November 24 – December 10, 2000 |
American Cinematheque presents... Blow Your Mind: The 2nd Great Big 70 MM Festival |
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| Series Compiled by Dennis Bartok, Paul Rayton and Chris D.
Special Thanks to: Michael Schlesinger/COLUMBIA PICTURES REPERTORY; Fritz Herzog/ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS & SCIENCES – Film Archive; Mark Spratt/CHAPEL DISTRIBUTION-POTENTIAL FILMS; Peggy Flynn & John Flynn/HOLLYWOOD CLASSICS; John Kirk & Yvonne Dickens/MGM-UA; Linda Evans-Smith & Marilee Womack/WARNER BROS. CLASSICS; Marc Bovee & Schawn Belston/20th CENTURY FOX; Mark Magidson/MAGIDSON FILMS; Bill Lawrence/NATIONAL MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY, FILM & TELEVISION (U.K.); William Peter Blatty; Dan Lemeiter/TODD-AO. Tickets are available 30 days in advance.
SCHEDULE (by series) SCHEDULE (by date) |
From Super Technirama 70 to Ultra Panavision to
Dimension 150 and more, the 70 mm. large-screen format promised – and delivered
– a Barnum-esque world of spectacular sights and 6-track sounds. If the
movies were always larger-than-life, then 70 mm. movies were MUCH much larger – films
like BEN-HUR, AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, 2001 – A SPACE
ODYSSEY and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. From 1955 to 1970 – the Golden Age of 70
mm. filmmaking – there were nearly 60 Hollywood features shot in large format, with
many more released in special engagements as 35 mm.-to-70 mm. blow-ups (which still
offered superior sound and image quality to their 35 mm. counterparts.) This series is a rare opportunity to experience 70 mm. as it was meant to be seen: on a big, beautiful screen, with booming, 6-track multi-channel sound. Following the success of last year’s Festival, we’ve searched archives around the U.S. and worldwide for 70 mm. prints – including the only existing copies of BEN-HUR, THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES and NIGHTS & DAYS – and have brought back several of the sold-out favorites from last year, including BARAKA, and the soon-to-be-withdrawn LAWRENCE OF ARABIA! Friday, November 24 – 8:00 PM Saturday, November 25 – 5:00 PM & 9:15 PM Sunday, November 26 – 5:00 PM Super Panavision 70 mm Print – Exclusive Farewell Engagement!! LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, 1962, Columbia, 216 min. This is your last chance to see LAWRENCE OF ARABIA in 70 mm. before Columbia Pictures withdraws it from distribution (to work on the print), so don’t miss it! The beautiful, near-godlike Peter O’Toole stars as the tortured, Man Who Would Not Be King in director David Lean’s absolute masterpiece – as close to perfect as a film can get. Co-starring Alec Guiness, Anthony Quinn, Arthur Kennedy and Omar Sharif. *As of 11/23, no shows are sold-out. Please be aware that there will be street closures for the Hollywood Christmas Parade on 11/26. You may want to take the metro to Highland or plan to park south of Sunset at Las Palmas or McCadden Pl. Thursday, November 30 – 8:00 PM Friday, December 1 – 8:00 PM Only Existing 70 mm. Print – 2 Screenings Only!! BEN-HUR, 1959, MGM (Warners), 212 min. We scoured the globe for BEN-HUR, and located the only screenable 70 mm. print of the film in Australia – this is without a doubt your only chance to see director William Wyler’s magnificent epic in 70 mm. for many years to come. Boyhood comrades Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd grow up to be fierce enemies in the time of Christ. The grueling chariot race is worth the price of admission alone. Winner of 11 Oscars including Best Picture. Originally premiered at the Egyptian Theatre! Special Ticket Price of $10.00 General, $7.00 Members for BEN-HUR.
Saturday, December 2 Sunday, December 3 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM on both days. HISTORIC TOURS OF THE EGYPTIAN THEATRE Join us for an in-depth, behind-the-scenes tour of the historic 1922 Egyptian Theatre. Find out how the Egyptian brought the stars to Hollywood. See what it would have been like to be in a Grauman stage show with a visit to the dressing rooms and singers’ boxes. Discover the painstaking restoration work and the marriage of modern technology with a landmark of Hollywood history. Check out our state-of-the-art projection booth and more! For the total "Old Hollywood" experience, combine a tour and a screening of FOREVER HOLLYWOOD (11:00 AM on both days). Tour tickets: $7 Adults$5 under 12 years/over 65 years/Cinematheque Members$10 Tour & Film Combo
Saturday, December 2 – 6:00 PM Only Surviving Todd AO 70 mm. Print!! Director Ken Annakin In Person! THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES, 1965, 20th Century Fox, 132 min. Stuart Whitman, Sarah Miles, Robert Morley, James Fox and the ever-delightful Terry-Thomas star as a group of lovably crack-pot aviators, inventors & villains competing to win a London to Paris air race in 1910, in director Ken Annakin’s combination of epic adventure and slapstick comedy. We’ve brought in the only surviving 70 mm. print of the film from England, just for this screening. Director Ken Annakin will appear for discussion. This is new information, not listed on our printed calendar.
