return to his roots as an independent genre filmmaker.

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The aliens would want you to leave your sunglasses at home when you come to see They Live.

Carpenter’s subversive cult classic They Live is a post-modern reimagining of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as well as a blistering critique of Reaganomics and the excessive nature of the era. WWE’s Rowdy Roddy Piper stars as a wandering construction worker who, through the power of his magic sunglasses, discovers a group of aliens in disguise as the upper-class. Filled with cheesy fun, hilarious lines, and politically astute sensibilities, They Live is a hoot.

Speaking of cheesy, Robert Greenwald’s kitschy cult classic Xanadu, starring Grease’s Olivia Newton-John, will screen on August 7. Greenwald’s musical concerns Greek goddess Kira (Newton-John) and her influence on two men to transform an auditorium into a giant roller rink/nightclub. A flop upon its initial release, Xanadu, like all of the former titles, achieved legendary cult status due to repeat playing on late night television and a ‘90s VHS release. Featuring legendary star Gene Kelly in his final film role, enjoy the fun romp that is Xanadu.

Greek muse Kira (Olivia Newton-John) sings 'n skates her way through Robert Greenwald's Xanadu.

These pictures, for better or worse, are representative of a time when the Hollywood studios dared to produce or distribute a product that today would be considered “unmarketable”. It has been twenty-two years since the end of the ‘80s, but the decade lives on in each of these films, subversive time capsules that reflect the changes in ideological beliefs, bygone trends, or the once lenient limitations of what constituted a children’s movie.

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Dan Santelli, BMFI's Programming Intern, is a 2012 graduate of Temple University with a Bachelor's degree in Film and Media Arts. A lifelong cineaste, his favorite films (in no particular order) include Leon: The Professional, The Night of the Hunter, Touch of Evil, Blue Velvet, Brazil, Apocalypse Now, Dressed To Kill (1980), Halloween, and Les Yeux Sans Visage.

BMFI's Summer Film Preview

The summer issue of BMFI's program guide, Projections, arrived today! Keep reading for an overview of our summer programming. For more information about the upcoming films and a full schedule, visit BrynMawrFilm.org or pick up a copy of Projections.

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BMFI's Summer Film Preview
By Dan Santelli, BMFI Programming Intern

As the temperatures rise, the sun shines bright, and schools let out, why risk sunburn when you can catch the beam of a projector bouncing off the silver screen? Summer movie season is on the horizon and BMFI is serving up a slew of classic films, special events, and the best new releases guaranteed to entertain movie lovers of all ages and sensibilities.

Our Summer Classics programming begins with a bang thanks to a 35 mm screening of Die Hard, shown as part of the June class Action Films as Art, taught by BMFI's Director of Education, Andrew J. Douglas, Ph.D., and Programming Manager, Valerie Temple, M.F.A. Dr. Douglas will also lead a course on the early works of Alfred Hitchcock in conjunction with a July series featuring two of Hitchcock’s British pictures—The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes—and two American features—Rebecca and Spellbound.

If suspense isn’t up your alley, warm up your vocal chords with sing-along showings of Bye Bye Birdie, My Fair Lady, and An American in Paris, shown as part of the Singin’ in the Summer series. Free popcorn if you wear a costume!

"The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola": Jean-Pierre Leaud and Chantal Goya in Godard's Masculin Feminin.

Inspired by AMC’s hit show Mad Men (it's a BMFI office favorite) and its suave, sophisticated characters, Ms. Temple has cooked up a series of five films with the Drapers in mind. Billy Wilder’s comedy triumph The Apartment, Godard’s New Wave classic Masculin Feminin, and Douglas Sirk’s 1955 melodrama All That Heaven Allows are highlights.

Be sure to figure out Who’s That Lady? at screenings of Orson Welles’ The Lady From Shanghai and Best Picture Oscar winner All About Eve, as well as rediscover two Bill Murray scene stealers—Caddyshack and Tootsie.

Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth in The Lady from Shanghai.

Director Philip Kaufman will be in our focus during the month of August with screenings of his acclaimed features The Right Stuff and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with a special appearance by film critic and author Annette Insdorf, Ph.D.

The Perm (Donald Sutherland, above) and The Mullet ("Rowdy" Roddy Piper, below) face off in BMFI's alien-centric summer favorites.

