Introduction to European Cinema - Filmhouse Cinema Edinburgh

8 Maybe you missed.../Restored classic
50/50 THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
MAYBEYOUMISSED
50/50
Fri 27 to Tue 31 Jan
Jonathan Levine • USA 2011 • 1h40m • Digital projection
15 – Contains strong language, once very strong, strong sex and
sex references
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Philip
Baker Hall, Anjelica Huston.
As far as movie formulas go, cancer and comedy shouldn’t
mix. Find the right balance between gallows humour and
compassion, however, and the honesty is preserved. Such
is the case with Jonathan Levine’s latest feature, which
tackles its grim subject matter in a manner as hilarious as it
is sincere.
The film follows Adam (Joseph Gordon- Levitt), a 27year-old
nice guy who’s been diagnosed with a rare form
of cancer. He’s immediately rolled into chemotherapy
treatments and given a fifty-fifty odds of survival. Adam
doesn’t have to face this dark voyage alone: by his side are
his best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen), his doctor (Philip Baker
Hall) and a therapist-in-training (Anna Kendrick). As Adam
comes to terms with the possibility that he may be living his
last days, he and Kyle decide to make the most of a dismal
situation.
MAYBEYOUMISSED
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Fri 27 Jan to Thu 2 Feb
David Fincher • USA/Sweden/UK/Germany 2011 • 2h38m
18 – Contains strong sex and sexual violence
Cast: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan
Skarsgård, Steven Berkoff.
Hoping to distance himself from the fallout of a libel
conviction, journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig)
retreats to a remote island in Sweden’s far north, where the
unsolved murder of a young girl still haunts her industrialist
uncle forty years later. Ensconced in a cottage on the island
where the killer may still roam, Blomkvist’s investigation
draws him into the secrets and lies of the rich and
powerful, and throws him together with one unlikely ally
– tattooed punk hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara).
David Fincher’s adaptation of the first part of Stieg
Larsson’s bestselling trilogy is very much a Fincher
film, with shades of his previous crime thrillers Se7en
and Zodiac. Dark, stylish, bleak and atmospheric, with
impeccable storytelling and an appropriately reserved
performance from Craig matched by an appropriately
forceful one from Mara.
L’ATALANTE
RESTOREDCLASSIC
L’Atalante
Fri 20 to Thu 26 Jan
Jean Vigo • France 1934 • 1h29m • Digital projection
French with English subtitles
PG – Contains brief nudity and infrequent sex references
Cast: Michel Simon, Dita Parlo, Jean Dasté, Gilles Margaritis.
Jean Vigo’s first and only full-length feature is one of the
cinema’s greatest masterpieces. The story is very simple:
newly-weds Jean Dasté and Dita Parlo find living on a
cramped Seine barge brings tension to their relationship;
their naivety falls prey to the volatile eccentricity of second
mate Père Jules, the temptations of a flirtatious pedlar,
and their own unreadiness to compromise. But to this
stark narrative Vigo brings a rich array of moods (comic,
suspenseful, heart-rendingly romantic) to explore the
nuances of every single emotion.
It is not clear if Vigo was ever well enough to view the cut
made by his editor Louis Chavance (he died of tuberculosis
soon after shooting the film). The distributors, however,
regarded the finished film as worthless and demanded
that it be trimmed, reducing its running time from 89 to 65
minutes. L’Atalante was also re-titled Le Chaland qui passe
after a sentimental ballad of the time which was dubbed
over the credits to add popular appeal. It was not until
1989 that a 35mm print of the original 1934 version (before
the cuts), which had found its way into the BFI National
Archive, was used to form the basis of a full restoration
by Gaumont. This new high-definition digital transfer
(by Criterion) was made from the 2001 Gaumont 35mm
restoration negative (a revision of the earlier restoration)
and aims to be as true as possible to the original version.