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The official blog of Laemmle Theatres

The Cold War wasn’t just an arms race: TAKING VENICE opens Friday with filmmaker Amei Wallach in person.

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This Friday at the Royal and Town Center and June 7 at the Laemmle Glendale we’ll be opening Amei Wallach’s fascinating new documentary about the 1964 Venice Biennale Taking Venice, which, according to Alissa Wilkinson of the New York Times, “feels almost like science fiction, or maybe fantasy. Imagine the U.S. government taking such a keen interest in the fine arts that there may or may not have been an attempt to rig a major international prize for an American artist. A painter, no less!”

Ms. Wallach will participate in a Q&A at the Royal after the 7:20pm screening this Friday.

Last month the Times published an advance piece about Taking Venice by Nina Siegal headlined “Did America Cheat to Win the 1964 Venice Biennale? A new documentary takes a hard look at the persistent rumors around Robert Rauschenberg’s win in Venice in the midst of the Cold War.” Here’s an excerpt:

Did a conspiracy by U.S. State Department officials and art dealers secure a prize for painting for Robert Rauschenberg at the Venice Biennale in 1964?

Unconfirmed rumors of some sort of nefarious plot to that effect swirled in international art circles for years.

The documentary filmmaker Amei Wallach had heard them, and she was curious to know if they held any truth.

“This moment is a kind of urban legend in the art world,” said Wallach in a telephone interview from her home in New York on Long Island. “It was a flashpoint. The story goes: The Biennale had been a Eurocentric party, and this was the first time an outsider broke the code.”

Using archival footage and interviews with important figures involved in the 1964 Biennale, Wallach, the longtime chief art critic for Newsday and an occasional contributor to The New York Times, tried to unravel the mystery, exploring the charged political atmosphere that engendered those persistent claims.

The result is Zeitgeist Films’ Taking Venice, which will have its theatrical release next month in New York and Los Angeles.

The film revisits the Biennale and recreates the scene in which Rauschenberg’s artworks were brought through the Grand Canal by boat to get to the U.S. Pavilion in the Giardini, just in time to qualify for the award.

It also includes shots of the American art delegation flying into Venice in a U.S. military cargo plane filled with monumental Pop Art, and the opening party at the U.S. Consulate.

Wallach interviewed the leader of the 1964 Biennale team, Alice Denney, a Washington insider, who worked with the curator Alan Solomon and the art dealer Leo Castelli to bring Rauschenberg to victory.

“We didn’t cheat,” Denney said in the film, while conceding that a United States agency established to promote American dominance during the Cold War organized the art exhibition with an explicitly political agenda, to ensure that the show would reflect the United States well on the global stage. “We thought with Rauschenberg we had a very good chance.”

“One of the intriguing subplots of the Biennale all through the decades, more than a century, is how art and politics overlap,” said Philip Rylands, former director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, in the film. “There’s a kind of high altitude moment with the American presence in 1964. It reverberates through history.”

Click here to read the full piece.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE 60th Anniversary Screening May 28 at the Royal.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the third in our popular series of James Bond revival screenings. Following the successful showings of the very first Bond picture, ‘Dr. No,’ and the popular third film, ‘Goldfinger,’ we present the second movie in the long-running series, ‘From Russia with Love.’ This screening takes place almost 60 years to the day when the movie enjoyed its wide U.S. release in May 1964.

‘Dr. No’ had been a big hit when it opened a year earlier, and producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman decided to bring Bond back. They chose Ian Fleming’s novel ‘From Russia with Love’ in part because President John F. Kennedy had listed that book as one of his ten all-time favorite books in an article that appeared in Life magazine. The producers doubled the budget from $1 million to $2 million for this second appearance of 007, which turned out to be a modest investment considering that the new movie ended up grossing close to $80 million, approximately $800 million in today’s dollars. Terence Young, who had helmed ‘Dr. No,’ returned to the director’s chair. The screenplay was penned by Richard Maibaum (a frequent Bond screenwriter) and Johanna Harwood.

Sean Connery returned for his second appearance as Bond, along with Bernard Lee as M and Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny. There were some new additions to the cast—Mexican actor Pedro Armandariz, who died before the film was released, and Oscar nominees Robert Shaw and Lotte Lenya as two of the villains. Daniela Banchi played the heroine, a Russian agent who defects to the West as a result of her romance with Bond.

