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29/2/2012

Two film exhibitions

The Museum of Modern Art - MoMA, New York

Cruel and Unusual Comedy Reprised

Silent-era slapstick dealt with social, cultural, political, and aesthetic themes that continue to be central concerns around the world today. Issues of Race, ethnicity, gender, and public order have traditionally been among the most vital sources for rude forms of comedy. Drawing on MoMA’s holdings of silent comedy, acquired largely in the 1970s and 1980s by curator Eileen Bowser, these programs present this otherwise little-seen body of work to contemporary audiences from an engaging perspective. These highlights from the first two installments in the series (in 2009 and 2010) feature comedy on the subjects of sexual identity, surrealism, and child care. All films are silent with piano accompaniment by Ben Model.

Organized by Ron Magliozzi, Associate Curator, with Steve Massa, film historian, and Ben Model, film historian and accompanist.

Yamaha Modus H1 piano generously provided through Yamaha Artist Services, New York.

Related Film Screenings

Upcoming
Film Screenings & Events
Program 1: Gender Benders—Masculine Women/Feminine Men

Rowdy Ann
1919. Directed by Al E. Christie. A Christie Comedies production. With Fay Tincher, Eddie Barry, Katherine Lewis, Harry Depp, Al Haymes, George B. French, Edgar Blue. As tough as any cowboy, Ann is sent back East to learn how to be a lady. 20 min.

Hearts and Flowers
1919. Mack Sennett. Directed by Edward Cline. A Paramount Pictures production. With Louise Fazenda, Ford Sterling, Phyllis Haver, Billy Armstrong, Jack Ackroyd, Kalla Pasha, Edgar Kennedy, Bert Roach, Charles Lynn, Eva Thatcher, Virginia Fox, Sybil Sealy, Sennett Bathing Beauties. A smarmy roue romances a flower girl he thinks is rich. 20 min.

Shanghaied Lovers
1924. Mack Sennett. Directed by Roy del Ruth. A Pathé production. With Harry Langdon, Kalla Pasha, Alice Day, Andy Clyde, Tiny Ward, Joe Young, George Cooper, Gordon Lewis, Eli Stanton. Kidnapped by pirates, a newly married couple engage in cross-dressing to protect themselves from the advances of a brutish captain. 15 min.

A Sorority Mix-Up
1927. Directed by Joseph Basil. A Bray Productions/Sunkist Comedies production. With Buddy Messinger, Anne Porter, Madelynne Field, Henry Roquemore, Mr. X (chimp), Alice Belcher, the Sunkist Bathing Beauties. Girls’ school hazing leads to human and animal drag. 14 min.

Crushed
1924. Directed by Fred Hibbard. A Hamilton Comedies/Educational production. With Lloyd Hamilton, Dorothy Seastrom, Blanche Payson, Robert McKenzie, Louise Carver, Mark Hamilton, Jack McHugh, Tommy Hicks. After a series of mishaps on the subway, effete Ham ends up married to bossy Amazon Blanche Payson, who surprises him with a brood of brats. 15 min.

Program approx. 84 min.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 3, mezzanine, Education and Research Building (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model)
Thursday, March 1, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Friday, March 2, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin)
Film Screenings & Events
Program 2: The Surreal Life—Dallying With the Absurd

Some Hero
1916. Directed by Billy Dunn. An Eagle Film Company/Tweedledum Comedies production. With Manuel Fernandez Perez (aka Marcel Fabre), Babette Fabre (aka Nilde Barrachi). When Tweedledum’s girl is kidnapped by bad men, he springs into action. 11 min.

A Schoolhouse Scandal
1919. Directed by Eddie Cline. A Fox Film Corp./Sunshine Comedies production. With Slim Summerville, Ethel Teare, Tom Kennedy, Polly Moran, Harry Booker, Jack Cooper, James Donnelly, Francis Carpenter. A surrealistic stew of airplanes, tornadoes, trick mirrors, and underwater car repair. Footage was recycled for the studios’ 1920 release Hold Me Tight. 15 min.

