Tuesdays, 7:30pm in the Little Theatre (Ayres 106),
 $3 suggested donation
Director: Thomasin Saxe, 898-4642, tsaxe@csuchico.edu

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Indies Under Fire: The Battle for the American Bookstore (2006, U.S.A.) 57 min.
Directed by Jacob Bricca. Documentary. Hosted by director of the Humanities Center Troy Jollimore, Philosophy.*

This gripping documentary chronicles the devastating effect of giant book chains on the country's independent bookstores. During the golden years of the independents, there were 5,200 members of the American Booksellers Association—today there are fewer than 3,000. To illustrate this erosion, the film focuses on several leading independent California bookstores, such as Printers, Inc., and Bookshop Santa Cruz, which had flourished for over twenty years. The film depicts their struggles to stay afloat.

Note: the 30-second sneak preview of Cinema Botanica (Pornography for Plants) by artist Jonathon Keats will air first and be hosted by J. Pouwels, Art and Art History. This film accompanies the artist's installation opening Sep. 10, 2007, at the 1078 Gallery (820 Broadway, Chico).

The Name of the Rose (1986, France/Germany/Italy) 128 min.
Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud.*

Sean Connery, Christian Slater, and F. Murray Abraham star in this intriguing tale, based on the popular novel by Umberto Eco, about mysterious killings related to forbidden books during a period of the Inquisition.

The Pillow Book (1996, U.K./Hong Kong) 126 min.
Directed by Peter Greenaway. Hosted by Marcel Daguerre, Philosophy and Humanities Center Board.*

Elegant and erotic, this richly visualized film tells the story of an Asian fashion model with a fetish for calligraphy on flesh, and intertwines it with excerpts from The Pillow Book, the classic 10th-century journal by the Japanese courtier Sei Shonagon. Exploring the relationship between three surfaces—the page, the skin and the movie screen—Greenaway’s dense, dazzling film truly merges sensual and intellectual stimulation. In English, Japanese, and Mandarin with English subtitles.

Henry Fool (1998, U.S.A.) 128 min.
Directed by Hal Hartley. Hosted by Peter Hogue, emeritus, English.*

Hartley’s adventurous film yet is an audacious fable of fate, faith, friendship, and the mysteries of the creative process. The story centers on Simon Grim, a geeky garbage man and part-time writer, and Henry Fool, a mysterious free spirit who intends to amaze the world with his own still-unseen literary masterwork but in the meantime becomes Simon’s mentor and promoter disseminating his disturbing work through the Internet with astonishing results.

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Saragossa Manuscript (1965, Poland) 182 min.

Directed by Wojciech Has. Hosted by Peter Hogue, emeritus, English.*

Enter a dazzling, mysterious world of the supernatural courtesy of the Saragossa Manuscript, a magical text discovered during the Napoleonic Wars by a pair of opposing soldiers. Captain Alphonse van Worden lives out the book’s intricate, devilish storylines as he embarks on a journey across scenic Spain, now populated with ghosts, alluring demons, debauched royalty, and mystical priests. Spanning centuries and nations, the manuscript’s reach encompasses a wide array of stories both humorous and horrifying, gleeful and grotesque, before the final chilling revelations bring this one of a kind book to a close. Critically applauded and embraced over the years by such admirers as Coppola and Scorsese, this swirling tapestry has been restored to its original, full-length director’s cut with all of its labyrinthine riddles intact.

Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka) (1988, Japan) 88 min.

Directed by Isao Takahata.. Hosted by Masami Toku, Art and Art History.

Alternately known as Tombstone for Fireflies, Grave is a very somber film about the struggle of two children to survive during World War II. Seita and his younger sister Setsuko are left to fend for themselves when their mother passes away from severe burns inflicted by the American fire-bombing of their town. Their father is serving in the Japanese navy, but the children have not heard from him in a long time, so Seita and Setsuko try staying with a distant relative. However, Seita doesn't get along well with this relative and decides to leave, taking Setsuko with him, to live on their own.

