Sunday, November 1, 3:00pm
Summer Camp
Alberto Marini, Spain, 2015, DCP, 84m
Spanish with English subtitles
The summer camp is the setting of choice for some of the best ’80s slasher films, a locale of fun, sex, sun… and murder. But in [REC] producer and Sleep Tight scripter Alberto Marini’s delightfully fresh and nasty directorial debut, it’s off-season, and the four young American counselors that show up for duty at a secluded, run-down European camp are faced with cold temperatures, creepy backwoods neighbors, shut-off water—and so much worse. Before the kids even arrive, something is transforming the new counselors into virus-infected, blood-drooling maniacs. Viciously pitted against one another, they must race against time, trying to find the source of the infection before camp goes into session. A Pantelion release. North American Premiere
Monday, November 2, 9:00pm
What We Become
Bo Mikkelsen, Denmark, 2015, DCP, 85m
Danish with English subtitles
The idyllic Danish town of Sorgenfir is enjoying a beautiful summer, and the Johansson family is feeling great. Their neighbors are friendly, the weather is perfect, and the cute new girl who’s moved in across the street has teenager Gustav’s eye. But young love isn’t the only thing bubbling beneath the surface in Bo Mikkelsen’s striking debut film—a virulent outbreak soon sweeps the town. Military men in Hazmat suits force everyone indoors and information is locked down. From what the Johanssons can see through their covered-up windows, the townspeople are changing, as the mysterious virus drives them mad, and turns them violent. Trapped in their home, the Johannsons face a deadly—and all too real—fight for survival.
Wednesday, November 4, 9:00pm
HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT FILM DESCRIPTIONS
Frenzy
Alfred Hitchcock, UK, 1972, 35mm, 116m
More graphic than Psycho following the relaxed censorship in the ’70s, this typically English and terrifying story of a sex killer at large, written by Anthony Shaffer (screenwriter of Sleuth and The Wicker Man), deploys Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man plot structure one last time. Jon Finch (Polanski’s Macbeth) plays the disaffected bartender and ex-RAF pilot suspected by the police of being the “Necktie Killer” after his ex-wife is murdered. In truth, the killer is his cheerful Cockney friend, fruit-merchant Bob Rusk, unforgettably played by Barry Foster (after a disgusted Michael Caine turned down the role). Hitchcock has great, morbid fun with a cast of English character actors—Billie Whitelaw, Alec McCowan, Anna Massey, Bernard Cribbins, Jean Marsh, Vivien Merchant, and Michael Bates—and takes particularly dark pleasure in using London’s Covent Garden Market, the filmmaker’s childhood haunt where his greengrocer father worked, as ground zero for the murders.
Wednesday, October 28, 8:45pm
Hitchcock/Truffaut
Kent Jones, USA, 2015, DCP, 85m
French filmmaker François Truffaut developed the politique des auteurs—a now-ubiquitous claim that certain filmmakers have distinct styles and themes that run through all of their films. In 1962, he found an ideal test case in world-famous Hollywood Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock, in order to free him from his reputation as a maker of light entertainment and cement him as a bona fide artist. Over the course of eight days, Truffaut conducted a series of interviews with the man, later published as a single volume in 1967, which followed Hitchcock’s whole career up to that point, and elicited unprecedentedly candid and precise discussions of his films. Humbling himself as a student to Hitchcock’s trenchant musings on the definition of suspense and the role of the director, Truffaut’s book validated the idea of Hollywood movies as worthy of serious discussion, and became a bible for an international array of world-class auteurs. Featuring extended testimonials from David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, James Gray, Olivier Assayas, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and others, Hitchcock/Truffaut is a lively tribute to a defining work of modern film culture.
Monday, October 27, 6:30pm (Q&A with Kent Jones)
I Confess
Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1953, 35mm, 95m
One of Hitchcock’s most undervalued films, I Confess was an early rallying point for the critics at Cahiers du Cinéma, who located a recurring theme in the transference of guilt in his thrillers of the 1930s, and which found full fruition in this Roman Catholic tale. When Father Logan (Montgomery Clift) hears the confession from his caretaker Otto (O.E. Hasse) of an accidental killing, he keeps mum in accordance with the bonds of his faith. But when Inspector Larrue (Karl Malden) hears that a man wearing a priest’s cassock was seen walking away from the scene of the crime, Logan finds himself under suspicion, and teams up with a well-meaning old flame (Anne Baxter), who might only further incriminate him. Shot largely on location in Quebec City, the film that was called “a modern masterpiece” by Eric Rohmer is as gripping and playful as any of Hitchcock’s best-known works.
Tuesday, October 27, 8:30pm (Introduction by Kent Jones)
The Manxman
Alfred Hitchcock, 1929, UK, DCP, 129m
Set in a secluded Isle of Man fishing community, The Manxman is Alfred Hitchcock’s penultimate silent film and considered one of the most mature works of his early career. The story follows two childhood friends who choose significantly different paths as adults: Pete becomes a fisherman, Philip a lawyer, but both fall for the same woman—the daughter of a puritanical Methodist—triggering a heartbreaking love triangle that clashes with not only their own moral compasses but also with the stern Manx society. With his filmmaking bravado on full display, Hitchcock’s depiction of the untamed coast is among the most expressive flourishes in his lengthy, peerless career, elevated by a nuanced performance by Anny Ondra that preceded her role in Blackmail later that year.
Wednesday, October 28, 4:00pm
Saboteur
Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1942, 35mm, 109m
Made shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitchcock’s wartime thriller follows naïve factory worker Barry Kane, who is wrongfully accused of incinerating an aircraft plant. Kane, played with brilliant candor by Robert Cummings, knows the only way to prove his innocence is to catch the real saboteur. An American variation on The 39 Steps, Hitchcock’s film pulls its fugitive across disconcerting settings where civic uprightness veils ulterior motives. Hitchcock teamed with art director Robert Boyle to create a cross-country medley of imposing set pieces—from the California desert to the top of the Statue of Liberty—much like those found in their future collaborations on North by Northwest, The Birds, and Marnie. This was also Hitchcock’s first film to feature an all-American cast, and its box-office success secured his creative foothold in Hollywood for the iconic films to come.
Wednesday, October 28, 6:30pm
Scary Movies is programmed by Laura Kern, Rufus de Rham, and Gavin Smith.
Visit filmlinc.org for more information.
Photo Credit: The Film Society of Lincoln Center
