Wednesday, February 5 at 7pm
IT
Directed by Clarence Badger (U.S. 1927) 72 min. 35MM. With Clara Bow, Antonio Moreno, William Austin, Jacqueline Gadsdon, Gary Cooper.
In her most famous role, Clara Bow stars as a feisty shopgirl with a certain irresistible sex appeal, who falls for – and schemes to capture – her new boss, wealthy department store owner Cyrus Waltham. This effervescent rags-to-riches romance was inspired by a story by Elinor Glyn, who uses the simple pronoun to encapsulate the spirit of the sexually-liberated youth of Prohibition-era America.
Playing with One Week (Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline, U.S. 23 min. 1920, DCP restoration!). Described by Keaton as “only one third as shocking” as Elinor Glyn’s torrid best-seller Three Weeks, Buster and his bride struggle to construct a pre-fab house from purposefully scrambled instructions. Buster’s directorial debut!
Wednesday, February 12 at 7pm
GEORGE WASHINGTON
Directed by David Gordon Green (U.S. 2000) 90 min. 35MM. With Candace Evanofski, Curtis Cotton III, Donald Holden.
Over the course of one hot summer, a group of children in the decaying rural South must confront a tangle of difficult choices. An ambitiously constructed, elegantly photographed meditation on adolescence, the first full-length film by director David Gordon Green features remarkable performances from an award-winning ensemble cast. George Washington is a startling and distinct work of contemporary American independent cinema.
Wednesday, February 26 at 7pm
IVAN THE TERRIBLE, Part 1
Sergei Eisenstein (USSR 1944) 103 min. 35MM. With Nikolai Cherkasov, Ludmila Tselikovskaya, Mikhail Zharov. Russian with English subtitles.
Navigating the deadly waters of Stalinist politics, Eisenstein was able to film two parts of his planned trilogy about the troubled sixteenth-century tsar who united Russia. Visually stunning and powerfully acted, Ivan the Terrible charts the rise to power and descent into terror of this veritable dictator. Though pleased with the first installment, Stalin detected the portrait in the second film, with its summary executions and secret police, and promptly banned it. Presented in connection with the Bucknell Humanities Center themed programming, “Narrating Russia’s Empires: Eurasian Resistance/s.” Introduced by professor Zukhra Kasimova (History).
Wednesday, March 5 at 7pm
Breaking Away
Peter Yates (U.S. 1979) 101 min. DCP. With Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern.
Both a coming of age drama and a bicycle race thriller, Breaking Away was a touchstone for many young Americans in the 80s, and its endearing appeal persists. In a 2011 reappraisal, written in the wake of the death of the film’s director Pete Yates, NPR writer Linda Holmes, describes the movie as “a sweet, smart, enormously warm comedy” that is “also a very thoughtful story about social class… But the way the movie handles cycling, which isn’t one of cinema’s more heavily covered sports, introduces another entire dimension and transforms Breaking Away from a nice character piece to a literally breathtaking story – as in, ‘at times, one stops breathing.’”
Wednesday, March 19 at 7pm
The Tingler
Directed by William Castle (U.S. 1959) 82 min. DCP. With Vincent Price, Judith Evelyn, Darryl Hickman.
American director and producer William Castle charmed Hollywood horror audiences throughout the ’50s and ’60s with fun, kitschy delights. The Tingler, his best known film, returned to cinemas in recent years, after the celebration of its 60th anniversary. Castle showed true ’50s showmanship, with purpose-built gimmicks that turned every trip to the cinema into an interactive experience, from dangling skeletons and ghost-viewing glasses to actors planted among audiences, ready to cause a stir…
Wednesday, March 26 at 7pm
The Butterfly Effect
Directed by Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber (U.S. 2004) 113 min. 35MM. With Eric Stoltz, Kevin G.Schmidt, Ashton Kutcher.
At the height of his popularity, That 70s Show’s Ashton Kutcher was tested in a “mature” role, as a college student who tries to alter his memories of a traumatic childhood. Produced by Bucknell alum Chris Bender (‘93), who will be visiting Lewisburg the following week!
Wednesday, April 2 at 7pm
American Pie – With Special Guest, Producer Chris Bender!
Directed by Paul Weitz (U.S. 1999) 95 min. 35MM. With Jason Biggs, Jennifer Coolidge, Shannon Elizabeth, Alyson Hannigan.
On the 25th anniversary of this raunchy sex comedy, Jason Biggs (in a New York Times interview), reminisced: “It seemed like our timing was kind of perfect. It felt like our generation, the teens of that time, were craving their Animal House, their Porky’s, their Revenge of the Nerds, and we just came out at the right time with not only the right kind of comedy, but with the right characters and story that people found they could connect to. … At least for people my age, I think it helped make talking about sex a little bit easier. Four guys, high school buddies, trying to lose their virginity. I mean, if that’s not relatable to high school guys everywhere, I don’t know what is. It certainly was to me and my friends. But this idea of bringing it out into the open and just talking about it, perhaps that was the cultural impact of it.”
Wednesday, April 16 at 7pm
Manchester by the Sea
Directed by Kenneth Lonergan (U.S. 2016) 137 min. With Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler.
“Wrapped in praise,” after its 2016 festival run, and winner of two of the six Oscar awards it was subsequently nominated for, writer-director Kenneth Lonergan’s third feature is “set mostly in a blue-collar seaside community in Massachusetts, [where it] explores the wary relationship between an underachiever trying to piece his life back together and a typically self-absorbed teenager already familiar with loss. … [Though it] risks being overwhelmed by hype, no matter what you read about it, the movie will still surprise you, in part because of Lonergan’s uncanny knack for finding the inner truth of his characters. His humor and insight are a striking corrective to the cookie-cutter creations and contrived storylines found in many films.” A decade after this Film Comment introduction to an interview with Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea remains a shattering example of his singularly powerful and cinematic depiction – nay, evocation– of emotional trauma and its aftermath.