FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

celebrates the films of Tuesday Weld,
honors the 10th Anniversary of 9/11
and salutes the artistry of Fei Mu
among a robust month of films in September

Screenings will feature appearances by
Spike Lee, Edward Norton, Joel Edgerton and others!

All Screenings at:

The Film Society of Lincoln Center – Walter Reade Theater

165 West 65 Street, between Broadway & Amsterdam (upper level)

 

September 7

Green Screens: UP IN SMOKE

UP IN SMOKE (2011) 70min
Director: Adam Wakeling

Film Society of Lincoln Center’s popular Green Screens series presents Wakeling’s eye-opening film UP IN SMOKE. The film follows British scientist Mike Hands, who has labored for 25 years to find a solution to slash-and-burn agriculture in equatorial rainforests. Shot over 3 years, UP IN SMOKE moves between the U.K. and Honduras on a dramatic path that leads eventually to the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December 2009. Politics has a sneaky way of interfering with science…

UP IN SMOKE screens Wednesday, September 7 at 6:30PM. Director Adam Wakeling and Mike Hands will attend and participate in a post-screening Q&A. A reception will follow the Q&A.

September 8

Film Society Sneak Preview: WARRIOR

WARRIOR (2011) 139min

Director: Gavin O’Connor

Having made one of the great sports movies of the modern era with MIRACLE, his rousing account of the U.S. Olympic hockey team’s 1980 “miracle on ice,” writer-director Gavin O’Connor returns with a searing, brilliantly acted and powerfully moving family drama set against the world of competitive mixed martial arts. In a physically transformative performance that recalls Robert De Niro’s in Raging Bull, Tom Hardy (Inception) stars as Tommy Conlon, a former wrestling prodigy who returns home to Pittsburgh after a stint in the Marines and grudgingly enlists his estranged father (a remarkable Nick Nolte) to train him for a tournament dubbed “the super bowl of mixed martial arts.” Meanwhile, Tommy’s brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton), a high school teacher desperate to support his family in a lean economy, also sets his sights on the tournament’s winner-take-all purse. An uncommonly character-rich genre film that suggests Rocky as rewritten by Eugene O’Neill, WARRIOR is one of the must-see surprises of the fall moviegoing season.

WARRIOR will screen on Thursday, September 8 at 7:30PM. Director Gavin O’Connor and star Joel Edgerton will attend and participate in a post-screening Q&A.

September 9-15

TRANSITIONS: RECENT POLISH CINEMA (PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED)

Presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in collaboration with the Polish Cultural Institute in New York and the Polish Film Institute in Warsaw, TRANSITIONS: RECENT POLISH CINEMA offers a provocative look at Poland today, courtesy of an exciting new wave of Polish filmmakers. The series is capped with a tandem of digitally restored classic films starring Polish acting legend Zbigniew Cybulski, widely regarded as “the Polish James Dean”.

September 10-11

REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11

Free to the public!
THE VISUAL MEMORY OF SEPTEMBER 11

9/11 (2002) 129min
Director: Jules & Gedeon Naudet

On the morning of September 11, 2001, brothers Jules and Gedeon Naudet were working on a documentary about a rookie New York City firefighter. Hearing a roar in the sky, Jules turned his camera upward—just in time to film the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center. The Naudets followed firefighters into what would become known as Ground Zero, and the film that emerged, 9/11, was an unforgettably powerful visual document and a stirring tribute to real-life heroes at the darkest of hours.

9/11 will screen Saturday, September 10 at 12:00PM. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion on the visual memory of September 11th.

Free to the public!
25TH HOUR (2002) 135min
Director: Spike Lee

The first major movie shot on location in New York after 9/11, Spike Lee’s 25th HOUR follows convicted drug dealer Monty (Edward Norton) parting with family and friends during the 24 hours prior to his seven-year prison sentence. Monty’s journey across Manhattan captures lyrical details of post-9/11 New York, as New Yorkers bravely soldier forth.

25TH HOUR will screen Sunday, September 11 at 7:45PM. Spike Lee, Edward Norton and producer Jon Kilik will attend and participate in a post-screening Q&A.

September 16-18

An Undiscovered Master: Fei Mu

Born in 1906, Fei Mu began his filmmaking career in the booming Shanghai cinema of the Thirties. His richly drawn characters are often ambiguous souls attempting to deal with rapidly changing realities as well as they can. Film Society of Lincoln Center presents a rare sampling of work by this major film artist, plus a free panel discussion featuring film scholars from China.

CHILDREN OF THE WORLD (1941) 87min
Director: Jacob & Luise Fleck
Fei Mu wrote the love-triangle screenplay for this curious story about two men in love with the same woman, who idealistically resolve their differences.

CHILDREN OF THE WORLD will screen Saturday, September 17 at 8:30PM and Sunday, September 18 at 4:15PM.