Kiss Me Quick (aka Don’t Tickle)
1920. Directed by John G. Blystone. A Fox Sunshine Comedy production. With Clyde Cook, Blanche Payson, Bobby Dunn, Frank Alexander. Clyde gets in hot water with his Amazon wife and her tough sailor brother, culminating in a wrestling match and escape by airplane. 17 min.

All Wet
1922. Directed by Al St. John. A Fox Film Corp/Al St. John Comedies production. With St. John, Otto Fries, Ford West, Sy Jenks, Tiny Ward. A newly married couple find that their seaside home is too close to the water in this remake of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s Keystone short Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1916). The surrealistic undersea and rapid-growth visual effects were greeted as a refinement of the slapstick form. Scholar Steve Massa believes this may be the first film Arbuckle directed anonymously after his infamous sex scandal. 20 min.

Egged On
1926. Directed by Charles Bowers, Harold L. Muller. An R. C. Pictures Corp./Whirlwind Comedies production. With Bowers, Winifred Leighton. An inventor of unbreakable eggs hatches himself a brood of infant Model-T automobiles. 19 min.

Program approx. 72 min.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 3, mezzanine, Education and Research Building (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model)
Thursday, March 8, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 3, mezzanine, Education and Research Building (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model)
Friday, March 9, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 3, mezzanine, Education and Research Building (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model)
Film Screenings & Events
Program 3: No Harm Done—Animals and Children

An Elephant on Their Hands
1912. Directed by Frederick Thomson. A Vitagraph production. With George Ober, Kate Price, Flora Finch, Lillian Walker, Robert Gaillard, Charles Eldridge, Hughie Mack. While in his cups, an older gentleman buys a surprise for his family—one that eats peanuts and weighs 11,000 pounds. 10 min.

Cat, Dog and Co
1929. Directed by Anthony Mack. A Hal Roach production. With Our Gang (Joe Cobb, Wheezer, Farina, Mary Ann Jackson, Jean Darling, Harry Spear, Pete the pup, Hedda Hopper, Dorothy Vernon, Syd Saylor, Silas Wilcox, Robert McGowan). Wheezer enjoys mistreating animals, until they take their revenge. 18 min.

Mind the Baby
1924. Directed by Al Herman. A Century Comedy production. With Pal, Lillian Biron, Fred Spencer. Pal the dog saves a kidnapped baby from raging waterfalls and hungry alligators. 18 min.

The Knockout
1923. Directed by Len Powers. A Hal Roach production. With The Dippy-Doo-Dads. Intelligent monkeys, dogs, and ducks enact a spoof of boxing dramas. 10 min.

When Summer Comes
1922. Directed by Roy Del Ruth. A Mack Sennett production. With Billy Bevan, Mildred June, Kewpie Morgan, Billy Armstrong, Jack Cooper, Tiny Ward, Hughie Mack, Edgar Blue, John Rand, Cubby. Rampaging lions are on the loose in a hunting lodge. 18 min.

Program approx. 80 min.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 3, mezzanine, Education and Research Building (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model)
Thursday, March 15, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 3, mezzanine, Education and Research Building (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model)
Friday, March 16, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 3, mezzanine, Education and Research Building (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model)

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Lucian Pintilie

One of Europe's finest filmmakers, Lucian Pintilie creates corrosive cinema that is at once original, ferocious, and hopeful. Born to Romanian parents in a German-speaking village in Southern Bessarabia, Pintilie describes the region as a halcyon polyglot and multicultural community, "today part of Ukraine...(then) inhabited by a genuine ethnic mosaic: Romanians, Ruthenians, Gagauzes, Turks, Tatars, Jews, and, of course Ukrainians and Russians." Memories of this tolerant and cosmopolitan community continue to inform the filmmaker's work, which is marked by a sense of "what could be."

