Laemmle Theatres and Emerging Pictures are pleased to present LEONARD COHEN’S SONGS FROM THE ROAD, screening only three times: Thursday, September 9th at 7:30 and Saturday and Sunday, September 11th and 12th at 11 a.m. at five Laemmle venues: the Claremont 5/Claremont, Sunset 5/Los Angeles, Playhouse 7/Pasadena, Town Center 5/Encino and Monica 4-Plex/Santa Monica.
In 2008, following the celebration of his 40th year as a Columbia recording artist and coinciding with his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Leonard Cohen thrilled his fans by announcing his first tour dates in 15 years. Cohen went on to play the most prestigious and beautiful venues in virtually every corner of the globe, mesmerizing and charming audiences with performances that were hailed as some of the best of his career. LEONARD COHEN’S SONGS FROM THE ROAD features a dozen of Cohen’s most famous songs from that world tour, captured during performances at auditoriums, arenas, and stadiums from Tel Aviv to London to the California desert, all filmed in stunning hi-def.
"'The Art of the Steal' is a documentary that chronicles the long and dramatic struggle for control of the Barnes Foundation, a private collection of Post-Impressionist and early Modern art valued at more than $25 billion." Actually, it's $25-$35 billion. The value is really incalculable. Albert C. Barnes (1872-1951) was a Philadelphian of working-class origins who used his fortune from an antiseptic compound called Argyrol to collect: 181 Renoirs, 69 Cezannes, 59 Matisses (including his commissioned, unique, Art of the Dance murals), 46 Picassos, 21 Soutines, 18 Rousseaus, 16 Modiglianis, 11 Degas, 7 Van Goghs, 6 Seurats, 4 Manets and 4 Monets. And these are quality, not just quantity: they include some of the named artists' best works. For Renoir,Cezanne, and Matisse, this collection is unique, and there may be no other private collectionof such work of this magnitude.
Barnes was a great collector. He was also famously cranky and opinionated. He deeply and lastingly resented the fat cats of the city of Philadelphia who mocked the work in his collection when it was first shown. He chose to keep the collection away from those Philadelphian fat cats. A friend of the philosopher and educational theorist John Dewey, he built a museum in Merion, Pennsylvania (five miles from Philadelphia) on his own land, a 12-acre Arboretum, and restricted visits, running the Foundation as a teaching institution, which was his main focus in life from the Twenties till his death in a car accident in 1951. The collection was displayed as in a house, arranged with furniture and decorations, in aesthetically pleasing (if rather overly-symmetrical) groupings, rather than in the contemporary museum's open space, white wall style.
Barnes' will specified that the collection must never be loaned out or sold. His will put Lincoln University, a small black college, in charge of the collection after his death.
For a long time the Foundation was run by a close follower of the Barnes spirit, Violette de Mazia. But after she died in 1988, gradually, and recently quite rapidly, the will has been abrogated, the trust broken. In the Nineties, an ambitious man named Richard H. Glanton, who was then in charge loaned the collection to various major venues, including the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and ending, ironically, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, ostensibly to raise money. More recently a powerful nexus of politicians (the governor and the mayor of Philadelphia), the Annenbergs, the Philidelphia Museum, and rich charitable organizations, mainly the Pew Foundation, have worked not only to get control away from Lincoln University but to move the whole collection to a new building in the city of Philadelphia, where Barnes emphatically did not want his collection to be.
Germany in the 1970s: Murderous bomb attacks, the threat of terrorism and the fear of the enemy inside are rocking the very foundations of the still fragile German democracy. The radicalized children of the Nazi generation led by Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu), Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck) and Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek) are fighting a violent war against what they perceive as the new face of fascism: American imperialism supported by the German establishment, many of whom have a Nazi past.
Their aim is to create a more human society but by employing inhuman means they not only spread terror and bloodshed, they also lose their own humanity. The man who understands them is also their hunter: the head of the German police force, Horst Herold (Bruno Ganz). And while he succeeds in his relentless pursuit of the young terrorists, he knows he's only dealing with the tip of the iceberg.
Producer and scriptwriter Bernd Eichinger (PERFUME - STORY OF A MURDERER, DOWNFALL) brings Stefan Aust’s standard work on RAF terrorism, THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX to the big screen for Constantin Film. Director Uli Edel (LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN, ZOO) presents the dramatic events that shook the democratic foundations of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1967 to the “German Autumn” of 1977.
