The Tale of Benshi: The Forgotten Heritage of Japanese Silent Cinema

Photograph of a Benshi performance

It’s strange to think of film as originally being something of a carnival attraction. Like the elephants and lions on view in neighboring displays, Edison’s Kinetoscope and Lumière’s Cinématographe were initially presented to the public as something exotic, bizarre, even magical. Another collective misconception that we are inclined to entertain is that the invention of film comprised a single moment in history. In reality, it took considerable time for the technology to dissipate and for its influence to take hold around the world. Nowhere is this truer than in Japan.

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

Original Theatrical Poster for Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

One of the things that I have to say I’ve come to appreciate about Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon Instant, and what-have-you is that while inadvertently undercutting many independent theatres, they have also done a lot to increase the exposure of some long-forgotten cinematic gems. The duty of unearthing movies from the vaults of past decades previously fell to the independent film circuit. Unfortunately, rising print costs have made it increasingly difficult for such theatres to showcase anything that’s not going to draw some semblance of crowd.* On the other hand, because the stream-instant business model tends to favor lesser-known titles, which are both cheaper to license and screen for long runs, they’ve ended up with some of the titles that used to be the mainstays of independent Cineplexes (e.g. I can’t tell you how excited I was when I found Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man on Netflix).

This Thursday, October 4th at 7 pm: 4K Digital Screening of Lawrence of Arabia

Still from Lawrence of Arabia

One of the greatest and most epic movies of all time, Lawrence of Arabia, directed by David Lean and starring Peter O’Toole, will be showing in select theatres across the country this Thursday, October 4th at 7 pm. The film merits, even demands being seen on big screen (watching it any other way inevitably brings to mind that clip of David Lynch talking about the iPhone.) Additionally, the digital restoration and 4K transfer sounds nothing short of spectacular. For you technophiles out there, the original 70mm print was first processed at 8K before being repaired and restored through 4K color grading at Colorworks. In layman’s terms, this masterpiece got treated right by the archivists over at Sony. With everyone somewhat on edge about the industry-wide switch to digital, I imagine that seeing the level of care put into the transfer of this cinematic classic should quell at least some fears, even those of the most conservative cinephiles. For the skeptics, check out this excellent article that the The New York Times ran detailing the painstaking process involved in the digitization of the print.

The event is already generating considerable hype among film critics and bloggers alike. I mean, if Glenn Kenny is excited about it, you should be too.

The film will include thematic analysis by Martin Scorsese, an introduction by Omar Sharif, who plays Sherif Ali in the movie, and newsreel footage from the original premier. Bottom line, we’re not going to miss this, nor should you.

Within Chicago, the film we be screening at the following four locations:

1. AMC River East 21,60611
2. Regal City North Showplace 14, 60647
3. Regal Showplace Webster Place 11, 60614
4. Roosevelt Collections, 60605

You can buy tickets here. See you there.

Night School Interview: Jef Burnham

You know you can't resist reading this article.

As part of the wildly popular Facets Night School program, Jef Burnham will present "Of Lasers and Loincloths: Genre Hybridization in Yor, the Hunter from the Future" at midnight on Saturday (or Sunday morning if you're a stickler.) In preparation for this epic event, I sat down with Jef to gather his thoughts.

Can you tell us about Yor, The Hunter from the Future and why you chose to lecture on it?

When I asked what kind of films Lew and Joe were looking for for this summer session, it was put to me like this: “Think of the craziest shit you’ve ever seen.” The first thing that came to mind, really, was the roller coaster of insanity that is 1983’s Yor, The Hunter from the Future. Yor is an Italian-Turkish co-production that was initially produced as a four-part miniseries for Italian television, but was subsequently edited down to a brisk 88 minutes, dubbed into English, and released in the States by Columbia Pictures. The film stars Reb Brown as Yor, an affable, loincloth-wearing, genocidal maniac of sorts, whose quest to liberate the oppressed people of the future/past results in most of them dying horrible deaths. And yet the film seems to truly believe that he is a hero!

