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Buffalo Film Seminars begins another series of classics
Fall 2002 films to include "The Maltese Falcon," "The Thin Man" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"
By Sue Wuetcher
Reporter Editor
"The Maltese Falcon" and "The Thin Man" —two legendary film adaptations of Dashiell Hammett novels — will be among the highlights of the Fall 2002 edition of "Buffalo Film Seminars: Conversations About Great Films with Diane Christian and Bruce Jackson," the 15-week series of screenings and discussions sponsored by the University at Buffalo and the Market Arcade Film and Arts Center.
The screenings will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesdays in the Market Arcade theater, 639 Main St. in downtown Buffalo.
Each film will be introduced by Christian, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of English, and Jackson, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Samuel P. Capen Professor of American Culture, also in the English department.
Following a short break at the end of each film, Christian and Jackson will lead a discussion of the film.
The screenings are part of "Contemporary Cinema" (Eng 441), an undergraduate course being taught by the pair. The screenings also are open to the general public.
Admission to each film will be $7 for the general public, $5 for senior citizens and$4.50 for students. Series tickets are available at a 15 percent discount.
The films are free for those enrolled in the three-credit "Contemporary Cinema" course. Those wishing to earn credit in relation to the series should register for the course.
At UB, the film seminars are sponsored by the Capen Chair in American Culture, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Department of English.
The series lineup, with film descriptions culled from the seminars' Web site at http://csac.buffalo.edu/bfs.html:
Aug. 27: "Sunrise," 1927, directed by F.W. Murnau. A story of betrayal and redemption, guilt and innocence, with love triumphant, this film won three Academy Awards the first time they were given out. It shared "Best Picture" with "Wings;" Janet Gaynor received the first "Best Actress" award and Charles Rosher got the first "Best Cinematography" award.
Sept. 3: "M," 1931, directed by Fritz Lang. The first serial-murderer film, this movie made Peter Lorre one of filmdom's great psychopaths. It also was one of the first films that expressed the evil that would soon dominate Germany.
Sept. 10: "The Thin Man," 1934, directed by W. S. Van Dyke. William Powell and Myrna Loy star as Nick and Nora Charles in the first and best of the six films based on Dashiell Hammett's 1923 novel.
Sept. 17: "Queen Christina," 1933, directed by Ruben Mamoulian. Greta Garbo cross-dresses. John Gilbert talks. Garbo stares over the bow into the future. A great romantic classic.
Sept. 24: "The Rules of the Game," 1939, directed by Jean Renoir. Renoir's most celebrated film, this satire on the French class structure is so good that the film was banned in France until 1956. In the U.S., films were banned because they were too sexy; in France, they were banned because their ideas about society were too accurate.
Oct. 1: "The Maltese Falcon," 1941, directed by John Huston. Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Elisha Cook star in Huston's first film, a great adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's novel. This film also has been called the first film noir.
Oct. 8: "Open City," 1945, directed by Roberto Rossellini. Aldo Fabrizi and Anna Magnani star in this seminal work of Italian neo-realism, written by Rossellini, Federico Fellini and Sergio Amidei. Awarded the Grand Prize at Cannes.
Oct. 15: "The Third Man," 1949, directed by Carol Reed. Joseph Cotten, Ailida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, a zither and Robert Krasker's Oscar-winning cinematography star in this classic, written by Graham Greene, Alexander Korda, Carol Reed and Orson Welles. Received the Grand Prize at Cannes.
Oct. 22: "Tokyo Story," 1953, directed by Yasujiro Ozu. A "radiant, gentle, heartbreaking, perceptive investigation into the tensions within the generations of a family.... One of the finest films of Ozu's last decade, it was the one that belatedly made his reputation in the West," wrote critic Henry Holt.
Oct. 29: "Black Orpheus," 1958, directed by Marcel Camus. Based on the Orpheus-Euridice legend, but updated and set in Carnival in Rio, this film won the Oscar for "Best Foreign Film," as well as the "Golden Palm" at Cannes.
Nov. 5: "Belle de Jour," 1967, directed by Luis Bu�uel. Catherine Deneuve is featured in one of the three truly great erotic films. So what did the Japanese client have in that box?
Nov. 12: "Faces," 1968, directed by John Cassavetes. The only film about marriage in distress that comes close to this for cinematic power is "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
Nov. 19: "The Wild Bunch," 1969, directed by Sam Peckinpah. William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates, Robert Ryan, Edmund O'Brian, Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones star in a film that contains what critic Roger Ebert calls "one of the great defining moments in modern movies." That moment makes a good deal more sense in this 1995 restoration, which is 10 minutes longer than the original.
Nov. 26: "Day for Night," 1973, directed by Fran�ois Truffaut. Truffaut was one of the founders of the French New Wave, and this film is his love-poem to the movies. Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Jean-Pierre L�aud and Truffaut himself star. Not only is it a good story, but you get to find out how they get the snow to do exactly what it's supposed to do, what's under the second-floor balcony and how they do all that filming in the dark of night.
Dec. 3: "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," 1975, directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. If you know the Pythons, then no words are necessary here; if you don't, words will not suffice. In no other film will you learn all you need to know about The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch or see a cow used as a defensive weapon.