Victora Jaschob Only Has Two Eyes

It's impossible for any pair of eyes to view all of Frisco Bay's worthwhile film screenings. I'm so pleased that a number of local filmgoers have let me post their repertory/revival screening highlights of 2011. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from Victoria Jaschob, an animation production manager who also writes for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.

The Great White Silence
Herbert G. Ponting, 1924

The Blizzard (Gunnar Hedes Saga)
Maurtiz Stiller 1923

He Who Gets Slapped
Victor Sjöström 1924

Scored and accompanied by the Matti Bye Ensemble for the 16th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival

Although I didn’t get out to many repertory screenings this year, I made a point of attending as many of the SF Silent Film Festival programs as possible. This year’s offerings were especially eclectic, both cinematically and musically. As was the case last year, the films scored by Sweden’s Matti Bye Ensemble stood out for me as the epitome of how music and image can combine to create a totally immersive experience.

The Ensemble (Matti Bye, Kristian Holmgren, Lotta Johannson, Mattias Olsson), did an Artist’s Residency at the Headlands Center for Arts earlier in the year, where they spent a month composing completely new scores for the three films. At the end of the residency, the musicians gave a presentation where they described their process and played sections of the scores in progress. What made the greatest impression on me during this talk was the emphasis, not only on the technical aspects of the music, which was stunning, but the effort to express musically the psychological and emotional life of the characters in the films.

The three films were linked (perhaps intentionally) by imagery and theme: Two of them took place in harsh, frozen environments, and all three depicted man’s struggle to survive his circumstances. There was also a uniting theme of man’s relationship to animals, which seemed unusual in silent film: comic penguins and tragic ponies in The Great White Silence; otherworldly reindeer in The Blizzard; a murderous lion in He Who Gets Slapped, which channels “He’s” rage to terrifying effect.

The Great White Silence, which depicts the doomed South Pole Expedition of Captain Scott, included some breath-taking, nearly surreal imagery of ocean, waves, icebergs, and glaciers. The orchestration (Matti, Kristian and Lotta accompanied by two string musicians and Kristian’s home-made wind machine) captured the poignancy of the men’s efforts to reach their goal, and the futility of human striving in the face of implacable Nature. A foreshadowing came at the moment when, as their ship approached the Antarctic, a huge iceberg hove into view. At that moment, even though he’d watched the film dozens of times, Bye said he “felt the iceberg.” I think we all did.

The Blizzard was a mythic, and again, tragic fable of a man who again runs into difficulties when he ventures into uncharted territory, in this case, Lapland. This film doesn’t end with death, but madness. Some of the film’s truly magical moments included a circus pony that would pull its wagon only when accompanied by harmonica; a wise woman/witch/goddess who appeared in a sled pulled by two bears, and a hallucinatory reindeer, who appears to the hero in complete silence as he lies on a snow bank, near death. The musicians portrayed these moments with great delicacy, humor and emotion.

He Who Gets Slapped, the legendary Lon Chaney drama, was scored completely differently than other Matti Bye-scored films I’ve seen to date. Strings were dispensed with entirely, replaced by the amazing percussionist Mattias Olsson. The score often worked counter to the images, to emphasize the tragic, ironic elements of the film, and was relentlessly dark. Even the romantic moments between Norma Shearer and John Gilbert were treated with the same darkness, indicating that their happiness was doomed. The climax of the film, when the villains are trapped in a room with a man-eating lion, was so intense I think I stopped breathing.

I can’t wait to see what next year’s festival will bring from Matti Bye and his incredibly talented Ensemble!

Frako Loden Only Has Two Eyes

It's impossible for any pair of eyes to view all of Frisco Bay's worthwhile film screenings. I'm so pleased that a number of local filmgoers have let me post their repertory/revival screening highlights of 2011. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from critic and teacher Frako Loden, who writes for documentary.org, The Evening Class, and elsewhere.

Al Momia (The Night of Counting the Years) (Shadi Abdel Salam, 1969) - Pacific Film Archive showed this magnificent, mysterious film about an Egyptian clan that has been surreptitiously selling off mummy treasures.

The Battle of Chile Parts I, II, III (Patricio Guzmán, 1975-78) - Another PFA-hosted masterwork, part of the SFIFF, that had me enthralled for over four hours.

Went the Day Well? (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1942) - At last I got to see this weird "what if" propaganda about Nazis infiltrating an English village.