BMFI’s The Late Show series will continue its run of hidden gems and offbeat cult movies on select Fridays at 11:30 pm throughout the summer, showcasing the weird side of the studio system with five ’80s Hollywood Oddities. Beginning with Jim Henson and Frank Oz’s 1982 Tolkien-inspired Muppet epic, The Dark Crystal, and ending with John Carpenter’s alien-laden critique of 1980s ideology They Live, the series also includes Terry Gilliam’s Orwellian Brazil, John Carpenter’s kung-fu actioner Big Trouble in Little China, and Robert Greenwald’s campy musical Xanadu. Whether you’re looking for social satire, Muppets, a darkly humorous vision of the future, or a good kick to the head by Kurt Russell, The Late Show is bound to please.

The summer ends with big screen showings of the evergreen Ben-Hur and Casablanca. If you haven't seen these classics on the big screen, you're missing out. Buy your tickets early--Casablanca is an end-of-summer tradition and tickets go fast.

In addition to our line up of classic films, we're also featuring three special events, including an encore viewing of Michael Smerconish's interview with Chris Matthews on June 3, and the ReelAbilities Film Festival's June 7 screening of the French film The Straight Line, about an ex-con who trains a blind racetrack runner.

On June 11, BMFI will hold a special screening of the documentary Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us? at 7:30pm. Prior to the screening, enjoy a special honey-centric dinner provided by Whole Foods Market with expert beekeepers in attendance. Come on down and hear the buzz on the horrors of bee colony collapse disorder and what you can do to help fix it.

Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis) sets course in search of her mother in Beasts of the Southern Wild.

As always, a score of acclaimed new releases will accompany the old favorites. We do our programming on a week-by-week basis, but we're hoping to show the Cannes favorite Moonrise Kingdom (the new Wes Anderson picture) and the Grand Jury Prize winner at Sundance, Beasts of the Southern Wild, praised by Ms. Temple as “the best of the fest” and film critic Roger Ebert as “the best film I’ve seen this year."

Showcasing the best of high art and the most spectacular entertainments, there’s no putting a foot wrong with beating the heat and staying cool in a movie theater.

For more information about these and the rest of the films that BMFI is featuring this summer, check out the summer issue of Projections. From all of us at Bryn Mawr Film Institute, we wish everyone a happy, healthy, and safe summer. We look forward to seeing you at the movies.

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Dan Santelli, BMFI's Programming Intern, is a 2012 graduate of Temple University with a Bachelor's degree in Film and Media Arts. A lifelong cineaste, his favorite films (in no particular order) include Leon: The Professional, The Night of the Hunter, Touch of Evil, Blue Velvet, Brazil, Apocalypse Now, Dressed To Kill (1980), Halloween, and Les Yeux Sans Visage.

"Blood Red Kisses" and "White Hot Thrills": Reflections on KISS ME DEADLY

BMFI will screen Robert Aldrich's classic film noir Kiss Me Deadly on 35 mm as part of The Late Show film series this Friday, May 25 at 11:30 pm. Our Programming Intern, Dan Santelli, reflects on the infamous film noir and its history.

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The obscure opening title, descending from top to bottom, set the mood for the strange movie to follow in Kiss Me Deadly.

Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly, which will be screened as part of The Late Show series on Friday at 11:30 pm, begins with that classic plot jump off point for the crime narrative: the Girl on the Run. Christina Bailey (Cloris Leachman, in her first feature film appearance), begs to be taken to the nearest bus station and urges the driver, should she not “make it”, to remember her name. The opening titles commence. The madness begins.

A hybrid of old school mystery-thriller, atomic age horror, and hard-edged cinematic nihilism, Kiss Me Deadly culminates to form one of the more perverse, pessimistic, and subversive social/political commentaries of its time. Standing proudly alongside other classics such as Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter, and Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past, Kiss Me Deadly more than fits the bill as a “textbook” example of film noir in terms of form and atmosphere.

"Remember me, remember my name" pleads Christina (young Cloris Leachman) to Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) in Kiss Me Deadly.

Unlike these pictures, however, Kiss Me Deadly was an independently produced feature and directed by non-studio director Aldrich. The resulting film hardly made a dent upon release in America, but the independent factor allowed for greater leeway to include violent content. Furthermore, it allowed director Aldrich to break the genre expectations and incorporate personal observations on the time and culture of the 1950s. What was billed as a “no-holds-barred” crime caper ultimately turned out to be a savage critique of the silliness surrounding ‘50s Cold War paranoia and McCarthyism with strong science fiction overtones in the last act.

