BARBICAN FILM FESTIVALS, SEASONS & SPECIAL EVENTS

LOUISE BOURGEOIS: THE SPIDER, THE MISTRESS AND THE TANGERINE – Thursday 9 September
THE DIRECTORSPECTIVE: VINCENTE MINNELLI – Sunday 12 September to Saturday 2 October
THE STRANGE CASE OF DELFINA POTOCKA –THE MYSTERY OF CHOPIN – Sunday 26 September

BARBICAN FILM REGULARS

SILENT FILM AND LIVE MUSIC SERIES:
Metropolis – Sunday 5 September
The Lodger, accompanied by a new score from Paul Robinson performed by
HarmonieBand – Sunday 19 September

JAPANIMATION: Eureka Seven: The Movie – Friday 24 September
DOCSPOT: Shout – Wednesday 29 September
ARCHITECTURE ON FILM: In Comparison +The Creators of Shopping Worlds – Thursday 30 September
BAD FILM CLUB: Twister – Thursday 30 September


LOUISE BOURGEOIS: THE SPIDER, THE MISTRESS AND THE TANGERINE -Thursday
9 September
8.45pm – Louise Bourgeois: the Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine (US 2008 Dir. Marion Cajori & Amei Wallach 99 min)
To complement The Surreal House exhibition in the Barbican Art Gallery, Barbican Film presents a timely screening of Louise Bourgeois: the Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine, an intimate documentary on the life and work of the 21st century’s grande dame of inventive, challenging and emotionally powerful art, who died in May.
French-born American Louise Bourgeois created sculpture throughout her
life, but was only critically recognized at the age of 70 with her solo
exhibition at MOMA New York in 1982. Possibly best known in London for
her giant Maman spider, which greeted the first visitors to Tate Modern
in 2000, Bourgeois’s personal and professional worlds are intriguingly
explored in this definitive focus.

THE DIRECTORSPECTIVE: VINCENTE MINNELLI – Sunday 12 September to
Saturday 2 October
This month Barbican Film dedicates its Directorspective series to
Vincente Minnelli (1910-1986), ones of the greatest directors of
musicals in American cinema. Minnelli elicited exquisite performances
from stars such as Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Spencer Tracy and Kirk
Douglas, who all appear in this selection of films from the peak of the
director’s career.

Sunday 12 September
4.00pm – Meet Me in St Louis (U) (US 1944 Dir. Vincente Minnelli 113 min)
Judy Garland and Margaret O’Brien star in Minnelli’s 1944 triumph, Meet
Me in St Louis, a romantic and poignant film often described as one of
the greatest musicals ever made. 22-year-old Judy Garland never looked
more radiant as she sings wonderful Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin classics
such as The Boy Next Door and The Trolley Song.

Saturday 18 September
4.00pm – Gigi (PG) (US 1957 Dir. Vincente Minnelli 115 min)
The winner of nine Oscars, Minnelli’s masterpiece Gigi adapts
Colette’s 1944 novel about a young woman trained to be a mistress, who
eventually marries one of the wealthiest men in France. Lavish, glossy,
perfectly cast, and with exquisite use of its Parisian locations,
Gigi’s credit line features the all-time greatest musical talent –
Arthur Freed as producer, book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, songs by
Frederick Loewe, costumes by Cecil Beaton and musical direction by André
Previn.

Saturday 25 September
2.00pm – The Pirate (U) (US 1948 Dir. Vincente Minnelli 102 min)
Judy Garland and Gene Kelly dance up a storm in The Pirate, yet
another glorious Minnelli musical. Living a sheltered life in a small
Caribbean village, the beautiful Manuela (Garland) dreams of casting off
her bullying fiancé and being swept away by the mysterious pirate,
Macoco. However, when the travelling player Serafin (Kelly), arrives on
the island, Manuela’s affections are sent reeling and she must decide
between the man of her dreams and the handsome entertainer.

Saturday 25 September
4.00pm – An American in Paris (U) (US 1951 Dir. Vincente Minnelli 113
min)
Perhaps the greatest dance musical and a winner of six Oscars, An
American in Paris stars Gene Kelly as a young artist who finds love
with Leslie Caron on the left bank of the Seine. As well as the
delectable Gershwin songs and score, An American in Paris is memorable
for its famous climactic ballet sequence inspired by the work of
Parisian painters including Renoir, Dufy, Rousseau and Toulouse-Lautrec,
and its score including irresistible songs I Got Rhythm, Embraceable
You and ‘S Wonderful.

Sunday 26 September
6.20pm – Some Came Running (PG) (US 1958 Dir. Vincente Minnelli 136 min)
Frank Sinatra stars in Some Came Running in perhaps his greatest
role as a disillusioned, hard-drinking writer, who returns home from the
Second World War to the small town in which he grew up, only to be
confronted by apathy and complacency at every turn. Minnelli’s powerful
adaptation of James Jones’s novel also features lush colour CinemaScope
photography, and a tear-jerking, Oscar-nominated performance by Shirley
MacLaine as the good-time girl desperately in love.

