Kyle Abraham, one of Wendy Whelan’s frequent dance partners who appears in the film, will participate in a Q&A after the 7:50pm screening of RESTLESS CREATURE: WENDY WHELAN at the Royal on Friday, June 9.
LAEMMLE LIVE: presents Elemental Music Chamber Ensembles – Sunday, June 4, 2017
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Please join us at the Monica Film Center on Sunday, June 4, 2017 for another memorable Laemmle Live event. This month we proudly present some of our youngest local musicians, Elemental Music Chamber Ensembles.
Elemental Music is a 501c3 nonprofit organization in Santa Monica whose mission is to inspire, train and nurture young musicians through high quality, engaging ensemble programs. The concert will feature a diverse mix from traditional Bach chorales to arrangements of contemporary soundtracks from television shows and movies.
Elemental Strings was created in 2004 by a Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District teacher who wanted to find a way to engage elementary school-aged music students and entice them to continue studying music into middle school. All musical selections encourage students to play their own parts confidently, discover how their parts fit within a larger whole, and listen and collaborate without the lead of a conductor. During the first two-thirds of each academic year, students develop the skills needed to play in an orchestra. In the final part of the year, the focus shifts to playing in chamber ensembles, where students are equal collaborators. The program began with a small group of 25 students, but has trained over 1,000 students in the years since. Elemental Strings is the anchor of the much larger Elemental Music, which provides training programs for elementary school-aged band, choir, and guitar students as well as middle school string students.
EVENT DETAILS
Sunday, June 4, 2017
11:00 AM
Monica Film Center
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This is a Free Event
“What are the choices each individual faces in a totalitarian country? Although we thought these are questions of the past, they are slowly starting to haunt us also today.” Andrzej Wajda’s final film, AFTERIMAGE, opens May 26 at the Royal and Playhouse.
The great Polish director Andrzej Wajda‘s completed his last film just before his death last October. Poland’s official submission for this year’s Oscars, AFTERIMAGE (Powidoki) is a passionate biopic about avant-garde artist Wladyslaw Strzeminski (brilliantly played by Polish superstar Boguslaw Linda), who battled Stalinist orthodoxy and his own physical impairments to advance his progressive ideas about art. Wajda said this about his movie:
“I wanted to film the story of an artist – a painter, for a very long time now. I decided to bring Władysław Strzemiński to screen because he is one of the most accomplished Polish artists, and he has been wiped out of the public memory by the consequent actions of the Communist government. Strzemiński understood the path of modern art. He explained it in his book entitled “Theory of Vision.” The conviction that the abstract art is the only option left to an artist, because thematic painting and post-impressionism have already said everything, gave him a strength to oppose the Communist authorities. He was an exceptional teacher, as well as a founder of the Museum of Modern Art in Łódź in 1934, second modern art museum in the world.
“AFTERIMAGE is a portrait of an unbroken man – a man confident of decisions he has taken; a man fully dedicated to art. The film depicts four grave years 1949 – 1952, when the “Sovietisation” of Poland took the most radical form, and the socialist realism became the obligatory style of artistic expression. I wanted to show a conflict of a distinguished individual with the Socialist state attempting to control every aspect of human life. How a human being can stand against the state apparatus? What is the price one has to pay for freedom of expression? What are the choices each individual faces in a totalitarian country? Although we thought these are questions of the past, they are slowly starting to haunt us also today, and we should not forget what we already know about how to answer them.”
With a career spanning over 60 years, Wajda’s contribution to cinema has been recognized by the Academy Awards (Honorary Oscar in 2000), European Film Awards (Lifetime Achievement, 1990), Berlin Film Festival (Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement, 2006), and many others. Four of his films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film: THE PROMISED LAND (1975), THE MAIDS OF WILKO (1979), MAN OF IRON (1981), and KATYŃ (2007). MAN OF IRON won the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Wajda has directed films from many genres, but he began his career with a trilogy of anti-war films: A GENERATION (1954), KANAŁ (1957, Cannes Special Jury Prize) and ASHES AND DIAMONDS (1958). He has made many films set during or dealing with post-World War II, including KORCZAK (1990), a story about a Jewish-Polish doctor who cares for orphan children, HOLY WEEK (1995) specifically on Jewish-Polish relations, and KATYŃ (2007) about the Katyń massacre, in which Wajda’s own father was murdered.
Wajda’s commitment to Poland’s Solidarity movement was manifested in Palme d’Or winner MAN OF IRON with Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa appearing as himself. The director’s involvement in this movement would prompt the Polish government to force Wajda’s production company out of business. Three decades later, Wajda made the biopic WALESA, MAN OF HOPE (European Film Awards – FIPRESCI Prize of the Year). Wajda’s other credits include 1983’s post-French Revolution epic DANTON, starring Gérard Depardieu, 1980’s THE ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR, starring John Gielgud; 1983’s A LOVE IN GERMANY featuring Hanna Schygulla, and 1988’s THE POSSESSED based on Dostoyevsky’s novel.