La Strada can sometimes come across as similar to the Hollywood films made in the 1950s, but for the most part, is a unique and beautiful story. It concerns a young woman, Gelsomina, being given to traveling "artist" Zampano by her poor mother in exchange for money. Zampano makes his money by traveling around Italy, putting on a strong-man show for crowds. Gelsomina has dreams of becoming an artist as well, and therefore was more than happy to go with Zampano, but Gelsomina quickly realises that Zampano is nothing more than a drunkard and a brute, with eating, sleeping and sex being the only things he cares for.
The character of Gelsomina, played by Giulietta Masina, is the highlight of the film. With a face like no other, it exudes a certain beauty but is also very odd, with a definite quirkiness to it …"like an artichoke". Masina is excellent as expressing emotions with nothing more than a look, and it is because of this that the film stands strong. The story itself is simple, but with Gelsomina being such a romantic at heart, she is constantly searching for love and an understanding of a world she doesn't know, being such a sheltered loner when living with her mother and four younger sisters.
Zampano, the traveling strong-man, follows the basic of human instincts, irrespective of their bearing on others, namely Gelsomina. Anthony Quinn gives the character a great ignorance, Zampano being, for the most part, oblivious to the impact his actions have, only wanting to be able to earn money to eat and drink wine, and sleep with women. It is not until Zampano and Gelsomina (Gelsomina having become Zampano's sidekick in his traveling show) take on a position as part of a circus in town, and Gelsomina meets an acrobat clown, credited in the film as Il Matto – The Fool. She falls for his happy and carefree nature, exampled when he teases Zampano whilst he is trying to do his show. Zampano soon despises the Fool, and becomes jealous of the friendship forming between Gelsomina and the clown. This is where Zampano begins to show real emotion, and although he doesn't deal with the situation in the most appropriate way, it is the beginning of his life experience that changes him forever.
The film is gorgeous, with some memorable characters, namely Gelsomina. It doesn't end on a happy note, but you are still left satisfied with the story told, especially the lesson taught to Zampano, although it was all too late for him, and it is not certain that he learned from the experience. Masina is an absolute delight to watch, holding you captive with her face alone, beaming with love. The film is not for those looking for Hollywood drama and action, but for anyone who knows how it feels to be confused and in need of understanding about life's ways.
Hailed as one of the finest films ever made, legendary director François Truffaut’s early masterpiece Jules and Jim charts the relationship between two friends and the object of their mutual obsession over the course of twenty-five years. About Essential Art House : Laemmle Theatres and Emerging Cinema are presenting ESSENTIAL ARTHOUSE, a summer weekend morning series of classic world cinema from the peerless Janus Films Library.
Laemmle Theatres and Emerging Cinema continue their ongoing summer series ESSENTIAL ARTHOUSE, with Akira Kurosawa’s highly influential High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku).
Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in Adapting Ed McBain’s detective novel King’s Ransom, Kurosawa moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a penetrating portrait of contemporary Japanese society.
ESSENTIAL ARTHOUSE, is a summer weekend morning series of classic world cinema from the peerless Janus Films Library.
Laemmle Theatres screens all the movies in this series via digital cinema projection at the Music Hall in Beverly Hills, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., (310) 274-6869, the Playhouse 7 in Pasadena (673 E. Colorado Blvd., (626) 844-6500) and the Town Center in Encino (17200 Ventura Blvd., (818) 981-9811) simultaneously. All screenings begin at 11 a.m. except SEVEN SAMURAI, which starts at 10 a.m.
Laemmle Theatres and Emerging Cinema are pleased to present ESSENTIAL ARTHOUSE, a summer weekend morning series of classic world cinema from the peerless Janus Films Library.
Laemmle Theatres screens all the movies in this series via digital cinema projection simultaneously. All screenings begin at 11 a.m. except SEVEN SAMURAI, which starts at 10 a.m.
06/20 - 06/21 THE 400 BLOWS, 1959, Francois Truffaut 06/27 - 06/28 BLACK ORPHEUS, 1959, Marcel Camus 07/04 - 07/05 HIGH AND LOW, 1963, Akira Kurosawa 07/11 - 07/12 JULES AND JIM, 1962, Francois Truffaut 07/18 - 07/19 KNIFE IN THE WATER, 1962, Roman Polanski 07/25 - 07/26 LA STRADA, 1954, Federico Fellini 08/01 - 08/02 PYGMALION, 1938, Anthony Asquith 08/08 - 08/09 SEVEN SAMURAI 1954, Akira Kurosawa 08/15 - 08/16 THE SEVENTH SEAL, 1957, Ingmar Bergman 08/22 - 08/23 THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE, 1973, Victor Erice 08/29 - 08/30 SUMMERTIME, 1955, David Lean 09/05 - 09/07 WILD STRAWBERRIES, 1957, Ingmar Bergman
