Release Date: July 3, 2013

Summer Films at the National Gallery of Art Celebrate Kerry James Marshall, Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, American Folklife Festival, Hitchcock, and More

Washington, DC—The National Gallery of Art's summer 2013 film program features unique collaborative projects and series, including ciné-concerts and Washington premieres of recent digital restorations. This season begins with Hungary, Hero and Myth: Immigrant Experience and the Artist's Eye, a selection of five Hungarian and American films portraying the motherland and its mythologies from the perspective of the immigrant artist, programmed in conjunction with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival exhibition Hungarian Heritage: Roots to Revival.

Other special film series include The Hitchcock 9, a presentation with the American Film Institute of nine restored silent prints from the British Film Institute, all accompanied by live music; From Vault to Screen, the Gallery's annual showcase of film preservation from international archives and special collections, which—among other offerings—this year features illustrated lectures by film historian Marsha Gordon and preservationist Jon Gartenberg; and Russian Cinema in Exile in the Ballets Russes Era, featuring five ciné-concerts, some introduced by Anna Winestein, executive director of the Ballets Russes Cultural Partnership. Footage from various re-stagings of Ballets Russes dances will also be screened on Wednesday afternoons through August.

Other highlights of the summer program include two screenings of work by visiting Czech new wave legend Jiří Menzel; discussions with historian and critic Joseph Horowitz, author of On My Way: The Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and Porgy and Bess, who makes a strong case for reevaluating Mamoulian's role in the development of the movie musical; and a set of three feature films selected by artist Kerry James Marshall as influential in his development as a visual artist: the classic American films Nothing But a Man, Black Orpheus, and Daughters of the Dust.

Films are screened in the East Building Auditorium, located at Fourth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Works are presented in original formats and seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis. Doors open 30 minutes before each show and programs are subject to change. For more information, visit www.nga.gov/film or call (202) 842-6799.

Art Films and Events

Ballets Russes Dances
Wednesday, July 10, 17, 24, 3, 12:30
Wednesday, Aug 7, 14, 21, 28, 12:30
Filmed performances of dances originally premiered by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, including The Rite of Spring, The Firebird, The Afternoon of a Faun, The Prodigal Son, and The Blue Train are shown in conjunction with the exhibition Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929: When Art Danced with Music.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Friday, July 12 and Saturday, July 13, 2:30
With England on the verge of invasion, a well-meaning but clueless old major-general is thrust into the realities of a new military milieu that no longer follows gentlemen's rules. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, one of Britain's best cinematic satires was Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's second feature for their newly formed Archers. In flashback, the film charts the old officer's glorious 40-year career and all the loves of his life (each one played by Deborah Kerr) "with the most lasting bond the one between the officer (Roger Livesey) and his Prussian counterpart (Anton Walbrook)"—Dave Kehr. The Film Foundation supported the restoration of the soundtrack and three damaged strips of negative (a pioneering process that involved a team of technicians, archivists, and institutions) to bring back the brilliant Technicolor beauty of the original. (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1943, DCP, 163 minutes)

Ballets Russes
Saturday, August 3 and 24, 2:30
From the Diaghilev-era early years in turn-of-the-century Paris, to the American tours of the 1930s and 1940s when the troupe amazed naive audiences with sophisticated artistry, to the final downfall in the 1950s and 1960s, Ballets Russes presents rare interviews and dance footage in a compelling portrait focusing on the history of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. (Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, 2005, 35 mm, 118 minutes)

Hors Satan
Washington premiere
Sunday, August 25, 4:30
From the start, Hors Satan's outwardly destitute and solitary hero (David Dawaele) seems to embody an odd sort of piety. Driven by a private moral code, he becomes protector of vulnerable Elle (Alexandra Lemâtre), a village girl who bears her own share of torments. The film's muted seascapes and skies brilliantly evoke paintings by Boudin, while the stylization is reminiscent of Bresson. About filming in the north of France (where he grew up) famed enfant terrible director Bruno Dumont said, "it's the most powerful landscape . . . and quite naturally provides material for introspection . . . a wild and mythical state of the human condition from which we must continually strive to emerge, in order to remain civilized." (Bruno Dumont, 2011, 35 mm, French with subtitles, 109 minutes)