Fahrenheit 451 (1966, France) 113 min.
Directed by Francois Truffaut. Hosted by director of the University Art Gallery Jason Tannen, Art and Art History.*

Acclaimed as a modern classic in the vein of Brave New World and 1984, this outstanding novel by Ray Bradbury is brought to the screen with all its vividness and imagination intact. Set in a future electronic age, all books are banned and fireman must keep fires burning at 451 degrees—the temperature at which paper burns. Julie Christie plays dual roles—one as wife of fireman Oskar Werner and the other as a book-loving schoolteacher.

Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea (2007, U.S.A.) 77min.
Directed by Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer. Hosted in person by either Metzler or Springer with a question-and-answer period to follow the screening. Co-sponsored by the A.S. Committee on Arts and Lectures (CAL)

Fabulously offbeat and refreshingly upbeat, this lovable film gets friendly with the natives of the Salton Sea, an inland ocean of massive fish kills, rotting resorts, and 120 degree nights located just minutes from urban Southern California. This award-winning documentary details the rise and fall of the Salton Sea, from its heyday as the "California Riviera" where boaters and Beach Boys mingled in paradise to its present state as a decaying, forgotten ecological disaster. From wonderland to wasteland, the film captures a place far more interesting than the shopping malls and parking lots of suburban America, a wacky world where a beer-swilling Hungarian Revolutionary, a geriatric nudist, and a religious zealot building a monument to God all find solace and community.

Crisply and hilariously narrated by oddball auteur John Waters, and featuring music by desert lounge rockers Friends of Dean Martinez, Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea melds high camp with stark realism, offering both a sobering message about the consequences of tampering with nature and a heart-warming tale of individualism.

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Calendar (1993, Armenia/Canada) 75 min.

Directed by Atom Egoyan.*

In this, one of his most personal films, Atom Egoyan himself plays a photographer hired to capture images of Armenian churches for a calendar. He takes his wife (real-life wife and frequent star Arsinée Khanjian) along as a translator, and, as they travel with their Armenian guide, their relationship begins to unravel. The photographer returns to Canada with his pictures, but without his wife, who has gradually been drawn to her ethnic roots and has fallen in love with the guide.

Selections from the Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival 2007

Curated by Gretchen Hogue. Co-sponsored by the A.S. Committee on Arts and Lectures (CAL)

Gretchen Hogue, Portland, OR-based filmmaker/curator, returns to the UFS with a new batch of contemporary films coming out of Portland’s thriving independent filmmaking scene. In 2006, she curated Stumptown Girls: an evening of lady-made movies from Portland as part of Women’s History Month (note: the image of an audience with view-masters comes from one of the films Hogue showed here). In 2005, she curated two nights’ worth of films: Brave New Worlds (“documentary filmmaking—with the radical freedoms of experimental cinema—focusing on topics ranging from literacy and the confines of language to amateur radio and Joe Dimaggio”) and Re-Imagining Her (“a collection of recent experimental films by female filmmakers, all of whom explore different methods of re-presenting women's realities by variously working with self-portraiture, animation, re-appropriated footage, and home movies”). In 2004, the series showed some of her short films in one evening to a packed house.

After making her (now almost annual) visit to the University Film Series for which she curated The Kids Are Alright: New Future Visions (nearly 20 new short films) this past March 2007, Hogue directed Portland’s Documentary and Experimental Film Festival, which was cited extensively in the New York Times (Mar. 30, 2007).

Tears of the Black Tiger (2001, Thailand) 110 min.

Directed by Wisit Sasanatieng. Hosted by Juan-Carlos Selznick (aka Peter Hogue), film critic for the Chico News and Review (and faculty emeritus, Department of English). Co-sponsored by the A.S. Committee on Arts and Lectures (CAL)

In this genre-busting action film, peasant Dum is separated from this childhood sweetheart, the beautiful and rich Rumpoey. Dum then becomes a gun-slinging outlaw called Black Tiger when he finds his father murdered by criminals. He must face many obstacles to avenge his family and get back his love who has been forced into an engagement with another man. With Chartchai Ngamsan and Stella Malucchi. In Thai with English subtitles.