Mike Hammer's futuristic looking answering machine in Kiss Me Deadly.

Ignored in the States (its sole champions were film critics Manny Farber and Andrew Sarris), Kiss Me Deadly would go on to be tauted in France for its style by Cahiers du Cinéma then-critics François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. Even more important, the film’s radical visual style heightened its importance, as it became a sort-of “template film” for all involved in the French New Wave.

While Kiss Me Deadly is more fun for those who walk into the movie cold, the plot follow private-eye Mike Hammer, a low-life scumbag with a Fascist mentality that makes the hardboiled masculinities of Sam Peckinpah and Lee Marvin seem small and diminutive. After picking up Christina and being attacked by goons, Mike’s misadventures lead him to encounters with beautiful, but highly critical, women and marauding criminals seeking out the great “whatsit”, a small suitcase-like object that became the chief inspiration for the suitcase in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.

Ralph Meeker as the brutish and sadistic Mike Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly.

Kiss Me Deadly, like most films, would've never become the essential classic it’s recognized as without actor Ralph Meeker’s characterization of Mickey Spillane’s popular private-eye, Mike Hammer. Never has a name been more suited to character’s persona. Mark Gross, in his write-up for last year’s home video release by the Criterion Collection, describes Meeker’s Hammer as a “walking, talking, 6 foot, 180 pound sneer”. This is putting it lightly. Meeker’s injection of ultra-machismo into the character makes the misogynistic ramblings of comedian Andrew Dice Clay resemble the lyrics of a Miley Cyrus tune. He’s a tough-talking, no nonsense, borderline psychotic can-of-whoop-ass waiting to be unleashed on the unsuspecting goons.

The irony of the situation, one could argue, is that Hammer himself is perhaps even worse a person than those he’s fighting against. But like all the great antiheros, Meeker’s charismatic charm and humorous approach to nihilism compels one to follow him through the end. Director Aldrich wisely counterpoints Hammer’s intensity in one scene with a tender love scene between him and his girlfriend in the next, highlighting the duality of the character. Sometimes these two extreme opposites occur in the same scene. Ultimately, what might have been a one-dimensional stick figure becomes a dynamic three-dimensional character, albeit seemingly trapped in a world that’s visually and figuratively “black and white”. You may not like him, but you can’t take your eyes off him.

One of Hammer's interrogation techniques: crushing the culprit's fingers in a desk drawer.

While the formal elements of 1950s films might appear dull and televisual when compared to the kinetic camerawork of the current day, Kiss Me Deadly remains unconventionally energetic with an abundance of activity happening in and out of the frame. Photographed by Ernest Laszlo (whose work on Stanley Kramer’s Ship of Fools would earn him a Best Cinematography Oscar), the frames are filled with hard lighting and obscure shadows. There are hints of the work of cinematographers Nicolas Musaraca (Cat People) and the German Expressionists, most notably Karl Freund (Metropolis). Film noir style might be best known for this lighting convention, but Aldrich’s camera and staging are two of the film’s biggest stars. Filled with fluid tracking shots and meticulous staging of the actors, Aldrich’s rushed production schedule doesn’t seem to have hindered his indulgence in exploiting the cinematic form. In particular, a scene in which Hammer drops in on an opera singing tenant features two long takes of such consummate quality that they rival some of the best staging by Orson Welles.

From left to right: Director Robert Aldrich, actor Nick Dennis, dialogue coach Rick Sherman, and actor Ralph Meeker on the set of Kiss Me Deadly.

Director Robert Aldrich would go on to have a superior career in feature filmmaking with such classics as The Dirty Dozen, What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?, The Longest Yard (with Burt Reynolds), and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte. More underrated efforts include The Killing of Sister George, The Choirboys, and The Grissom Gang. Aggressive masculine nature exists underneath the veneer of most of these works, but never was it more exploited, or more expressively so, than in Kiss Me Deadly.

Kiss Me Deadly serves as a reminder that genre films have the power to transcend the cinematic art form as well as the culture, sometimes even more than the “art” film, by burying social and political critiques underneath the surface in the subtext. The influence of Kiss Me Deadly can be found in a wide range of work like the French New Wave films of Godard and Truffaut (certain set-pieces in Breathless and Shoot the Piano Player are directly inspired), ’70s Sidney Lumet movies (Dog Day Afternoon), the "cinema du look" films by Luc Besson (particularly Leon: The Professional), the cine-literate work of Quentin Tarantino, and the thrillers of Brian De Palma.