Caesar Must Die
Washington premiere
Saturday, August 31, 4:00
Sunday, September 1, 2:00
The latest masterpiece from brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani follows a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar performed by inmates inside the maximum-security Rebibbia prison on the eastern outskirts of Rome. Caesar Must Die develops its powerful message through actor-inmate interpretations of the drama, often drawing on the prisoners' first-hand encounters with the loyalty-betrayal-vengeance cycles of the criminal underworld. "At first sight, we seem to be watching a documentary about a production of Julius Caesar, its text somewhat adapted. But early on there's a hint that things aren't quite so straightforward"—Philip Kemp. (Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, 2012, 35 mm, Italian with subtitles, 76 minutes)

Ciné-Concert: Abstract Animation Since 1970
Andrew Simpson in performance
Artist Sharon Louden in person
Sunday, September 8, 4:30
This selection of recent abstract animations, chosen by artist Sharon Louden, demonstrates that contemporary nonfigurative cinema is not only alive and well, it is thriving. These short moving image works—by artists Stan Brakhage, Paul Glabicki, Sky David, Larry Cuba, Michel Gagné, Chris Casady, David Brody, Adriano Abbado, Amy Yoes, Amelia Winger-Bearskin, Dannielle Tegeder, Phil Docken, and Sharon Louden—explore drawing in space, narrative constructed entirely through color, and the arrangement of moments in time. The artists are from many regions of North America and Europe. Composer Andrew Simpson performs new music to accompany the program, including the premiere of Community, a new animation by Louden. (HD-Cam, total running time approximately 90 minutes)

Glory
Introduction by Ed Zwick
Washington premiere of the digital restoration
Sunday, September 15, 4:00
In conjunction with the exhibition Tell It with Pride: The 54th Massachusetts Regiment and Augustus Saint-Gaudens' Shaw Memorial, and in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, this new restoration of Glory, the landmark film dramatizing the establishment of the first African American fighting unit and the July 18, 1863, storming of Fort Wagner (a turning point in the war) will be introduced and discussed by director Ed Zwick. (Ed Zwick, 1989, DCP, 122 minutes)

The Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry
Introduction by Mark Samels
Saturday, September 21, 2:30
This PBS American Experience production about the formation of the Massachusetts 54th, the volunteer regiment of northern black soldiers formed after Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, is introduced by WGBH-Boston's award-winning executive producer Mark Samels. Discussion follows the screening. (Mark Samels, 1991, HD-Cam, 120 minutes)

Film Series

Hungary, Hero and Myth: Immigrant Experience and the Artist's Eye
July 5–7
In association with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival's exhibition Hungarian Heritage: Roots to Revival, the Gallery presents a selection of five Hungarian and American films portraying the motherland and its mythologies from the perspective of the immigrant artist. With thanks to Gyorgy Rethazi, James Deutsch, Katalin Vajda, Bela Bunyik, Dorottya Szorenyi, the Embassy of Hungary, and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

American Postcard
Friday, July 5, 1:00
Inspired in part by an Ambrose Bierce story, Gábor Bódy's first feature (one of the first to come from Budapest's Balázs Béla Studio) tells of two Hungarian officers, recent arrivals to America, serving as Union Army surveyors in the Civil War. The men symbolize opposing attitudes toward the conflict: the rationalist, hoping to offer his skills to the cause, and the raw romantic revolutionary. "A philosophical story related in an unusual experimental form, where the images try to recreate the early years of photography, daguerreotypes of the last century, but as if they were taken virtually on the spot, candidly. Uncertain frames, damaged, dimly-lighted pictures evoking the ambience of the past"—Yvette Biro. (Gábor Bódy, 1975, 35 mm, Hungarian, French, and German with subtitles, 91 minutes)

