November 16th 2013. Pick Of The Day.
New York City's premiere resource for classic film screenings in the metropolitan area. Offering reviews, recommendations, venues and a host of links keeping classic film and the silver screens alive.
Continuing series today include BAM's Bruce Dern retrospective, Anthology Film Archives' Closely Watched Trains, the Japan Society's trib to film scholar Donald Richie, and MoMI's Computer Age: Early Computer Films 1952-87. And heeeeere we go;
BAM Cinematek
COMING HOME (1978) Dir; Hal Ashby
Anthology Film Archives
EMPEROR OF THE NORTH (1973) Dir; Robert Aldrich
NARROW MARGIN (1952) Dir; Richard Fleischer
Japan Society
THE LIFE OF OHARU (1952) Dir; Kenji Mizoguchi
Museum of the Moving Image
TRON (1982) Dir; Steven Lisberger
Today's Pick? I'm going with the fantastic and rarely screened EMPEROR OF THE NORTH, screening as part of Anthology Film Archives' Closely Watched Trains series. Director Robert Aldrich, one of Hollywood's most liberal filmmakers, was also responsible for some of the most scabrous cinema, produced in the late- and post- studio era. For reference check out THE DIRTY DOZEN, a ruthless take on the men-on-a-mission genre which ends with Nazi party guests literally cooking, and KISS ME DEADLY, which pretty much ends with the nuclear apocalypse (try me). Today's depression-era odyssey, partially based on Joseph Conrad's true accounts of hobo rail riders, stars Lee Marvin as the greatest train hitcher of all, aptly named A-No.-1, and concerns his ongoing war with the brutal, perhaps psychotic conductor Stack, played by Ernie Borgnine with such violent zeal he may perhaps be forebear to FROM HERE TO ETERNITY's Fatso. Aldrich examined the human condition harshly, poking into its darker corenrs and emerging with little good comment on it. Yet despite EMPEROR's period and topic it emerges as a tribute to human resourcefulness and dignity. The least of us may carry little in this cold and uncaring world, it seems to say, but we may remain the master of our souls.
For more on this and all NYC's classic screenings in November '13 click the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. And be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter! Back tomorrow with more of what ya love, til then safe and sound and keep an eye on the next knucklehead too! Excelsior!
-Joe Walsh
