antiplex

coming up at boston's independent moviehouses - the brattle, harvard film archive, mfa and coolidge

Directed by Sam Peckinpah. With Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Gig Young US 1974, 35mm, color, 112 min. Warren Oates is given his ultimate star vehicle in Peckinpah's dark tale of a washed up petty hood and lounge pianist who sees a last chance for redemption in the dangerous bounty offered by a powerful local landowner. The film sets off on a drug-sodden road trip that inevitably turns sinister as desperate mercenaries compete for the promised fortune in a frenzy of savage greed that recalls The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, one of Peckinpah's favorite films. Although today Alfredo García’s unwavering nihilism seems wonderfully counterbalanced by the film's shaggy-dog narrative and visual style, the film's unusual tone resulted in a box office disaster, and Alfredo Garcia became the last of Peckinpah’s films that he would also write. The film’s stature has grown steadily over the years, and it now takes its rightful place in the top ranks of Peckinpah’s achievements and as an one day only

Directed by Sam Peckinpah. With Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, Jim Hutton US 1965, 35mm, color, 136 min. Peckinpah’s ambitious epic focuses on a little-known chapter of American history—the fateful adventures of a ragtag group of Confederate prisoners, outlaws and freed slaves led by Cavalry officer Dundee into battle against the Apaches during the final days of the Civil War. While Columbia Studios expected a Western and the film's star, Charlton Heston, envisioned a serious treatment of the Civil War, Peckinpah instead set out to craft a searing portrait of an obsessive Captain Ahab in the desert. The new extended version of the film presented here restores a crucial twelve minutes of recovered footage that clarifies plot points and adds a more tragic dimension and depth to the character of Dundee. Far closer to Peckinpah's original vision, this version also features a newly composed film score that more accurately reflects the director’s intentions, and does away completely with the original score, which was imposed on the film despite Peckinpah’s furious objections. one day only

Directed by Sam Peckinpah. With James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan US 1973, 35mm, color, 122 min. Peckinpah's revisionist Western follows closely in the footsteps of McCabe and Mrs. Miller, combining comedy and satire to read Billy the Kid's death at the hands of a professional assassin as an expression of the corporatization of the West, a potent symbol of the frontier's transformation from a zone of anarchic freedom, where pre-modern values both good and bad can flourish, to a place of soulless commerce. Beneath Peckinpah's habitual themes of male friendship and its betrayal lies a rich subtext suggested by the presence of Kris Kristofferson as Billy and Bob Dylan as a mysterious trickster figure—suggesting that rock and roll may offer a new kind of Wild West, the rock star a new breed of desperado. MGM outraged Peckinpah by cutting fifteen minutes from the film, crucial footage that has been carefully restored in this new version, which approximates Peckinpah’s original. one day only

Directed by Sam Peckinpah. With Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, David Warner US 1971, 35mm, color, 118 min. Peckinpah’s most controversial and difficult film depicts the terrible long night suffered by an American mathematician and his wife after they move to her small Cornish hometown. Dustin Hoffman stars as the withdrawn scholar forced into violence by the savagery of locals who threaten his wife and home. Straw Dogs raised a storm of controversy by giving free rein to the cruel misogyny that surfaces from time to time throughout Peckinpah's films. Pauline Kael—herself a champion of Peckinpah and hardly a doctrinaire feminist—nailed the film’s raw power and sour sexual politics by famously dubbing it “a fascist work of art.” Over the years, others have countered by drawing attention to the film's complex vision of suffering and victimization in general and its deep ambivalence toward its protagonists. one day only

Directed by Ousmane Sembene Senegal, 1964, b/w, 19 min. With Abdoulaye Ly French with English subtitles Sembene’s first film, Borom Sarret (“cart owner”) chronicles a day in the life of a beleaguered horse-cart driver in Dakar. In spite of the material limitations of the production - if not because of the challenges they posed - Borom Sarret manages to create a powerful social statement as it combines simple means with complex observations on bureaucracy, religion, and the anonymity of the modern city. Compressing his narrative into a mere nineteen minutes, Sembene conveys the condition of Senegal’s urban poor as he situates their experience in the larger social panorama of post-independence Africa. one day only

