Monica Nolan's 2018 Eyes

The San Francisco Bay Area is still home to a rich cinephilic culture nurtured in large part by a diverse array of cinemas, programmers and moviegoers. I'm honored to present a selection of favorite screenings experienced by local cinephiles in 2018. An index of participants can be found here. 

Four-time IOHTE contributor Monica Nolan is an author and editor who regularly writes for the Film Noir Foundation and the SF Silent Film Festival.

Quiet Please, Murder

Quiet Please, Murder (John Francis Larkin, 1942, at Noir City): George Sanders tortures library denizens with a harp string while future producer of Perry Mason Gail Patrick looks on!

Destiny (Julien Duvivier and Reginald Le Borg, 1944, at Noir City): a mannered, mangled masterpiece.

Jealousy (Gustav Machaty, 1945, at Noir City): Karen Morley’s super-charged performance as the mild-mannered murderess brought a round of applause from the audience.

Rosita (Ernst Lubitsch, 1923, at SF Silent): Gorgeously restored and long underrated Lubitsch gem.

Mother Krause’s Journey to Happiness (Piel Jutzi, 1929, at SF Silent): Slum living ends in infanticide/suicide. Now that’s realism.

The Wind Will Carry Us screen capture from Cohen Media DVD

The Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas Kiarostami, 1999, at SFMoMA): a mysteriously sublime rightness in every cut and camera angle.

Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932, CFI San Rafael): More Lubitsch perfection.

Les Rendezvous d’Anna (Chantal Akerman, 1978, at the Roxie) Still wondering why no one (I mean you, PFA programmers) has done a massive retrospective of Chantal Akerman’s work.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz, 1938, at the Castro) a reminder of the sheer delight of big screen technicolor.

Honorable mention for rarity and glimpse of San Francisco of yore: Whatever Happened to Susan Jane? (Marc Huestis, 1982, at SFPL)