Indiana University Cinema

An Interview with David Carter and Elizabeth Roell, Co-Hosts of A Place for Film: The IU Cinema Podcast

Posted on October 26, 2020 by Michaela Owens

In 2011, as IU Cinema enjoyed its first year of providing transformative cinematic experiences, it also launched its official podcast, A Place for Film. After four years, the podcast released its 169th and final episode… until it was resurrected by regular blog contributor and IU Cinema lover David Carter in 2018. Over time, David and his co-host Elizabeth Roell have discussed everything from Ida Lupino to J-horror to The Matrix — all of which, of course, relates to the programming of IU Cinema.

After a year-long hiatus, A Place for Film is back and just as fun as it had always been. I’ll admit I may be biased. I’ve known both David and Elizabeth for a few years now and I was a guest for a 2018 episode about my favorite director, Alfred Hitchcock. However, David and Elizabeth’s passion for movies is infectious, and it was great talking to them about the podcast’s beginnings, their adoration for IU Cinema, and their plans for future episodes. (more…)

Neither Memory Nor Magic

Posted on October 22, 2020 by A Place For Film

Guest post by Joan Hawkins, Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at Indiana University.

Now it’s for me to live out what there’s left to me,
And I will not look back now, for neither memory
Nor magic will protect me from these omens in the sky.
— Miklós Radnóti, 1944

In 1944, just a year before the end of World War II, Adolf Hitler summoned the puppet fascist government of Hungary to Schloss Klesshelm in Salzburg. The Führer had demanded to see the Hungarian officials so that he could personally express his displeasure over their handling of “the Jewish question.” Jews had been “sheltered” in Hungary, Hitler said. They had been mistreated, removed to ghettos, murdered and beaten, forced to wear the yellow star, and — of course — removed from any position of influence or authority. They barely had enough to eat. But they had not been transported out of the country. And Hitler was furious that “de-Jewification” had not taken place. (more…)

Approaching Adaptation: JEKYLL & HYDE on Screen

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Jack Miller

Fredric March as Mr. Hyde (left) and Dr. Jekyll (right) in the 1931 film version.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde is one of those richly polyvalent works that, like Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), deploys a central conceptual image variable enough to acquire a startling metaphorical complexity. The dual and divisible image of human nature at the heart of Stevenson’s work may be read in a number of different ways at different moments, and sometimes even simultaneously, within the space of the work. Is this harrowing tale ultimately concerned with addiction, homosexual repression, domestic abuse, or something else? Due to this freedom of textual interpretation which Stevenson built into his enduring work, the various film adaptations of Jekyll & Hyde have tended to differ wildly from one another in both tone and approach. It’s a testament to the power of the original text — a sterling piece of genre literature — that this narrative continues to fascinate and disturb so many of us today. (more…)

I Used to Go Here and the Processing of Failure

Posted on October 12, 2020 by Jesse Pasternack

Kris Rey, writer and director of I Used to Go Here (2020) — Kris Rey, writer and director of *I Used to Go Here* (2020)

Failure is an underexplored subject in American cinema. The struggles and joys of achieving success are portrayed in blockbuster after blockbuster, while the unique phenomenon of processing failure and tentatively beginning the process of moving beyond it is less common to encounter in a mainstream American movie. Thankfully, Kris Rey’s new film I Used to Go Here (2020) explores the theme of failure with a degree of honesty that is refreshing.

I Used to Go Here is about Kate Conklin (Gillian Jacobs), a writer in her mid-30s whose first novel is not selling well. Eager to escape the news that her publisher has canceled her book tour, Conklin accepts an invitation from her favorite college professor David (Jemaine Clement) to give a reading at her alma mater. Once there, Conklin starts to reckon with her professional failure as she bonds with a group of quirky college students who live in her former home. (more…)

In Memoriam: Tommy Rall (1929-2020)

Posted on October 8, 2020 by Michaela Owens

Tommy Rall was a man who defied gravity. Whether executing impossibly fast twirls, nimbly leaping through the air, or doing a series of stunningly intricate tap steps, Rall proved to be one of the best dancers Hollywood would ever see. And yet he never became the star he deserved to be.

On October 6, at the age of 90, Rall died of congestive heart failure while recovering from heart surgery. An irreplaceable talent from the Golden Age of Hollywood, I’ve been in love with his work ever since he took my breath away in Kiss Me, Kate many years ago. Although his filmography is small, the impact of Rall’s dancing is so momentous that I was frustrated to discover that, as I’m typing this, no obituaries have yet been written for him. This really didn’t sit right with me, so I wanted to offer my own tribute to the man whose artistry has never failed to make me giggle with delight. (Yes, giggle.) (more…)

Marcel Duchamp: One Degree of Separation

Posted on October 5, 2020 by A Place For Film

Guest post by Nanette Esseck Brewer, The Lucienne M. Glaubinger Curator of Works on Paper at IU’s Eskenazi Museum of Art.

The French-American modernist Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) didn’t attend Indiana University or teach at the school and as far as I know never even visited Bloomington during his lifetime; nevertheless, IU has several important connections to the noted artist and theorist, who is the subject of October’s Art and a Movie featured presentation, Marcel Duchamp: The Art of the Possible (2020). The first connection is the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art’s unusually impressive holdings of his work, while the second is through the artist’s personal relationship with IU Ruth N. Halls Professor of Fine Arts Emeritus Robert Barnes. (more…)