Every year the San Francisco Silent Film Festival leaves me with the most vivid memories of films gone by. Il Fuoco (The Fire) (Giovanni Pastrone, 1915) was my first big-screen look at the astonishing Italian diva Pina Menichelli that ignited my fascination with Black Romanticism. The Great White Silence (Herbert G. Ponting, 1924) documented Capt. Robert Falcon Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole. The orphan film Origin of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” (1909) reduced me to helpless laughter thanks to Stephen Horne's piano accompaniment. Lois Weber's 1916 social-problem Shoes was a revelation. And Upstream (1927) could have been a completely mediocre film for all I cared--I was just thrilled to see a John Ford film thought to be lost forever.

Spartacus (Stanley Kubrick, 1960) - The Jewish Film Festival had Kirk Douglas on the Castro Theatre stage for a brisk and hilarious Q&A.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the California Film Institute continued their "A Century Ago" series with a half-dozen films from 1911 at the Rafael. I'm hooked as of this year.

My first visit to Telluride this summer happened to be guest-programmed by Brazilian musico-political legend Caetano Veloso. His choice of the Les Blank-style documentary Nordeste: Cordel, Repente e Canção (Tânia Quaresma, 1975), about the vernacular arts of Northeastern Brazil, was one of the most rewarding screenings there. I also finally got to see the triumphant ending of the restored, fully tinted A Trip to the Moon (Fr: Georges Melies, 1902) as the climax of another great Serge Bromberg program.

Carl Martin Only Has Two Eyes

It's impossible for any pair of eyes to view all of Frisco Bay's worthwhile film screenings. I'm so pleased that a number of local filmgoers have let me post their repertory/revival screening highlights of 2011. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from Carl Martin, the keeper of the Film On Film Foundation's Bay Area Film Calendar.

this year's short list was modest compared to years past. still tough to winnow down to ten:

april 3, pfa: north beach
the fragment of dion vigne's film i'd seen before is brilliant. i'd heard the complete film was even more so--but how could it sustain its frantic energy for 17 minutes? it could!

april 27, kabuki #1: salvador
i've never been an oliver stone fan but this early buddy movie (?) has just the right tone of general nonpartisan political cynicism. james woods is a lunatic. a first-rate print, well projected.

may 13, castro: out of the blue
finally allowed to direct again after the last movie, dennis hopper made a film almost as radical and disruptive, yet, to its benefit, with more confidence and cohesion. linda manz. linda manz!

june 5, red vic: the great muppet caper; june 19, castro: the muppets take manhattan
i hadn't seen these first two muppet sequels since their original releases, and they had me choked up from scene one. masterful puppetry, masterful command of cinema's emotive possibilities. plus great songs and cameos. lovely prints. (the new muppet movie was ok but they shot the dang thing with a video camera!)

july 1, roxie: tex
matt dillon: a dumb mug awash with pathos-inducing, vulnerable bravado. this movie tore my damn heart out. followed by the somewhat cathartic over the edge, an earlier, nearly as good effort (as screenwriter) from tim hunter.

august 1, roda theatre: the juggler
the early part of the day is a dead time for repertory. but that's when i'm most alert, most receptive, before the drowsiness of early evening cycles in. thank you, sfjff, for showing this lovely print of a heartbreaking film at mid-day. i felt every twist of the emotional wrench. kirk douglas gives one of his finest performances as a charismatic man revealed to be quite mad--the only sane response to the madness of his world. too bad the ending's a bit pat.

august 5, pfa: king queen knave
usually i don't like to "read the book" before i "watch the movie" but when i read nabokov's novel five years ago i had no idea who skolimowski was, let alone that he'd adapted it. oddly, some of the clunkier material from the book, such as the robot mannequin sequence, reveals itself to be cinematic gold in this hilarious sex comedy. the print, alas, was faded.

september 9, pfa: payday
no punches are pulled in this dissection of country music's seedy underbelly, back when country music was good. now it's even more cynically commercial, but, worst of all, bland. rip torn--bland he is not.

september 14, pfa: ice
a ballsy super-low-budget agit-prop feature that really seems to embody its own convictions and contradictions. the first part of zabriskie point meets... it happened here, maybe? why the hell is it called ice?

december 2, roxie: hi-riders
i was surprised the same auteur lay behind the ultra-schlocky joysticks and this considerably more interesting work. it's shamelessly exploitative, to be sure, with a breast count to rival its body count, but dean cundey's photography elevates it, and the finale is shockingly effective. this original print had, shall we say, lots of character.