The Maiden Danced to Death
Friday, July 5, 3:00
The suppressed pain of family separation following immigration to the New World is the central theme of this recent work, filmed partly in Ottawa but principally in Budapest—the Hungarian city is romantically depicted by the cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond. When Istvan (Ender Holes) defected to the West many years earlier, his brother Gyula (Zsolt László) took over the dance company that Istvan had created. When Istvan finally returns, the complicated jumble of emotions experienced by the brothers proves devastating as they work together to produce The Maiden Danced to Death, a folk-themed dance. Art begins to imitate life. (Ender Holes, 2011, DCP, English and Hungarian with subtitles, 100 minutes)

No Subtitles Necessary: Vilmos and Laszlo
Vilmos Zsigmond in person
Saturday, July 6, 2:00
Two of Hollywood's most celebrated cinematographers left Hungary following the 1956 uprising and, on their own, became American legends. László Kovács (1933–2007) and Vilmos Zsigmond (b. 1930) learned photography as film students documenting the turbulent events on the streets of Budapest during the Soviet invasion. No Subtitles Necessary chronicles their friendship and interrelated careers with footage, interviews, and discussions with Peter Bogdanovich, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Sandra Bullock, Sharon Stone, Barbara Streisand, and others who have worked alongside them. (James Chressanthis, 2008, 35 mm, 86 minutes)

Bánk bán
Vilmos Zsigmond in person
Saturday, July 6, 4:00
Ferenc Erkel's grand romantic opera Bánk bán—a season opener in Budapest's state opera house—transforms a medieval folk saga into a sweeping visual and musical extravaganza. Academy Award-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond returned to Hungary to shoot this film version, teaming up with director Csaba Káel and a cast of Hungary's leading singers. "The filmmakers respect the heady 19th-century melodrama of the original material yet enrich it in a textbook example of how to turn an opera into a film in which the two art forms complement one another"—Kevin Thomas. Interestingly, the opera version of Bánk bán had never been filmed, only József Katona's original play based on the myth had made it to the cinema in 1914, via director Mihaly Kertesz (Michael Curtiz). (Csaba Káel, 2002, 35 mm, Hungarian with subtitles, 118 minutes)

Children of Glory
Sunday, July 7, 4:00
A heroic interpretation of events surrounding the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Children of Glory's epic romance entangled with political intrigue follows the life of Szábo Karcsi (Iván Fenyö), a celebrated athlete at the center of a famously bloody Hungary-USSR water polo match at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Szábo's real match, however, comes in the character of Viki (Kata Dobo), a protestor and activist whom he meets at a revolutionary rally on the streets of Budapest. Passionate about Hungary's right to be free of the Communists, Viki successfully combines idealism, love of country, and, ultimately, her attraction to the handsome champion. (Krisztina Goda and Joe Eszterhas, 2006, 35 mm, Hungarian with subtitles, 123 minutes)

The Hitchcock 9
July 14–August 4
Alfred Hitchcock considered pre-sound film to be the cinema's "purest form"—he well understood the suppressed power of gesture and music working in sync. The British Film Institute's National Film Archive has restored nine of Hitchcock's surviving silent masterworks using research findings that have resulted, in certain cases, in the addition of footage as well as the return of original tints and tones. The Gallery joins the American Film Institute in presenting these important new restorations to Washington audiences—five of the nine films are screened at AFI, and four at the Gallery. In addition, the Gallery's program includes two silent features written by Lady Hitchcock (Alma Reville) and directed by Miles Mander and Adrian Brunel. The Hitchcock 9 has been a joint undertaking of the BFI, Rialto Pictures/Studiocanal, and Park Circus/ITV.

Ciné-Concert: The First Born
followed by Easy Virtue
Stephen Horne in performance
Sunday, July 14, 4:00
Director Miles Mander adapted his own novel and play about the double standards of the British upper crust, and the tensions between traditional values and modern moral codes. The First Born's sophistication was ahead of its time, tracking the deterioration of adoring bonds between Sir Hugo Boycott (Miles Mander) and his young bride Madeleine (Madeleine Carroll) after she fails to produce an heir. Alma Reville's impeccable script even contains one very Hitchcockian moment. "Could it be that the famous ‘Hitchcock touch' is as much to do with Mrs as with Mr?.  Whatever the balance of contribution between Mander as director and Reville's scripting skills, the film is a tour de force of late silent filmmaking"—Bryony Dixon. (Miles Mander, 1928, 35 mm, 88 minutes)

