Programme + Booking - The Eclectic Cinema

The Eclectic Cinema
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AUTUMN PROGRAMME 2024
Rififi   12
France | 1955                 118 minutes
9 September 2024 MONDAY 19:30
AUDITORIUM
Tickets £8.00|£5.00 (25 or less) CONCESSION NOT AVAILABLE ONLINE
DIRECTED BY
Jules Dassin
STARRING
Jean Servais|Carl Möhner|Robert Manuel

In the ABC of Cinema, D is for Jules Dassin, US-born actor, writer, producer and director.

In Rififi, Tony, an ageing jewel thief, just out of prison, is persuaded to take on another job, which he enlarges into a much more audacious and lucrative robbery. The theft itself is the centrepiece of the film, showing how the thieves enter the premises and work together to evade the security system and break the safe. With no dialogue or music, this half-hour scene is probably the most famous heist sequence in film history.

Despite a very low budget, Dassin produced a heist movie par excellence, also reckoned to be one of the best examples of French film noir. And it won him the Best Director Award at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival.

You've missed this film!
GAP
4 Charlie Chaplin Comedies   U
USA | 1916 | 103 minutes
16 September 2024  MONDAY  19:30
GREEN ROOM BAR
Tickets £7.00|£5.00 (up to age 25)
DIRECTED BY
Charles Chaplin
STARRING
Charles Chaplin|Edna Purviance|Eric Campbell|Lloyd Bacon

In 1916, aged 26, Charles Chaplin signed a contract with the Mutual Film Corporation to make 12 two-reel comedies over the course of twelve months.

We shall screen four of these comedies in the Green Room Bar, with a short interlude between each one, providing an opportunity for purchases from the bar.

The Floorwalker U (29 mins)
The Fireman U (24 mins)
The Vagabond U (24 mins)
One A.M. U (26 mins)

These films are among the best and most famous of Chaplin’s short comedies, which were important forerunners of his feature films, such as Modern Times (1936) – The Eclectic Cinema’s inaugural screening, back in January 2022.
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GAP
Roger Corman Double Bill
The Little Shop of Horrors   PG
USA | 1960  | 73 minutes
The Masque of the Red Death  15
USA/UK | 1964  | 84 minutes
30 September 2024 MONDAY 19:30
AUDITORIUM
Tickets £12.00|£10.00 (up to age 25)
Note that these films cannot be booked separately.
DIRECTED BY
Roger Corman
STARRING
Jonathan Haze|Jackie Joseph|Mel Welles|Jack Nicholson
Vincent Price | Hazel Court | Jane Asher

Roger Corman died in May this year, aged 98. When there were such things as B-movies, Riger Corman was likely involved – he was the producer of hundreds of films and the director of more than fifty.

Jack Nicholson appears in The Little Shop of Horrors in one of his earliest film roles. We begin to see his unhinged side as Wilbur Force, a dentist’s patient, who is mainly interested in the experience of pain. Of course, this film is a comedy, so no need to hide under the seat, even in the presence of the blood-thirsty plant, which has been nurtured by the hapless assistant of the titular little shop.

In the 1960s, Corman directed a series of adaptations based on the stories of Edgar Allen Poe. The Masque of the Red Death is one of these. Vincent Price is the star, as he was for all but one the eight films in Corman’s Poe Cycle. Price plays a wicked prince who terrorises the local peasantry, leaving them to suffer the pestilence then stalking the land. But he takes in one of the villagers, Francesca, on whom he has extra-marital designs. She is played by a young Jane Asher.
You've missed this film!
GAP
Wuthering Heights   15
UK | 2011 | 129 minutes
7 October 2024 MONDAY 19:30
GREEN ROOM BAR
Tickets £7.00|£5.00 (25 or less) CONCESSION NOT AVAILABLE ONLINE
DIRECTED BY
Andrea Arnold
STARRING
Shannon Beer & Kaya Scodelario (as Cathy)
Solomon Glave & James Howson (as Heathcliff)

As a companion-piece to The Playhouse Company’s stage production of Brontë (by Polly Teale), we are screening Wuthering Heights. There are many film adaptations to choose from, but this is the one directed by Andrea Arnold and it’s interesting for several reasons. First, it captures the atmosphere of the Yorkshire setting extremely well – rain, mists and mud, as well as exceptional beauty. Second, Arnold eschewed big stars in the cast and chose her Cathy and Heathcliff to be younger than usually portrayed, but more in keeping with Emily Brontë’s book. And third, she was the first to cast Black actors in the Heathcliff role.

The narrative you probably know, but essentially it is a tale of love and passion between Cathy (daughter of Farmer Earnshaw of Wuthering Heights) and Heathcliff (a homeless boy taken in by the Earnshaw family).