Directed by Sam Peckinpah. With James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason US/West Germany 1977, 35mm, color, 133 min. Hailed by Orson Welles as one of the great anti-war films, Cross of Iron follows a squadron of Nazi soldiers on the Eastern front during the twilight of the Second World War. Drawing from his own WWII experiences, Peckinpah drew a multi-layered portrait of the enemy, focusing on the tensions between a battle-hardened sergeant, wonderfully played by James Coburn, and the arrogant Prussian martinet who commands the squadron. Cross of Iron's sympathetic portrayal of Nazi soldiers makes clear Peckinpah’s pacifist convictions, revealing the Germans not as sadistic villains but ordinary troops fighting desperately for their lives and those of their cohorts. The film was cut by several minutes for its initial US release, however the HFA will screen a rare European print of the full-length version. one day only

Directed by Sam Peckinpah. With Steve McQueen, Robert Preston, Ida Lupino US 1972, 35mm, color, 103 min. Peckinpah’s elegiac portrait of an aging rodeo cowboy is, together with The Ballad of Cable Hogue, one of his gentlest films. Like so many of Peckinpah’s protagonists, the title character is a man who has outlived his time, returned from his wanderings to discover that his brother has sold the family homestead out from under their parents. Deliberately avoiding any vendetta story lines, Peckinpah turns away from plot to focus instead on the milieu of the cowboy—the cattle drive and the rodeo—revealed in marvelous slow motion and montage sequences. Most unusual is the extended familial portrait that emerges, one of the rare instances where Peckinpah avoids the ritualized fraternity of a male group. Junior Bonner's rich focus on character and milieu over story places it alongside such other staples of 1970s American cinema as the films of Robert Altman and the early work of Martin Scorsese. one day only

Directed by Ousmane Sembene Senegal/France/Burkina Faso/Cameroon/Morocco/Tunisia 2004, 35mm, color, 120 min. With Fatoumata Coulibaly, Maimouna Héléne Diarra, Salimata Traoré Bambara and French with English subtitles Winner of the 2004 Un Certain Regard Award in Cannes, Sembene’s last film delivers an open attack on the tradition of female circumcision still practiced in Muslim and Christian communities in East and West Africa. A wonderful testament to Sembene’s belief in the cinema as the most effective means of social change in Africa, Mooladé describes the brutal impact of circumcision on adolescent subjects and the ostracisation suffered by the mothers and fathers who resist the violent practice. Mooladé was intended to be the second film in a trilogy designed to honor the lives of African women, who Sembene referred to as the heroines of everyday life.” one day only find/upload a trailer

Directed by Sam Peckinpah. With Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Mariette Hartley US 1962, 35mm, color, 94 min. Together with the late Westerns of Ford, Hawks and Boetticher, Ride the High Country—which was originally intended as the last of Boetticher's Renown series—marks the transition from the classical Western to the genre's long revisionist period. In his last screen appearance, Randolph Scott plays a retired lawman hired to escort a shipment of gold through bandit territory. Peckinpah’s recurrent themes are already legible in his second feature: codes of honor and their betrayal, greed as a corrosive force and the fragility of friendship. While Ride the High Country's meditative and autumnal qualities give it a surprising emotional depth, the film also displays Peckinpah's consummate skills as an editor. Considered to be impossible to edit, Columbia Pictures uncharacteristically gave the film to its journeyman director to cut, resulting in an important early example of the radical montage for which Peckinpah would become justly famous. Although Ride the High Country one day only