Award-winning director of photography Paweł Edelman has been one of Wajda’s great collaborators. They worked together on several films, including AFTERIMAGE ; WALESA: MAN OF HOPE; PAN TADEUSZ; SWEET RUSH (Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2009); and Wajda’s 1994 film version of Dostoyevsky’s novel The Idiot.
Wajda was born in 1926 in Suwałki, Poland, the son of a school teacher and an army officer. Wajda’s father was murdered by the Soviets in 1940 in what came to be known as the Katyń Massacre. In 1942 he joined the Polish resistance and served in the Armia Krajowa. After the war, he studied to be a painter at Kraków’s Academy of Fine Arts before entering the Łódź Film School.
After his apprenticeship with director Aleksander Ford, Wajda was given the opportunity to direct his own film: A GENERATION (1955). Throughout his film career, Wajda has simultaneously worked as a director in theater. His acclaimed productions include versions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Antigone and a unique interpretation of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. He passed away October 9, 2016 in Warsaw.
WAKEFIELD Filmmaker in Person for Q&A’s at the Royal Opening Weekend.
WAKEFIELD writer-director Robin Swicord will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:10 PM screenings at the Royal on Friday and Saturday, May 26 and 27.
55th Anniversary Screenings of DIVORCE ITALIAN STYLE May 17th in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA
Laemmle Theatres and Anniversary Classics Abroad present a 55th anniversary screening of Pietro Germi’s Divorce Italian Style on Wednesday, May 17 at 7:00PM at the Royal, Town Center, and Playhouse 7. Click here for tickets.
The acclaimed satiric comedy and Oscar winner (Best Original Screenplay) stars Marcello Mastroianni as an impoverished, bored Sicilian aristocrat who hatches an elaborate scheme to murder his wife after inveigling her into an adulterous affair.
According to Italian custom, he would be justified in killing her, by defending his “honor,” (divorce being forbidden in Italy). Conveniently he would be then free to marry his young, beautiful cousin, who seems to return his affections, right up to the film’s final, wicked shot.
Director Germi, who co-wrote the slyly clever script with Ennio De Concini and Alfredo Gianetti, had a background in neorealist Italian dramas, and that would serve him well in his sendup of the Catholic country’s cultural habits and social mores.
Mastroianni’s voiceover narration offers wry commentary on those traditions, effectively skewered by Germi. Bosley Crowther in the New York Times called it “a dandy, satiric farce” and Time lauded Germi for “something wildly, wickedly, wonderfully funny. He has applied a cunning hotfoot to the world’s biggest boot.”
And director Martin Scorsese, who is of Sicilian ancestry, said, “Every detail in Divorce Italian Style is so truthful and right that all Germi had to do was to heighten everything a bit to make it funny.”
The film was a box office smash, breaking out of the art houses into general release, and garnered three Academy Award nominations: Best Director (Germi), Best Actor (Mastroianni) and Best Original Screenplay. It was the first time in Academy history that a foreign-language film was recognized in those top three categories, and the first-ever Oscar awarded to a foreign-language feature for writing. The film also helped elevate Mastroianni to international stardom, cementing his reputation as one of the era’s finest actors.
This screening is the latest installment of our Anniversary Classics Abroad series, presented the third Wednesday of each month. Our subsequent attraction will be Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night on June 21.
LAEMMLE LIVE: presents SOL-LA / Orff Music Workshop with Jamie Lee Curtis
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Join us at the Monica Film Center on Sunday, May 21, 2017 for Laemmle Live presents: SOL-LA / Orff Music Workshop with Jamie Lee Curtis. The celebrated actress and best-selling author will kick-off the workshop by reading her delightful new book, THIS IS ME: A Story of Who We Are and Where We Came From.
Through games and activities, SOL-LA Music Academy teaching artists Mary Ann Cummins and Jan Kravets will explore the fundamentals of music using the Orff Method. Orff Schulwerk is an internationally acclaimed developmental approach to music education that engages mind, body, music, movement, drama and speech. Through the Orff philosophy, children learn the language of music as instinctively as they learn their own native tongue.
Jamie Lee Curtis is an actress and an author. She has appeared in many acclaimed films such as Halloween, True Lies, Freaky Friday and A Fish Called Wanda. She has appeared on television in Anything But Love, The Golden Globes,The Heidi Chronicles and Nicholas’ Gift, NCIS, and New Girl. She is an Emmy Nominee, BAFTA winner, Golden Globe Best Actress,Golden Globe Best S
upporting Actress and currently stars in Ryan Murphy’s Scream Queens on FOX, earning her a seventh Golden Globe Nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy.
Jamie is the author of 12 Bestselling Children’s Books. THIS IS ME: A Story Of Who We Are And Where We Came From was published this year by Workman Publishing. She is a recovering alcoholic/addict and is an advocate for children and has proudly served on the Boards of CASA and CHLA. Jamie is married to Christopher Guest and they have two adult children, Annie and Tom.
EVENT DETAILS
Sunday, May 21, 2017
11:00 AM
Monica Film Center
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This is a Free Event
ONE WEEK AND A DAY Filmmaker in Person this Weekend at the Royal and Town Center.
