John Boorman's DELIVERANCE (American Revival)

Gene Siskel Film Center — Friday and Tuesday, 6pm
Since the plot of this film is so widely known, let's talk about the artists and the issues. Ned Beatty was never better, Jon Voight showed us that MIDNIGHT COWBOY was not a fluke, and Burt Reynolds played the hell out of the most perfect role he was ever given. But they all had to kick back and watch when Ronny Cox and Billy Redden gave us the most iconic bluegrass jam ever to grace the silver screen. These performances were buttressed by the impeccable authenticity that cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond delivered, making use of natural lighting almost throughout. Danger and moral ambiguity are still tangibly felt upon repeat viewings, owing mainly to the depth of James Dickey's script (and not hurt by his appearance as the Sheriff of Aintry, GA). It could be labeled a celebration of machismo, earned through a journey of conquest and killing—an appeasement of the male ego through self-reflexive masochism. Of course the film does this as a questioning of the position of men in white, suburban America in the early '70s. As Stepanie Farber said in her 1972 New York Times review: "In the film the journey has no purpose; nothing is achieved, nothing gained. The last images express a sense of total desolation. There is no sentimentality in the film; it is a serious and meaningful challenge to the belief in rites of manhood." SAIC professor Jim Trainor lectures at the Tuesday screening. (1972, 110 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

Ingmar Bergman's THE VIRGIN SPRING (Swedish Revival)

Gene Siskel Film Center — Friday, 6:15pm and Tuesday, 6pm
In his first full-scale collaboration with cinematographer Sven Nykvist, Ingmar Bergman set the bar pretty high when he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film. More importantly, the film marks a turning point in the focus of Bergman's films, sharing both the moral questioning of earlier works, as well as the psychological examinations so prevalent in the films that followed. Adapted from a 13th century Swedish ballad, this tale of murder and revenge is as grim as if it had been penned by Kierkegaard himself, and the subjective camera's presence has a powerful ability to make us disgusted by the acts on screen. Though not graphic by today's standards, the film was nevertheless controversial upon its release, mainly due to the on screen depiction of a girl's rape and murder. Outside of the plot, it is also a visual turning point for Bergman, who utilizes vast, natural landscapes more organically than in his previous films, while keeping the implied allegory. The medieval manor house where much of the film takes place, and the historical costuming of the characters, are treated without awe by the filmmaker, creating an understated backdrop for some heavy questioning of the human condition. SAIC professor Jim Trainor lectures at the Tuesday screening. (1960, 89 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

David Lynch's BLUE VELVET (American Revival/Cult)

Doc Films (University of Chicago) - Wednesday, 7 and 9:30pm
This is where the legend really began. It's curious to think how Lynch's career would have developed if DUNE (1984) had not been a box office failure, but cinema history can thank him for not playing it safe with this rebound project. Though Lynch had already made three features, VELVET was the first full articulation of his core theme of the evil that lurks in small towns everywhere. Not the outright surrealist endeavor that was ERASERHEAD, it is also not the most accessible of narratives. Dark, violent, sexual, and reeking of 1963 suburbia, the film is at times a noir mystery and at others a violent thriller. Many of the visual symbols that would populate TWIN PEAKS are introduced here, such as red curtains appearing when danger is present, and Lynch's continued growth as a complete cinematic artist is evident. Despite having a cast that didn't feature a legitimate star (Dennis Hopper may be the exception, but his career was in the dumps when he was cast...as the third choice), the film earned Lynch his second Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, as well as praise from critics throughout the world. It's also notable that Kyle MacLachlan (essentially playing Dale Cooper) might never have worked again if not for his excellent performance. Still dangerous twenty years later, the film is as gorgeous as it is classic. (1986, 120 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

Kathryn Bigelow's NEAR DARK & POINT BREAK (Contemp. Revival)

Portage Theater - Thursday, 7:30pm (Dark) and 9:30pm (Break)
As a director Kathryn Bigelow exists in that strange place where she is respected by her peers and critics, enjoys a cult following of movie buffs, but has yet to gain mainstream name recognition. A woman who is best known for her work in the traditionally masculine genres of Action, Sci-Fi, and Horror, she consistently makes good films that don't earn quite enough at the box office. Her 2009 feature, THE HURT LOCKER, a story about the members of a US army bomb squad in Iraq that has won numerous awards at film festivals worldwide, has sparked a renewed interest in her earlier work and a chance to reassess her importance as a contemporary auteur. In NEAR DARK (1987, 94 min, 35mm), which Bigelow also co-scripted, tropes of the Western genre are combined with a Vampire story, set on the late 1980s Great Plains. From the opening scene of Caleb, our Oklahoma farm boy protagonist, driving to town in his beat-up truck for a night of beer and girls, to the final battle between humans and the undead, there is rarely a plot twist. Instead, Bigelow sets a scene and lets our expectations of the genre do the rest. Outside of Caleb and the Vamp who turns him, there is a minimum of character development and explanation. The word "Vampire" is never used in the film, and when our hero gets up on his horse for the first time, we know the good guys will win. At the core, Caleb's human family is pitted against the outcast Vampire family that takes him in, and Bigelow continues this theme in her 1991 studio debut, POINT BREAK (1991, 120 min, 35mm). Southern California has suffered a string of bank robberies, and a rookie FBI agent (Keanu Reeves) follows his veteran partner's hunch that the criminals are also surfers. Reeves goes undercover to infiltrate the gang, led by Patrick Swayze, and falls in love with their thrill-seeking lifestyle and Swayze's live for the moment philosophy. Reeves is finally accepted as one of the boys, and when his cover is blown he is forced to make a choice between the lost-boys family of surfers and his responsibility as a lawman. Featuring extended sequences of surfing and skydiving, POINT BREAK uses these narrative asides to increase the suspense of its crime genre core. Again, extended explanations of the two worlds are never provided, giving the story the economy of convention to explore itself. JH - Cine-File.info

Alfred Hitchcock's THE LADY VANISHES (Classic Revival)

Music Box - Saturday and Sunday, 11:30am
Although film schools all teach a semester-long course on Alfred Hitchcock, they might as well just show 1938's THE LADY VANISHES on the first day of freshman year and tell the students he never got it quite as right again. In the director's penultimate UK feature, the plot is tight and the action is full of suspense, but it is the characters that keep us entertained throughout. Margaret Atwood's heroine and Michael Redgrave's unlikely academic hero lead the cast in this tale of international espionage (on a train, of course), but the supporting duo of Caldicott & Charters (Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford) steal their scenes as a pair of dry humored Brits only interested in a cricket match back home. With an overt critique of Britain's pre-war non-intervention policy woven in, the sometimes slapstick, sometimes understated humor of Hitchcock charms us throughout the film in a way that only resurfaced occasionally in his US work. Francois Truffaut, who claimed to have seen the film twice a week at some points, told Hitchcock "Since I know it by heart, I tell myself each time that I’m going to ignore the plot (and study the technique and effect). But each time, I become so absorbed by the characters and the story that I’ve yet to figure out the mechanics of the film.” (1938, 97 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info