Directed by Ousmane Sembene Senegal 1968, 35mm, color, 90 min. With Makhouredia Gueye, Ynousse N’diaye, Isseu Niang Wolof with English subtitles Sembene’s first comedy, his first film in color, and first work in Wolof - the language spoken by most of the population of Senegal - Mandabi is the deceptively simple story of a man whose initial good fortune leads to encounters with an intimidating barrage of Third World bureaucracy. The film, which consists of a series of comic mishaps involving Dieng’s futile attempts to get an identity card so he can cash his check, takes the viewer on a journey with corrupt government officials and impoverished members of Dakar’s proletariat. Mandabi was seen as a betrayal by many in the newly independent Senegal. The fact that the film was a comedy did not spare Sembene’s film from attacks in the press. one day only

Directed by Sam Peckinpah. With Jason Robards, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson US 1966, video, color, 60 min. Labeled as refractory after the fiasco of Major Dundee, Peckinpah found himself in a difficult spot, blackballed by the studios and abruptly fired from The Cincinnati Kid after only a few days. Peckinpah retreated to his first passion—writing—turning out scripts for both film and television. Among these was his nuanced adaptation of Katherine Anne Porter’s short story “Noon Wine,” which earned the approval of the notoriously difficult Porter, and Peckinpah's assignment to direct the telefilm version of this story of a farmer estranged from his community and family by his steadfast defense of a falsely accused hired hand. One of Peckinpah’s most restrained and haunting variations of his favored theme of violence as a necessary evil, Noon Wine was a success, opening the door for Peckinpah’s return to filmmaking. one day only find/upload a trailer

Directed by Sam Peckinpah. With Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw, Ben Johnson US 1972, 35mm, color, 122 min. The Getaway was Peckinpah’s bid to make a conventional genre film-- one in which the forward motion of the plot is never interrupted by melancholy ruminations, extended flashbacks (or flash forwards) or complex montage sequences. Among the film's exceptional qualities are its relentless, restless pace and its wonderful pairing of matinee idol Steve McQueen as the crook and the gorgeous Ali MacGraw as his partner. Based on a novel by pulp master Jim Thompson and scripted by future auteur Walter Hill, The Getaway is a tough noir tale that reveals Peckinpah's talent for lean, propulsive filmmaking is equal to that of his mentor Don Siegel. one day only

Directed by Ousmane Sembene Senegal 1974, 35mm, color, 123 min. With Thierno Leye, Seune Samb, Miriam Niang Wolof and French with English subtitles Zeroing in on the myth of African independence and on the capitulation to white colonial policies by newly empowered black African leaders, this savage and funny satire deals with a self-satisfied, half-Westernized black businessman who is suddenly struck down by the xala: a curse that renders its victim impotent. While he desperately chases after witch doctors and soothsayers in search of a cure, the character’s condition becomes a mirror of the impotence of young African nations that are over-dependent on white technology and bureaucratic structures. one day only

Directed by Ousmane Sembene and Thierno Faty Sow Senegal 1987, 35mm, color, 152 min. With Iprahima Sane, Sijiri Bakaba Wolof and French with English subtitles In 1944, the French army massacred several units of West African conscripts recently returned from the battlefields of Europe. Sembene, who had been drafted into the French army that same year, knew of this event and in 1998 used it as the basis for his sixth feature film. What was essentially a demand by African veterans that they be paid the same wages as their French counterparts led to an attack on soldiers who had only recently been fighting the Nazis in Italy and Germany. In 1944, the French colonial authorities viewed returning African veterans as second class citizens and because the colonial administration was financially bankrupt, found it convenient to refuse their demands. The resulting mutiny by the veterans of Camp Thiaroye led to a full scale artillery attack on the camp. one day only

Directed by Ousmane Sembene Senegal 1977, 35mm, color, 120 min. With Tabara N’diaye, Ismaila Diagne, Moustapha Yade Wolof with English subtitles Banned in Senegal on an absurd technicality, Ceddo, Sembene’s most ambitious film, uses the story of a beautiful princess’s kidnapping to examine the confrontation between opposing cultural forces: Muslim expansion, Christianity, and the slave trade. The “Ceddo” - or feudal class of common people - cling desperately to their customs and their fetishistic religion amidst the impending changes. Nominally set in the nineteenth century, Ceddo ranges far and wide to include philosophy, fantasy, militant politics, and a couple of electrifying leaps across the centuries to evoke the whole of the African experience. one day only

