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Tue, Jan 21, 2020
The Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University will present the sixth annual Cinema Revival: A Festival of Film Restoration February 27–March 3. Dedicated to screenings of revitalized classics and world treasures—many not available via streaming—as well as engaging talks by leading experts in the field of film preservation, the event is the only one of its kind in the US not tied to a major film fest or archive.
This year’s 15 programs illustrate how film restoration and preservation is a concern for all movie lovers in the US and around the world. The six-day festival includes a diverse array of films, ranging from the racy Mae West vehicle I’m No Angel;(the new restoration makes its US premiere at the center) to a program of rare, vintage Hollywood home movies, to the first film directed by the great Susan Sontag, to Muna Moto, the first feature film ever made in Cameroon. Guests include representatives from The Film Foundation, the Academy Film Archive, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, The Walt Disney Company, the Cohen Film Collection, and more. The complete schedule is below; it's also available here on the website and through the Wex’s Facebook page.
Highlights include:
• White folks call it madness but we call it Hi De Ho: An “All Colored” Vitaphone Program featuring rare films of great black musicians curated and introduced by artist and archivist Ina Archer.
• Hollywood Home Movies from the Academy Film Archive (1931-1970) which includes rare and intimate footage of such screen legends as Carole Lombard, Hedy Lamarr, Jerry Lewis, Steve McQueen, and Humphrey Bogart. Introduced by the Academy’s Mike Pogorzelski.
• A new restoration of the 1990s action classic Speed (1994), introduced by Schawn Belston of The Walt Disney Company (formerly of 20th Century-Fox). A rare chance to see vintage Keanu Reeves on the big screen!
• A stunning new restoration of John Huston’s Moulin Rouge (1952), starring Jose Ferrer as the legendary painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The Film Foundation’s Margaret Bodde and Grover Crisp (who supervised the restoration) will introduce the screening.
• A Restoration Roundtable including Grover Crisp (Sony Pictures), Mike Pogorzelski (The Academy), Margaret Bodde (The Film Foundation) and Schawn Belston (Disney) who will discuss issues and challenges facing those charged with protecting our cinematic treasures.
In addition to single screening tickets, Cinema Revival festival passes are also available. These include admission to all talks and screenings plus access to an exclusive passholder lounge with complimentary soft drinks and snacks. And all festival ticket holders receive free same-day admission to the exhibitions Sadie Benning: Pain Thing, LaToya Ruby Frazier: The Last Cruze, and Stanya Kahn: No Go Backs. More visitor information is available here.
Image, from Muna Moto, courtesy The Film Foundation
Thu, Feb 27 | 4:30 pm New 4k restoration La femme au couteau (The Woman with the Knife, Timité Bassori, 1969) In La femme au couteau, a young man traumatized by his strict African upbringing returns home after a long stay in Europe. Once home, he has difficulty readjusting to the place where he grew up and experiences debilitating sexual inhibition, made manifest by recurring visions of a woman brandishing a huge knife. Most consider this to be the most accomplished film by Ivory Coast director Bassori, who also plays the lead role. (80 mins., 4K DCP)
Thu, Feb 27 | 7 pm White folks call it madness but we call it Hi De Ho: An “All Colored” Vitaphone Program Introduced by Ina Archer, Artist and Media Archivist Between 1929 and 1936, Brooklyn-based Vitaphone Studios used talent from the vaudeville circuits and nearby Broadway to make dozens of “live” shorts featuring the era’s biggest acts. Organized by artist and media archivist Ina Archer, this program features such legendary African American performers as the Nicholas Brothers, Cab Calloway, Lester Young, and many more! A complete lineup will be announced on wexarts.org closer to the screening date. (program approx. 120 mins.; DCP, 16mm, and 35mm)