Larita Filton (Isabel Jeans) flees England after a scandalous divorce, marries a new man, and then attempts to re-enter British society with her suitably rich new mate. Hitchcock's own tale of one woman's battle against society's conventions (a free adaptation of a Noël Coward play) posed extreme challenges for the team of restorers. With no extant negatives or 35 mm prints, the only existing source materials for Easy Virtue were 16 mm copies of marginal quality. In the end, however, restorers produced the most comprehensive version of the film since its release. (Alfred Hitchcock, 1927, 35 mm, 90 minutes)

Ciné-Concert: Downhill
Philip Carli in performance
Sunday, July 21, 4:00
A boy charged with stealing is expelled from his school. Though not guilty of the crime, he leaves home and makes his way to France, as his parents are beginning to realize their son's innocence. In Paris, the boy really starts to go "downhill." With dream sequences, superimpositions, and other surprising visual feats, Downhill shares stylistic innovations with the work of other contemporary European filmmakers including René Clair, but it's really Ivor Novello's performance as the boy, Roddy, that steals the show. (Alfred Hitchcock, 1927, 35 mm, 74 minutes)

Ciné-Concert: The Constant Nymph
Philip Carli in performance
Sunday, July 21, 5:30
All the rage in late 1920s Britain, The Constant Nymph, from a play by Basil Dean and Margaret Kennedy (Noël Coward and Edna Best appeared in the contemporary stage production), was inspired by Kennedy's best-selling novel. The shocking mix of adolescent desire and illicit entanglement—set in a spectacularly bright Austrian state of Tyrol and later in the dark drawing rooms of London—incited the censors, especially since star Mabel Poulton already looked underage. Alma Reville, though uncredited, was responsible for adapting the screenplay and arranging continuity. (Adrian Brunel, 1928, digibeta from 35 mm, 110 minutes)

Ciné-Concert: The Lodger
Mont Alto Orchestra in performance
Saturday, July 27, 2:00
Hitchcock's first true thriller and earliest commercial success (and containing the first of his cameo appearances), The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog maintains a graceful stylization, chiaroscuro, and tormented psychology heavily indebted to German expressionist cinema. Inspired by a novel, the film starred the beloved matinee idol Ivor Novello as an enigmatic boarding-house resident, later assumed to be a murderer. (Alfred Hitchcock, 1926, 35 mm, 98 minutes)

Ciné-Concert: The Pleasure Garden
Andrew Simpson in performance
Sunday, August 4, 4:30
Hitchcock's first solo production was The Pleasure Garden, and this new restoration brings a seldom-seen masterwork (the narrative focuses on the muddled romantic lives of two chorus girls) back into the fold of the director's most interesting early work. Incorporating additional footage and restructuring existing sequences based on new research, The Pleasure Garden definitively puts forward a case that Hitchcock was a force to be reckoned with. Alma Reville served as the film's assistant director and, by all accounts, Hitchcock proposed to her as they headed home after the shooting. (Alfred Hitchcock, 1925, 35mm, 75 minutes)

From Vault to Screen
July 20–Sept 22
The Gallery annual showcase of film preservation from international archives and special collections ranges this year from rediscovered American rarities to artists' films and unsung shorts from the 1960s, and to major French classics celebrating their fiftieth anniversaries this season. With special thanks to Rialto, Livia Bloom, Marsha Gordon, Paula Gladstone, Jon Gartenberg, John Polito, Skip Elsheimer, Chicago Film Archives, Reserve Film and Video Collection of The New York Public Library for the PerformingArts, National Film Preservation Foundation, and The Film Foundation.