A number of other elements that came to define the Bond series were introduced in ‘From Russia With Love.’ It was the first film to have a pre-title action sequence, and it was also the first picture to have a title song, written by Lionel Bart, the enormously successful composer of ‘Oliver!’ (British singer Matt Monro performed the song.) John Barry wrote his first Bond movie score, embellishing the theme music penned by Monty Norman for ‘Dr. No.’ In addition, this was the first picture in which Bond gets an arsenal of nifty weapons, though far more modest than what his team provided for him in later movies.

This picture also sent Bond to exotic locations—Istanbul and Venice, along with a perilous journey on the famed Orient Express. Other scenes were filmed at Pinewood Studios outside London. There were other novelties. Hollywood’s Production Code had been revised in 1961 to allow discreet treatment of homosexuality for the very first time, and the producers took advantage of this leniency to depict Lenya’s Rosa Klebb as a lesbian with fairly overt designs on the glamorous but naïve Banchi.

Robert Shaw (later to star in such enormous hits as ‘A Man For All Seasons,’ ‘The Sting,’ and ‘Jaws’), with his dyed-blond hair, also has a slightly androgynous quality as the fighter recruited by Klebb to assassinate Bond. The fight scene between Connery and Shaw aboard the Orient Express, regarded as one of the best fight scenes in cinema history, took three weeks to film.

Even though reviews were not crucial to the success of the Bond movies, ‘From Russia With Love’ had some of the best reviews of the entire franchise, currently listed at 97 percent positive on Rotten Tomatoes. At the time, Penelope Gilliatt, writing for The Observer, noted, “The set-pieces are a stunning box of tricks.” Time magazine called the picture “fast, smart, shrewdly directed and capably performed.” Variety praised “a preposterous, skillful slab of hard-hitting, sexy hokum.”

The film continues to be fondly remembered. Sean Connery, later Bond actors Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig, as well as later Bond producer Barbara Broccoli have all named it as one of their favorite Bond movies.

Our guest Jon Burlingame is the nation’s leading writer on the the subject of music for film and television. He has taught film music history courses at the University of Southern California and has lectured on film and TV music over the past 30 years at locations around the world. Among his several books, he wrote the definitive history of 007 film music, THE MUSIC OF JAMES BOND, in addition to recently co-authoring MUSIC BY JOHN BARRY. He joins us to introduce ‘From Russia With Love‘ for a pre-screening Q & A at the historic Royal Theatre, celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.

“They don’t know who Fassbinder is and they don’t know who Éric Rohmer is and they don’t know who Kurosawa is. They think they’re modern and they haven’t seen DO THE RIGHT THING. Are you kidding?” Ethan Hawke on encouraging young people to watch older movies.

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Directed and co-written by four-time Academy Award® nominee Ethan Hawke, Wildcat invites the audience to weave in and out of celebrated Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor’s mind as she ponders the great questions of her writing: Can scandalous art still serve God? Does suffering precede all greatness? Can illness be a blessing? In 1950, Flannery (Maya Hawke) visits her mother Regina (Laura Linney) in Georgia when she is diagnosed with lupus at twenty-four years old. Struggling with the same disease that took her father’s life when she was a child and desperate to make her mark as a great writer, this crisis pitches her imagination into a feverish exploration of belief. As she dives deeper into her craft, the lines between reality, imagination, and faith begin to blur, allowing Flannery to ultimately come to peace with her situation and heal a strained relationship with her mother.

We open Wildcat Friday at the Laemmle Claremont, Monica Film Center, Newhall and Town Center and Monday at the NoHo. During his recent press tour to support the release, Hawke spoke passionately about seeing older movies, including his personal favorite (Warren Beatty’s Reds). With one exception (see if you can spot it), we wholeheartedly agree. He name checks some of the greats, including Kurosawa (we’ll be screening Seven Samurai in July) and Fassbinder (we’ll be showing The Marriage of Maria Braun in November as part of our Anniversary Classics series.) What’s more, on May 22 we’ll be screening one of his first movies, Dead Poets Society. From MovieMaker Magazine:

Ethan Hawke hopes he doesn’t sound like the “old man yells at cloud” meme when he says this, but he says it anyway.

“The thing that I don’t understand — and this makes me sound old — but what I don’t understand about young people today is why they don’t watch more movies,” he tells MovieMaker.

“I mean, they’re perfectly willing to binge watch, for weeks of their life, something they know is really super okay [while] they could be watching Badlands as we speak,” he adds.

Hawke is particularly shocked by the lack of film education in young directors, specifically around the greats, like German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder known for Love Is Colder Than Death (1969) and The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972).