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In the Mood for Love (2000, Hong Kong) 94 min.

Directed by Wong Kar-Wai. Hosted by Wai-hung Wong, Department of Philosophy and Humanities Center Board. Co-sponsored by the A.S. Committee on Arts and Lectures (CAL)

Chow (Tony Leung) and Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) become more than friends when they realize their spouses are having an affair. Modish costumes, lavish sets, and rich moody lighting set the tone for this stylish drama that takes place in Hong Kong in the ‘60s. From critic Duncan Shepherd: “…it is a major movie, a perfect match of subject and style. The camera, for openers, is always squeezing into tight, narrow, cramped spaces, taking people as it finds them, with a Degas-like randomness and informality: people caught in their surroundings, from disadvantageous angles, at odd moments, not people in a conveniently cleared-out space, in front of a docile backdrop, in positions of total domination, like your average movie stars. They are often only partially seen—from behind, in three-quarters profile, through forests of obstruction (slats, bars, window shades, doorframes), or are seen only in passing, as if from the corner of the eye. (We never see the faces of the cheating mates at all.) This sort of thing can be seen to express and preserve the mystery of people ("Do you really know your wife?"), the hiddenness of their personalities, the unknown recesses of their hearts, their bottled-up emotions and muzzled thoughts, the parts of them inaccessible to a camera.”

Three Crowns of the Sailor (1982, France) 117 min.

Directed by Raul Ruiz. Hosted by Peter Hogue, Department of English, emeritus.

Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Raul Ruiz (Time Regained, Comedy of Innocence, The Golden Boat) directs this surreal drama based on the southern Chilean island of Chilo’s myth of “Caleuche” or “The Ship of the Dead.” On a dark, foggy night and in exchange for three Danish crowns, a sailor tells a young man, who has just committed murder, his life story aboard a cursed ship with a ghostly crew. The threads of the story overlap and interweave with exotic characters in strange landscapes.

Edvard Munch (1974, Norway) 174-220 min.

Directed by Peter Watkins for television. Introduced by Laird Easton, Department of History and Humanities Center Board.

Following a rough chronology from 1884 to 1894, when Norwegian artist Edvard Munch began expressionism and established himself as northern Europe's most maligned and controversial artist, the film also flashes back to the death from consumption of his mother, when he was five, his sister's death, and his near death at 13 from pulmonary disease. The film finds enduring significance in Munch's brief affair with "Mrs. Heiberg" and his participation in the café society of anarchist Hans Jaeger in Christiania and later in Berlin with Strindberg. Through it all comes Munch's melancholy and his desire to render on canvas, cardboard, paper, stone, and wood his innermost feelings. With Peter Watkins, Eli Ryg, Geir Westby, Gro Fraas, Knut Khristiansen.

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Killer of Sheep (1977, U.S.A.) 81 min. In honor of Black History Month.

Directed by Charles Burnett. Hosted by Peter Hogue, emeritus, Department of English.

A masterpiece of African American filmmaking and one of the finest in cinema history, Killer of Sheep was chosen for the national Film Regsitry of the Library of Congress and named one of the 100 Essential Films by the National Society of Film Critics. In the Los Angeles community of Watts, Stan, a sensitive dreamer, is growing detached and numb from the toll of working at a slaughterhouse. Frustrated by money problems, he finds solace in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a teacup against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife, holding his daughter. Combining lyrical moments with neorealist style, Burnett unfolds his story with sompassion and humor. The film’s luminous images and extraordinary soundtrack are a revelation in this new high-definition transfer from the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s brilliant 35mm restoration. Starring Henry Gayle Sanders and Kaycee Moore.

My Brother’s Wedding (1983 originally, 2007 director’s cut, U.S.A.) 118min.

In honor of Black History Month.

Directed by Charles Burnett. Hosted by Sarah Pike, Department of Religious Studies and Humanities Center Board.