The City in the ‘60s: Forgotten Films from American Archives
Introduction by Marsha Gordon
Book signing to follow
Saturday, July 20, 2:00
As recently as the last half of the 20th century—in theaters, churches, private clubs, and especially schools, where the core curricula could always benefit from some audio-visual enhancement—the projection of 16 mm films was a regular occurrence. Thousands were produced each year on every subject imaginable. Although many 16 mm collections have now been discarded in favor of digital, there are many archives that treasure and preserve this fragile format for its historical value. In their recently published Learning with the Lights Off, Marsha Gordon and co-editors Devin Orgeron and Dan Streible examine the educational film in its endless variety—from art to music, biology to medicine, suburban sprawl to urban decay. Marsha Gordon introduces a program designed around the city in the 1960s that includes screenings of entertaining and informative films representing Washington, DC, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago: Village Sunday, Three Cures for a Sick City, The Battle for Michigan Avenue, Felicia, and Jim Henson's Time Piece. A book signing of Learning with the Lights Off follows the presentation. With thanks to A/V Geeks, the Reserve Film and Video Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and Chicago Film Archives.

The Dancing Soul of the Walking People
Paula Gladstone and John Polito in person
Saturday, July 27, 4:30
An avant garde filmmaker's reverie, The Dancing Soul of the Walking People was filmed on Super-8 stock in the mid-1970s whilelying under the boardwalk on Coney Island. Artist Paula Gladstone,born and raised next to the famous landmark (ravaged last year bystorms), captured the play of sunlight reflecting through the gaps ofthe boardwalk's planking, creating a near-surreal set of black-and-whiteimages. Her soundtrack is a needle-drop mix of Duke Ellingtonand experimental jazz, the noise of galloping horses, the shufflingof walking feet, Gladstone's own poetry, and, when least expected,The Drifters' memorable "Under the Boardwalk" from 1964. Gladstoneand sound restoration specialist John Polito discuss the filmand its complicated restoration. (Paula Gladstone, 1980/2012, DCP,63 minutes)

The Artist and the Fragile Emulsion
Jon Gartenberg in person
Sunday, July 28, 4:30
Short innovative films by Andy Warhol, Warren Sonbert, David Wojnarowicz, Jack Waters, Ken Jacobs, and Beryl Sokoloff are screened during an illustrated presentation by archivist and curator Jon Gartenberg, specialist in restoring the legacy of moving image artists. These experimental filmmakers relate (literally and metaphorically) the sensitive nature of the film emulsion to the fragility of human existence. Gartenberg underscores his preservation approach, closely following each artist's distinct working process, and highlighting such critical concerns as the challenges of constructing an accurate catalogue raisonné, identifying and documenting the version of the film preserved, and reconciling the materiality of the film stock with the more ephemeral and performative aspects of their public exhibition. With thanks to the Filmmakers Cooperative, Museum of Modern Art, Electronic Arts Intermix, and Fales Library. (Total running time approximately 90 minutes)

Le Petit Soldat
Saturday, September 7, 2:30
Fifty years ago this summer, Godard's Le Petit Soldat (banned by the French government because of politics surrounding the colonial war in Algeria) was released around the world. Deserter-turned photographer Michel Subor agrees to a Geneva photo shoot with Anna Karina (in her debut role, before she became Godard's wife and muse) and unavoidably falls for her. "But Subor's pals back at the ‘information bureau' have a little political assassination lined up for him—or is it a test to see if he's a double agent? And is Karina mixed up with the FLN (Algerian liberationists)? One of Godard's starkest works, shot in infinite tones of gray via available light by the great Raoul Coutard"—Film Forum. The Algerian conflict set the stage, historically-speaking, for the future pervasiveness of terrorism, torture, and guerrilla fighting on both sides of combat. (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963, 35 mm, French with subtitles, 88 minutes)

Le Joli Mai
Sunday, September 22, 4:30
As the war with Algeria was coming to an end, director Chris Marker (1921–2012) and cameraman Pierre Lhomme took to the streets of Paris, capturing over fifty hours of interviews with passers-by on the "meaning of happiness." Released fifty years ago, their edited film is an engaging and unusual social commentary, an unceremonious snapshot of a crucial time in France's history. Long unavailable, the restoration of Le Joli Mai's original North American release version was completed in accordance with Marker's wishes and supervised by codirector Lhomme. With music by Michel Legrand, and English commentary by actress Simone Signoret. (Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme, 1963, 35 mm, French with subtitles, 163 minutes)

Russian Cinema in Exile in the Ballets Russes Era
August 10–18
Just as the Ballets Russes brought Russian ballet and theatrical innovations to Europe, film directors, actors, technicians, and designers driven west by the 1917 revolution and its aftermath added an enormous infusion of talent and new ideas to French and German cinema throughout the 1920s. This series explores several of the most notable films made primarily by Russians, who also contributed their skills and creative thinking to numerous mixed productions made together with their European colleagues. Prints and restorations are from La Cinémathèque française, Paris, and National Film Center, Tokyo.