The film seemed to me the perfect fit for this lecture series since a large part of its inherent craziness is rooted in the myriad generic modes the film adopts as it progresses. Much of my recent research outside of Yor has dealt with the limitations of genre classifications as rigid frameworks that reject hybridization. And while Yor falls easily into the broader classification of science fiction, that classification ignores the many nuanced generic shifts in Yor as it progresses from a tale about prehistoric man complete with dinosaurs through to its climactic laser battle.

Something to Rent: Attenberg

Over the past few years, Greek filmmaker Giorgos Lanthimos's Dogtooth has sparked much curiosity in both dedicated and casual filmgoers.  While somewhat of an unlikely word-of-mouth success, it's also a logical one, since Dogtooth, despite possessing an overall vibe that brings to mind the "cold" and "clinical" (i.e. "not fun at all") qualities of Michael Haneke's work, is also recognizably "weird."  It's about a family whose parental figures have forbade their two daughters and son to venture beyond the fence surrounding their house.  The children are taught incorrect meanings of words, and any exposure to the outside world is met with a convoluted explanation.  Situations and conversations that might otherwise be completely mundane are constructed in accordance with these limitations, which also leads to several shocking images of sex and violence.

Night School Interview: Dominic Mayer

This Saturday, July 21st, at midnight, Dominic Mayer will present "Myra Breckenridge and the Delirious, Gender-Bending Sexual Revolution of 1970 (Well, Kind Of)" in the third session of the summer-long Facets Night School series. The following is my interview with Dominic about the show:

Can you tell us about Myra Breckenridge and why you chose to lecture on it?

Myra Breckinridge comes from one of my favorite periods in American film history, namely the late 60s/early 70s, before the whole "renegade revolution" of the 70s auteurs got going. It was an uncertain time, when things like Dr. Doolittle were no longer marketable, but the next "big thing" had yet to emerge, and out of that came some of the most audacious filmmaking that the U.S. has ever seen at the mainstream level. Studios were flinging anything they could find at the wall to see what would stick (let's remember that Beyond the Valley of the Dolls came out at the national level), and some genuinely exciting, great stuff came out of that.

In particular, 20th Century Fox was verging on bankruptcy, and really letting a lot go through. Eventually that'd work out with films like M*A*S*H and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but in the meantime, they greenlit Myra Breckinridge because of Gore Vidal's source novel becoming a huge, surprise counterculture hit. Everything after that preamble, really, is why I chose to lecture on it. Unlike a lot of the shocking, divisive movies from that time (Dolls, Midnight Cowboy), that have found more acceptance with time, Myra is still considered a disaster even by modern standards. And I'm attracted to films like that, films that came to be out of sheer happenstance and make you wonder who sat down in a room and greenlit them. I also think there's genuine merit to it on some pretty gonzo levels, despite the fact that as a film I'll readily concede that it's more than a little bit of a disaster. It's also the kind of thing that, upon the rolling of the credits, you immediately want to share with others.

The Art of the Heist with Jef Burnham

This is my Interview with Jef Burnham, who is presenting the class “One Last Job: The Heist Film” on Tuesdays from July 17^th to August 21^st, 7-10PM, at the Facets Film School. Be sure to sign up for this high-stakes film-ride!

Why did you decide to make your class revolve around heist films?

I suppose the simple answer would be that I love heist films, but obviously it's more than that. In both my scholarly pursuits and screenwriting endeavors, I've found myself drawn to the heist film again and again. It's a fascinating subject. The heist film has been around since the birth of popular cinema, and yet it is tragically, rarely studied. After the original heist film, Edwin S. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery, became the first cinematic blockbuster in 1903, the heist film developed into a sort of codified, three-act narrative. Yet, despite its codification, the heist film formula has proven extremely versatile over the last 100 years, and in many ways that’s really what this course is about.