When My Brother’s Wedding was rushed to a festival screening before Charles Burnett could make his final cut, it received mixed reviews and was never released. Film critic Armond White called this “a catastrophic blow to the development of American popular culture.” Revisited decades later, following restoration by the Pacific Film Archive and a complete re-edit by Burnett, the film proves to be funny, heartbreaking, and timeless. Pierce Mundy works at his parents’ South Central dry cleaners with no prospects for the future and his childhood buddies in prison or dead. With his best friend just getting out of jail and his brother busy planning a wedding to a snooty upper-middle-class black woman, Pierce navigates his conflicting obligations while trying to figure out what he really wants in life. Starring Everette Silas and Jessie Holmes.

The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound To Lose (2006, U.S.A.) 87 min.

Directed by Sam Wainwright Douglas and Paul Lovelace.

Part folkie, part insane, and totally drugged, fiddler Peter Stampfel and guitarist Steve Weber were an integral part of the notorious Fugs before forming their own unique psych folk group, the Holy Modal Rounders, in the early 1960s. While their weird lyrics, irreverent approach to folk music and freewheeling lifestyles kept them from achieving fame, these eccentric outsiders have drawn a small but dedicated following of luminaries and lunatics for decades. Bound To Lose explores Stampfel and Weber's stormy friendship and recounts the unique, alternately amusing and heartbreaking forty-year history of these true American originals, from their beginnings in New York's Greenwich Village folk scene, to the relocation of much of the band to Portland in the 1970s, to a recent unpredictable 40th anniversary reunion. The film includes interviews with Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg of the Fugs; actor-playwright Sam Shepard, who served as drummer for the band from 1966-69; Dennis Hopper, who gave the band its greatest mainstream visibility by including their song "If You Want to be a Bird" on the Easy Rider soundtrack; Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo and many others such as John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful, Peter Tork of the Monkees, Loudon Wainwright III, music editor Robert Christgau of the Village Voice, and Wavy Gravy. More than just a chronicle of an obscure band, Bound To Lose is a raucous celebration of a lost American subculture.

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49 Up (2006,U.K.) 134 min.

Directed by Michael Apted. Introduced by Laird Easton, History and Humanities Center Board.  

“Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man.”__Starting in 1964 with Seven Up, the UP Series has explored this Jesuit maxim. The original concept was to interview 14 children from diverse backgrounds from all over England, asking them about their lives and their dreams for the future. Every seven years, renowned director Michael Apted, a researcher for Seven Up, has been back to talk to them, examining the progression of their lives.__From cab driver Tony to schoolmates Jackie, Lynn and Susan and the heart-breaking Neil, as they turn 49 more life-changing decisions and surprising developments are revealed. An extraordinary look at the structure of life in the 20th century, The UP Series is, according to critic Roger Ebert, “an inspired, almost noble use of the film medium. Apted penetrates to the central mystery of life.” OFFICIAL SELECTION: New York Film Festival

Loves of a Blonde (1965, Czech) 85 min.

Directed by Milos Forman. Introduced by Jason Tannen, Art and Art History and University Art Gallery.

With sixteen women to each man, the odds are against Andula in her desperate search for love—that is, until a rakish piano player visits her small factory town and temporarily eases her longings. A tender and humorous look at Andula’s journey, from the first pangs of romance to its inevitable disappointments, Loves of a Blonde (Lásky jedné plavovlásky) immediately became a classic of the Czech New Wave and earned Milos Forman the first of his Academy Award nominations

The Ninth Gate (2000, Spain/France/U.S.A.) 133 min.

Directed by Roman Polanski. Introduced by director of the Humanities Center, Troy Jollimore, Philosophy.*

Johnny Depp is hired to find the two remaining volumes of a 16th Century demonic text, "The Nine Gates," in which one supposedly holds the key to summoning Satan himself. Frank Langella is a rare-book dealer who hired the book finder to search for the Satanic volume he needs to complete his collection. This conspiracy thriller involving murder, ritual, and the supernatural also stars Lena Olin and Emmanuelle Seigner.