CONFUCIUS (1940) 87min
Director: Fei Mu
Long thought to be lost until its dramatic rediscovery ten years ago, Fei Mu’s classical costume drama paints the great thinker as an underappreciated prophet.

CONFUCIUS will screen Saturday, September 17 at 6:15PM and Sunday, September 18 at 8:15PM.

MURDER IN THE ORATORY (1937) 98min
Director: Fei Mu
Beijing opera and film are merged in Fei Mu’s experimental blend of naturalism and formalism, about a man urged by his mother to kill his wife. Starring the great opera star Zhou Xinfang.

MURDER IN THE ORATORY will screen Friday, September 16 at 9:20PM and Sunday, September 18 at 2:30PM.

ON STAGE AND BACKSTAGE (1937) 29min
Director: Zhou Yihua
In this Fei Mu–scripted comedy, a street performer replaces a diva in Farewell My Concubine.

SCREENING WITH

SONG OF CHINA (1935) 45min
Director: Luo Mingyou & Fei Mu
Fei Mu’s groundbreaking first sound film, an eloquent study in filial piety, concerns a grown son who builds an orphanage after his father dies.

ON STAGE AND BACKSTAGE + SONG OF CHINA will screen Friday, September 16 at 5:30PM and Sunday, September 18 at 1:00PM.

SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN (1948) 93min
Director: Fei Mu
A masterpiece amazingly ahead of its time, this quietly erotic, melancholic drama observes the tensions between a married woman and her ex-lover.

SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN will screen Friday, September 16 at 7:15PM, Saturday, September 17 at 2:00PM and Sunday, September 18 at 6:10PM.

Free to the public!

Panel Discussion: “Fei Mu and Pre-War Chinese Cinema”
Three noted film scholars from the China Film Archive will join American scholars for a discussion of director Fei Mu's art and legacy. 

“Fei Mu and Pre-War Chinese Cinema” will take place on Saturday, September 17 at 4:15PM.

Screening schedule for AN UNDISCOVERED MASTER: FEI MU

Friday, September 16

5:30PM          SONG OF CHINA (29min) + ON STAGE AND BACKSTAGE (45min)

7:15PM          SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN (93min)

9:20PM          MURDER IN THE ORATORY (98min)

Saturday, September 17

2:00PM          SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN (93min)

4:15PM          Panel Discussion: “Fei Mu and Pre-War Chinese Cinema”

6:15PM          CONFUCIUS (87min)

8:30PM          CHILDREN OF THE WORLD (87min)

Sunday, September 18

1:00PM          SONG OF CHINA (29min) + ON STAGE AND BACKSTAGE (45min)

2:30PM          MURDER IN THE ORATORY (98min)

4:15PM          CHILDREN OF THE WORLD (87min)

6:10PM          SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN (93min)

8:15PM          CONFUCIUS (87min)

September 22

GUESTS OF THE NATION (PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED)

GUESTS OF THE NATION (1935), one of the most significant Irish films made during the silent era will be accompanied with a brand new live orchestral score from one of Ireland’s leading contemporary composers, Niall Byrne. The Film Society of Lincoln Center and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; in collaboration with the Irish Film Institute, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, and The National Concert Hall in Dublin; have collaborated to bring this landmark program of Irish film and music to American audiences as part of Imagine Ireland: Culture Ireland’s year of Irish arts in America 2011.

September 21-25

AMERICAN GIRL: TUESDAY WELD

An actress of underrated subtlety and tremendous life-force, Tuesday Weld entered the popular imagination as the dreamt-of all-American girl, and then built a rĂ©sumĂ© to rank her among the finest actresses of any era. The Film Society’s overdue retrospective spans comedy and drama, and a variety of auteurs, showcasing her once-in-a-generation spontaneity.

BACHELOR FLAT (1962) 91min
Director: Frank Tashlin
Tashlin plays Nabokov as a frantic hide-in-here bedroom farce, in garish color CinemaScope, pitting Terry-Thomas’s Anglo professor against Tuesday Weld’s unannounced nymphet houseguest.

BACHELOR FLAT screens Saturday, September 24 at 2:00PM.

I WALK THE LINE (1970) 97min
Director: John Frankenheimer
Gregory Peck’s Tennessee Sheriff, buried alive in middle-aged rural respectability, is knocked off the straight-and-narrow by the inexorable draw of Weld, the daughter of a moonshining family.

I WALK THE LINE screens Thursday, September 22 at 6:30PM.

LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (1977) 136min
Director: Richard Brooks
Weld’s overdue Oscar nomination came for playing the daddy’s-favorite sister opposite Diane Keaton as a liberated-annihilated New York teacher, in Brooks’ controversial adaptation.

LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR screens Friday, September 23 at 8:30PM and Sunday, September 25 at 3:45PM.