Pintilie became a celebrated theater director in Bucharest before making his debut film, Sunday at Six, in 1965. That film so upset Romanian censors that he could not make his second film, Reenactment, until four years later. Although it was initially banned, Reenactment had its international premiere at Cannes in 1970, and the filmmaker was lauded in absentia; today it is considered a seminal work of the New Romanian Cinema. Forced into exile, Pintilie had to shoot his third film, Ward No. 6 (1973), in Yugoslavia. He returned home to make his fourth, Carnival Scenes (1979), but when that film was also completely forbidden he left Romania for France.

Pintilie returned to filmmaking after the collapse of Communism and the advent of democracy in Romania, creating a series of no-holds-barred dramas and dark comedies about life and its absurdities, beginning with The Oak (1992) and continuing with such acclaimed films as Afternoon of a Torturer (2001) and Niki and Flo (2003). Virtually unknown in the U.S., this latter film receives a weeklong run as part of this series. The retrospective concludes with the artist’s most recent work, the short film Tertium non datur (2005).

Organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film, in association with the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York. Presented in collaboration with the Romanian Film Festival in New York, and with the cooperation of the Romanian National Film Center.
Related Film Screenings

Upcoming
Film Screenings & Events
Niki Ardelean, colonel in rezerva (Niki and Flo). 2003. Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie
Niki Ardelean, colonel in rezerva (Niki and Flo)

2003. Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie. Screenplay by Lucian Pintilie, Rasvan Radulescu. With Victor Rebengiuc, Coca Bloos, Razvan Vasilescu, Micaela Caracas. In this very black comedy about ill-suited neighbors united by marriage, Niki is a former colonel in the Romanian army whose daughter is married to the son of Flo, an aging Bohemian who is full of schemes for the “new” Romania. As the young couple prepares to emigrate to the U.S., Niki is obliged to interact with Flo, whom he finds totally unbearable. Courtesy of Filmex Romania. 95 min.

Thursday, March 1, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (Followed by a 17-minute video interview with Pintille)
Friday, March 2, 2012, 7:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (Followed by a 17-minute video interview with Pintille)
Saturday, March 3, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (Followed by a 17-minute video interview with Pintille)
Sunday, March 4, 2012, 6:30 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (Followed by a 17-minute video interview with Pintille)
Monday, March 5, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (Followed by a 17-minute video interview with Pintille)
Wednesday, March 7, 2012, 7:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Followed by a 17-minute video interview with Pintille)
Film Screenings & Events
Reconstituirea (Reenactment). 1968. Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie
Reconstituirea (Reenactment)

1968. Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie. Screenplay by Lucian Pintilie, Horia Patrascu. With George Mihaita, Vladimir Gaitan, Ileana Popovici, George Constantin. After two friends drunkenly injure a waiter, the police force them to recreate their crime for an “educational” film—with disastrous results. Reenactment is one of the key films of the New Romanian Cinema. 106 min.

Thursday, March 1, 2012, 7:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (Introduced by Lucian Pintilie)
Saturday, March 10, 2012, 7:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Film Screenings & Events
Duminica la ora 6 (Sunday at 6)

1965. Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie. Screenplay by Lucian Pintilie, Ion Mihaileanu. With Irina Petrescu, Dan Nutu, Gratiela Albini, Eugenia Bosânceanu. In 1940, as Romania drifts toward fascism, a boy and a girl share a mutual affection. And yet, as both are covert anti-fascist operatives, their true identities remain unknown to one another. 83 min.

Friday, March 2, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Friday, March 9, 2012, 7:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Film Screenings & Events
De ce trag clopotele, Mitica? (Carnival Scenes). 1979. Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie
De ce trag clopotele, Mitica? (Carnival Scenes)

1979. Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie. With Victor Rebengiuc, Mariana Mihut, Gheorghe Dinica, Tora Vasilescu. This roundelay of affairs among the petty bourgeoisie was banned in Romania until the death of Ceausescu in 1989. 132 min.