Directed by Ousmane Sembene Senegal 1971, 35mm, color, 101 min. With Ibou Camara, Ousrnane Camara, Joseph Diatta Diola and French with English subtitles Sembene's third film launched his international reputation, reaching an audience far beyond Senegal’s Diola community, to whom he had directly addressed the film. Emitai takes place in the period at the end of the World War II, as West African veterans are returning to their homes in the French colonies. General De Gaulle, the hero of the trench resistance, is now the leader of the newly liberated France, yet forced conscriptions and massacres of Diola villages continue, some of them led by former members of France’s Vichy government. With Emitai, Sembene realized his statement “film should be a school of history.” When the film was released in 1971, it was immediately banned in Senegal, and throughout Africa. one day only

Directed by Ousmane Sembene Senegal 2000, 35mm, color, 118 min. With Venus Seye, Mame Ndoumbé Diop, Tabara N’diaye Wolof and French with English subtitles Faat-Kiné, the manager of a sparkling new gas station, drives an elegant car, lunches with fashionably dressed friends, and worries about her children passing their high school finals. But Sembene contextualizes his heroine’s thoroughly modern triumphs and anxieties within the complex culture and politics of Dakar, with its contrastive architecture of shantytowns and high-rises, streets crowded with cattle and Mercedes, and women whose lives have been shaped as much by tribal custom and male prejudice as by their twenty-first century aspirations. As it examines the changing roles of women in Senegalese society, Faat-Kiné opens onto a new chapter in the career of this legendary director. one day only

Directed by Sam Peckinpah. William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan US 1969, 35mm, color, 145 min. Peckinpah’s classic tale of aging desperados determined, against all odds, to forge one last stand, gives new meaning to Hemingway’s dictum of “grace under pressure.” The Wild Bunch gained instant notoriety for its extended sequences of orgiastic violence, with less attention paid to the technical and artistic genius behind them— Peckinpah’s combination of distinct camera setups and the complex, lyrical montage and slow motion camerawork that extended the pioneering work of Kurosawa and Arthur Penn, two directors Peckinpah greatly admired. The film is riveting not only for its violence but also for its vision of a forgotten generation of obsolete warriors, not unlike the wandering ronin so prominent in the films of Kurosawa and Kobayashi. The extraordinary cast of weathered tough guys, helmed by William Holden and Robert Ryan, seem an almost Shakespearian embodiment of the studio system’s decline, a gang of vanquished matinee kings complete with the hoary Edmund O’Brien as one day only find/upload a trailer

Directed by Dominique Abel Spain/France 2003, video, color, 105 min. Spanish with English subtitles Flamenco dancing is the lifeblood of the Gitanos, Spanish gypsies who have lived in exile for centuries. In looking for the roots of the so-called “New Flamenco,” director Dominique Abel journeys to Tres Mil Viviendas, a rundown housing project where the spirit of music and dance invigorates this multiracial community. one day only

Directed by Julio Medem Spain 2003, video, color, 110 min. Spanish, Basque, English and French with English subtitles In the wake of the 2004 Madrid train bombings, the cause of the Basque people rose to national prominence as the Spanish government assumed the ETA (a militant Basque separatist group) was responsible. Completed before the attacks, this documentary examines the state of Basque culture in contemporary Spain as they continue to fight for independence.  Using extensive interview footage, Julio Medem offers a comprehensive portrait of this controversial movement.   one day only

Directed by Adán Aliaga Spain 2005, video, color, 80 min. Spanish with English subtitles Adán Aliaga’s moving documentary chronicles the lives of suburban Spaniards living under threat of displacement. Six-year-old Marina plays to the camera, ignoring the chiding of her aged grandmother, Marita who reflects on the history of her crumbling house where she has lived for over fifty-three years. As her neighborhood is targeted for redevelopment, she is forced to come to terms with her past. one day only