Ben Armington Only Has Two Eyes

It's impossible for any pair of eyes to view all of Frisco Bay's worthwhile film screenings. I'm so pleased that a number of local filmgoers have let me post their repertory/revival screening highlights of 2011. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from Ben Armington, Box Cubed manager and lapsed cinephile

1. The Woman on the Beach (Noir City 9, Castro)

Coastal Noir from Jean Renoir! This obscure (to me, at least) romance from the great humanist’s unhappy American stint opens awesomely with a hallucinatory nightmare sequence set at the bottom of an ocean carpeted in skeletons and haunted by a beautiful woman, and does not let up in mystery and excitement. Shell-shocked coast guard officer Robert Ryan spends his time riding horseback down the shipwreck strewn coastline until he trots into a seedy postman-always-rings -twice scenario with lusty Joan Bennett and her broke-ass beau, a once celebrated, now ambiguously blind artist played by Charles Bickford. However, Renoir is after more than merely grinding through the plot machinations, and the film deftly plays the characters off each other, investing them and the surroundings with an almost mythic quality of sadness, finally building to a Pyrrhic but hopeful climax that suggests redemption can be found, even if you have to burn it all down.

2. Love Exposure (Roxie)

An utterly beserk and totally sincere four hour coming-of-age exegesis from the usually uneven Sion Sono that follows one pilgrim’s progress through such growing pains as sinning to please father, upskirt photography stardom, cross-dressing, criss-crossing romances, cults, etc. One of those thrilling experiences where a filmmaker throws all of their concerns and obsessions up on screen and comes up with something completely original and vital.

3. Edgar Wright Triple Feature, with Edgar Wright in attendance (Midnites for Maniacs, Castro)

Edgar Wright’s films dance to the beat of the screwball comedy, so it was an absolute blast to see them with an enthusiastic (and, as far as the two can co-exist, respectful) sold out crowd at the majestic Castro theatre. Mr. Wright himself was witty, charming, and most refreshingly, generous with his time, answering film school-y questions from the audience and staying through all three screenings to do a Q & A after the midnight screening of Shaun of the Dead.

4. Ishtar (Midnites for Maniacs, Castro)

A true film maudit. While Elaine May’s satire has been a critical punching bag since it’s release, I found it to be as fresh as if it had been made yesterday, a Dr. Strangelove for the 1980’s. With Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as the luckless, hilariously undertalented songwriters who follow their dreams into a quagmire of top heavy cold war brinksmanship and arms dealing, the beguiling Isabelle Adjani, and the Heartbreak Kid himself, Charles Grodin, at his smarmiest as a CIA agent.

5. Love Streams (YBCA)

Late Cassavettes, with John and Gena as Grey Gardens-esque creatures stumbling through well worn grooves of self destruction. A film that you don’t so much watch as experience, and, as such, uniquely moving.

6. I Am God (Cruel Cinema, YBCA)

A totally bonkers movie that was unlike anything else this year, that played like some unholy admixture of Jodowrsky and Tod Browning. Must be seen to be believed.

7. 1900 (PFA)

Bertolucci’s primal obsession with the conflict between the comforting numbess of the bourgeois and the noble struggle of the working class, stretched over a sprawling canvas, etched in Vittorio Storaro’s lush camerawork. And, of course, sex. Much to my surprise, and, I believe, the PFA’s, the print screened was the 317 minute, NC-17 version. There are deifintely some longueurs’ here, and I wouldn’t call the film wholly satisfying, but the scope and ambition of it remain staggering. With Donald Sutherland, as the leering, fascist embodiement of evil.


8. The Great Flamarion/Once A Thief (I Wake Up Dreaming, Roxie)

The Great Flamarion (what a title!) saw icy Erich Von Stroheim, sharpshooter entertainer extraordinaire, tumble for his pretty assistant/target Mary Beth Hughes, despite his steely self-discipline. The only problem is that she’s already married, to grumpy souse Dan Duryea...directed by the awesome Anthony Mann, who knew where to aim suggestive guns. The co-feature, directed by Billy Wilder’s less heralded brother W. Lee Wilder, came equipped with a plot that Sirk or Fassbinder would have enjoyed torturing a complacent audience with; A down on her luck lady, played by June Havoc (what a name!), gets a chance to forget the past and go straight, but keeps on making bad choices, the fatal one being falling for an obviously untrustworthy clotheshorse con artist, played with excessive unctuosness by Cesar Romero. Amazing!

9. Nadja (Roxie)

A fun, unjustly forgotten gem from the faraway 1990’s that stylishly updates Bram Stoker’s Dracula for the shoegaze set. Dracula’s just been killed, leaving his daughter (played by the ghostly Elina Lowensohn) to drift through the existensial dark night feeding on whatever crosses her path, the film really captures a certain penniless slacker ennui that will bring a salty tear of recognition to many an eye. Peter Fonda is very touching as crazy uncle Van Helsing, just out of the clink for staking Dracula.

