Marion Cottilard Nabs Oscar

On Sunday night, the incandescent Marion Cotillard bucked the prognosticators by taking home the Academy Award for Best Actress. Cotillard faced stiff competition from the legendary Julie Christie, whose performance in Away From Her had been racking up guild award after guild award. She also faced a rumored eleventh hour surge of support for Ellen Page, whose performance in Juno touched the younger, hipper Academy voters. Somehow, Cotillard emerged from this scrum with Oscar in hand.

Why do I mention all this? On the one hand, I say also this in the interest of self promotion. Doc will be screening the Cotillard-Edith Piaf biopic La vie en rose this Friday. On the other hand though, I mention all of this because it really makes our programming look genius. While Cottilard had Oscar buzz as early as December, using this buzz as the sole basis to justify screening a French film that had barely made a box office dent in the States seemed a bit rash. And yet, Cotillard is now the reigning Best Actress, and her film a multiple award winner (it also won for Best Makeup against such stiff competition as the Eddie Murphy vehicle and Norbit and Pirates 3). We couldn't be happier here at Doc, both for Ms. Cotillard, and if we might say so, for ourselves.

Doc Prevents Life-Scarring Tragedy

In a daring rescue attempt yesterday evening, Programming Chair Kyle Westphal and myself attempted to dissuade a middle-aged woman from sitting her grandkids for a screening of David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises. While it wouldn't have taken this little family very long to realize what they were getting into, it probably would've been too late, as Eastern Promises opens with a throat-slashing that no seven year-old girl would ever forget. While our pleas seemed fruitless (and how can we complain, the "customer is always right" after all?), we were all relieved when but ten minutes later (just before the movie was set to begin), grandmother and grandchildren come walking into the lobby, grandmother noticeably embarassed.

Thanks to our policy of announcing future titles before a screening, grandmother quickly realized that they were one night early. She had meant to take her grandkids to Doc's screening of Julie Taymor's Across the Universe and confused the nights. Life-scarring tragedy was thus averted; said young girls will continue to live blissfully ignorant of the murderous intrigues of London's Russian mafia.

Roger Ebert Pimps Doc

So, check this out (from Roger Ebert's latest Q & A - all questions and answers can be found here):

Q. As an aspiring young filmmaker, I watch and rewatch as many films as possible, around seven to 14 a week (which is tough with college and work). A lot of the time I feel like because I haven't seen every classic or obscure film, I'm less of a director because I never gleaned that knowledge. I feel small when I see P.T. Anderson or Tarantino display their endless film knowledge.

I'm young, but I love film and I hate when that love is questioned because I haven't gotten to a certain film. What are your thoughts on this whole neurotic mess of mine? Can someone of this generation, so far removed from the birth of film, still make something as good as "Citizen Kane," even if they haven't seen it? (And yes, I've seen it several times. And no, I do not think I could match Welles' genius.)
Roy Hatts, Warwick, N.Y.

A. Join the club. I feel the same way you do. Friends of mine like Jonathan Rosenbaum and Dave Kehr seem to have seen every film ever made -- and David Bordwell, Bertrand Tavernier and Pierre Rissient probably have. There is a suspicion in Chicago that members of the University of Chicago's Doc Films, the first campus film society in the nation, are born having seen every film. But keep on watching good movies. And don't feel insecure when you make them. After all, Orson Welles watched John Ford's "Stagecoach" 100 times before making "Citizen Kane."

Thanks Roger. You know, if you're ever feeling up to it, we'd be more than happy to have you down here. Hell, why not come down on February 25, catch some silent DeMille, and see your pal Dave Kehr talk about film preservation with University of Chicago Professor Tom Gunning and Library of Congress curator Mike Mashon? Just a thought, you know.

Winter Calendar Now Up

While print versions of our Winter calendar and newsletter our now available across Chicago, please note that the calendar is now available on our website in both At-A-Glance and Google format.

More Details...

As our Autumn calendar winds to a close this week, I'd like to finally take the time and write an expanded preview of our Winter schedule.

Mondays - Sam Fuller, American Maverick
Info - Nine film (ten including Crimson Kimono in the Film Noir series) Samuel Fuller retrospective. Fuller was one of the major American filmmakers of the 1950s and early 1960s (and, I would argue, the early 1980s as well), and this series really encompasses the breadth of his work, from war films (The Steel Helmet), to Westerns (Forty Guns), Film Noir (Pickup on South Street), and just out-there madness (Shock Corridor, White Dog).