Russians in Napoléon vu par Abel Gance: The Emigre Contribution
Illustrated lecture by Anna Winestein
Saturday, August 10, 2:00
Russian film professionals, including film directors famous in their own right, actors, a cameraman, numerous technicians and designers, and even the former Ballets Russes participant Alexandre Benois, contributed extensively to Abel Gance's legendary Napoléon. This lecture explores the creative contribution to that film made by Russian émigrés, as well as some of the parallels between the relationship of the Ballets Russes with European performing arts in the 1920s, and that of the Russian émigré film studio Albatros with European cinema. Historian Anna Winestein is executive director of the Ballets Russes Cultural Partnership. (Approximately 60 minutes)

Ciné-Concert: Secrets of the Orient(Scheherazade)
Ben Model in performance
Introduction by Anna Winestein
Saturday, August 10, 4:00
An Orientalist fantasy with boldly exotic sets and costumes by Ivan Lochakoff and Boris Bilinsky, Scheherazade was a French-German coproduction shot in the Berlin studios of Universum Film AG, directed by Russian émigré Alexandre Volkoff, and starring émigré actor Nicolas Koline—a beautiful illustration of the sort of international energy that flowed through late 1920s cinema. Mingling Eastern and Western motifs, the visionary designs (there are even some stencil-colored sequences) display a world of mystery and adventure. Bilinsky's costumes were directly influenced by Léon Bakst's Orientalist designs for the Ballets Russes, especially the ballet Scheherazade. Print courtesy National Film Center, Tokyo. (Alexandre Volkoff, 1928, 35 mm, 126 minutes)

Ciné-Concert: Le Lion des Mogols
Ben Model in performance
Introduction by Anna Winestein
Sunday, August 11, 4:00
In the high plateaus of Tibet, Prince Roundghito-Sing (Ivan Mosjoukine), romantic rival of the Grand Khan, is forced to flee the kingdom. Heading for Paris by boat, the prince meets a movie team and falls under the spell of Anna, leading lady and lover of the team's wealthy producer. French avant-garde director Jean Epstein employs his trademark special visual effects ("cinema is an experimental device that builds an image of the universe," Epstein wrote), against a backdrop of striking sets and costumes by Russians Lochakoff and Bilinsky. Le Lion des Mogols's fanciful adventure has loads of location footage (Kiki de Montparnasse is glimpsed at one point), and amply shows off the skills of the Russian colony and the French production house Films Albatros. The tinted 35 mm print was restored by Cinémathèque française with the collaboration of the Franco-American Cultural Fund. (Jean Epstein, 1924, 35 mm, 93 minutes)

Ciné-Concert: Le Brasier ardent
Robert Israel in performance
Saturday, August 17, 2:00
In her feverish nightmare, a woman (Nathalie Lissenko) meets a menacing stranger (Ivan Mosjoukine) posing in dazzling disguises, while her husband (Nicolas Koline) schemes with a detective to win back his wife's fading affections. A comedy about a failing relationship, the film also uses location footage of Paris in the 1920s to add texture to a story already filled with twists and turns. Le Brasier ardent is allegedly the movie that inspired Jean Renoir to enter a career directing motion pictures. (Alexandre Volkoff, Ivan Mosjoukine, 1923, 35 mm, 97 minutes)

Ciné-Concert: Les Ombres qui passent
Robert Israel in performance
Saturday, August 17, 4:00
Louis Barclay (Ivan Mosjoukine) lives happily in the south of England with his father (Henry Krauss) and his bride, until one day a letter arrives summoning him to Paris for an inheritance. Barclay—whom Mosjoukine interprets with an elegant mix of French melodrama and American comedy—collects his money and readily adapts to his new life, but then becomes the target of a gang of sharks, including the beautiful and seductive Jacqueline (Nathalie Lissenko) with whom he falls hopelessly in love. The film gradually turns from comedy to tragedy, ending with a poetic finale. The designs of Alexandre Lochakoff and the cinematography of Fédote Bourgassoff are bolstered by this color-tinted restoration from Cinémathèque française. (Alexandre Volkoff, 1924, 35 mm, 110 minutes)