Saturday 2 October
4.00pm – The Band Wagon (U) (US 1953 Dir. Vincente Minnelli 111 min)
Another of Minnelli’s greatest musicals, */The Band Wagon/* follows a
high-brow stage producer trying to turn an ageing dancer’s comeback show
into an arthouse version of /Faust/. /The Band Wagon/ features a stream
of brilliant Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz songs (including /A Shine
on Your Shoes/ and /Dancing in the Dark/), a delectable script by Betty
Comden and Adolph Green, art direction by Cedric Gibbons, and fabulous
performances by Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse and Jack Buchanan.

THE STRANGE CASE OF DELFINA POTOCKA – THE MYSTERY OF CHOPIN–Sunday 26 September, 4.00pm
(15*) (UK 1999 Dir. Tony Palmer 109 min) introduced by director Tony
Palmer
Marking the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth, Barbican Film presents
a special screening of The Strange Case of Delfina Potocka – The
Mystery of Chopin. Denounced by the Polish Daily Newspaper Dziennik
Polski, this controversial feature presents a radically different view
of the great composer. Far from the tuberculoid coward of popular
imagination, Chopin is shown as a man of action: fiery, sexy, political
and passionate. Featuring Paul Rhys as Chopin and Penelope Wilton as the
object (and subject) of his passion.


BARBICAN FILM REGULARS

SILENT FILM AND LIVE MUSIC SERIES – Sunday 5 September
3.00pm – Metropolis (U) (Germany 1927 Dir. Fritz Lang 145 min)
special preview screening with 30 minutes of newly found footage,
courtesy of Eureka Entertainment.
Following the discovery last year of lost footage in Buenos Aires, Fritz
Lang’s 1927 futuristic masterpiece Metropolis has been reconstructed
and restored, returning the film to its original release version for the
first time in 83 years. Among the most iconic films of all time, its
spectacular set designs evoke the mechanised city of Metropolis and its
oppressed workers in the year 2000. Scripted by Thea von Harbou and
featuring the original symphonic score of Gottfried Huppertz.

SILENT FILM AND LIVE MUSIC SERIES – Sunday 19 September
4.00pm – The Lodger (PG) (UK 1926 Dir. Alfred Hitchcock 75 min)
accompanied by a new score from Paul Robinson performed by HarmonieBand
Barbican Film launches its Alfred Hitchcock silent strand (2) with
The Lodger, the director’s earliest thriller, which he described
himself as the first true Hitchcock movie. One of the great British
silent crime films, /The Lodger/ features superb fog-bound London
locations, and stars matinee idol Ivor Novello as the new lodger in a
house accused by a jealous policeman of being a serial killer.

JAPANIMATION – Friday 24 September
8.30pm – Eureka Seven: The Movie (12A*) (Japan 2009 Dir. Tomoki Kyoda
115 min) introduced by anime expert Helen McCarthy
Eureka Seven: The Movie is a complete re-imagining of the popular TV
series, an emotional tale of love and survival amid spectacular aerial
maneuvers. When Renton is cruelly separated from his childhood playmate
Eureka, a girl who cannot survive in sunlight, he vows to rescue her.
Years later Renton, a mecha pilot on the airship Gekko, is finally
reunited with the girl he loves, only to discover her true nature and
dark fate.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

DOCSPOT – Wednesday 29 September
8.45pm – Shout (Netherlands 2010 Dirs. Ester Gould & Sabine Lubbe
Bakker 73 min) followed by a Q&A
Presented in association with the London International Documentary
Festival.
A powerful portrayal of youth and growing up in a forgotten part of the
Middle East conflict, Shout won the festival jury’s Film We Liked The
Most award at LIDF 2010.  Born in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights,
best friends Ezat and Bayan journey across the UN monitored no man’s
land to study in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Leaving behind their
village, friends and family, the two young men enjoy the freedom their
new home affords them, but they soon learn that the city is a place
where sides must be picked and words carefully chosen.
In Arabic with English subtitles

ARCHITECTURE ON FILM – Thursday 30 September

A Harun Farocki double bill, examining architecture from the building
block to mind control. Curated by the Architecture Foundation.
6.15pm – In Comparison (12A) (Austria/Germany 2009 Dir. Harun
Farocki 61 min)
In Comparison is a closely observed survey of brick manufacture
around the world, quietly documenting the creation of these most
fundamental of building components – of structures and the societies
that inhabit them – and in the process, creating an incisive and
resonant global cultural portrait.

The Creators of Shopping Worlds (12A) (Germany 2001 Dir. Harun
Farocki 75 min)
The Creators of Shopping Worlds is a collage of interviews with the
planners, architects, consultants, visual researchers and others who
work behind the scenes to create tightly controlled retail experiences;
illuminating the psychology and choreography of control and seduction
latent in the architecture of consumption.
In German with English subtitles

BAD FILM CLUB – Thursday 30 September
8.45pm – Twister (15) (US 1996 Jan De Bont 113 min) with live comedy
commentary from Nicko & Joe
In Twister/*, weatherman Bill Harding turns up to his ex-wife’s
twister party (that’s the weather formation, not the board game) and
gets sucked into his old life as a “maverick” meteorologist. Throw in
some unlucky cows and flying tractors, throw out scientific accuracy and
all hope of on-screen chemistry – and you have yourself one fantastic
bad film!