Don't Miss - I almost selected Fuller's rarely seen Verboten! but then I realized that just because I hadn't seen it, doesn't mean it's the absolute can't-miss film of the series. That distinction belongs to the equally rare Park Row. A film that Fuller financed with his own money (he got none of it back), Park Row is a visceral, but loving tribute to what Fuller felt was the greatest era in the history of American news media, the late nineteenth century. It's a heartfelt film to be sure, but it also ranks among Fuller's supreme masterpieces, a certain candidate for the title of his greatest picture.

Tuesdays - Jacques Demy/Jacques Tati
Info - While these two French filmmakers share little in common other than a first name, this is still a very special retrospective. Tati, one of the most important French filmmakers of the 1950s (in the period preceding the French New Wave), created worlds unto themselves, beautifully realized spaces and their relationships to the people operating within them. His masterpiece, Playtime, ranks among cinema's greatest achievements, a staggering work of pure cinema that delights and astonishes its audience every time. Demy, in contrast, was one of the founding filmmakers of what became known as the New Wave; however, he's mostly neglected today apart from his two musicals with Catherine Deneuve (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Young Girls of Rochefort). His first major film, Lola, is considered by many critics to be one of the founding texts of the New Wave style.
Don't Miss - While there are many great pictures in this series, Tati's Traffic as well as his film Parade are must sees. While I can't speak for the merits of either of these films, they are so rarely screened in the United States (the prints will be coming directly from France) that they simply cry out to be seen and rediscovered by American audiences.

More coming soon...

Winter Rumble

Are you ready for our Winter calendar yet? I'll have an extended preview up in the next couple of weeks, but I'll give you a little taste of what's to come:

Mondays - Sam Fuller (9 film retrospective that also includes the documentary Falkenau, the Impossible which features some of the 16mm concentration camp footage that Fuller shot after liberating the camp in 1945)

Tuesdays - Jacques Tati/Jacquest Demy (5 + 5 film retrospective of these two great French filmmakers)

Wednesdays - Viva Almodovar! (10 film Almodovar retrospective)

Thursday 1 - Film Noir of the 50s (self-explanatory series that includes classics of the genre both big and small)

Thursday 2 - Sexploitation! (everything from 1930s nudies to 1970s porn and Verhoeven's infamous Showgirls)

Sundays - Silent Lubitsch (early silent gems from the master of the comedy)

American Gangster Is Going To Be Huge

If I were a Universal executive right now, I'd be pretty excited about the prospects of Ridley Scott's American Gangster. What's the reason for my optimism? Diversity.

Let me explain by first providing some background. Last night, Doc hosted a sneak preview of American Gangster. The screening was amazingly successful, not only filling the cinema to its capacity (483 seats), but also forcing the Chicago police to disperse the 200 or so people who had to be turned away. To put that into perspective, the screening of Lions for Lambs with Robert Redford at Doc only barely filled the cinema; maybe five people were turned away. While we at Doc expected a pretty big crowd, we were especially astonished because we literally did as little as we possibly could have to advertise this event. There were no posters, no phone messages, no blog posts, nothing. An announcement didn't even appear on our website until this past weekend. There was a Facebook group, one poster in the cinema lobby, and that was about it.

But apparently there was a huge word-of-mouth following behind the screening. This was evidenced by the diversity of the audience in attendance. These weren't the mostly white college students that filled our theater for sneak previews of The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou or Kinsey. It's likely that half, or even less than half, of the audience were actually college students. Most of the audience was filled with non-students, most of whom were African-American. This is an audience that rarely, if ever, comes to Doc. But they packed the cinema for this film.

Why? The answer is two-fold. First, it's very clearly a Denzel Washington vehicle. Denzel is, no question, the most popular African-American actor in the country (among both black and white audiences). Has a Denzel vehicle ever flopped at the box office? Nevertheless, Denzel alone can't explain the excitement and enthusiasm that accompanied the film. No, what this audience wanted to see was a big-budget film with an African-American protagonist that was actually African-American (culturally, politically, socially, etc.). "Denzel as a gangster?" they must have thought. "I have to see that."

Whatever it was that drove this diverse audience to the film, Universal ought to sit back and do nothing else with their marketing campaign. Clearly, what they've done so far has worked. Everything from the Jay-Z soundtrack, to Denzel, to bringing in a veteran director with a track-record of box-office success (Ridley Scott), has been golden. This movie, judging from this audience (one very different from the normal sneak preview crowd), is going to have an enormous box office haul. I suspect that it will challenge the success of last year's The Departed. Not only does this film appeal to the same crowd, but it also adds another crowd, the one that made Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? the number one film at the box office a week ago.