January 17th 2014. Pick of the Day.
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The rep film circuit wakes up from its recent catnap today, and Cinegeek offerings are a'plenty! New and continuing series today include IFC Center's The Way He Was: Early Redford, the Film Society's reappraisal of no-budget autuer Edgar G. Ulmer, MoMA's limited-run The Aesthetics of Shadow, Part One: Japan & ongoing Auteurist History of Film, the Rubin Museum's exceptional Cabaret Cinema, and the Nitehawk Cinema's Coen Brothers Before Fargo. The cinematic hooliganism on display;
IFC Center
THE CANDIDATE (1972) Dir; Michael Ritchie
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
EVIL DEAD (1981) Dir; Sam Raimi
JAWS (1975) Dir; Steven Spielberg
Film Forum
BOY (1969) Dir; Nagisha Oshima
Film Society of Lincoln Center
THE LIGHT AHEAD (1939) Dir; Edgar G. Ulmer
PEOPLE ON SUNDAY (1930) Dirs; Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer
MURDER IS MY BEAT (1955) Dir; Edgar G. Ulmer
BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER (1960) Dir; Edgar G. Ulmer
MoMA
PERSONA (1966) Dir; Ingmar Bergman
FIVE SCOUTS (1938) Dir; Tomotaka Tasaka
New York Historical Society
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (1942) Dirs; Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Rubin Museum
EDUCATING RITA (1983) Dir; Lewis Gilbert
Nitehawk Cinema
BLOOD SIMPLE (1984) Dirs; Joel and Ethan Coen
Today's Pick? I'm gonna shine a little love on one of my fave fringe filmmakers, whose rep and eclectic (to be kind) CV has gotten the cinephiliac spitshine over the last decade or so. Edgar G. Ulmer worked as an art director in the Weimar-era German film industry, groomed by theater impresario Max Reinhardt and first brought to Hollywood to collaborate with F. W. Murnau on the set design for SUNRISE. Graduating to the director's chair for the horror classic THE BLACK CAT, Universal's biggest moneymaker of 1934, he soon found himself blackballed in the industry after entering into an affair with a married woman who'd soon become Shirley Ulmer. Apparently no one told the emerging auteur that schploinking the studio head's nephew's wife could be detrimental to his budding career.
Undeterred he soldiered forth, and employed his imaginative and impressive sense of visual design to elevate several poverty row productions, in most cases rendering the look of the film the sole reason for its viewing. In 1945 he made perhaps his most famous film, DETOUR, notable for years for its absence of budget and ridiculously short shooting schedule (later revised by researchers from 20K to 100K and 6 days to a month), and only later as an exemplar of 40's noir, despite its errors of continuity and acting limitations. He died in 1972 before any career re-evaluation had begun in earnest, but once it did a cohesive (sorta) thread formed, through films made at "Race" and Yiddish studios (MOON OVER HARLEM, GREEN FIELDS), respectable fare like the Hedy Lamaar-starring THE STRANGE WOMAN and cheapo genre quickies like THE MAN FROM PLANET X and BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER. Through it all Ulmer's ability to make a nickel look like a thousand bucks, to single-handedly, for the most part, elevate the quality of the proceedings despite lack of script/budget/what-have-you, served to elevate his own esteem in the eyes of the critical film world, and now no less a snob dump than the Film Society of Lincoln Center has scheduled a trib to the man, bypassing THE BLACK CAT and DETOUR in favor of lesser seen gems like today's scheduled fare. So I'm making the entirety of today's Ulmer lineup my Pick, and suggest you take advantage of the FSLC's discount package of three or more films for, approapriately enough considering the man being honored, a reduced admission.
Edgar G. Ulmer's THE LIGHT AHEAD, MURDER IS MY BEAT and BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER, as well as his co-directorial effort with Robert Siodmak PEOPLE ON SUNDAY, will keep you firmly planted in one of the Howard Gilman Theater's very comfy seats from 1pm til eleven. The FLSC alo offers killer popcorn. i was kidding about the snob dump line. Oh fine be that way, Pena.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic screenings in January '14 click on the interactive calendar on he upper right hand side of the page. And be sure to follow me on both Facebook, where I provide further info and esoterica on the rep film circuit and star birthdays, and Twitter, where I provide a daily feed for the day's screenings and other blathery. Back with a brand new Pick tomorrow, til then don't schploink your boss's nephew's wife and advise the other lads and lasses do likewise. Didn't ya learn nothin'?
-Joe Walsh