Ciné-Concert: Casanova
Robert Israel in performance
Sunday, August 18, 4:00 p.m.
For the magnetic Ivan Mosjoukine, the swashbuckling Venetian seducer proved the role of a lifetime—he duels, jumps, climbs, and swaggers his way through countless assignations. A grand visual spectacle with all the technical perfection, sumptuous décor, and grotesquely over-the-top attire that the Russian émigré community could muster, the film is also a tongue-in cheek comedy with Mosjoukine mocking jealous husbands and terrorizing creditors. The extravagance of the production extended to the locations—filming was done in Russia and Austria as well as in Venice—and the final carnival is a colored-stencil sequence, a challenge to the two-color Technicolor scenes produced in Hollywood at the time. (Alexandre Volkoff, 1926, 35 mm, 133 minutes)

Kerry James Marshall Selects
August 31–September 2
In his 2012 Elson Lecture at the Gallery, Kerry James Marshall spoke of the enormous influence of cinematic imagery on artists and the public alike. In concert with his exhibition In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall, the Gallery asked the artist to propose three films that, from his perspective, are relevant to themes explored in his show.

Nothing But A Man
Saturday, August 31, 2:00
Railroad worker Duff (Ivan Dixon) walks into a small-town church in Alabama and falls for Josie (Abbey Lincoln), the preacher's daughter. Josie's dad is not supportive and, in the midst of a palpably racist town, the couple's difficulties only intensify. In the early 1960s, a naturalistic portrayal of the black experience spelled risky box office potential. Nonetheless, Nothing But a Man, with Motown on the sound track, proved a huge success at international festivals as critics heaped praise on its realistic perspective. (Michael Roemer and Robert M. Young, 1964, 35 mm, 95 minutes)

Black Orpheus
Sunday, September 1, 4:30
A colorful, contemporary Orpheus and Eurydice set in a Rio de Janeiro favela, Black Orpheus uses the heady milieu of Carnaval to tell its tragic tale, while Death stalks the streets posing as a reveler in a skeleton costume. The flamboyant sequences are breathtaking to watch, and the soundtrack, with music by Brazilian composers Antônio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfá, became famous in its own right. "A poetic infusion of naturalism and fantasy, classicism and voodoo"— Judy Bloch. (Marcel Camus, 1958, 35 mm, Portuguese with subtitles, 105 minutes)

Daughters of the Dust
Monday, September 2, 2:00
In the early twentieth century off the South Carolina coast, three generations of Gullah women, descendants of African captives living on the Sea Islands, are planning a migration to the mainland for a better way of life. Not surprisingly, family members clash over the likely repercussions of this big move and, in the process, some deeply-rooted concerns of displaced people are brought to light. Julie Dash's tour de force, the first feature by an African American woman to receive general theatrical release, was named to the National Film Registry in 2004. Kerry James Marshall served as the film's production designer. Preservation funded by the Packard Humanities Institute. (Julie Dash, 1991, 35 mm, 112 minutes)

A Day with Jiří Menzel
September 14
Czech new wave legend Jiří Menzel turns 75 this year. The celebrated director is visiting Washington to discuss his body of work, his relationships with writers, artists, and actors, and the official censorship he had to endure. Menzel's brilliant mid-1960s breakthrough Closely Watched Trains resonates as much now as then, and remains a moving illustration of that period's creative energies. With special thanks to Barbara Karpetova, Mary Fetzko, Narodni Filmovy Archiv, and Embassy of the Czech Republic.