10 Anthropomorphlolz (SF International Animation Film Festival, SFFS Cinema)

The organizer of this short film and music video program, Jay Wertzler, is a friend and film festival colleague whose sense of humor I cherish, so it was an utter delight to witness this pink beam straight from his cat-addled brain pan. He-Man musical numbers, Tupac Cat, and anthropomorphic skateboards were some of the bizarre spectacles that stick in my memory from that evening. lolz!

Adam Hartzell Only Has Two Eyes

It's impossible for any pair of eyes to view all of Frisco Bay's worthwhile film screenings. I'm so pleased that a number of local filmgoers have let me post their repertory/revival screening highlights of 2011. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from Adam Hartzell, a freelance writer whose work has appeared in sf360, koreanfilm.org, Kyoto Journal and elsewhere.

As much as I've been enjoying the curation provided for the San Francisco Film Society's new screening venue at New People, the only New People events that made my list were before New People became the home of the San Francisco Film Society screenings. Otherwise, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts comes in twice and the Pacific Film Archives once. I went to other rep houses this year, such as The Roxie and The Castro, I even took the train out to Sacramento to catch the Sacramento French Film Festival at The Crest Theatre but none of the films at those venues that fit the parameters Brian requested have surpassed the impact of the five repertory events I list below.
　
5) EVANGELION 2.0: YOU CAN (NOT) ADVANCE (Anno Hideaki, 2009, Japan) - VIZ Cinema (before it became New People Cinema officially)
　
This anime screening makes my list because it was a fun event, rather than an enjoyable movie. I had never experienced a packed VIZ Cinema before. Not being an anime otaku, I had no idea what to expect. As much as I was bewildered by the plot, I was entertained by the knowledgeable audience appropriating what was most valuable for them on screen. This is film-watching as public performance as opposed to passive reception. So much about watching films for me is about where, when, and with whom I see a film, and this was an example of those three W's being entirely responsible for the enjoyment.
　
4) INTANGIBLE ASSET #82 (Emma Franz, 2009, Australia) - PFA
　
I only ventured to the East Bay for cinema three times this year. Once to re-watch THE TOPP TWINS: UNTOUCHABLE GIRLS (Leanne Pooley, 2009, New Zealand) with my cousin to support its theatre release and once to get a taste of the latest Canadian sensation, Nicolas Pereda during a retrospective on him at the Pacific Film Archive. As much as the latter provided a nice surprise run-in with Michael Guillén, my favorite PFA experience was with Emma Franz's travelogue of jazz drummer Simon Barker's musical discovery of Korean drummer Kim Seok-chul. It's not a perfect film, but it is a film on a topic I've been wanting to see for a while. I still don't fully comprehend the nuances needed to appreciated Korean traditional music forms, but INTANGIBLE ASSET #82 got me a little bit closer on a journey that I still have a long ways to travel.
　
3) CENTRE FORWARD (Pak Chong-song, 1978, North Korea) - YBCA
　
What a wonderfully rare opportunity to watch a North Korean film. YBCA never ceases to amaze me with the surprises they roll out on celluloid (and, yes, occasionally on pixels). But the best YBCA event was clearly . . .
　
2) THE JEONJU DIGITAL PROJECT (2000-2010).- YBCA
　
The highlight of my cinema events this year, YBCA brought all the shorts that were part of the Jeonju International Film Festival Digital Project since it began in 2000. (Unfortunately, two of the shorts were missing from what was sent to YBCA.) There were so many gems amongst the lot. James Benning's simple drama of a steel refinery loading up it's molten product into awaiting trains in PIG IRON (2010), Darezhan Omirbaev's reworking of Checkov in modern Uzbekistan in ABOUT LOVE (2006), Bahman Ghobadi's real life artisans in DAF (2003), and my favorite director Hong Sangsoo's first short ever, LOST IN THE MOUNTAINS (2009). This also provided the opportunity to see two shorts I've been anxious to see for some time, Eric Khoo's commentary on domestic laborers in his native Singapore in NO DAY OFF (2006) and Bong Joon-ho's incredibly entertaining appropriation of surveillance cameras in INFLUENZA (2004). Just like YBCA, neither disappointed.

1) THE FLAVOR OF GREEN TEA OVER RICE (Ozu Yasujiro, 1952, Japan) - VIZ Cinema (now New People Cinema)
　
Ozu fails to disappoint me and so often completely enthralls me. This one even won over my wife, who is not (yet) a fan of older Japanese cinema. Simply put, I left with a smile on my face after watching this film that lasted throughout the weekend. Here's hoping SFFS keeps this tradition of occasional screenings of the older Japanese masters at New People!

