Introduction to Film/Media Studies NOW


Monday, August 22 at 7pm

MULHOLLAND DRIVE

Directed by David Lynch (U.S. 2001) 147 min. 35 MM. With Naomi Watts, Laura Elena Harring, Justin Theroux.

A midnight wreck on winding Mulholland Drive opens this outlandish neo-noir. “Fashioned from the ruins of a two-hour TV pilot rejected by ABC in 1999, David Lynch’s erotic thriller careens from one violent non sequitur to another… Whatever Mulholland Drive was originally, it has become a poisonous valentine to Hollywood.” (J. Hoberman, Village Voice)

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Monday, August 29 at 7pm

DELICATESSEN  

Directed by Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet (France, 1991) 99 min. DCP With Marie-Laure Dougnac, Dominique Pinon, Jean-Claude Dreyfus. French with English subtitles.

“A fearsomely intense movie that mixes moods with formidable assurance (Los Angeles Times),” Delicatessen portrays an unemployed circus clown who applies for a job as a handyman at an apartment building in post-apocalyptic France, unaware that the ad is meant to lure people to slaughter (the butcher/landlord provides human meat for his tenants). When the clown and the butcher’s daughter fall in love, it takes all their wits to escape the knife in this surreal fantasy from the directors who later imagined the sinister The City of Lost Children (1995); Jeunet drew even greater attention six years later with the Oscar nominated Amélie.

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Monday, September 5 at 7pm

MOONLIGHT

Directed by Barry Jenkins (U.S. 2016) 111 min. DCP. With Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Trevante Rhodes.

Writer-director Barry Jenkins’ sophomore feature is an impeccably crafted study of African-American masculinity from a vital creative voice in contemporary cinema. Though his story is set in Miami, Jenkins shuns the familiar neon-lit aesthetic that the likes of Michael Mann have associated with the Florida hot spot. Instead, he shows a different kind of life, miles away from South Beach, in an area hit by a crack epidemic. It’s here that we meet young Chiron, a survivor reckoning with his complex love for his best friend. Although Moonlight’s themes could be called “universal,” they are firmly grounded in a specific understanding of African-American experience (Adapted from Boston Independent Film Festival TIFF program notes).

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