Saturday, March 3, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (Introduced by Victor Rebenegiuc and Mariana Mihut)
Thursday, March 8, 2012, 7:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Film Screenings & Events
Balanta (The Oak). 1991. Romania/France. Directed by Lucian Pintilie
Balanta (The Oak)

1991. Romania/France. Directed by Lucian Pintilie. With Maia Morgenstern, Razvan Vasilescu, Victor Rebengiuc, Dorel Visan. In Bucharest, 1988, a young schoolteacher tries to carry out the will of her late father, an officer of Ceausescu’s “secret police,” who deemed that his body be used for medical research. Unfortunately, the refrigerators at the university are not working. 105 min.

Saturday, March 3, 2012, 7:30 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Thursday, March 8, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Film Screenings & Events
Un été inoubliable (An Unforgettable Summer). 1992. France/Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie
Un été inoubliable (An Unforgettable Summer)

1992. France/Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie. With Kristin Scott-Thomas, Claddiu Bleont, Marcel Iures, Olga Tudorache. The goings-on in an idyllic Romanian border town in the 1920s lead to a nasty situation for a young army captain and his beautiful bride. 82 min.

Sunday, March 4, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Monday, March 12, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Film Screenings & Events
Prea târziu (Too Late). 1996. France/Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie
Prea târziu (Too Late)

1996. France/Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie. Screenplay by Lucian Pintilie, Rasvan Popescu. With Razvan Vasilescu, Cecilia Bârbora, Victor Rebengiuc, Dorel Visan. Miners in the Jiu Valley are dying mysteriously, but are these accidents or murders? It’s the first case for a young public prosecutor, who soon falls in love with the survey engineer working as his assistant. 104 min.

Sunday, March 4, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Sunday, March 11, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Film Screenings & Events
Dupa-amiaza unui tortionar (The Afternoon of a Torturer). 2000. Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie
Dupa-amiaza unui tortionar (The Afternoon of a Torturer)

2000. Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie. With Gheorghe Dinica, Radu Beligan, Ioana Ana Macaria, Coca Bloos. A young journalist travels to the countryside for an interview with a former torturer, but the afternoon does not go as expected. 76 min.
Tertium non datur

2006. Romania/France. Directed by Lucian Pintilie. With Victor Rebengiuc, Sorin Leoveanu, Tudor Istodor, Cornel Scripcaru. In the final days of World War II, a Romanian military unit in the Ukraine comes across some “allies”: high-ranking Wehrmacht officers. 39 min.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Includes a 17-minute video interview with Pintille (shown after The Afternoon of a Torturer))
Saturday, March 10, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (Includes a 17-minute video interview with Pintille (shown after The Afternoon of a Torturer))
Film Screenings & Events
Paviljon VI (Ward 6). 1973. Yugoslavia. Directed by Lucian Pintilie
Paviljon VI (Ward 6)

1973. Yugoslavia. Directed by Lucian Pintilie. With Slobodan Perovic, Zoran Radmilovic, Slavko Simic, Pavle Vujisic. In Tsarist Russia, a doctor in a provincial hospital encounters a former student in the mental ward, and his fascination with the rebellious fellow threatens to become too much. 92 min.

Friday, March 9, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Sunday, March 11, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Film Screenings & Events
Last Stop Paradise. 1998. Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie
Terminus Paradis (Next Stop Paradise)

1998. Romania. Directed by Lucian Pintilie. Screenplay by Lucian Pintilie, Rasvan Popescu, Radu Aldulescu. During a hot summer just outside Bucharest, a young waitress and an agricultural worker meet and start a mad affair. 108 min.

Saturday, March 10, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Sunday, March 11, 2012, 6:30 p.m., Theater 1, T1

Image: Hearts and Flowers. 1919. USA. Directed by Edward Cline

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Margaret Doyle, (212) 408-6400, margaret_doyle@moma.org

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