Closely Watched Trains
Jiří Menzel in person
Saturday, September 14, 2:00
Menzel's gentle black comedy, set in a rural Czech railway station as the German army occupies the country, is based on one of the best-known novels of Bohumil Hrabal. Typically, Menzel retains the humorous tone of the original, focusing not on the big affair of the war but on the coming-of-age of the main character, Miloš, who is preoccupied with losing his virginity. "In Menzel's vision, the average man—the Svejk-like innocent victim—becomes the central figure of an offbeat, bittersweet poetry"—Yvette Biro. (Jiří Menzel, 1966, 35 mm, Czech with subtitles, 91 minutes) Print courtesy George Eastman House

Larks on a String
Jiří Menzel in person
Saturday, September 14, 4:00
"Made only three years after Closely Watched Trains but in a world apart—the Warsaw Pact invasion of August 1968 interceded—Larks on a String was Jiří Menzel and writer Bohumil Hrabal's most trenchant satire. It is set literally upon the scrapheap of Czech culture in the early 1950s following the Communist takeover. The opening pan of a factory and its towers and yard seems like forever, and that is the feeling for hapless members of the ‘defeated class' who are undergoing re-education working in the factory's scrap yard.  An absurdist setting reminiscent of Svankmajer or Boro, this is a bleak wonderland, an island of love and small philosophies in a world where typewriters and films and souls are relegated to the heap, waiting to be rescued, or melted down"—Judy Bloch. (Jiří Menzel, 1969, 35 mm, Czech with subtitles, 96 minutes)

Rouben Mamoulian: Making Movies Musical
September 28–29
Rouben Mamoulian (1897–1987), an Armenian born in Georgia, studied theater in Moscow, fled Russia when the Bolsheviks arrived, and then worked for a short time on the London stage. Eventually he made his way to Broadway, where in 1927 his production of the play Porgy became a celebrated critical success. In 1929, as the Hollywood industry was adapting to new sound technology, Mamoulian was invited to work as a dialogue coach in cinema. But it was as director of the ground-breaking feature film Applause—a tour de force in the synthesis of sound and music—that Mamoulian's distinctive gifts began to peak. Historian and critic Joseph Horowitz, author of On My Way: The Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and Porgy and Bess, makes a strong case for re-evaluating Rouben Mamoulian's role in the development of the movie musical. On September 28 and 29, Horowitz introduces three of Mamoulian's landmark works, followed by post-screening discussions.

Applause
Introduction by Joseph Horowitz
Book signing to follow
Saturday, September 28, 2:00
In Mamoulian's first "talkie," torch-singer Helen Morgan—only 29 but already a legend for creating "Julie" in Show Boat—is cast as a blowsy, washed-up, burlesque queen who forfeits everything for her daughter. For his behind-the-scenes milieu, Mamoulian forced long takes, location shooting, overlapping sound tracks, and a dazzlingly mobile camera on his recalcitrant crew. "One of the most shockingly alive and heartrending films ever screened"—Michael Feingold. (Rouben Mamoulian, 1929, 35 mm, 80 minutes)

Love Me Tonight
Introduction by Joseph Horowitz
Saturday, September 28, 4:00
Often called the greatest of all pre-war musicals, Mamoulian uses rhyming dialogue to link the songs, and songs to link the characters, "so Maurice Chevalier (poor boy) and Jeanette MacDonald (rich girl) respectively begin and end a marathon rendition of ‘Isn't It Romantic' with the locale changing at each chorus. How does one convey the wit, froth, and giddy enchantment of this picture, in which even the sets laugh?"—British Film Institute. The Rodgers and Hart score also includes the enchanting musical numbers "Lover" and "Mimi." (Rouben Mamoulian, 1932, 35 mm, 96 minutes)

Blood and Sand
Introduction by Joseph Horowitz
Sunday, September 29, 4:00
An early master of Technicolor, Mamoulian styled Blood and Sand's mise-en-scène after classic compositions by Goya and Velázquez for a corrida melodrama about a young matador's (Tyrone Power) rise and fall. Based on Vicente Ibánez's popular Sangre y arena, the film features Rita Hayworth as the temptress Doña Sol and Linda Darnell as the virginal girlfriend Carmen. Alla Nazimova as Señora Augustias is seen in one of her last screen roles. In his score, legendary composer Alfred Newman captured the exotically eccentric effect of it all. (Rouben Mamoulian, 1941, 35 mm, 123 minutes)