Please note that the stage production of Brontë is on at the Playhouse before this film screening: it runs in the main auditorium 18-21 September 2024.  
GAP
The Innocents   12A

UK | 1961  | 100 minutes
28 October 2024 MONDAY 19:30
AUDITORIUM
Tickets £8.00|£5.00 (25 or less) CONCESSION NOT AVAILABLE ONLINE
DIRECTED BY
Jack Clayton
STARRING
Deborah Kerr|Peter Wyngarde | Megs Jenkins

With the spooky season upon us, it’s a good time to screen this adaptation of the Henry James ghost story The Turn of the Screw.

The narrative follows Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) as she applies to become the governess of Flora and Miles, orphans under the guardianship of their uncle. Miss Giddens must take full responsibility for the children and the uncle is not to be troubled with any problems. The previous governess, it transpires, died suddenly in circumstances not entirely clear.

To the inexperienced Miss Giddens the children behave oddly and seem unusually secretive. She is soon aware of voices and the apparitions of a man and a woman, with whom the children seem to be communicating. But is this paranormal activity or the hyperactivity of Miss Giddens’ sexually repressed mind?
GAP
Gravity   12
USA/UK | 2013 | 91 mins                        

11 November 2024 MONDAY 19:30
AUDITORIUM
Tickets £8.00|£5.00 (25 or less) CONCESSION NOT AVAILABLE ONLINE
DIRECTED BY
Alfonso Cuarón
STARRING
Sandra Bullock|George Clooney

The film opens in the endless expanse of space during routine maintenance by a Space Shuttle crew: the confident, easy-going Kowalski (George Clooney) and the nervous, inexperienced Stone (Sandra Bullock). A voice from Mission Control reports that an unrelated missile strike on a satellite has created a field of debris orbiting the Earth at lethal speed. They are hit, severed from their safety tethers, sent careering into the blackness and left to find a way to get home.

Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón's 2013 Sci-Fi epic Gravity, won 7 Oscars from 10 nominations, but the direction is arguably secondary to the immersive cinematography from his compatriot Emmanuel Lubezki. With few visual bearings to anchor us in space, our perspective is constantly shifting in some of the most dynamic camerawork ever seen. It is visually stunning and perfect for the big screen.

GAP
The Passenger   15

Italy | 1975 | 126 minutes
18 November 2024 MONDAY 19:30
AUDITORIUM
Tickets £8.00|£5.00 (25 or less) CONCESSION NOT AVAILABLE ONLINE
DIRECTED BY
Michelangelo Antonioni
STARRING
Jack Nicholson|Maria Schneider

We screened an earlier Antonioni film last year as the first instalment of The ABC of Cinema. That was Red Desert (1964), starring Monica Vitti and Richard Harris. The theme of alienation pervades Antonioni’s films. In the earlier film it was Monica Vitti alienated from modern life; in The Passenger it is Jack Nicholson.

Nicholson plays a washed-up war correspondent who takes the unusual step of adopting the identity of a dead man. Complete with the passport and appointments schedule of the deceased, the life of a correspondent becomes more purposeful, exciting … and dangerous. Along the new road taken, Nicholson is joined by Maria Schneider, and together they take a trip into the unknown through (red) desert country – a road-trip to disaster.

GAP
Swan Song   12
USA | 2021 | 105 minutes
25 November 2024 MONDAY 19:30
GREEN ROOM BAR
Tickets £7.00|£5.00 (25 or less) CONCESSION NOT AVAILABLE ONLINE
DIRECTED BY
Todd Stephens
STARRING
Udo Kier|Jennifer Coolidge|Linda Evans

We last saw Udo Kier in Bacurau (2019), where he played the violent hard-man leader of a bunch of assassins. Following a career filled with the roles of eccentric, flamboyant characters, here he is again as a very camp hairdresser, Pat Pitsenbarger. In the story, his professional life as a coiffeur is long behind him, but he responds to an unusual request to do a hair and make-up job on a corpse – that of a long-time rival and one-time friend who needs to look her best at her funeral.

Pat’s journey to do his work is long and arduous, achieved mainly on foot. So, it’s a kind of road movie, giving him the chance to reflect on his life and to meet again some of his old friends and colleagues. His adventures provide plenty of amusement, tinged with some sadness: Pat himself is not in the best of health, but determined to complete his mission.

GAP
Tokyo Godfathers   12   

Japan | 2003 | 88 minutes
2 December 2024 MONDAY 19:30
AUDITORIUM
Tickets £8.00|£5.00 (25 or less) CONCESSION NOT AVAILABLE ONLINE
DIRECTED BY
Satoshi Kon

An unusual offering for Christmas: an anime from Satoshi Kon. The narrative is set just before Christmas time in Tokyo. Three homeless people search for presents in the city’s piles of garbage and find a new-born baby discarded amongst the rubbish. The three have banded together as a ‘found family’ to support and protect themselves. They are Gin, a male alcoholic, Hana, a transgender woman, and Miyuki, a teenage girl who has run away from home. The baby they name Kiyoko, from the Japanese translation of Silent Night. The story follows them on their adventures as they search for the baby’s real mother, adventures that are filled with incredible coincidences, even miracles.

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