Before convening for Thanksgiving this year, pull up a chair for a Swedish take on the family-style meal.
Tilsammans (Together) (Sweden/2000) Directed by Lukas Moodysson
It’s November 1975 in Stockholm. News of Franco’s death and the strains of ABBA fill the airwaves. Despite ostensibly sharing crunchy views of family, food, politics, relationships, sex, music and hygiene, a group of radical young hippies struggle to continue get along in their communal house, earnestly named “Tilsammans”, as the world changes outside their patchouli-scented walls. A monkey-wrench is thrown at their peace-lovin’ ideals when one of their members opens their beaded doorways to his more mainstream sister and her children, who are escaping her abusive husband.
Preceded by: A Chairy Tale (Canada/1957) Directed by Norman McLaren and Claude Jutra With Claude Jutra, A Chair Music by Ravi Shankar and Chatur Lal Presented by Aisling Yeoman
This delightful short from experimental filmmaker Norman McLaren is a pas-de-deux between Claude Jutra and an unaccomadating chair, animated by Evelyn Lambart.
***
with guest chef Ganda Suthivarakom
Menu: Skal! A Swedish Thanksgiving
smor och sill (a herring sampler)
kottbullar (meatballs)
pressgurka (pickled cucumbers)
mashed potatoes
cranberry sauce
kladdkaka (chocolate cake)
Barbro’s tarta (almond meringue custard cake)
BYO_.
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Choice Cuts goes Goth, with a little bit of Poe, a little bit of du Maurier, and a hearty helping of Venetian cuisine.
Don’t Look Now (UK/Italy/1973) Directed by Nicolas Roeg With Donald Sutherland, Julie Christie Presented by Alberto Zambenedetti
An Anglo-American couple travels in Venice, while the city is shaken by a mysterious series of murders. Possibly Nicolas Roeg’s finest directorial achievement, Don’t Look Now is not only a spine-chilling tale of the uncanny with paranormal overtones, but also a visual tour-de-force that both confounds and awes the spectator with its daring compositions, cuts, and color schemes.
Preceded by: The Tell-Tale Heart (USA/1941) Directed by Jules Dassin
This first film of Jules Dassin (Rififi) is an expressionistic take on the Edgar Allan Poe classic short story. The camera moves dynamically around a small space deftly putting the audience in the quaking boots of the terrified young man.
***
Menu:
Hearts on toast
Baccalà mantecato con polenta (creamed salt cod)
Sarde in saor (marinated sardines)
Bigoli in salsa (wheat spaghetti with anchovy sauce)
Radicchio al forno
Fritole (Carnevale doughnuts)
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(Chad/2002)
Directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
When they awake one morning to find their father gone, two young brothers wander the cinemas, soccer fields, and countrysides of their native Chad while trying to rebuild their ruptured family life. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s playful – yet remarkably unsentimental – portrayal of childhood camaraderie, familial perseverance, and teen romance is a gem of recent African cinema from Chad’s most prominent filmmaker.
Guest curated by David J. Reilly
Preceded by: B 400 (Chad/1997) Directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun 3 min.A prank strands a girl outside her apartment building…can she get back in?
***
Menu:
Millet fritters
Seafood gumbo
Rice and peas
Date cake with roasted banana ice cream
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Out of the Past (1947)
Directed by Jacques Tourneur
With Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas
The story goes that Robert Mitchum once told Roger Ebert he didn’t think he’d ever actually seen Out of the Past. Too bad for him. (Although, he did have an image to uphold, and publically opining on his own work certainly wouldn’t have jived with that tough-guy persona.) If this claim is true, he never got to see how one of the most convoluted plots since the Bible and before Babel, got turned into one of the definitive film noirs. According to critic Jeff Schwager, who read every known version of Out of the Past’s screenplay for a 1990 Film Comment article, uncredited scribe Frank Fenton is responsible for the the alchemy that turned Daniel Mainwaring’s novel into the endlessly quotable mile-a-minute dialogue that makes you forget about the expository curlicues and narrative cul-de-sacs into which the plot veers.
Jacques Tourneur takes Fenton’s crackerjack words, puts them in Mitchum’s mouth, never without dangling cigarette, and directs the hell outta him. He guides the stoic star to deliver voice-overs – very rarely modulating his register, yet ever so subtly shifting his intentions mid-sentence – and some of the most biting zingers to darken the door of a movie theater. For instance, after Mitchum and Kirk Douglas had one of their famous vitriol-filled dimpled-chin-offs, the traffic-and-men-that-should-know-better-stopping Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) confesses to a skeptical Mitchum that she was sorry that her then-ex-lover Douglas didn’t die. Mitchum responds cooly, “Give him time.”
To the film’s benefit, Tourneur does more than focus on the dialogue. He fills the frame with lush black-and-white artistry (and, unfortunately, sometimes with oppressively wall-to-wall musical cues). The camera elegantly moves away from two characters exchanging a kiss, e.g., to a sweeping tropical storm outside, signifying the sensuousness of their affair as much as implying the threat of their pursuers.
It’s unfortunate that film noir has become a relic of Hollywood filmmaking, as it is one of the richest genres, providing audiences not only with bile-filled dialogue and bullet-riddled bodies, but with some of the more nuanced characters and relationships and expressive cinematography in any genre. It is fortunate, however, that Out of the Past remains in high regard as one of its beacons. Much like Mitchum’s hard-edged private eye, Jeff Bailey, it stubbornly refuses to fade into the past.
Kathie Moffat: Oh, Jeff, I don’t want to die! Jeff Bailey: Neither do I, baby, but if I have to, I’m gonna die last.Posted in directors, film | Leave a Comment »
(USA/1947)
Directed by Jacques Tourneur
A MAN trying to run away from his past… A WOMAN trying to escape her future!
Small-town gas station attendent (Robert Mitchum) may be done with his
past but his past isn’t done with him, when his former hard-boiled
life as a private-eye catches up with him. Film noir at its finest.
* * *
Menu: Summertime, and the Living Is Tasty
the hard-boiled (deviled eggs)
the corny (chowder)
the diner pie (chicken pot)
the color of ___ (green bean salad)
the unexpected (pavlova)
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