“They don’t know who Fassbinder is and they don’t know who Éric Rohmer is and they don’t know who Kurosawa is. They think they’re modern and they haven’t seen Do the Right Thing. Are you kidding? It’s on your damn phone, watch it!” he says. “But they’d somehow rather watch some TV show that came out yesterday that they won’t remember.” [EDITOR’S NOTE: Several years ago, David Lynch succinctly addressed the idea of watching a movie on a telephone.]

Make no mistake: “I say all that not to sound crotchety,” he stresses.

“But there’s so much excellence in the past, so many of these thoughts of what we’re all going through emotionally and what we’re looking for — authenticity in our lives and healing — all these common threads of humanity people have been talking about for centuries. Cinema is a young art form, but it’s 100 years old now, and there’s a lot of great work, and you can rip it off madly.”

For those young filmmakers who might be interested in taking some of Hawke’s advice, he also suggests looking to your collaborators for recommendations. Like a director of photography, for example.

“The fun thing about having a great DP is the more you explain what you’re trying to drive at, they can turn you on to, ‘Well, you know who’s also into that idea — let’s watch this film. Let’s steal that shot. That’s a great shot.’ I really enjoy that,” he says.

“But I’m always amazed at how often young people who say, ‘I love movies and I want to make movies’ don’t actually watch movies.”

Click here to read the whole piece.

“This film tells the story of the 1964 Venice Biennale, at a time when State Department officials and a team of unlikely conspirators were joined in their conviction that American democracy was worth the fight.” TAKING VENICE opens May 24.

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The new documentary Taking Venice, which we open next week at the Royal in West L.A. and the Town Center in Encino, uncovers the true story behind rumors that the U.S. government and a team of high-placed insiders rigged the 1964 Venice Biennale – the Olympics of art – so their chosen artist, Robert Rauschenberg, could win the Grand Prize. Director Amei Wallach wrote this about her film:

“I grew up during the Cold War when the world seemed as dangerous as it does today. But it also seemed to be filled with possibility, with the actions of people who dreamed big and took big chances. This was especially true of artists, always looking to build something new. I became an art critic, then an author, and now a filmmaker. My goal is to make films about art that leap out of the art world and into a reckoning with what’s relevant in our lives through the stories that they tell.

Recreation of the 1964 transport of Robert Rauschenberg’s work in Venice canals for exhibition at the Venice Biennale, as seen in TAKING VENICE, a film by Amei Wallach. A Zeitgeist Films release in association with Kino Lorber.

“This film tells the story of the 1964 Venice Biennale, at a time when State Department officials and a team of unlikely conspirators were joined in their conviction that American democracy was worth the fight. They were determined to harness the audacity of American art to promote what was best about democracy. The artist they chose to represent the U.S. in their race to win the Biennale Grand Prize was Robert Rauschenberg, who was by no means a political artist, then. By the time I met him more than a decade later, he had come to believe that art had a more global responsibility.

Transporting Robert Rauschenberg’s Express at the XXXII International Biennale of Art Exhibition, Venice, 1964, as seen in TAKING VENICE, a film by Amei Wallach. A Zeitgeist Films release in association with Kino Lorber. Photo Ugo Mulas.

“The film builds on a tradition of telling the story of America then through the eyes of now because I want it to reflect how much the world and art have changed. I want there to be moments that sting with what we have lost, and moments that encapsulate what we have gained. The stakes are even higher than they were at that scandal-drenched Biennale, as artists everywhere try to create a way forward.”

FINDING THE MONEY: come out for Q&As with the subject Stephanie Kelton, Harry Shearer, Cory Doctorow, & the filmmaker; see Kelton’s appearance on The Daily Show.

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Hope/Good News Alert! Next week we have three screenings of the new documentary Finding the Money. It follows former chief economist to the Senate Budget Committee, Stephanie Kelton, on a journey through Modern Money Theory or “MMT,” to unveil a deeper story about money, injecting new hope and empowering democracies around the world to tackle the biggest challenges of the 21st century: from climate change to inequality.

We’re hosting Q&As 5/14 in Claremont with director Maren Poitras; 5/15 in NoHo with Ms. Kelton, Cory Doctorow, and Ms. Poitras; and 5/16 at the Royal with Ms. Kelton, Harry Shearer, and Ms. Poitras.

Check out Ms. Kelton’s recent appearance on The Daily Show.