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Abel Raises Cain (2006, U.S.A.) 82 min.

Directed by Jenny Abel and Jeff Hockett.

Perfect for April Fools, the documentary Abel Raises Cain has been winning awards at the Slamdance, Brooklyn Underground, Newport International, and Sarasota Film Festivals. Long before the deluge of reality TV dolts who drum up media attention with acts of idiocy, there was Alan Abel, a culture-jamming comic with a conscience. The director of the 1970s cult films Is There Sex after Death? and The Faking of the President, Abel made a name for himself several times over with media stunts ridiculous enough to be believable. His mock-moral crusade “Citizens against Breastfeeding” stirred controversy in the late ‘90s, just as his “Society for Indecency to Naked Animals” had in the ‘60s. Both groups made asinine calls for morality in America, and while both were complete jokes, for long stretches, the only one in on the jokes was Abel himself. Jenny Abel has directed this film about her father, the professional prankster, hailed by some journalists as the world’s greatest hoaxer and scorned by others as a menace to the media.

Häxan (1922, Sweden) 104 min.

Directed and written by and starring Benjamin Christensen. Introduced by Jason Nice, History and Humanities Center Board.

Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: this  legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious—instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.

The Importance Of Being Earnest (1952, U.K.) 95 min.

Directed by Anthony Asquith. Introduced by Laura Nice, Humanities.

Oscar Wilde’s comic jewel sparkles in this film adaptation. Featuring brilliantly polished performances by Michael Redgrave, Joan Greenwood, and Dame Edith Evans, the enduringly hilarious story of two young women who think themselves engaged to the same nonexistent man is given the grand Technicolor treatment. Seldom has a classic stage comedy been so engagingly transferred to the screen.

Swimming Pool (2003, France/U.K.) 102 min.
Directed by Francois Ozon. Introduced by Peter Hogue, emeritus, English.

Europe’s most daring and inventive writer/director, François Ozon, reunites with his two favorite leading ladies, Charlotte Rampling (Under the Sand) and Ludivine Sagnier (8 Women). Sarah Morton (Rampling) is a famous British mystery author. Tired of London and seeking inspiration for her new novel, she accepts an offer from her publisher John Bosload (Charles Dance) to stay at his home in Lubéron, in the South of France. It is the off-season, and Sarah finds that the beautiful country locale and unhurried pace is just the tonic for her—until late one night, when John’s indolent and insouciant French daughter Julie (Sagnier) unexpectedly arrives. Deliciously sophisticated and sexy.*

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Jules and Jim (1962, France) 104 min.

Directed by Francois Truffaut. Introduced by Laird Easton, History and Humanities Center Board.

Hailed as one of the finest films ever made, legendary director François Truffaut’s early masterpiece charts the relationship between two friends and the object of their mutual obsession over the course of twenty-five years. Jeanne Moreau stars as Catherine, the alluring and willful young woman whose enigmatic smile and passionate nature lure Jules (Oskar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre) into one of cinema’s most captivating romantic triangles. An exuberant and poignant meditation on freedom, loyalty, and the fortitude of love, Jules and Jim was a worldwide smash upon its release in 1962 and remains as audacious and entrancing today.

Edvard Munch, Part II (1974, Norway) about 110 min.

Directed by Peter Watkins for television.

Following a rough chronology from 1884 to 1894, when Norwegian artist Edvard Munch began expressionism and established himself as northern Europe's most maligned and controversial artist, the film also flashes back to the death from consumption of his mother, when he was five, his sister's death, and his near death at 13 from pulmonary disease. The film finds enduring significance in Munch's brief affair with "Mrs. Heiberg" and his participation in the café society of anarchist Hans Jaeger in Christiania and later in Berlin with Strindberg. Through it all comes Munch's melancholy and his desire to render on canvas, cardboard, paper, stone, and wood his innermost feelings. With Peter Watkins, Eli Ryg, Geir Westby, Gro Fraas, Knut Khristiansen. (Please note: we showed Part I January 2008.)

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