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“Gold Diggers” to open film seminars
The 1967 classic, “Bonnie and Clyde,” directed by Arthur Penn, is one of 15 films in the Buffalo Film Seminars organized by two UB faculty members.
The 1933 music and dance classic “Gold Diggers of 1933” will open the fall 2011 edition of the Buffalo Film Seminars, the popular, semester-long series of film screenings and discussions hosted by UB faculty members Diane Christian and Bruce Jackson.
Each session will begin at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays, beginning Aug. 30, in the Market Arcade Film and Arts Center, 639 Main St. in downtown Buffalo.
Christian, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of English, and Jackson, SUNY Distinguished Professor and James Agee Professor of American Culture in the Department of English, will introduce each film. Following a short break at the end of each film, they will lead a discussion of the film.
The screenings are part of “Film Directors” (Eng 438), an undergraduate course being taught by the pair. Students enrolled in the course are admitted free; others may attend at the Market Arcade’s regular admission prices of $9 for adults, $7 for students and $6.50 for seniors. Season tickets are available any time at a 15 percent reduction for the cost of the remaining films.
Free parking is available in the M&T fenced lot opposite the theater’s Washington Street entrance. The ticket clerk in the theater will reimburse patrons the $3 parking fee.
“Goldenrod handouts”—four- to eight-page notes on each film—will be posted on the seminar’s website the day before each screening, and will be available in the theater lobby by 6:30 p.m. the day of the screening.
The Busby Berkeley choreographed classic “Gold Diggers of 1933,” directed by Mervyn LeRoy, follows four “gold digger” chorus girls and their unfortunate turn of events as work dries up in the wake of the Great Depression. A millionaire turned composer rescues unemployed Broadway people with a new play.
The remainder of the schedule for the 23nd edition of the series, with descriptions culled from the IMDb online movie database:
Sept. 6: “Pygmalion,” 1938, directed by Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard. A film version of George Bernard Shaw's play in which a Victorian dialect expert bets that he can teach a lower-class girl to speak proper English and thus be taken for a lady.
Sept. 13: “Beauty and the Beast/La Belle et la Bête,” 1946, directed by Jean Cocteau. Not the animated Disney edition, but rather Cocteau’s delicate, dream-like version, one of the great cinema classics, starring Jean Marais and Josette Day.
Sept. 20: “The Red Shoes,” 1948, directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. A ballerina is torn between the demands of the company and those of her heart.
Sept. 27: “Diary of a Country Priest/Journal d'un curé de campagne,” 1951, directed by Robert Bresson. A young priest taking over the parish at Ambricourt tries to fulfill his duties, even as he fights a mysterious stomach ailment.
Oct. 4: “Black Orpheus/Orfeu Negro,” 1959, directed by Marcel Camus. Based on the Orpheus-Euridice legend, but updated and set in a carnival in Rio, this film won the Oscar for “Best Foreign Film,” as well as the “Golden Palm” at Cannes.
Oct. 11: “Bonnie and Clyde,” 1967, directed by Arthur Penn. A bored small-town girl and a small-time bank robber leave in their wake a string of violent robberies and newspaper headlines that catch the imagination of the Depression-struck Midwest in this take on the legendary crime spree of these archetypal lovers on the run.
Oct. 18: “Marketá Lazarova,” 1967, directed by Frantisek Vlacil. In this medieval epic, a minor Czech clan falls afoul of the king, against the backdrop of Christianity replacing paganism.
Oct. 25: “The Last Wave,” 1977, directed by Peter Weir. In this thriller, a Sydney lawyer defends five Aborigines in a ritualized taboo murder and in the process learns disturbing things about himself.
Nov. 1: “True Confessions,” 1981, directed by Ulu Grosbard. Robert De Niro stars as a worldly ambitious monsignor, who clashes with his older brother, a cynical LA homicide detective investigating the brutal murder of a young prostitute.
Nov. 8: “Chunking Express/Chung Hing sam lam,” 1994, directed by Wong Kar-Wei. Two stories, two lovelorn cops, two objects of desire: one a big-time heroin dealer in deep trouble with her boss after the cargo disappears; the other a seriously flaky take-out waitress who inadvertently gets hold of the keys to her admirer’s apartment, all shot in a breathless kaleidoscope of color and hand-held camera work to create a mesmerizing portrait of Hong Kong in the 1990s.
Nov. 15: “Richard III,” 1995, directed by Richard Loncraine. This take on the classic Shakespearean play about a murderously scheming king is staged in an alternative fascist England setting.
Nov. 22: “Frida,” 2002, directed by Julie Taymor.“Frida” chronicles the life Frida Kahlo shared unflinchingly and openly with Diego Rivera, as the young couple took the art world by storm. From her complex and enduring relationship with her mentor and husband to her illicit and controversial affair with Leon Trotsky, to her provocative and romantic entanglements with women, Kahlo lived a bold and uncompromising life as a political, artistic and sexual revolutionary.
Nov. 29: “Revanche,” 2008, directed by Götz Spielmann. When an ex-con Alex plans to flee to the South with his girl after a robbery something terrible happens and revenge seems inevitable.
Dec. 6: “My Fair Lady,” 1964, directed by George Cukor. In the adaptation of the Broadway musical, a misogynistic and snobbish phonetics professor agrees to a wager that he can take a flower girl and make her presentable in high society.
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