Mike Hammer's (Ralph Meeker) first encounter with the potentially deadly "Great Whatsit" box.

Even though it’s virtually impossible not to have encountered the influence of Kiss Me Deadly, the classic is not generally known to mainstream American moviegoers. This tragedy is understandable, chiefly because its initial 1955 release was very limited due to the Kefauver Commission of Congress's attempted ban of the film. Even in the markets that chose to play the film, audiences didn’t seem to take notice and Kiss Me Deadly eventually drifted into obscurity in America. MGM’s VHS, laserdisc, and DVD releases have helped expose the movie to today’s audiences and the recent Criterion Collection Blu-ray release is yet another attempt.

Very few films made match the exuberant joy in embracing pop-nihilism like seeing Kiss Me Deadly. A masterful combination of art, commerce, and politics, it stands as a high water mark for the American crime film and a step forward into modern movie sensibilities. If this is your first time and, better yet, you know little more than what you’ve read, I envy you. To quote the emphatic mechanic who makes his first appearance at the sixteen minute mark: “VA VA VOOM, PRETTY POW!!!”

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Dan Santelli, BMFI's Programming Intern, is a 2012 graduate of Temple University with a Bachelor's degree in Film and Media Arts. A lifelong cineaste, his favorite films (in no particular order) include Leon: The Professional, The Night of the Hunter, Touch of Evil, Blue Velvet, Brazil, Apocalypse Now, Dressed To Kill (1980), Halloween, and Les Yeux Sans Visage.

SECRETARY: Ten Years of Hard Work and Rough Play

Tonight, BMFI will screen Steven Shainberg's Secretary as part of "The Late Show" film series. Our Programming Intern, Dan Santelli, takes a look at this indie hit, its roots in classical Hollywood, and the film's treatment of sadomasochism.

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Secretary: Ten Years of Hard Work and Rough Play
By Dan Santelli, BMFI Programming Intern

In 2002, director Steven Shainberg’s Secretary, which will be screened tonight as part of BMFI’s "The Late Show" series, served up a steamy romance between actors James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal in the form of an office relationship propelled by sadomasochism. What begins simply as routine spanking sessions for Miss Gyllenhaal’s typing errors becomes complicated when romantic attraction affects both of them.

While some audiences may understandably perceive such material as crass, Secretary’s approach is much livelier and, dare I say, funnier than one would likely expect. With a narrative structure resembling the classic Hollywood romances of the 50s and 60s, Secretary is more traditional than most of the indie features that were on the market at the time. The injection of sadomasochism is perhaps the only subject matter that would potentially turn off anyone over the age of 18 from seeing this surprisingly delightful romp.

If anything, screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson, who adapted Mary Gaitskill’s short story, and director Steven Shainberg deserve nods and acclaims for their successful attempt to rework old material and present in a manner making it appear fresh. Furthermore, their courage to take a subversive risk at a time when the American film industry played it safe due to post-9/11 anxieties is brave and daring.

Maggie Gyllenhaal's character, Lee Holloway, performs her daily morning routine in Secretary.

Secretary was certainly not the first feature film to dabble in the realm of BDSM. One would have to go back to the pictures of glamour actresses Louise Brookes and Marlene Dietrich to view the first screen representations. In films such as Josef Von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel and G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box, Miss Dietrich and Miss Brooks infused a heightened level of sexual suggestiveness and female dominance. With the help of costumes and signature poses, both actresses gained notoriety for their vampish performances, which paved the road for future filmmakers and talent to explore the depths of perverse sexuality.

Louise Brooks, playing her infamous Lulu character, breaks taboos with her vampish performance in Pandora's Box.

Secretary is notable for being one of the very few pictures that presents sadomasochism in a positive light to reach mass audiences. The two central characters, Mr. Grey (Spader) and Lee Holloway (Gyllenhaal), do have their personal problems, but these don’t overshadow the pleasure and delight the two receive from their sessions, which is the movie’s central focus from the second act onward. Even highly tauted classics such as David Lynch’s surreal 1986 film Blue Velvet can be interpreted as portraying the sadomasochistic love triangle between Kyle Maclachlan, Dennis Hopper, and Isabella Rossellini in a less-than-positive light. In addition, forgotten gems like William Friedkin’s criminally neglected 1980 film Cruising, a mystery-thriller with Al Pacino’s rookie cop going undercover as a gay man in heavy leather bars and searching for a psychopathic killer targeting the gay men, has a vision of sadomasochistic behavior that some may find problematic and others will find flat-out offensive.

Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini (top) in  Blue Velvet and Al Pacino (bottom) in Cruising, two films featuring transgressive depictions of onscreen S&M.

Even more surprising is the genuinely warm critical and commercial reception Secretary received upon its release. Film critic Manohla Dargis lovingly emphasized Secretary’s light-hearted nature: “For all the dolorous trim, Secretary is a genial romance that maintains a surprisingly buoyant tone throughout, notwithstanding some of the writers' sporadic dips into pop Freudianism.” Movieline film critic Stephanie Zacharek confirms the film’s positive depiction of sadomasochism with this laudatory praise:

“Mr. Shainberg has a wry and wicked sense of humor, but he takes the emotional pain of these characters seriously. This isn't a movie about the dark side of S&M; it's about sexual compassion, a way of recognizing that one person's minor kink may be another person's lifeline.”

Even in 2012, the Hollywood studio system’s refusal to produce projects dealing with controversial and “taboo” sexual subject matter remains problematic. Sure, there have been breakthroughs for the homosexual community with Ang Lee’s Oscar favorite Brokeback Mountain and the Wachowski Brothers’ overlooked Bound (still their best and most enjoyable feature to date). In terms of perverse sexual behavior, Hollywood is more inclined to suggest and subvert the topic than to deal with it overtly. In an age where the studios, more often than not, continue to play it safe, Secretary holds up surprisingly well after ten years and signifies itself as one of the defining independent statements of the 2000s. More importantly, it’s a bold statement, preferring to be honest and open about its subject matter while never forgetting to be unabashedly romantic.

Mr. Grey (James Spader) and Lee meet with a potential client in Secretary.

Secretary will be playing at Bryn Mawr Film Institute tonight at 11:30pm. Please note: the film is rated R by the MPAA for "strong sexuality, some nudity, depiction of behavioral disorders, and language".

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Dan Santelli is a senior at Temple University pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Film and Media Arts. A lifelong cineaste, his favorite films (in no particular order) include Leon: the Professional, The Night of the Hunter, Touch of Evil, Blue Velvet, Brazil, Apocalypse Now, Dressed To Kill (1980), Halloween, and Les Yeux Sans Visage.

The Dardennes + De France: A Look at THE KID WITH A BIKE

Today The Kid with a Bike, the latest award-winning feature film by the Dardenne Brothers, arrives at BMFI. Our Programming Intern Dan Santelli takes a look at the Dardennes, their filmography, and The Kid with a Bike's stunning lead actress, Cecile De France.

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The Dardennes + De France: A Look at The Kid with a Bike
By Dan Santelli, BMFI Programming Intern

With over thirty years of filmmaking under their belts, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, known in auteurist circles as “The Dardenne Brothers”, emerge once again with their much acclaimed The Kid with a Bike (Le Gamin au velo).

Starring Belgian actress Cecile De France (best known to Americans for her work in Clint Eastwood's Hereafter), The Kid with a Bike is about a young boy (Thomas Doret) and his budding friendship with Samantha (De France), who agrees to become a weekend foster parent for him after he is abandoned by his father.

While their latest effort continues their work of realist cinema, The Kid with a Bike is perhaps more approachable, with a screenplay influenced by the structure of classic fairy tales. Garnering the Grand Prix at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, the Dardenne’s sixth narrative feature reworks several themes and ideas from the films of Italian Neo-realist director Vittorio De Sica, particularly his 1946 masterwork Bicycle Thieves.

Of course, the Dardenne Brothers are not the sole reasons for the success of their pictures. Much credit is due to their consummate professionalism in working with actors. Through extended rehearsal periods prior to the production phase, the Dardennes possess an inherent gift for drawing accomplished performances from their cast, who are often non-professionals.

Cecile De France and Thomas Doret star in the Dardennes Brothers' latest film, The Kid with a Bike.

Miss De France, with her bright, wide smile and striking versatility, has emerged as one of the great undiscovered European treasures of recent years. Having only played supporting roles in two American features (Disney’s 2004 Around the World in 80 Days and the aforementioned Hereafter), she’s remained under the radar here while establishing herself as a major talent in the French and Belgian film industry. In The Kid with a Bike, Miss De France has shed her expressive acting style in favor of a more minimalist approach. In a recent interview, Miss De France stated that “restraint is much more a part of my range now. I want to continue to create and invent, but learning how not to do so was such a rich experience.”

Filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne got their start in documentary films.

With an eye for naturalism and a punctual sense of authenticity throughout their previous works, the Dardenne’s prominence in America has only been confined to hardcore cinephiles and elite film critics. American film critic J. Hoberman raves:

“The Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have a style and set of interests that are as instantly recognizable as those of any filmmakers in the world…The remarkable thing about the Dardennes—who made documentaries for two decades, years before going fictional—is their visceral single-mindedness. Each of their movies is an odyssey (toward grace?) through a world that could hardly seem more drably material.”

Their films have twice earned the Palme D’Or, the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, for the rapturous L’Enfant and the unsentimental majesty of Rosetta. With the imminent US release of what is perhaps their most accessible feature to date, audiences get a chance to discover at the back catalogue and uncover the magic surrounding these two talented filmic artists.

Want to see more films from the Dardennes Brothers and The Kid with a Bike's leading lady? Keep reading for my favorites.


L’Enfant (d. The Dardenne Brothers, 2005)

Living off their welfare checks, young lovers Sonia and Bruno find themselves strapped for cash when Sonia gets pregnant. Once Sonia has given birth, Bruno promptly sells the baby to the black market in exchange for money. Shocked by his actions, Sonia turns him away, forcing Bruno to seek out and discover what happened to the baby. Despite its dismally sounding plot, L’Enfant (The Child) is far from depressing and exhibits some of the Dardenne’s most audacious filmmaking.

Shot in and around the industrial town of Seraing, the rough hand-held camerawork establishes a haunting sense of place as Bruno scrounges around, in hopes of righting his terrible wrongdoing. The Dardenne’s direct for a sense of immediacy and their experience in documentary lingers throughout.

Most filmmakers who make the jump from documentary to fiction adopt conventional narrative techniques. However, one of the things that sets the Dardennes apart is how they arrive, at times, in the middle of a scene, a nod to the limitations and sensibility of documentary filmmaking. By doing so, they miss whatever initiated or built up the scene and stay with the characters for a few seconds longer than most narrative directors would before cutting away to the next scene.

The Dardennes won their second Palme D’Or at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival with this feature, but it failed to find an audience in the States, causing L’Enfant to fade into obscurity. Seek it out and you’ll discover one of the great foreign films of the last ten years.

Also recommended by the Dardenne Brothers: Rosetta (1999) and The Son (2002).

High Tension (Haute Tension) (d. Alexandre Aja, 2003)

Cecile De France stars in the stylish horror film High Tension.

Prior to her work with the Dardennes and Eastwood, Miss De France turned in a mostly silent but compelling physical performance as college student Marie in genre filmmaker Alexandre Aja’s extravagantly stylish and hyper-violent Euro-slasher High Tension. Quoting his favorite 1980s slashers throughout, Aja’s execution is superlatively imaginative at defamiliarizing clichéd material, while maintaining a consistent tone of unremitting dread.

What begins as a quiet weekend away in the country with her college friend, Alex (Maiwenn Le Besco), turns into bloody catastrophe as a corpulent truck driver systematically disposes of Alex’s family before taking Alex hostage. Now, it’s up to Marie to save Alex…but is everything as it seems?

High Tension, while not entirely original and rather thin on plot, is meticulously directed, almost to the level of an art film, has three extended suspense set pieces guaranteed to frighten and horrify audience members, and successfully breathes life into a dying genre. It comes highly recommended for those who appreciate visceral cinema and horror movies, but I strongly caution those who are repelled by blood.

If for nothing else, High Tension is a superior achievement of sustained visual storytelling (there can’t be more than fifteen minutes of interspersed dialogue) and defines what film critic Pauline Kael used to refer to as "great trash".

For those not in the mood for De France’s bloody turn, these two delightful comedies featuring Miss De France provide wonderful alternatives: L’Auberge Espagnole (d. Cédric Klapisch, 2002) and Russian Dolls (d. Cédric Klapisch, 2005).

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Dan Santelli is a senior at Temple University pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Film and Media Arts. A lifelong cineaste, his favorite films (in no particular order) include Leon: the Professional, The Night of the Hunter, Touch of Evil, Blue Velvet, Brazil, Apocalypse Now, Dressed To Kill (1980), Halloween, and Les Yeux Sans Visage.