Juliane Lorenz began working as Fassbinder’s editor in 1977 and collaborated closely with him until his death in 1982. Since then she has been the editor for several different directors and has taught at the German Film and Television Academy as well as the College of Film and Television in Munich. Lorenz became the director of the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation in 1992.
October 23 (Saturday) 7 pm
Directed by Juliane Lorenz
Germany 1997, color,16mm, 97 min.
One of the leading figures of New German Cinema, Rainer Werner Fassbinder left an extensive body of work as well as a great many admirers and critics. Occasioned by a major U.S. retrospective of Fassbinder’s work, Life, Love & Celluloid focuses on the continued impact of his films. Among those who speak about their experiences of programming and watching his films are MoMA curators Mary Lea Bandy and Laurence Kardish; UCLA Film School director Robert Rosen; translators Christa Armstrong and Maria Pelikan; as well as Armin Armani, a drama student at the Actors Studio in NY, who is encountering Fassbinder’s films for the first time.
October 8 (Friday) 7 pm
Directed by Michael Shamberg
USA/FR 1999, color, 35mm, 78 min.
With Stanton Miranda, Kristin Scott
Thomas, Melvil Poupaud
Former video director Michael Shamberg’s complex first feature has something for everyone: computer graphics by Chris Marker (Sans Soleil), the voice of indie favorite Christina Ricci, French heartthrob Melvil Poupaud, a sound track made up of direct sound, music and voice-over, and nary a hint of a straightforward story. Best known as a producer of music videos for the likes of New Order and Patti Smith, Shamberg advances the stature of digital filmmaking with this haunting presentation of a few distracted days in the life of Orlando, an American sports journalist in Paris. "What makes the film extraordinary is the stream-of-consciousness editing, which seamlessly integrates episodes from Orlando’s life with an imagined conversation with her brother (voiced by Christina Ricci and Adam Hann-Byrd) and larger reflections on the family, the city, the impact of leaving home and the gap between dreaming something up and actually making it." Tony Rayns, Time Out
October 24 (Sunday) 8 pm
Special Event
Directed by Paul Leni
USA 1928 (b/w, 35mm)(116 min)
With Conrad Veidt, Mary Philbin, Olga Baclanova
The French Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States and the Harvard Film Archive are proud to present a very special screening of Paul Leni’s The Man Who Laughs at Sanders Theater. Recently restored by the Cinématheque Française and the Cinéteca del Commune di Bologna, The Man Who Laughs features a new score by Gabriel Thibaudeau, who will conduct the nine piece ensemble, the Octuor de France Orchestra. Kenneth Turan of the LA Times has written that "The Man Who Laughs strikes the kind of excessive and overwhelming emotional chords impossible to even imagine today. As an extended and ecstatic standing ovation testified, it was a moment of pure cinema that nothing else in Cannes 1998 could come close to rivaling."
After making "Waxworks," one of the great films of the German silent cinema, Expressionist master Paul Leni came to Hollywood in 1927 to direct horror-suspense pictures for Universal. Before his sudden and mysterious death in 1929, he directed four American films, including this stylish and atmospheric tale of a man with a smile literally carved on his face. Adapted from a Victor Hugo novel, it is an enduring classic of the grotesque—a macabre, erotic, and flamboyant melodrama, rich in visual mystery, awash in pain and pathos.
LOCATION:
Sanders Theater Sunday 10/24 8:00pm
Sanders Theater is located in Memorial Hall, 45 Quincy St., Cambridge.
COST:
Faculty, Staff and Students, $10.00, General Public $14.00
Tickets available at the Harvard Box Office 617-496-2222
The Harvard Film Archive extends our deepest thanks to the following organizations for their generous support of this event: Gras Savoye, Hermès, and Effage, as well as Olivier Bouin, French Cultural Attaché, and his staff at the French Consulate in Boston, the management and staff at Sanders Theater, and Boston Light & Sound, Inc.
Harvard Film Archive is a division of Fine Arts Library of the Harvard College Library.
Copyright © 2006 President and Fellows of Harvard College.