8/7/21 - 9/4/21

DAYDREAMS AND NIGHTMARES AT THE LOS FELIZ 3

ABOUT THE SERIES

In this first American Cinematheque series at the Los Feliz 3 Theatre, we pay tribute to some of our favorite filmmakers’ most wildly imaginative cinematic dreams, as we celebrate the long-awaited fulfillment of one of our own: bringing our programming to the east side! 

Since the earliest days of cinema, filmmakers have turned to the language of dreams to find ways of expressing the inexpressible, whether it’s an unconscious desire, memory, or fear. One of the simplest forms of dreamlike cinema, however, is that of fantasy, which relies on the logic of daydreams and unfettered imagination. Buster Keaton’s 1924 “Sherlock Jr.” is a shining example of cinema’s fantastical relationship with dreams, as the story largely takes place within the mind of the Keaton’s protagonist, a movie projectionist who dreams that he can “enter” the film he screens. Similarly, THE WIZARD OF OZ brings to life a spectacular dreamworld imagined by Judy Garland’s Dorothy.

Many of such fantasy films focus on children, who reveal their inner desires and anxieties through dreams. In Dr. Seuss’ THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR T, a young boy dreams of a world in which children are enslaved and forced to practice the piano for eternity. Wolfgang Peterson’s 1984 classic THE NEVERENDING STORY follows a shy young boy, whose inner life expands into a vivid fantastical environment when he begins reading a magical book. Albert Lamorisse’s short film “The Red Balloon,” narrows on the imaginative mind of a child, as he discovers a sentient balloon. And Bernard Rose’s more adult-themed psychological drama PAPERHOUSE, imagines a surreal world strangely more comforting to the young protagonists than the harsh real worlds around them. 

Rose’s PAPERHOUSE is also an example of dream cinema’s relation to horror films, as it often relies more heavily on nightmares than on fantasies. While cinematic nightmares may typically evoke examples of traditional horror films, some films manage to frighten us by subverting traditional genre devices. PAPERHOUSE, for example, projects the child’s existential fear of an absent father into the dream world in lieu of a horrific monster. Similarly, Bill Gunn’s vampire film GANJA AND HESS evokes terror not so much through blood and gore, but through the character’s hallucinatory dream state, which mixes discordant modes of expression to unsettling effect.  

Other films resemble nightmares through a more purely visceral sense by the filmmaker’s commitment to the unexplainable and the uncanny. David Lynch’s legendary midnight movie ERASERHEAD, Nobuhiko Obayashi’s supernatural fever dream HAUSU and David Cronenberg’s poetic bug-infested NAKED LUNCH, each employ unsettling cinematic techniques that disturb our sense of reality. 

Some filmmakers use the language of dreams not for nightmares nor fantasies, but to elucidate the fragile nature of memory. Such films are often autobiographical and draw upon specific memories and dreams from the filmmakers’ lives. Andrei Tarkovsky’s MIRROR, Julie Dash’s DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST, and Akira Kurosawa’s DREAMS all work in this vein, by assembling nonlinear collages of personal memories, which appeal more to our tactile sense of dreams than to our logical understanding of them. Films like Ingmar Bergman’s WILD STRAWBERRIES, Frank & Eleanor Perry’s THE SWIMMER and Kasi Lemmons’ EVE’S BAYOU achieve similar results through more familiar means, as the protagonists in each film use memories as a way of looking backwards and examining the past. 

Lastly, other dream films belong wholly to the unconscious and convey an indescribable sense of desire. Luis Buñuel, who is perhaps the filmmaker most associated with dreams, pioneered dreamlike cinema with his 1929 short “Un Chien Andalou” and went on to make many films focused on desire, including BELLE DE JOUR, the story of a housewife turned prostitute starring Catherine Deneuve. Parallels can be seen here in Stanley Kubrick’s erotic mystery EYES WIDE SHUT, which examines a seemingly average marriage through the dreamlike prism of desire and fantasy. While in Bunuel and Kubrick’s films, the sense of desire is overt, other films, like David Lynch’s MULHOLLAND DR. and Claire Denis’ BEAU TRAVAIL, present desire as a mysterious quality bubbling under the surface of the narrative, gradually revealing itself to both the audience and the characters.  

Join us for this month-long series at the Los Feliz 3 as we celebrate the cinema of dreams—from fantasies to nightmares and personal reflections to unconscious desires—directed by visionary filmmakers from around the world! 