Fri, Feb 28 | 4:30 pm New 4k restoration Muna Moto (Jean-Pierre Dikongué-Pipa, 1975) introduced by Margaret Bodde, Executive Director, The Film Foundation From Cameroon, the allegorical Muna Moto follows a young couple who are in love but are prevented by the woman’s family from getting married because the young man cannot afford the customary dowry. The film is a thinly veiled polemic on the dowry system, the country’s colonial past, and political corruption. (89 mins., 4K DCP)
Fri, Feb 28 | 7 pm Hollywood Home Movies from the Academy Film Archive (1931–70) presented by Mike Pogorzelski, Director, Academy Film Archive In this program hosted and narrated by the Academy Film Archive’s Michael Pogorzelski, catch stellar clips from the archive’s home movie collection that feature Marlene Dietrich, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Jerry Lewis, Sophia Loren, and Steve McQueen, among other Hollywood stars. You’ll also see rare, behind-the-scenes footage showing the making of classics such as Gunga Din and Gone with the Wind.(71 mins., digital video)
Fri, Feb 28 | 8:45 pm New 4k restoration Speed (Jan de Bont, 1994) introduced by Schawn Belston, Senior Vice President, Creative Mastering, The Walt Disney Company “Pop quiz, hotshot. There’s a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes 50 miles an hour, the bomb is armed. If it drops below 50, it blows up. What do you do?” Dennis Hopper’s psychopathic Howard Payne sums up the entire plot of Speed to cop Keanu Reeves, impromptu bus driver Sandra Bullock, and the audience in one of 1990s’ most pared-down, straight-ahead action-thrillers. (116 mins., 4K DCP)
Sat, Feb 29 | 11:30 am Restored by 20th Century Fox. The Technicolor Reference Collection—A 1950s Survey presented by Mike Pogorzelski, Director, Academy Film Archive Curious to see what first-generation Technicolor prints actually looked like onscreen? Here’s your opportunity to view dye-transfer prints from Technicolor’s own reference collection! The program analyzes nine reference reels of ‘50s-era films by George Cukor, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Douglas Sirk, and King Vidor. (program 100 mins., 35mm)
Sat, Feb 29 | 1:45 pm 4K restoration Ride Lonesome (Budd Boetticher, 1959) introduced by Grover Crisp, Executive Vice President, Asset Management, Film Restoration and Digital Management, Sony Pictures One of seven austere westerns starring Randolph Scott and directed by one-time Ohio State football player Budd Boetticher, Ride Lonesome has Scott play bounty hunter Ben Brigade, who’s taking in criminal James Best to face trial for murder. Little does Best know that he’s only bait for Brigade’s brother Frank (Lee Van Cleef), who’s greatly wronged the bounty hunter in the past. Crisp will present footage pre- and post-restoration before the screening. (73 mins., 4K DCP)
Sat, Feb 29 | 3:30 pm US premiere of 4k restoration I’m No Angel (Wesley Ruggles, 1933) introduced by Janice Simpson, Universal Pictures Mae West was one of the most controversial and popular stars of the 1930s, often credited with single-handedly saving Paramount Pictures from bankruptcy. In I’m No Angel she stars as sideshow singer Tira, who makes extra bank by helping rob male customers at her shows. Trying to break her hold on a friend, Cary Grant instead falls for Tira—until he finds out about her scandalous past. (87 mins., 4K DCP)
Sat, Feb 29 | 5:30 pm Restoration Roundtable with Schawn Belston (Walt Disney Company), Margaret Bodde (The Film Foundation), Grover Crisp (Sony Pictures), and Mike Pogorzelski (Academy Film Archive) Join some of the country’s leading film restoration experts for a fascinating discussion about how Hollywood studios, the Academy Film Archive, and The Film Foundation share resources to restore some of the past’s most important and exciting films for future audiences. Clips from such collaborations as Leave Her to Heaven (1945), Beat the Devil (1953), and Way of a Gaucho (1952) punctuate the discussion. (program approx. 60 mins.)
Sat, Feb 29 | 6:30–7:30 pm Cinema Revival Reception Lower Lobby Enjoy a cash bar and light snacks in lower lobby between this evening’s Cinema Revival events.