Shahn Only Has Two Eyes

It's impossible for any pair of eyes to view all of Frisco Bay's worthwhile film screenings. I'm so pleased that a number of local filmgoers have let me post their repertory/revival screening highlights of 2011. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from a future film archivist known in the blog world as Shahn. She blogs at Six Martinis And The Seventh Art.

These two eyes got to see a lot more films on the big screen this year than last year. On-going proximity to the Pacific Film Archive Theater and the ever-expanding San Francisco Silent Film Festival both helped a great deal as well as a less-demanding school schedule for the second half of 2011

I saw:

Razor Blades (1965-68) PFA: Absolutely amazing double projection. With the order/disorder of images and the color changes amid flashes within the flicker effect, I really felt Paul Sharits was training my eyes to see his film in a different, unique way. Giving in completely to his manipulation felt like a gift of a new way to experience film.

T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G, (1968) PFA: Once he'd trained my vision with the preceding film, this became a full-body experience. At times the film was dripping off the screen, at others it was bouncing off the walls. Any further explanation would be like hearing someone describe their LSD trip, so enough from me. This was probably the greatest film screening I've attended, like, ever. It was most amusing to watch audience members give up and walk out, like participants who drop out of the spell at a hypnotist's performance.

Mademoiselle (1966) PFA: I had seen this before but only on DVD and in the company of francophones who didn't think to turn the english subtitles on for me until a good way into the film. Learning that the screenplay was written by Jean Genet also changed this viewing experience. The film makes so much more sense now.

Badlands (1973) PFA: The audience shaped this experience for me. A large portion, possibly viewing this as "camp", laughed heartily at Martin Sheen's every line. I thought they would see it differently once the dichotomy between his innocent ramblings and extreme violence came up, but they were just quiet through the killings and resumed guffawing once he started speaking again. I wish at these times that I could request an audience Q&A after the screening. I'm still thinking about their reaction.

Kristallnacht (1979) PFA: This was just gorgeous and surprisingly intimate for a blurry experimental film. The lush rhythms were calming, like being comforted and soothed while encased in a bear hug. I can easily imagine this feeling reaching Anne Frank, as Chick Strand intended.

Upstream (1927) Castro Theater: Made me rethink my aversion to John Ford. It's a large cast of characters that he juggles without dropping any of them, and moving in and out of comedic bits all the while.

I Was Born But... (1932) Castro Theater: My first silent Ozu. I love everything of his I've seen, but this one made me realize how he uses "silent movie" techniques all the way through his sound pictures - the pillow shots of course, but also how the characters turn to the camera and pause before speaking. I will always expect a cut-away to an intertitle now.

The Great White Silence (1924) Castro Theater: If you visit my blog any December, you'll notice that I like snow. Seeing so much of it on a big screen was pure heaven, not to mention the documentary aspect showing how they set up camp and ate and kept warm. I'm nuts about that stuff. Including penguins never hurts a film either.

The Woman Men Yearn For (1929) Castro Theater: Made in that golden year of luscious silent film master craftsmanship, Marlene Dietrich just glows like a movie star should. It's no wonder the men keeps whirling around her like moths. And yet no jealousy is ever provoked in the female audience 'cause she's really winning one for the team. Go, femme fatale, go!

Tribune-American Dream Picture (1924) Castro Theater: If T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G, is my favorite this year, this is number two. A local newspaper in Oakland, CA launched a contest for readers to submit a written account of a dream, to be filmed by professionals and starring the readers themselves. It's completely surreal as well as showcasing both East Bay and San Francisco locations as they were in 1924. Absolutely brilliant and here's hoping more of this series turn up. It'll make for more great viewing in 2012.

Lawrence Chadbourne Only Has Two Eyes

It's impossible for any pair of eyes to view all of Frisco Bay's worthwhile film screenings. I'm so pleased that a number of local filmgoers have let me post their repertory/revival screening highlights of 2011. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from cinephile Lawrence Chadbourne:

My rep/revival choices for 2011 though with my travel back and forth I got to see fewer such films last year.

1. À Double Tour Though the print wasn't complete, the choice of this particular Chabrol for Susan Oxtoby's brief tribute to the recently deceased New Wave master especially appealed to me. It showed what he introduced with his use of color and brought back memories of the time, around when this was shot, that I was also staying in Aix-en-Provence, though not in exactly the same surroundings! It remains a scandal that IFC chose not to distribute Chabrol's farewell film here but disrespectfully dumped it onto video.