ONE WEEK AND A DAY filmmaker Asaph Polonsky will participate in Q&A’s at the Royal after the 7:10 PM shows Friday and Saturday, April 28 and 29, and after the 4:30 show on Sunday, April 30. He’ll also do Q&A’s after the 1:50 PM screenings at the Town Center on Saturday and Sunday, April 29 and 30.
Food Historian Linda Civitello on Terence Davies’ New Emily Dickinson Bio-Pic A QUIET PASSION.
The following post is by food historian Linda Civitello:
Terence Davies’ masterpiece, A Quiet Passion, has a scene where Emily Dickinson bakes bread and later is informed that it won a prize. This is true. In 1856, Dickinson’s Brown Bread won second prize at a local fair. One of the judges was her sister Lavinia—“Vinnie”—played by Jennifer Ehle, who was Elizabeth Bennet in the mini-series Pride and Prejudice, and the miscalculating intelligence agent in Zero Dark Thirty. Dickinson’s prize-winning bread was made from rye and cornmeal because wheat did not grow well in New England. The bread, like New Englanders such as Dickinson’s father, played by Keith Carradine, was solid with a thick, hard crust; leftovers were used to scrub walls. This staple bread nourished New Englanders until the end of the 19th century.
Emily Dickinson also nourished herself with language: “He ate and drank the precious words, / His spirit grew robust.” Hunger and thirst are recurring metaphors that reflect Dickinson’s profound loneliness and awareness of her position on the fringes of society. Often, she is nose-pressed-against-the-glass observing others at the banquet of life while she gets only crumbs: “God gave a Loaf to every Bird— / But just a Crumb—to Me—”. She also takes a sour grapes attitude toward society and belonging, and especially toward success: “Fame is a fickle food / Upon a shifting plate.” However, hope is not just “the thing with feathers,” but “Hope is a subtle glutton,” too.
Although Dickinson’s poetry uses food metaphorically, almost one-third of her letters—approximately 300—deal with real food. Even if Dickinson did not leave the house, she sent her desserts out into the world. Children were delighted when she lowered a basket of little oval loaves of gingerbread out the window. Dickinson’s delicious “Cocoanut” Cake—that was the spelling at the time—is a modern pound cake. What makes it modern is that it is leavened with saleratus (aka baking soda) and cream of tartar, an early baking powder. What makes it Emily’s is that on the back of the recipe, she wrote a poem, “The Things that never can come back, are several.”
Cynthia Nixon’s penetrating Emily Dickinson in A Quiet Passion is the polar opposite of Julie Harris’s tremulous, teary hostess serving Black Cake—a spice cake loaded with raisins—to visitors in the 1976 play The Belle of Amherst. In A Quiet Passion, Davies cannot show Dickinson baking bread or making cake with real-life frequency. What Davies does do is capture the essence of Dickinson’s complex persona and life. Davies’ genius shows Dickinson’s genius: her intensity, her originality, her gift—and his—for bringing forth a universe of poetry and beauty where others see only the mundane, or cannot bear to look at all.
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Linda Civitello is a food historian. She is the author of Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Food Fight That Revolutionized Cooking, and the award-winning Cuisine & Culture: a History of Food and People. She will be speaking about Emily Dickinson and food later this year at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts.
To learn more about Emily Dickinson:
Emily Dickinson is the author chosen for the weeks-long 2017 Los Angeles “Big Read” program. On Saturday, April 29, the Washington Irving Library, 4117 Washington Boulevard, will host a Poets’ Panel, open mic reading, and a poetry workshop on Dickinson. Linda Civitello will speak briefly about Dickinson, and present desserts she made using Dickinson’s recipes and heirloom flour.
The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson. Introduction and Notes by Rachel Wetzsteon. The hundreds of poems in this collection are organized thematically: Life, Nature, Love, Time and Eternity, The Single Hound.
For children: Emily Dickinson in the Poetry for Young People series edited by Frances Schoonmaker Bolin, illustrated by Chi Chung, from Sterling Children’s Books.
The Dickinson letters: http://www.emilydickinson.org/
The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination is the pioneering 1979 book of feminist literary criticism by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar. The lengthy final essay is on Emily Dickinson. The book’s title is an allusion to one of the writers Dickinson admired, Charlotte Brontë. The poem that Dickinson wrote when Bronte died ends, “Oh, what an afternoon for heaven, / When Brontë entered there!”
Sandra M. Gilbert is also a poet. Her homage to Dickinson is in the title poem in her poetry collection Emily’s Bread, and in the final section and final poem, both entitled “The Emily Dickinson Black Cake Walk.”
Miss Emily. This 2015 novel by the award-winning Irish writer Nuala O’Connor is an intimate fictional portrait of daily life in the Dickinson household. Told in the first person, it shifts back and forth between Emily and the family’s Irish maid, Ada.
The American Frugal Housewife by Lydia Maria Child. This cookbook, first published in 1832, was used in the Dickinson household.
The Emily Dickinson Museum: https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/
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