[Reader-list] [Announcements] THE CINEMATIC CITY

[Dean School of Arts and Aesthetics]

India Habitat Centre
 

THE CINEMATIC CITY
A Film Series
 
Curated and Introduced
by

Ranjani Mazumdar
(Associate Professor School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU)

 

All the films will be screened at 6.30 pm at Gulmohar and will be introduced and discussed by Ranjani Mazumdar (Filmmaker and Film Scholar). On June 12th, the curator will introduce the entire package before the screening of the first film. She will also briefly introduce and facilitate discussion for the individual films. 


June 12th – 6.30 p.m   (Introduction to the Series by Curator, Ranjani Mazumdar)

Four Hundred Blows directed by Francois Truffaut (1959/ France/ 99 minutes)

Considered to be one of the most influential films about adolescence, The Four Hundred Blows follows 13-year-old Antoine (Jean-Pierre Leaud), as he turns to a life of small time crime to escape the neglect he receives at home from his parents and the harsh criticism of his teacher. The Four Hundred Blows is a non-judgemental film about injustice, pain, and the events in a young boy's life that make him the person he is. Neither good nor bad, Truffaut treats Antoine with warmth and compassion as a child caught up in a maelstrom not of his own making. The grace and perfection of the film has made it the standard against which all films on the subject of youth are judged, and Leaud's portrayal that to which all-young performers' are compared. 

June 19th – 6.30 p.m (Film Introduced by Curator, Ranjani Mazumdar)

Stray Dog directed by Akira Kurosawa (1949/ Japan/ 122 minutes)

An early encounter between Kurosawa and two of his favourite actors, Mifune and Shimura, both playing detectives in Japan's uneasy postwar period under U.S imperialism. When Mifune's pistol is stolen, he is overwhelmed by a feeling of dishonour rather than failure and sets out on a descent into the lower depths of Tokyo's underworld, which gradually reveals Dostoevskian parallels between himself and his quarry. A sweltering summer is at its height, and Kurosawa's strenuous location shooting transforms the city into a sensuous collage of fluttering fans and delicate, sweating limbs. A fine blend of U.S thriller material with Japanese conventions, Stray Dog is a fine Classic. 

June 24th – 6.30 p.m (Film Introduced by Curator, Ranjani Mazumdar)

Rififi directed by Jules Dassin (1955/ France/ 117 minutes)

The story concerns a collection of thieves led by Tony Stephanois (Jean Servais) who band together to commit a seemingly impossible robbery. The set piece of the film is an intricate 28-minute sequence that depicts the robbery in detail -- all filmed silently without dialogue or music. After the success of the robbery, the gang barely has time to celebrate when a rival gangster, Pierre Gruuter (Marcel Lupovici), decides that he wants a cut of the take. When Tony's gang refuses to cooperate, Pierre kidnaps Jo's son, and the gang has to get tough with their nemesis. Adapted from Auguste Le Breton's pulp novel "Du Rififi Chez Les Hommes" - the word rififi is underworld slang, approximately translating as pitched conflict. One of cinema's seminal heist movies, Riffifi's central robbery sequence has influenced the likes of Mission Impossible and Ocean's Eleven 

June 27th – 6.30 p.m (Film introduced by Curator, Ranjani Mazumdar)

Roma directed by Federico Fellini (1972/Italy/ 119 minutes)

Roma is a lavish autobiography, full of "lush fantasy sequences and monumental pageantry" (Los Angeles Times), as Fellini outlandishly pays tribute to his beloved city Rome. The film begins with Fellini as a youngster living in the Italian countryside. In school he studies the eclectic but parochial history of ancient Rome and then is introduced as a young man to the real thing - arriving in this strange new city on the outbreak of World War II. Here through a series of vignettes brimming with satire and spark, the filmmaker comes to grips with a "sprawling boisterous, bursting at the seams portrait of Rome"(interview), reinterpreting with his inimitable style an Italian history full of sensual imagery and adventurous perception.

June 29th – 6.30 p.m (Film introduced by Curator, Ranjani Mazumdar)  
City of God directed by Fernando Meirelles (2002/Brazil/ 130 minutes)

Celebrated with worldwide acclaim, this powerful true story of crime and redemption has won numerous awards around the globe. The Streets of the World's most notorious slum, Rio de Janeiro's "City of God," are a place where combat photographers fear to tread, police rarely go and residents are lucky if they live to the age of 20. In the midst of the oppressive crime and violence, a frail and scared young boy will grow up to discover that he can view the harsh realities of his surroundings with a different eye: the eye of an artist. In the face of impossible odds, his brave ambition to become a professional photographer becomes a window into his world and ultimately his way out.



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