2. Huckleberry Finn Anita Monga is to be commended for continuing to lift the artistic level of the Silent Film Festival, this year's selection being arguably the richest so far. This surprising and lyrical adaptation was the highpoint for me.Today we know the director William Desmond Taylor mostly for the circumstances of his death but from the few of his movies I've managed to catch he appears to be worthy of further rediscovery.

3. The Rules of the Game This war horse was brought back for a Saturday noon show at the sole surviving single screen house, the Plaza, in Calgary, where I spent a fair amount of 2011. I wouldn't normally have revisited this familiar classic right then but two friends up there with a nodding acquaintance of film history had somehow never gotten around to seeing it at all. The presentation was sparsely attended (It was a typical cold Alberta day) but enriched by a scholarly introduction from a local Cinematheque lady and by a Q & A. My friends both liked the film but were somewhat puzzled and asked me to explain parts of it, which I did the best I could without the aid of the many books and magazines I can draw on back here at home. The result was, the screening stimulated me to rethink this work in a way I hadn't in previous viewings, and it now means even more to me. It is also nice to support the Plaza, where I have been seeing films for 40 years.

I'd like to close by wishing my old friend from the Fine Arts, Keith, the best of luck in bringing us even-better repertory programming at the Castro for 2012.

Lincoln Spector Only Has Two Eyes

It's impossible for any pair of eyes to view all of Frisco Bay's worthwhile film screenings. I'm so pleased that a number of local filmgoers have let me post their repertory/revival screening highlights of 2011. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from Lincoln Spector of Bayflicks. With his permission, I extracted the Frisco Bay repertory events from his previously-published list of Best Movie-Going Experiences of 2011:

Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm, Castro, June 11. Hollywood made a lot of long epic movies in the 50s and 60s. Many of them were shot in large formats, and initially presented in 70mm roadshow presentations—a great way to see a big film. Some of these movies were pretty good. A few were excellent. Too many of them are unwatchable. But only one stands out among the greatest masterpieces of the cinema: David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia—as perfect a blending of medium and story as you can find. Seeing this film this way wasn’t a new experience for me last summer, but an old, beloved one. Had it been my first such experience, it undoubtedly would have made number 1.

Four Noir Features in One Day, Castro/Noir City, January 22. It was dark. It was dangerous. Lust, greed, and fear hung heavily in the air. It was enough to drive you crazy. On one dark and scary winter day, I sat through two double bills of vintage noir, all about people who were out of their minds (a festival-long theme last year). I loved three out of the four movies, but the best was easily Don’t Bother To Knock, which gave Marilyn Monroe one of her first starring roles. She plays a babysitter who really should not be trusted with a child. She shouldn’t be trusted with a grown man like Richard Widmark, either.

Three Charlie Chaplin Mutual Shorts, Castro/Silent Film Festival Winter Event, February 12. Forget, for a moment, the mature Charlie Chaplin of The Gold Rush and City Lights. It was the short subjects he made a decade earlier that won him more populsilarity than anyone could have imagined before he stepped in front of a movie camera. The three shorts presented that day, The Pawnshop, The Rink, and The Adventurer reminded me and hundreds of other people of just how amazing he was in his third year as a filmmaker. The early Chaplin character could be exceptionally selfish and cruel–even sadistic. Yet you root for him. That’s star power. Donald Sosin provided piano accompaniment.

Upstream, Castro/San Francisco Silent Film Festival, July 14. How often do you get to see a newly discovered John Ford movie (actually, this was my second). Thought lost for decades and recently found in New Zealand, Upstream is not the sort of picture you associate with Ford. But this amusing and entertaining trifle about the residents of a theatrical boarding house–a story with a love triangle at the center–showed that he was considerably more versatile than we generally assume. Rather than merely accompanying the film on a piano, Donald Sosin put together a jazz sextet that rocked the house.

Serge Bromberg and the History of 3D, Castro/San Francisco International Film Festival, May 1. In 2011, the Festival gave its Mel Novikoff Award to film restoration expert, distributor, and entertainer Serge Bromberg. After a brief Q&A where he discussed preservation and set some nitrate film on fire, he presented, narrated, and occasionally accompanied some rare, historic 3D shorts. Among the filmmakers whose works were presented were George Mêliés and Chuck Jones. With the exception of the first two-reeler, all of the films were presented digitally.

