Introduction to European Cinema - Filmhouse Cinema Edinburgh

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Introduction to European Cinema
ACCIDENT BANDE A PART
INTIMATE LIGHTING
Introduction to
European Cinema
Now in its seventh year at Filmhouse,
Introduction to European Cinema returns for
2011/12 with a completely new programme of
films. The season provides a great opportunity to
see some of the classics of European film on the
big screen, many of which are very rarely shown.
Curated in collaboration with the Film Studies
department at the University of Edinburgh,
the screenings form part of undergraduate
and postgraduate syllabuses but are equally
open to regular members of the Filmhouse
public. All screenings will be preceded by short
introductions by IEC Course Organiser Dr
Pasquale Iannone and notes on the season will
be available to download from the Filmhouse
website.
To keep up to date with screening dates
and times, feel free to ‘Like’ IEC’s Facebook
page ‘Introduction to European Cinema at
Filmhouse’ or follow @Filmhouse on Twitter.
Accident
Wed 18 Jan at 6.10pm
Joseph Losey • UK 1967 • 1h45m • 35mm
12A – Contains moderate language and sex references
Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Stanley Baker, Michael York, Jacqueline Sassard.
Director Joseph Losey and screenwriter Harold Pinter turn
Nicholas Mosley’s novel into a sensual and gripping drama.
Stephen (Dirk Bogarde) is a 40-year-old Oxford philosophy
lecturer, functionally drunk as often as possible and silently
resentful of his colleague Charley, whose star is rising as
a TV pundit. Among Stephen’s students is the casually
charming young aristocrat William, who has his eye on
another of Stephen’s charges, Austrian princess Anna.
Motivated by a dangerous mixture of admiration and envy,
Stephen facilitates a meeting between William and Anna.
But his gently magnanimous demeanour conceals a rising
tide of anxiety, self-centredness and sexual desperation.
Bande à part Band of Outsiders
Wed 25 Jan at 6.15pm
Jean-Luc Godard • France 1964 • 1h35m • 35mm
French and English with English subtitles
PG – Contains infrequent mild bad language and violence
Cast: Anna Karina, Sami Frey, Claude Brasseur, Louisa Colpeyn.
Godard at his most off-the-cuff spins a fast and loose tale
that continues his love affairs with Hollywood and with
actress Anna Karina. Karina at her most naive is taken up
by two self-conscious toughs, and they try to learn English,
do extravagant mimes of the death of Billy the Kid, execute
some neat dance steps, run around the Louvre at high
speed, and rob Karina’s aunt, with disastrous consequences.
One of Godard’s most open and purely enjoyable films.
Intimate Lighting Intimni osvetleni
Wed 1 Feb at 6.00pm
Ivan Passer • Czech Republic 1966 • 1h11m • 35mm
Czech with English subtitles • PG
Cast: Zdenek Bezusek, Karel Blazek, Miroslav Cvrk.
A near perfect little movie about a weekend in the country
for two muscians, who play and get drunk together. It is
sometimes too easy to forget the importance of Ivan Passer
to the Czech New Wave, having co-scripted Competition,
A Blonde in Love and The Firemen’s Ball with Milos Forman
and directed and co-scripted this little gem of a picture,
brimfull of the lyricism and humanity that made his early
films such a delight.
L’Eclisse The Eclipse
Wed 8 Feb at 6.00pm
Michelangelo Antonioni • Italy/France 1962 • 2h3m • 35mm
Italian with English subtitles • PG – Contains moderate language
Cast: Monica Vitti, Alain Delon, Francisco Rabal, Louis Seigner.
The conclusion of Michelangelo Antonioni’s informal
trilogy on modern malaise (preceded by L’avventura
and La Notte) L’Eclisse tells the story of a young woman
(Monica Vitti) who leaves one lover (Francisco Rabal)
only to drift into a relationship with another (Alain Delon).
Using the architecture of Rome as a backdrop for the
couple’s doomed affair, Antonioni reaches the apotheosis
of his modernist style, returning to his favourite themes:
alienation and the difficulty of finding connections in an
increasingly mechanised world.