Thanks to Henri Langlois: A Centennial Tribute
One of the final series in our current theater honors French film archivist and cinephile Henri Langlois (1914–1977), who inspired the international cinematheque movement and whose approach greatly informed the vision of BAM/PFA. Our tribute includes French silent cinema as well as work by Langlois’s favorite auteurs, Tod Browning, Ernst Lubitsch, Jean Renoir, Erich von Stroheim, and others.
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Films - Past
Films - Past
Events
Past Films
Henri Langlois Centennial Tribute: Opening Program
Introduction/Founding PFA Director Sheldon Renan & Former PFA Director Tom Luddy
Live Music/Judith Rosenberg on pianoThursday, June 11 7:30 PMView DetailsA collection of shorts on the legendary Langlois, as well as the 1918 Italian short La Tosca, a lost film found by Langlois in the BAM/PFA Collection. Titles include Langlois (1970), Chit Chat with Henri Langlois (1975), and La Cinémathèque française (1962).
Dimitri Kirsanoff & Nadia Sibirskaïa Collaborations
Imported Prints!
Judith Rosenberg on piano.Friday, June 12 7:00 PMView DetailsTwo rare works from the great silent-era director Dimitri Kirsanoff: the evocative portrait of two young sisters, Ménilmontant, and Autumn Mists, a short about a melancholy soul.
Forbidden Paradise
Ernst Lubitsch
United States, 1924Imported Print!
Judith Rosenberg on piano.Saturday, June 13 6:30 PMView DetailsLubitsch teams with his favorite muse, the great actress Pola Negri, for this comedy inspired by the amorous intrigue surrounding Catherine the Great of Russia. Adolphe Menjou costars.
Lumière d'été
Jean Grémillon
France, 1943Imported Print!
Wednesday, June 17 7:30 PMView DetailsA remote mountain inn is the setting for a class-crossed love affair split between working class and idle rich. Coscripted by Jacques Prévert, it is acclaimed as one of the greatest French films made during the German Occupation. Followed by excerpts from Parlons cinema—à propos du cinéma dans la résistance.
The Steel Beast
1936Imported Print!
Saturday, June 20 7:00 PMView DetailsCommissioned to celebrate the anniversary of a rail line in 1935, this film by great German photographer Willy Otto Zielke is a daring collage of abstractions, rhythms, and historical commentary, and was immediately banned by the Nazis.
Early Films by Abel Gance
35mm Restored Prints!
Live Music/Judith Rosenberg on pianoFriday, June 26 7:00 PMView DetailsTwo early and rare shorts, The Madness of Doctor Tube and The Deadly Gases, that demonstrate the fledgling skills of the director who would later make one of the silent era’s greatest epics, Napoleon.
The Unknown
Tod Browning
United States, 1927Live Music/Judith Rosenberg on piano
Friday, July 3 7:00 PMView DetailsA circus performer has his arms amputated to satisfy his lover’s strange desires in Tod Browning’s shocking tale of madness and love, starring Lon Chaney and Joan Crawford.
Nana
Imported Print!
Live Music/Judith Rosenberg on pianoWednesday, July 8 7:30 PMView DetailsAn actress turns courtesan to make ends meet during Europe’s decadent Second Empire in Renoir’s first full-length vehicle for his wife, Catherine Hessling. Renoir: “My first film worth talking about.”
Prix de beauté
Augusto Genina
France, 1930Imported Print!
Live Music/Judith Rosenberg on pianoSaturday, July 11 6:30 PMView DetailsThe last major role for silent-era beauty Louise Brooks (Pandora’s Box) was as a Parisian typist who wins a beauty contest and a movie contract, only to face the violent disapproval of her husband.
La chienne
Jean Renoir
France, 1931Imported Print!
Saturday, July 18 6:30 PMView DetailsMichel Simon is an unhappily married middle-aged bank clerk whose only passion in life is painting, until he becomes obsessed with a prostitute. Remade by Fritz Lang as Scarlet Street, Renoir’s original is infused with a sadomasochistic sexuality that is both heightened and tempered by Renoir's camera.
Foolish Wives
Erich von Stroheim
USA, 1921Live Music/Judith Rosenberg on piano
Wednesday, July 22 7:30 PMView DetailsMonte Carlo provides the suitably decadent setting for von Stroheim’s look at money, temptation, and marriage. “Never was a film more revolutionary” (Langlois).
Queen Kelly
Erich von Stroheim
USA, 1928Friday, July 24 8:50 PMView DetailsIn a debauched Central European kingdom, a mad queen must wed a notorious libertine, who instead falls for a young nun (Gloria Swanson). One of the most infamous unfinished film maudits in history, and praised as Erich von Stroheim’s masterpiece.
Georges Méliès Shorts
Digital Restorations!
Live Music/Judith Rosenberg on pianoMonday, July 27 5:00 PMView DetailsThe genius shorts of the father of cinema, many hand-painted and restored by La Cinémathèque française in 2013 with the Éclair Group.