Kirk Douglas & Spartacus, Castro/San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, July 25. Last year, the Jewish Festival gave its Freedom of Expression Award to Hollywood star, living legend, executive producer, and stroke survivor Issur Danielovitch—better known to the world as Kirk Douglas. The stroke slurred his speech but not his enthusiasm, and didn’t keep him from talking about the importance of free expression in a democracy, and that how without it we are all slaves. Then they screened Spartacus–one of the great roadshow productions of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Like Lawrence of Arabia, this picture requires something like the Castro to make it work its best. My only regret: They screened it in 35mm as no 70mm print is currently available.

runners-up, listed in chronological order by screening date

The Leopard, Castro, February 20
The Battleship Potemkin, Castro, March 18
Screenwriter Frank Pierson and Dog Day Afternoon, Kabuki/San Francisco International Film Festival, April 30.
Days of Heaven, Cerrito, August 11
Elevator to the Gallows, Pacific Film Archive, November 4

Michael Hawley Only Has Two Eyes

It's impossible for any pair of eyes to view all of Frisco Bay's worthwhile film screenings. I'm so pleased that a number of local filmgoers have let me post their repertory/revival screening highlights of 2011. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from cinephile/critic Michael Hawley, who blogs at film-415. This list is cross-posted there along with his lists of favorite new films of 2011.


10 Favorite Repertory/Revival Screenings
1. Deep End (1970, UK, dir. Jerzy Skolimowski, Castro Theatre)
2. Battleship Potemkin (1925, USSR, dir. Sergei M. Eisenstein, Castro Theatre)
3. La Dolce Vita (1960, Italy, dir. Federico Fellini, Castro Theatre, San Francisco International Film Festival)
4. Dance Hall Racket (1953, USA, dir. Phil Tucker, Roxie Theater, "I Wake Up Dreaming" Film Noir series)
5. The Leopard (1963, Italy, dir. Luchino Visconti, Castro Theatre)
6. World on a Wire (1973, West Germany, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pacific Film Archive – San Francisco International Film Festival)
7. L'argent (1928, France, dir. Marcel L'Herbier, Castro Theater, San Francisco Silent Film Festival Winter Event)
8. The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948, USA, dir. John Farrow, Roxie Theater, "I Wake Up Dreaming" Film Noir series)
9. Sunrise (1927, USA, dir. F.W. Murnau, Castro Theatre, San Francisco Silent Film Festival)
10. All eight films I saw in the "Southern Discomfort" series at the Pacific Film Archive and Roxie Theater: God's Little Acre (1958, dir. Anthony Mann), The Intruder (1962, dir. Roger Corman), Moonrise (1948, dir. Frank Borzage), Swamp Water (1941, dir. Jean Renoir), Hurry Sundown (1967, dir. Otto Preminger), Poor White Trash (1957, dir. Harold Daniels), The Beguiled (1971, dir. Don Siegel), Shy People (1987, dir. Andrey Konchalovskiy)

Kurtiss Hare Only Has Two Eyes

It's impossible for any pair of eyes to view all of Frisco Bay's worthwhile film screenings. I'm so pleased that a number of local filmgoers have let me post their repertory/revival screening highlights of 2011. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from Kurtiss Hare, cinema enthusiast and blogger at cinefrisco.com, where this article was cross-posted.

As 2011 draws to a close, there are no shortage of best-of lists to be found on the internet. My friend, Brian Darr (aka. HellOnFriscoBay), asked a group of Bay Area cinema-goers to bring their top ten repertory/revival experiences of the year to the table, since we only have two eyes apiece. The films listed here are, of course, fantastic on their own, but the real celebrities are the theaters, organizations and curators that make this list possible – a special possibility indeed. In no particular order:


Good Morning (Ozu 1959) @ VIZ Cinema, seen 07/03/2011.

Here, Ozu makes the kind of observations he makes best, this time protracting out from the family to its surrounding neighborhood. Politesse under duress has never been so silly. I remember being very enticed with the VIZ Cinema’s crisp projection of one of Ozu’s few color films.


Lola (Mendoza 2009) @ YBCA, seen 10/02/2011.

It’s monsoon season in the Philippines and two matriarchs brave the impenetrable downpour to keep their families afloat. Heartfelt, stunning and complicated. It was the kind of screening that makes you want to hug a curator.

Woman in the Dunes (Teshigahara 1964) @ VIZ Cinema, seen 6/21/2011.

Meaningful allegories, for me, work best when they aren’t needed. On a granular level, this film is a compelling piece of horror/suspense with sensual visual details. A larger reading of the protagonist’s existential tightrope-walk manages to enhance without usurping. Again, the VIZ’s projection was acute enough to leave me sandblasted.

Kuroneko (Shindō 1968)
House (Obayashi 1977)
@ The Castro Theater, seen 3/23/2011.