Read More about ERASERHEAD
Sat August 7, 2021

10:30 PM

ERASERHEAD

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about MIRROR
Sun August 8, 2021

7:30 PM

MIRROR

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | New Restoration

Read More about MIRROR
Mon August 9, 2021

10:00 PM

MIRROR

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | New Restoration

Read More about EVE'S BAYOU
Tue August 10, 2021

7:00 PM

EVE'S BAYOU

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about EVE'S BAYOU
Tue August 10, 2021

10:00 PM

EVE'S BAYOU

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about MIRROR
Wed August 11, 2021

10:00 PM

MIRROR

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | New Restoration

Read More about AKIRA KUROSAWA'S DREAMS
Thu August 12, 2021

7:00 PM

AKIRA KUROSAWA'S DREAMS

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about AKIRA KUROSAWA'S DREAMS
Fri August 13, 2021

1:30 PM

AKIRA KUROSAWA'S DREAMS

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about NAKED LUNCH
Fri August 13, 2021

7:00 PM

NAKED LUNCH

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about THE NEVERENDING STORY
Sat August 14, 2021

1:30 PM

THE NEVERENDING STORY

$8.00 (member) ; $13.00 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about BEAU TRAVAIL
Sun August 15, 2021

4:30 PM

BEAU TRAVAIL

$8.00 (member) ; $13.00 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | 4K Restoration

Read More about MULHOLLAND DR.
Sun August 15, 2021

7:00 PM

MULHOLLAND DR.

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about BEAU TRAVAIL
Mon August 16, 2021

10:00 PM

BEAU TRAVAIL

$8.00 (member) ; $13.00 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | 4K Restoration

Read More about ERASERHEAD
Wed August 18, 2021

10:00 PM

ERASERHEAD

$8.00 (member) ; $13.00 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about THE SWIMMER
Thu August 19, 2021

7:00 PM

THE SWIMMER

$8.00 (member) ; $13.00 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about NAKED LUNCH
Fri August 20, 2021

1:30 PM

NAKED LUNCH

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about THE WIZARD OF OZ
Sat August 21, 2021

1:30 PM

THE WIZARD OF OZ

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | Part of the “Daydreams and Nightmares at the Los Feliz 3” series

Read More about MULHOLLAND DR.
Sat August 21, 2021

10:00 PM

MULHOLLAND DR.

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST
Sun August 22, 2021

4:30 PM

DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | 2K Restoration

Read More about BELLE DE JOUR
Sun August 22, 2021

7:30 PM

BELLE DE JOUR

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about GANJA AND HESS
Tue August 24, 2021

10:00 PM

GANJA AND HESS

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | Part of the “Daydreams and Nightmares at the Los Feliz 3” series

Read More about DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST
Wed August 25, 2021

10:00 PM

DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | 2K Restoration

Read More about WILD STRAWBERRIES (Smultronstället)
Thu August 26, 2021

7:00 PM

WILD STRAWBERRIES (Smultronstället)

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about MIRROR
Thu August 26, 2021

7:30 PM

MIRROR

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Aero Theatre | New Restoration

Read More about THE SWIMMER
Thu August 26, 2021

10:00 PM

THE SWIMMER

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about WILD STRAWBERRIES (Smultronstället)
Fri August 27, 2021

1:30 PM

WILD STRAWBERRIES (Smultronstället)

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T
Sat August 28, 2021

1:30 PM

THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | Part of the “Daydreams and Nightmares at the Los Feliz 3” series

Read More about PAPERHOUSE
Sat August 28, 2021

7:00 PM

PAPERHOUSE

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | Q&A following with director Bernard Rose and writer Matthew Jacobs

Read More about HOUSE (Hausu)
Sat August 28, 2021

10:00 PM

HOUSE (Hausu)

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about HOUSE (Hausu)
Sun August 29, 2021

10:00 PM

HOUSE (Hausu)

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about EYES WIDE SHUT
Tue August 31, 2021

7:00 PM

EYES WIDE SHUT

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about PAPERHOUSE
Wed September 1, 2021

10:00 PM

PAPERHOUSE

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | In 35mm

Read More about HOUSE (Hausu)
Thu September 2, 2021

7:30 PM

HOUSE (Hausu)

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Aero Theatre | In 35mm

Read More about GANJA & HESS
Thu September 2, 2021

7:00 PM

GANJA & HESS

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | Part of the “Daydreams and Nightmares at the Los Feliz 3” series

Read More about THE RED BALLOON / SHERLOCK JR.
Sat September 4, 2021

1:30 PM

THE RED BALLOON / SHERLOCK JR.

$8.00 (member) ; $13 (general admission)

Los Feliz 3 | Part of the “Daydreams and Nightmares at the Los Feliz 3” series