Saturday, December 2 – 9:00 PM TWINKLE, TWINKLE, KILLER KANE aka THE NINTH CONFIGURATION, 1980, Warner Bros. 118 min. Hilarious, thrilling and all-together amazing fusion of horror film, ultra-black comedy and religious allegory, directed and written by THE EXORCIST author William Peter Blatty. Stacy Keach stars as the head psychiatrist assigned to straighten out the inmates in a decaying castle taken over the U.S. military. We didn’t even know this existed in 70 mm., so don’t miss this one!
Sunday, December 3 -- 5:00 PM Super Panavision 70!! MY FAIR LADY, 1964, Hollywood Classics, 170 min. Domineering speech-expert Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison, in his finest performance) transforms flower girl Eliza Doolittle (the never-lovelier Audrey Hepburn) into a beautiful, swan-like lady, in director George Cukor’s sumptuous adaptation of the Lerner & Loewe musical classic. Winner of 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director and Actor. Co-starring Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde White and Jeremy Brett. Originally premiered at the Egyptian Theatre!
Friday, December 8 – 7:00 PM "Visionary, shimmeringly beautiful … sheer gorgeousness in Todd AO 70 mm.!" – Kevin Thomas, L.A. Times. Producer Mark Magidson In-Person! BARAKA, 1992, Magidson Films, 96 min. One of the stand-out hits from last year’s Fest is back for a return engagement! Inspired by the Sufi word that means "breath of life," BARAKA is a mind-expanding, spiritual journey around the globe from director/cinematographer Ron Fricke (who shot the earlier KOYANNISQATSI.) Filmed without dialogue, in a stunning cascade of crystalline, time-lapse 70 mm. images, BARAKA is quite simply breathtaking. "Smashingly edited, superbly scored … speaks volumes about the planet without uttering a single word." – Suzan Ayscough, Variety. Discussion following with producer Mark Magidson. Friday, December 8 – 9:15 PM TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY, 1991, Columbia, 136 min. "A violent movie about world peace" is how director James Cameron described this high-octane sequel to the original TERMINATOR. Like his earlier ALIENS, T-2 is less a remake than a re-imagining of the first film -- here, Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger is an obsolete killer, sent back as guardian to Linda Hamilton and teenage son Edward Furlong. The strangely-elegant morphing effects of the T-1000 are dazzling -- but it’s Cameron’s uncanny blend of pop humor and visionary sci-fi that make TERMINATOR 2 the ultimate in Future Shock.
Saturday, December 9 – 5:00 PM SILVERADO, 1985, Columbia, 132 min. Director Lawrence Kasdan’s highly entertaining (and sadly underrated) attempt to update the classic Western stars Kevin Costner, Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn and Danny Glover as a band of mismatched, DIRTY DOZEN type cowboys, gamblers and gunslingers who band together to save a frontier town. Saturday, December 9 – 8:15 PM THE LAST EMPEROR, 1987, Columbia, 160 min. Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci. Ravishing, Oscar-winning epic (shown here in the original, shorter version) of the life of Pu Yi (John Lone), from 3-year old emperor of China to humble Peking gardener. Literally a film about before – and after – the Revolution, LAST EMPEROR is an elegiac swan-song to the end of one era, and the beginning of another. Winner of 9 Academy Awards, includinb Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography and Art Direction.
Sunday, December 10 – 5:00 PM Only Existing 70 mm. Print!! NIGHTS AND DAYS (NOCE I DNIE), 1975, Poland, 284 min. Virtually unknown and unseen in the U.S., Polish director Jerzy Antczak’s masterpiece is a sweepingly emotional epic of five decades in the life of an often-selfish but stong-willed woman (played by the simply astounding Jadwiga Baranska) who is caught up in the terrible conflicts of 19th century Europe. Imagine DR. ZHIVAGO told from a woman’s point of view, revealed in a series of stunning flashbacks filled with fire and snow, women whirling in lace gowns and bearded farmers wandering through wheatfields, and you have some idea of the tremendous poetry of NIGHTS AND DAYS. "A film of exquisite, often tumultuous beauty ... brings an inevitable and favorable comparison to GONE WITH THE WIND." – Kevin Thomas, L.A. Times. |