Directed by Fernando Trueba Spain/Portugal 2005, video, color, 125 min. Spanish and Portuguese with English subtitles Grammy award winning Brazilian musician Carlinhos Brown makes his home in Candeal, a marginal area in the heart of Salvador, Bahia. Directed by Fernando Trueba (Belle Epoque, Calle 54), the film is a stunning parable of how this notorious slum transformed itself into a model community through the power of music, buoyed by Brown's commitment to local youth. one day only

Tonight's screening is courtesy of the estate of Curtis Harrington. These films have been preserved by and come from the collection of the Academy Film Archive. A Fragment of Seeking one day only

Directed by Marta Arribas and Ana Pérez Spain 2006, video, b/w and color, 85 min. Spanish with English subtitles In the 1960s, some two million Spaniards left their homeland to go to work in European factories. Focusing on the journey of Josefina who left Spain at age eighteen to work in Nuremberg, Germany, this sensitive and thought-provoking documentary artfully weaves interviews and extraordinary historical footage to reveal a hidden part of European history. one day only

Directed by Curtis Harrington With Dennis Hopper, Linda Lawson, Gavin Muir US 1961, 35mm, b/w, 84 min. A hauntingly sincere fable of unrequited love, Harrington's feature debut is an unacknowledged masterpiece. In his first leading role, a startlingly young Dennis Hopper brings a fervent energy to his portrayal of Johnny, a sailor who is enamored with the bewitching Mora, a shimmering apparition of a woman gripped by a dark secret. One of the first wholly independent productions shot on the West Coast, Night Tide used locations in Venice, California to wonderful effect while also turning to studio veterans such as master film composer David Raskin (Laura), who gifted the film with a gorgeous score. One of the most essential postwar American independent films. one day only

Directed by Curtis Harrington With James Caan, Katharine Ross, Simone Signoret US 1967, 35mm, color, 100 min. Harrington channels Franju in his lavish, kinky tale of a swinging New York couple determined to live on the edge but unaware of the dangers invited by their reckless lifestyle. With James Caan and Katherine Ross wonderfully cast as the irresponsible couple and a sultry Simone Signoret as the mysterious neighbor who weaves her way into their lives, Games casts a dark and stylish web of intrigue and suspense. one day only

Tonight's screening is courtesy of the estate of Curtis Harrington. These films have been preserved by and come from the collection of the Academy Film Archive. A Fragment of Seeking one day only

Directed by Edward Yang. With Chen Xiangqi, Ni Shujun, David Wang Taiwan 1994, 35mm, color, 125 min. Mandarin with English subtitles Although Yang’s films are often punctuated by the director’s mordant wit, they predominantly offer far darker visions of alienation and discontent—with the important exception of this film, which marked Yang’s surprise transmutation from tragedian into comedian. A Confucian Confusion is a ribald comedy of misunderstanding and well-laid plans gone awry, set among a group of upwardly mobile yet directionless Taipei yuppies. Yang’s hilarious critique of materialist culture observes the ways in which wealth corrodes relationships and corrupts ideals, transforming art and love into numb transactions and distracting everyone from the world as it falls apart around them. one day only

Directed by Edward Yang. With Cora Miao, Li Liqun, Wang An Taiwan/Hong Kong 1986, 35mm, color, 109 min. Mandarin with English subtitles As the title indicates, this is the one of Yang’s films in which the air of menace, usually lurking at the edges of the frame, takes center stage. The film traces the intersecting fates of three couples in contemporary Taipei, all of whom are caught up in a torrent of violence either emotional or physical, or both. Two of the couples include relatively wealthy artists—one a novelist, the other a photographer—but the other consists of two young criminals, one a violent prostitute, the other her pimp. Standing apart from the three couples, but ultimately connected to all of them, is a policeman who is not so much an enforcer of the law as a witness of its seemingly unavoidable collapse. The harshness of the film’s plot, its elliptical nature and its sudden violence have all earned the film comparisons to Bresson. one day only