The Art of Cinematography

November 5–December 29, 2017

Revel in cinema as a visual art with this international lineup of celebrated classics and lesser-known discoveries.

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  • Manufactured Landscapes

  • Last Year at Marienbad

  • The Passion of Joan of Arc

  • Cléo from 5 to 7

  • Ran

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Battleship Potemkin

    Sergei Eisenstein
    USSR, 1925

    BAMPFA Collection

    Sunday, November 5 2 PM

    Sergei Eisenstein’s classic on revolution and rebellion, told almost entirely through riveting images, can be appreciated for “not only the perfection of its form, but the humanitarianism and enthusiasm that impregnated its revolutionary subject” (Georges Sadoul).

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  • My Grandmother

    Kote Mikaberidze
    Soviet Union, 1929

    BAMPFA Collection Print

    Sunday, November 12 2 PM

    Gogol meets Chaplin in this riotous, scathingly antibureaucratic satire, one of the eccentric high points of Soviet silent cinema, filled with expressionist décor, askew camera angles, and even puppetry and animation.

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  • The Passion of Joan of Arc

    Carl Theodor Dreyer
    France, 1928

    New Digital Restoration

    Friday, November 24 3:30 PM

    Carl Dreyer’s 1928 film focuses on the face as a landscape of the soul. Pauline Kael called it “one of the greatest of all movies.”

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  • Citizen Kane

    Orson Welles
    United States, 1941

    35mm Print

    Saturday, November 25 5:30 PM

    A childhood memory is the ultimate red herring in Welles’s audacious debut. Gregg Toland’s deep-focus cinematography is just one reason why Kane still tops many critics’ lists of the best films of all time.

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  • The Tarnished Angels

    Douglas Sirk
    United States, 1957

    35mm Print

    Saturday, November 25 8 PM

    Rock Hudson plays a New Orleans newspaperman who develops an unprofessional fascination with carnival fliers Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone in Douglas Sirk’s drama, based on a story by William Faulkner and shot in sweeping CinemaScope black-and-white.

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  • Manufactured Landscapes

    Jennifer Baichwal
    Canada, 2006

    35mm Print

    Sunday, November 26 3 PM

    This quietly provocative consideration of the mechanized sublime follows photographer Edward Burtynsky as he travels through China and Bangladesh recording large-scale industrial incursions into the landscape.

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  • The Seventh Seal

    Ingmar Bergman
    Sweden, 1957

    BAMPFA Collection Print

    Sunday, November 26 5 PM

    A medieval knight challenges Death to a game of chess in Ingmar Bergman’s iconic work of cinematic philosophy rendered in chiaroscuro. “A magically powerful film” (Pauline Kael).

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  • Antonio Gaudí

    Hiroshi Teshigahara
    Japan, 1985

    35mm Print

    Saturday, December 2 6:30 PM

    Hiroshi Teshigahara’s study of the visionary Catalan architect’s work, scored by the great Toru Takemitsu. “A masterpiece of visual poetry and aesthetic rumination” (Time Out New York).

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  • I Am Cuba

    Mikhail Kalatozov
    Cuba, USSR, 1964

    BAMPFA Collection Print

    Wednesday, December 6 7 PM

    This portrait of revolutionary Cuba, written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and brimming with bravura camerawork, is an extraordinary example of “pure” cinema in the service of politics.

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  • The First Teacher

    Andrei Konchalovsky
    USSR, 1966

    BAMPFA Collection Print

    Friday, December 8 4 PM

    Andrei Konchalovsky’s first feature, set in a Kirghiz village shortly after the Revolution. “The beauty of tradition and the need for change . . . expressed with a deft simplicity of style and a rare quality of emotion” (Michel Ciment).

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  • Antonio Gaudí

    Hiroshi Teshigahara
    Japan, 1985

    35mm Print

    Saturday, December 9 4 PM

    Hiroshi Teshigahara’s study of the visionary Catalan architect’s work, scored by the great Toru Takemitsu. “A masterpiece of visual poetry and aesthetic rumination” (Time Out New York).

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  • Cléo from 5 to 7

    Agnès Varda
    France, 1962

    Digital Restoration

    Saturday, December 9 6 PM

    Shot entirely on location in the streets of Paris, Cléo chronicles two hours in the life of a pop singer. A classic work of the French New Wave, “almost unique in the history of movies” (Pauline Kael).

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  • The Passion of Joan of Arc

    Carl Theodor Dreyer
    France, 1928

    New Digital Restoration

    Sunday, December 10 2 PM

    Carl Dreyer’s 1928 film focuses on the face as a landscape of the soul. Pauline Kael called it “one of the greatest of all movies.”

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  • Pour la suite du monde

    Michel Brault, Pierre Perrault
    Canada, 1963

    Digital Restoration

    Sunday, December 10 4 PM

    Michel Brault and Pierre Perrault beautifully evoke the rhythms of rural life and language in this enchanting documentary about traditional customs on an isolated island in Quebec.

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  • The Passion of Joan of Arc

    Carl Theodor Dreyer
    France, 1928

    35mm Archival Print

    Saturday, December 16 6:15 PM
    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

    Carl Dreyer’s 1928 film focuses on the face as a landscape of the soul. Pauline Kael called it “one of the greatest of all movies.”

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  • La Pointe Courte

    Agnès Varda
    France, 1955

    BAMPFA Collection Print

    Sunday, December 17 2 PM

    Made outside the French film industry on a shoestring budget, Agnès Varda’s 1954 debut about two reunited lovers in a Mediterranean fishing port has been called the first film of the French New Wave.

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  • Throne of Blood

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1957

    35mm Print

    Saturday, December 23 6 PM

    Kurosawa’s Noh-influenced version of Macbeth is “the most brilliant and original attempt ever made to put Shakespeare on screen” (Time). The towering Toshiro Mifune stars.

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  • Cléo from 5 to 7

    Agnès Varda
    France, 1962

    Digital Restoration

    Wednesday, December 27 4:30 PM

    Shot entirely on location in the streets of Paris, Cléo chronicles two hours in the life of a pop singer. A classic work of the French New Wave, “almost unique in the history of movies” (Pauline Kael).

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  • Ran

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, France, 1985

    35mm Print

    Wednesday, December 27 6:30 PM

    King Lear in feudal Japan, with Tatsuya Nakadai as the lord who divides his kingdom among his three sons, with disastrous results. “A majestic piece of filmmaking” (Village Voice).

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  • Le cercle rouge

    Jean-Pierre Melville
    France, 1970

    35mm Print

    Thursday, December 28 7 PM

    Alain Delon, Gian-Maria Volonté, and Yves Montand star as thief, convict, and lawman in Jean-Pierre Melville’s “dazzling epic of love, guns, gangsters, and cigarettes” (Los Angeles Times).

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  • Last Year at Marienbad

    Alain Resnais
    France, 1961

    35mm Print

    Friday, December 29 7 PM

    It’s déjà vu all over the place in Alain Resnais’s elegant, labyrinthine puzzle, written by Alain Robbe-Grillet and starring Delphine Seyrig.

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