LORD LOVE A DUCK (1966) 105min
Director: George Axelrod
An undefinable masterpiece of American film comedy: Weld stars as high school senior Barbara Ann Greene in George Axelrod’s ahead-of-the-curve street sweeper satire of SoCal culture.

LORD LOVE A DUCK screens Saturday, September 24 at 4:00PM.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (1984) 229min + 10min intermission
Director: Sergio Leone
Weld plays the archetypal gun moll with full forbidden carnality, in Sergio Leone’s lone Spaghetti Eastern, a timeline-hopping gangster film starring Robert de Niro.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA screens Sunday, September 25 at 6:30PM.

PLAY IT AS IT LAYS (1972) 99min
Director: Frank Perry
In Joan Didion’s adaptation of her own novel, Anthony Perkins and Weld play a spiritually exhausted producer and a career-limbo Hollywood actress who find purgatorial kinship.

PLAY IT AS IT LAYS screens on Wednesday, September 21 at 8:30PM.

PRETTY POISON (1968) 89min
Director: Noel Black
The spy fantasies of an oddball parolee (Anthony Perkins) are upstaged by a dangerously bored high-school senior (Weld) who takes them in deadly stride.

PRETTY POISON screens on Wednesday, September 21 at 6:30PM and Saturday, September 24 at 8:15PM.

RALLY ’ROUND THE FLAG, BOYS! (1959) 106min
Director: Leo McCarey
McCarey’s Thirties-style screwball comedy in the Long Island suburbs of the Fifties stars Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward as young marrieds, with Weld their jive-talking babysitter.

RALLY ‘ROUND THE FLAG, BOYS! screens Sunday, September 25 at 1:30PM.

THIEF (1981) 122min
Director: Michael Mann
James Caan plays a straight-shooting Chicago safecracker eager to start fresh with a waitress flame (Weld) but corralled by a cynical mob boss. Music by Tangerine Dream.

THIEF screens Thursday, September 22 at 8:30PM.

WHO’LL STOP THE RAIN (1978) 126min
Director: Karel Reisz
A late-decade peak in sleepless broken-dream trips came with Nick Nolte as a Marine smuggling heroin and ending up a fugitive with his friend’s wife (Weld).

WHO’LL STOP THE RAIN screens Friday, September 23 at 6:00PM.

Screening schedule for AMERICAN GIRL: TUESDAY WELD

Wednesday, September 21
6:30PM          PRETTY POISON (89min)
8:30PM          PLAY IT AS IT LAYS (99min)
 
Thursday, September 22
6:30PM          I WALK THE LINE (97min)
8:30PM          THIEF (122min)
 
Friday, September 23
6:00PM          WHO’LL STOP THE RAIN (126min)
8:30PM          LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (136min)
 
Saturday, September 24
2:00PM          BACHELOR FLAT (91min)
4:00PM          LORD LOVE A DUCK (105min)
8:15 PM         PRETTY POISON (89min)


1:30PM          RALLY ‘ROUND THE FLAG, BOYS! (106min)
3:45PM          LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (136min)
6:30PM          ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (229 min + 10 min intermission)

September 27

Film Comment Selects: JOHN LE CARRÈ DOUBLE FEATURE

THE LOOKING GLASS WAR (1970) 108min
Director: Frank R. Pierson

THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (1965) 112min
Director: Martin Ritt

Alongside the triumphal James Bond franchise, John le Carré’s best-selling novels offered a psychologically nuanced and morally ambiguous look at the treacherous machinations of the Cold War. THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD received a suitably bleak big-screen adaptation from Martin Ritt, featuring beautifully stark black-and-white cinematography and starring Richard Burton as a burnt-out British agent going undercover behind the Iron Curtain. Equally adept at mixing political despair with enthralling suspense, Frank Pierson’s THE LOOKING GLASS WAR follows the cynical exploits of British agents (including a young Anthony Hopkins) who must abandon a Polish defector after sending him into East Germany.

THE LOOKING GLASS WAR screens at 6:00PM on Tuesday, September 27 and THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD follows at 8:00PM.

Film Society of Lincoln Center

Under the leadership of Rose Kuo, Executive Director, and Richard Peña, Program Director, the Film Society of Lincoln Center offers the best in international, classic and cutting-edge independent cinema. The Film Society presents two film festivals that attract global attention: the New York Film Festival, currently planning its 49th edition, and New Directors/New Films which, since its founding in 1972, has been produced in collaboration with MoMA. The Film Society also publishes the award-winning Film Comment Magazine, and for over three decades has given an annual award—now named “The Chaplin Award”—to a major figure in world cinema. Past recipients of this award include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, and Tom Hanks. The Film Society presents a year-round calendar of programming, panels, lectures, educational programs and specialty film releases at its Walter Reade Theater and the new state-of-the-art Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from Royal Bank of Canada, 42BELOW, American Airlines, The New York Times, Stella Artois, the National Endowment for the Arts, WNET New York Public Media, the National Endowment for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts.For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com