Sat, Feb 29 | 7:30 pm New 4k restoration Moulin Rouge (John Huston, 1952) introduced by Grover Crisp, Executive Vice President Asset Management, Film Restoration and Digital Management, Sony Pictures, and Margaret Bodde, Executive Director, The Film Foundation José Ferrer embodies French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) in this stunning cinematic recreation of his life and the bohemian culture centered around Paris’s legendary burlesque hall Moulin Rouge. Shooting in Technicolor, director John Huston wanted to evoke Toulouse-Lautrec’s rich color palette—which can now be fully enjoyed as intended for the first time in decades with this meticulous restoration. (119 mins., 4K DCP)
Sun, Mar 1 | 12:30 pm Family programming New 4k restoration Go West (Buster Keaton, 1925) introduced by Tim Lanza, the Cohen Film Collection In Go West, silent comedy legend Buster Keaton plays a drifter named “Friendless” who lands a job at a cattle ranch hoping to make his fortune. Once there, he becomes inseparable from a darling cow named “Brown Eyes,” who follows him wherever he goes with a series of comic mishaps close behind. (82 mins., 4K DCP)
Sun, Mar 1 | 2:15 pm New 4k restoration Way of a Gaucho (Jacques Tourneur, 1952) Shot in Argentina in eye-popping Technicolor, Way of a Gaucho stars Rory Calhoun as the heroic leader of a gang of gauchos who’s on the run from his former military commander after deserting. He falls in love with aristocratic Gene Tierney and they plan an escape to Chile, but circumstances force him to face justice. (95 mins., 4K DCP)
Sun, Mar 1 | 4 pm New 4k restoration Revenge of Frankenstein (Terence Fisher, 1958) From the legendary studio Hammer Film Productions, Revenge of Frankenstein stars Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein, who has escaped a date with the guillotine by having a priest beheaded in his place. Now working under an assumed name, he’s up to his old tricks—like trying to transplant a living brain into a new body! (89 mins., 4K DCP)
Mon, Mar 2 | 4 pm New restoration Duet for Cannibals (Duett för kannibaler, Susan Sontag, 1969) The first film directed by iconic author, critic, and intellectual Susan Sontag, Duet for Cannibals follows the surreal and multidimensional relationship that unfolds between a German intellectual, his sophisticated wife, their Swedish secretary, and the earnest secretary’s bride-to-be. (105 mins., 2K DCP)
Tue, Mar 3 | 7 pm New 4k restoration Son of the White Mare (Fehérlófia, Marcell Jankovics, 1981) One of the great psychedelic masterpieces of world animation, Son of the White Mare is a color-mad maelstrom of mythic monsters and heroes—part medieval epic, part Yellow Submarine. (81 mins., 4K DCP)
First-time Cinema Revival guest Ina Archer; photo courtesy of Archer Ina Archer is a filmmaker, visual artist, programmer, and writer whose multimedia works and films have been shown around the world. She is a Media Conservation and Digitization Assistant at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. This is her first appearance at Cinema Revival.
Schawn Belston (The Walt Disney Company) has supervised the restorations of F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise (1927), Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (1963), and Robert Wise’s The Sound of Music (1965), among many other films. This is his fifth appearance at Cinema Revival.
Margaret Bodde oversees The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Martin Scorsese in 1990 and dedicated to protecting and preserving motion picture history. The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project has restored 35 films from 22 different countries around the world. This is her third appearance at Cinema Revival.
Grover Crisp (Sony Pictures) has supervised numerous restoration projects including Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront (1954), David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Luchino Visconti’s Sandra (1965), and Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969). This is his second appearance at Cinema Revival.
Tim Lanza has overseen the Cohen Film Collection since 1992 and restorations of such films as Buster Keaton’s The General (1926), James Whale’s The Old Dark House (1932), and Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991). This is his sixth appearance at Cinema Revival.
Mike Pogorzelski (Academy Film Archive) has supervised the restoration of such films as William Wellman’s Wings (1927), Lewis Milestone’s The Front Page (1931), Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy (1955-1959), and Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County, USA (1976), among many others. This is his first appearance at Cinema Revival.
Janice Simpson (NBCUniversal) has overseen the restorations of John Murray Anderson’s King of Jazz (1930), George Marshall’s Destry Rides Again (1939), and Marlon Brando's One-Eyed Jacks (1961). This is her first appearance at Cinema Revival.
