A Wexner Center World Tour: A Summer Abroad '13

Movies from around the globe—and visit from a pair of world-renowned cinema collaborators—are a part of A Summer Abroad ’13, the Wexner Center’s two-month international film series, which begins July 5. The 21-film world tour makes stops in France, Italy, Sweden, Germany, the UK, Japan, and Mexico. The tour guides are some of the most revered directors in film history, including the likes of Jean Renoir, Jean-Luc Godard, Roberto Rossellini, Ingmar Bergman, Fritz Lang, Sally Potter, Akira Kurosawa, and Luis Buñuel. 

As a part of the series, actress, filmmaker, and model Isabella Rossellini and director Guy Maddin, who have teamed up on such films as The Saddest Music in the World and the Wex-supported Keyhole, will appear onstage at Mershon Auditorium on Saturday, August 24, to screen their short My Dad Is 100 Years Old, a tribute to Roberto Rossellini written by and starring Isabella, his daughter, and of the new Criterion Collection restoration of Roberto Rossellini’s Europe ’51, which stars Ingrid Bergman, Roberto’s then-wife and Isabella’s mother. A conversation between Maddin and Rossellini about their working relationship and her iconic parents will follow.

David Filipi, director of film/video at the Wex, notes, “It’s a great thrill to bring our audience some of the most important and still-vital films from around the world. Even better: many of these films are in new restorations, ensuring that filmgoers will see these films in the best possible manner. Summer Abroad has always been one of our most popular series, and it’s wonderful to see its return.”

Many of these titles will be screened in new or recent restorations (with English subtitles as needed).  The July and August features in our ongoing Film History 101 series are also part of A Summer Abroad ’13. (Two of the films in the series are followed by free outdoor Wex Drive-in films; see schedule below.)

Visitor information: Unless otherwise noted, all films will be held at the Wexner Center’s Film/Video Theater, 1871 N. High St., and all screenings start at 7 pm.

Tickets for each screening or double feature are $8 for general public; $6 for Wexner Center members, students, and senior citizens; and $3 for children 12 and under, except for the conversation with Guy Maddin and Isabella Rossellini which are $15 for the general public and $10 for Wexner Center members, students, and senior citizens. Tickets are available at the door or in advance at tickets.wexarts.org, or at (614) 292-3535.

The schedule follows.

 

Friday, July 5—double feature

Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937): Renoir’s antiwar classic Grand Illusion explores the nature of class and national loyalties in an escape-proof World War I POW camp. Erich von Stroheim plays the aristocratic German officer in charge, with Pierre Fresnay and Jean Gabin as captured French officers, one equally aristocratic and the other from the working class. (117 mins., 4K DCP in a new restoration)

Boudu Saved from Drowning (Jean Renoir, 1932): Michel Simon stars in the pointed farce Boudu Saved from Drowning as a vagrant who is taken in by the bourgeois bookseller who pulled him out of the Seine. He then turns the household upside-down while seducing his rescuer’s wife and mistress. (87 mins., DCP)

 

Saturday, July 6—double feature

Orlando (Sally Potter, 1992): Tilda Swinton stars in the title role of Sally Potter’s mesmerizing adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography. This perfect union of director, actress, and source material follows the young nobleman Orlando across centuries of English history (and two genders) after the dying Queen Elizabeth I (Quentin Crisp) magically grants him eternal youth. (93 mins., 35mm)

Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961): Oscar-winner for Best Foreign Language Film in 1962, Through a Glass Darkly follows a family of four vacationing on a remote Swedish island after the schizophrenic daughter is released from an asylum. (89 mins., 35mm)

 

Thursday, July 11—double feature

M (Fritz Lang, 1931): The haunting and expressionistic thriller M stars the unforgettable Peter Lorre as a psychotic child murderer on the run from the police and the criminal underworld of Berlin. (117 mins., DCP in a new restoration)

Touchez Pas au Grisbi (Jacques Becker, 1954): Loosely translated as “don’t touch the loot,” Touchez Pas au Grisbi is Jacques Becker’s poetic evocation of the criminal underworld of Paris’s Montmartre district. The stylish crime caper stars Jean Gabin and a young, pony-tailed Jeanne Moreau. (96 mins., 35mm)

 

Thursday, July 18

Nazarin (Luis Buñuel, 1959): Nazarin chronicles the life of a humble priest (Francisco “Paco” Rabal) in a poverty-stricken Mexican parish at the beginning of the 20th century. Mocked and abused by nearly everyone he encounters, he eventually takes to the road—but never departs from his strict adherence to the basic principles of Christianity. The film won the International Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. (94 mins., 35mm)

(Followed by Wex Drive-in outdoor movie.)