OK, so there are two films here, but they were part of a delightful Japanese feline horror-themed double feature. From Kuroneko’s sexy & vicious apparitions to House’s ultra-campy blood floods, this was one hell of an afternoon altercation.


Days of Heaven (Malick 1978)
Badlands (Malick 1973)
@ The Castro Theater, seen 8/25/2011.

A somewhat less creatively curated duo, but no less appreciated. I sometimes think Malick's quiet internal monologues were positively designed to resound through the Castro's arched ceilings before reaching the ear. This was my first time seeing Days of Heaven, and while sometimes a theatrical screening makes me want to hug a curator, other times the curator beats me to the punch.


The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Herzog 1974) @ Red Vic Movie House, seen 3/30/2011.

Kaspar was not the last film I saw at the Red Vic, but it will be the one by which I choose to remember our departed. Here, Herzog puts the entire genre of science fiction to shame by excavating human gems from a plausible, if controversial, case of man-in-the-wild.


It (Badger 1927) @ Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, seen 5/28/2011.

As in, Clara Bow has got "it." Her charisma and peppiness are monuments unto themselves, having injected a potent substance into the veins of our modern outlook on celebrity and Hollywoodland romance. This evening at the Niles-Essanay gave me a taste of silent film the way its original audiences might have enjoyed it.


The Goose Woman (Brown 1925) @ The Castro Theater, seen 7/16/2011.

Another silent, this time during the San Francisco Silent Film Festival at The Castro. Some alpha-noir stylings and an enthralling characterization of haggard, piercing irrelevance by Louise Dresser left me quite taken. We have our own Stanford Theatre Foundation to thank for its preservation.


Gaslight (Cukor 1944) @ The Castro Theater, seen 1/22/2011.

One of the more psychologically twisted (my favorite kind!) noirs I saw this year. I don't know its technical term, but I just googled "the derivation of pleasure from simulated insanity," so that should tell you something. Oh, according to wikipedia, the word "gaslighting" has been appropriated for just such an occasion.


Streets of Shame (Mizoguchi 1956) @ The PFA, seen 6/25/2011.

For me, this very much more focused film is "streets ahead" of Mizoguchi's sweeping epic, Sansho the Bailiff, which I also saw as part of the Pacific Film Archive's Japanese Divas series. It's structured to examine multiple facets of prostitution that are typically hidden behind the bamboo curtain of everyday sensibilities. This was one film in an excellent series overall.

Rob Byrne Only Has Two Eyes

It's impossible for any pair of eyes to view all of Frisco Bay's worthwhile film screenings. I'm so pleased that a number of local filmgoers have let me post their repertory/revival screening highlights of 2011. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from film preservationist and researcher Rob Byrne. He blogs at Starts Thursday!: The Art And History of Motion Picture Coming Attraction Slides

In no particular order:

Lois Weber's Shoes (1916) (7/17, Castro, SF Silent Film Festival)
I worked on the restoration, so how can it not hold a special place in my heart?

Rick Prelinger's Lost Landscapes of San Francisco (12/8, Castro).
Annually the "must see" archival show of the year.

Noir City 9 (1/21-30, Castro).
No specific title, just the whole damn thing.

The Great White Silence (1924) - (7/15, Castro, SF Silent Film Festival)
Also qualifies as too musical experience of the year. Matti Bye Ensemble and tinted polar footage are a match made in heaven.

The White Meadows (2009) (3/27, YBCA)
Presented by Global Film Initiative as part of Iran Beyond Censorship. Simply gorgeous film from filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, currently in Iranian prison sentenced to six years for “assembly, collusion, and propagandizing against the regime.”

Giorgio Moroder's Metropolis (1984) (10/27, Castro)
A guilty pleasure - like being unable to look away from a traffic accident. I love and hate it all at the same time.

Randy Habercamp Presents - A Century Ago: The Films of 1911 (11/2, San Rafael CFI)
Two thumbs up for Randy's annual 100 year flashback. Big hisses for CFI's inability to project film at anything other than 24fps.

L'inhumaine (1924) (2/24, PFA)
Architectural splendor presented in conjunction with The First International Berkeley Conference on Silent Cinema CINEMA ACROSS MEDIA: THE 1920s.

Lebanon (2009) (3/13, Orinda Theatre) Presented as part of East Bay International Jewish Film Festival
Powerful.

Silly Symphonies (PFA, 2/23) - Part of UCB Film 50 Series
Russell Merritt presents and interprets a Who's Who of Disney's Silly Symphonies (1931-37). What's not to like?