March 3
Tokyo Story
Director: Yasujiro Ozu (Japan 1953; 137 min).
A profoundly stirring evocation of elemental humanity and universal heartbreak, this film follows an aging couple’s journey to visit their grown children in bustling postwar Tokyo, and surveys the rich and complex world of family life with the director’s customary delicacy and incisive perspective on social mores.
March 10
Vanya on 42nd Street
Director: Louis Malle (United States 1994; 119 min).
In the early 90s, theater director André Gregory mounted a series of spare, private performances of Anton Chekhov’s "Uncle Vanya" in a crumbling Manhattan playhouse. This experiment in pure theater—featuring a remarkable cast of actors, including Wallace Shawn, Julianne Moore, Brooke Smith, and George Gaynes—would have been lost to time had it not been captured on film, with subtle cinematic brilliance, by Louis Malle. This film, which turned out to be Malle’s last, is a tribute to the playwright’s devastating work as well as to the creative process itself.
March 17
Cries and Whispers
Director: Ingmar Bergman (Sweden 1972; 91 min).
This existential wail of a drama from Ingmar Bergman concerns two sisters, Karin (Ingrid Thulin) and Maria (Liv Ullmann), keeping vigil for a third, Agnes (Harriet Andersson), who is dying of cancer and can find solace only in the arms of a beatific servant (Kari Sylwan). A powerful depiction of human behavior in the face of death, positioned on the borders between reality and nightmare, tranquillity and terror.
March 24, ~ No film ~ See you next week!
March 31
La Chinoise
Director: Jean-Luc Godard (France, 1967; 96 min).
Paris, 1967. Five university students spend their summer vacation holed up in an apartment borrowed from a friend’s wealthy parents. They spend their time studying political texts, delivering lectures to each other, and discussing how they can apply the teachings of Mao Tse-tung to their own lives. After reading a series of texts advocating violence in the cause of revolution, the group agree to carry out a serious assignment.