*This article contains SPOILERS for Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975).*
Jeanne takes her time.
We first see Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig) in her kitchen, wearing a blue apron, lighting the burner under a large floral pot. The bell rings. She unbuttons her apron, hangs it up, washes and dries her hands, and turns off the light. She is in no hurry, leaving her visitor waiting as she completes her domestic rituals. (more…)
Guest contributor Joshua Byron shares about the process of bringing Richard Fung to campus for Interrogating Beauty: Richard Fung’s Pure Sea/Queer Dirt scheduled to take place at CAHI and The Media School as part of Themester at Indiana University.
I never thought that I was going to curate. And I certainly didn’t think I would be organizing a retrospective of the famed queer Canadian videomaker Richard Fung.
Richard Fung is one of the premiere experimental queer videomakers on par with Barbara Hammer, Todd Haynes, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and others but due to his scope and form is not always curated in the same way these other filmmakers are. Fung often works on video in short forms and in fact has made only two features to date: Dal Puri Diaspora and Re:Orientations. The later of the two just came out this year and serves as a centering piece of our Themester event: Interrogating Beauty: Richard Fung’s Queer Sea/Pure Dirt. (more…)
Every semester, IU President Michael A. McRobbie programs a series of films based around a theme. This year, in honor of the Media School opening in Franklin Hall, his series is called “Reporting Conflict,” and it is about the power of the media. The last film in this year’s series is the 1969 political classic “Z,” directed by Greek filmmaker Costa-Gavras. I first saw this film when I was 18 years old thanks to Hulu’s streaming deal with the Criterion Collection. It hit me with all of the energy of a runaway train. It faded from my mind for two years, until I saw it again in preparation for this column. I was surprised at how little my perception of the film had changed. I am sure that, if I see this film for a third time when it plays at the IU Cinema on December 11th, my high opinion of it would remain unchanged. (more…)
The IU Cinema has had a great track record hosting live accompaniment and composers for its presentation of silent films. Films such as Blackmail, Metropolis and The General have all gotten the live orchestral treatment under the IU Cinema roof. However, this past year the cinema invited a group of musicians that had a little something different to offer to the cinematic soundscape. (more…)
Last month The New York Times Magazine ran a piece titled “The Quiet Menace of Kelly Reichardt’s Feminist Westerns.” In it the author argues that, although Reichardt has only made one “true” Western, all of her films, in fact, can be considered revisionist Westerns that promote the possibility of a quiet, often lost, and in some way defeated, female lead. For these characters civilization does little to provide them with the justice that is promised, and their lonesome, often roaming, nature may strike a chord with those who remember the John Wayne or Clint Eastwood Westerners that have become “classics.” (more…)
The blogging team at A Place For Film extends thanks to IU President Michael A. McRobbie for supporting our new blogging adventure by inviting us to share the transcript of his remarks, which kicked off this fall’s President’s Choice: Reporting Conflict Film Series.
Introduction of Peter Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously
President Michael A. McRobbie
IU Cinema, IU Bloomington on October 9, 2016
Thank you, Jon [Vickers].
And let me once again commend you and your staff for your commitment to highly innovative programming that has helped the IU Cinema become one of the finest university cinemas in the nation, not just in the view of thousands of us who frequent it regularly, but also in the opinion of such legends of the cinema as Meryl Streep and Glenn Close. The cinema has very quickly become one of the jewels of the Bloomington campus.
I am delighted to be here tonight to say a few words about the films I have selected as part of this semester’s President’s Choice Series, “Reporting Conflict,” and to introduce the first film in the series—Peter Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously. (more…)