¡Hasta la victoria siempre! THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES 20th Anniversary Screenings May 15.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the next entry in our Anniversary Classics Abroad series, the biopic drama of the early years of Ernesto Che Guevara, The Motorcycle Diaries (2004). The Academy Award-winning film by director Walter Salles (Central Station) will play for one show only on Wednesday, May 15 at 7:00 pm at five Laemmle locations: Claremont, Encino, Glendale, Newhall, and West L.A. In addition to the Oscar for Best Song, “Al Otro Lado Del Rio,” the film was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay by playwright Jose Rivera, based on Guevara’s memoir.

  

The film recounts the 1952 road trip by 23-year-old medical student Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his friend Alberto Granada (Roberto de la Serna) in a more than four-month, 8,700-mile journey across South America, initially by motorcycle. Originally intended as an adventure for fun and frolic, the two friends are exposed to indigenous peoples and cultural differences they had never experienced. These encounters plant the seeds of radicalization that would manifest as Guevara later emerged as a Marxist guerrilla leader and revolutionary, becoming a global countercultural symbol upon his murder at the age of thirty-nine.

The film is a notable combination of road movie travelogue and coming-of-age drama, beautifully captured by the lustrous cinematography of Eric Gautier as their odyssey traverses the South American continent. Critics of the day responded to this approach with due appreciation. Carla Meyer of the San Francisco Chronicle called it “a superb film about a physical and spiritual journey taken by a young Che Guevara, whose encounters with the unknown alter and affirm a life.” Peter Travers in Rolling Stone said, “in this wild ride of a movie that is part epic poem and part political provocation, it’s the man who holds the screen as a portent of history.”

“Quietly exhilarating, soulful and sincerely romantic.” ~ Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press

“It’s about the gradual awakening into awareness, the graduation from carefree youth to responsible adulthood.” ~ Steve Murray, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“An involving, lyrical, and visually beautiful cinematic bildungsroman.” ~ Glenn Kenny, Premiere Magazine

“Whether you want to see The Motorcycle Diaries as entirely a personal story or as social and political allegory, it captures a far different and far more vulnerable Ernesto Guevara than the one we think we know.” ~  Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

“What Bernal and this well-wrought movie convey so well is the charisma that would soon become a part of human history and, yes, T-shirts.” ~ Desson Thomson, Washington Post
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“You get so caught up in the beauty of the images, and lost in the weathered faces found along the way, you quite forget that you’re traveling with Che Guevara — which is, of course, exactly what the original experience would be.” ~ Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times
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“Revisits Guevara’s 8,000-mile tour of South America — and the origins of his personal revolution — with humor, exquisite compassion and visual grace.” ~ Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle
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“It’s got poetry to it — the poetry of humanity.” ~ Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer
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“Reaches back to the past to suggest that life is full of turning points, some of which we recognize and some we don’t, and that, in a dangerous world, youth and friendship are to be treasured because, like life, they can pass so quickly.” ~ Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
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“If I was moved despite my ingrained skepticism about Ché Guevara and Castro’s Cuba, you probably will be too.” ~ Andrew Sarris, Observer
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Coming attractions in the Anniversary Classics Series include Dead Poets Society (May 22), From Russia With Love (May 28), The Lovers, Red Desert, A Sunday in the Country, and the Three Colors trilogy: Red, White, and Blue, among others.

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes:” MACBETH with Ralph Fiennes & Indira Varma

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We’re thrilled to screen Shakespeare’s leanest, meanest tragedy, Macbeth with Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, May 2 and 5 only, following its highly acclaimed U.K. tour. It was filmed live at Dock X in London especially for cinemas. Tony and BAFTA Award-winner Fiennes (Antony & Cleopatra, Schindler’s List, Coriolanus) and Olivier Award-winner Indira Varma (Present Laughter, Game of Thrones, Luther) star in this brand-new ‘full-voltage visceral’ (★★★★ Daily Telegraph) production of the Scottish play. Designed for a custom-built space, this gripping and breathtaking play about the couple utterly corrupted by their relentless lust for power is unmissable on the big screen. By the end of the run in London and following seasons in Liverpool and Edinburgh, this production played to sell-out audiences of over 100,000 people at 110 performances. We’ll show Macbeth at our Claremont, Glendale, Santa Monica, Newhall and Encino theaters.

Directed by Simon Godwin (Antony & Cleopatra, Romeo & Juliet, Hansard) with set and costume design by Frankie Bradshaw (Jerusalem, Blues for an Alabama Sky), this stunning production brings ‘Shakespeare’s tragedy pulsing into the present day’ (★★★★★ The I).