 

 Tuesday, July 23

Le Pont du Nord (Jacques Rivette, 1981): The noir-ish Le Pont du Nord follows the adventures of a middle-aged woman just out of prison (Bulle Ogier) and a moody, scooter-riding younger woman (Ogier’s real-life daughter, Pascale). Le Pont du Nord is also a part of the Film History 101 series. (129 mins., new 35mm print)

 

Thursday, July 25

Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965): The fourth film in the Bond franchise, Thunderball finds 007 (Sean Connery) pitted against Largo, a sophisticated baddie from SPECTRE who is bent on blowing up Miami with stolen atom bombs. Notable for its breathtaking underwater sequences and two of the most glamorous Bond girls ever (former Miss France Claudine Auger as Domino and Luciana Paluzzi as the deadly Fiona Volpe). (130 mins., DCP)

 

Friday–Saturday, July 26–27, double feature  

Le Petit Soldat (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960): Le Petit Soldat stars Michel Subor as a French-deserter-turned-photographer in Geneva assigned to shoot the luminous Anna Karina with his camera. And he may have some other shady assignments—involving the FLN (Algerian liberationists)—to carry out with a gun. The film marked the debut of Karina, whom Godard married in 1961. (88 mins., new 35mm print)

Un Flic (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1972): The final film by the great crime auteur Jean-Pierre Melville features elaborate heist scenes and a love triangle between a world-weary cop (Alain Delon), his friend who happens to be behind the thefts (Richard Crenna), and the woman whose affections they share (Catherine Deneuve). (98 mins., new 35mm print)

 

Thursday, August 1, double feature

Max et les Ferrailleurs (Claude Sautet, 1971): A Parisian detective (Michel Piccoli) who is tired of seeing clever criminals slip through his fingers lures a gang into robbing a bank so that he can catch them red-handed and unexpectedly falls in love with the gang leader’s girlfriend (Romy Schneider). (107 mins., 35mm in a new restoration)

Port of Shadows (Marcel Carné, 1938): French icon Jean Gabin (his third appearance in A Summer Abroad ’13) is an army deserter looking for another chance to make good on life when fate interferes and acts of both revenge and kindness make him front page news as he travels through an underworld of lonely souls wrestling with their own destinies. (90 mins., DCP in a new restoration)

 

Friday–Saturday, August 2–3

Journey to Italy (Roberto Rossellini, 1954): A British businessman (George Sanders) and his wife (Ingrid Bergman) travel to Naples for family matters and find that, after eight years of marriage, they have little to say to each other. During their time in Italy, they drift further and further apart (against the backdrop of the relics and ruins of European history) until the film builds to a miraculous finale in Pompeii. (97 mins., DCP in a new restoration)

 

Tuesday, August 6

Richard III (Laurence Olivier, 1955): Director, producer, and star Laurence Olivier brings Shakespeare’s masterpiece of Machiavellian villainy to ravishing cinematic life (in Technicolor and VistaVision). Olivier is Richard, the Duke of Gloucester, who plots to steal the crown from his brother Edward IV. Olivier surrounds himself with a royal cast including Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, and Claire Bloom. (158 mins., DCP in a new restoration)

 

Thursday, August 8

The Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953): In a squalid South American oil town, four desperate men sign on for a suicide mission: to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin over a treacherous mountain route to a faraway oil fire. (147 mins., 35mm in a new restoration)

 

Thursday, August 15

The Man in the White Suit (Alexander Mackendrick, 1951): Alec Guinness is down-on-his-luck chemistry whiz who, in his spare time, develops a fabric that never wears out and never gets dirty. This, of course, raises the interest of many outside parties, who then set our hero on the run. (85 mins., DCP in a new restoration)
(Followed by Wex Drive-in outdoor movie.)

 

Friday–Saturday, August 16–17

L’Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960): When a young woman mysteriously disappears on a yachting trip, her lover and her best friend (Monica Vitti, in one of her defining roles) begin an affair while searching for her in this penetrating study of the idle upper class, spiritual isolation, and the many meanings of love. (144 mins., new 35mm print)

 

Saturday, August 24 (6 pm in Mershon Auditorium)

Isabella Rossellini and Guy Maddin in Conversation:

My Dad Is 100 Years Old (Guy Maddin, 2005): Isabella Rossellini portrays her father's antagonists, including David Selznick and Federico Fellini, in this work, which considers Roberto Rossellini’s relationship with then-wife Ingrid Bergman and his tumultuous career. (16 mins., 35mm)

Europe ’51: (Roberto Rossellini, 1952): Bergman plays an American woman living in Rome and struggling to cope with grief following her son’s suicide. Like Voyage to Italy, which also stars Bergman, this film addresses the impact of spiritual crises and is now widely praised after being dismissed by many critics at the time of its release. (113 mins, HD Video in a new restoration)

Tuesday, August 27

High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963): The inimitable Toshiro Mifune gives one of his most unforgettable performances as a wealthy businessman whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in Akira Kurosawa’s hugely influential domestic drama and crime story High and Low. (143 mins., 35mm)