Regard this clip. It really gives one a (bloody) taste of what awaits:

Joining Ralph Fiennes as Macbeth and Indira Varma as Lady Macbeth are Ben Allen as Ross, Ewan Black as Malcolm, Levi Brown as Angus, Jonathon Case as Seyton, Danielle Fiamanya as Second Witch, Keith Fleming as King Duncan/Siward, Michael Hodgson as Second Murderer, Lucy Mangan as First Witch, Jake Neads as First Murderer/Donalbain, Richard Pepper as Lennox, Steffan Rhodri as Banquo, Rose Riley as Menteith, Lola Shalam as Third Witch, Rebecca Scroggs as Lady Macduff/Doctor, Ethan Thomas as Fleance, and Ben Turner as Macduff.

Patricia Rozema in person for the new 4K director’s cut restoration of her queer classic WHEN NIGHT IS FALLING + screenings of her latest, MOUTHPIECE.

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We’re proud to soon screen two films by Canadian filmmaker Patricia Rozema: her just-restored 1995 romance When Night is Falling (May 7 at the Royal and May 8 at the NoHo) and her most recent film, Mouthpiece (May 13 & 14 at the Town Center, Monica Film Center, Glendale, and Claremont). Rozema will participate in Q&As after the Tuesday, May 7 and 8 screenings of When Night is Falling at the Royal and NoHo. Tracy E. Gilchrist, VP, Executive Producer of Entertainment for equalpride, will moderate the Royal Q&A.

Long considered to be a pivotal entry in the LGTBQ+ canon, When Night is Falling is a sexy, daring and visually resplendent story about the thrilling temptations of passion. Camille, a Christian academic, is engaged to Martin, a fellow theologian. Then she meets Petra, a flamboyant performer in an avant-garde circus. To her surprise, Camille finds herself falling deeply and almost magically in love. Forced to choose between the woman she wants, and the man who loves her, Camille discovers that the only true duty of the soul is desire.

From WHEN NIGHT IS FALLING.

A Canadian classic that was in Official Competition at the 1995 Berlin International Film Festival, When Night is Falling tells a lesbian story beautifully photographed by Douglas Koch, catching a romantic, wintry Toronto landscape.

Adapted from the play by Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, Mouthpiece follows Cassandra, an aspiring writer who, while struggling to compose a eulogy after the sudden death of her mother, comes to discover that her own rebelliousness is as much a response to the male gaze as her mother’s conformity. Enacting the two sides of Cassandra’s conflicting inner dialogue, playwright-performers Nostbakken and Sadava create a compelling portrayal of the tension between regression and progress that is often found within women.

From MOUTHPIECE

Mark Olson of the L.A. Times just published a good piece about Rozema and her work and also interviewed her, as did Gilchrist for The Advocate:

There’s a scene in Patricia Rozema’s 2018 film Mouthpiece where the main character, Cassandra, is flooded with a memory of her mother, who’s just died. The camera pans the room, lingering on Cassandra’s mother’s books and music. In the frame there appear works by Joni Mitchell, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, and the groundbreaking lesbian author, actor, and activist Ann-Marie McDonald, who appeared in Rozema’s first feature, 1987’s I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing. Through Cassandra’s memories of her mother, Rozema pays tribute to Canada’s great women storytellers, and considering the filmmaker’s body of work, her name belongs among them…Throughout her canon and evident in the restored films is Rozema’s singular poetic film language that includes queer identity, interior monologues, and a duality in her characters or what she refers to as “twoness.” Unburdened by the machine of Hollywood and working from artists’ grants from Canada, Rozema cemented herself as a true auteur out of the gate with I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, a self-reflexive and heartfelt comedy about a quirky secretary to a lesbian art gallery owner. The film investigates the nature of art itself, something that Rozema would continue to examine throughout her career.

“But I think I was protecting my ability to make movies, because I was ambitious too. Not for fame or for money but for being able to make movies, which is the best job in the whole fucking world in my mind,” she adds. “I was terrified that I would be shut down. So I was careful, maybe too careful sometimes, so that I think some people wished was different sooner.”

Despite Rozema’s thoughts of being “too careful” at some points, as a progenitor of the Toronto New Wave with the likes of Atom Egoyan and Jeremy Podeswa, her contributions to cinema include making elevated films about queer women with happy or hopeful endings that expanded the notion of fixed sexuality.

“I also spoke quite early about fluidity, a gender continuum, and a sort of orientation continuum,” Rozema says. “At the time, it was very binary: You’re gay or you’re straight. Period. I felt like there’s got to be more colors in this human palette.”