Famous Directors, Early and Unknown films
Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Lars Von Trier, Roman Polanski, David Cronenberg, all MUFF filmmakers! Yes you heard right as we retrospectively induct the above filmmakers into the “MUFF Hall of Fame” by playing their early works this year at our festival. Whether you know it or not all the above filmmakers started as independent low budget filmmakers. We have a great selection of their early films to look at and in the case of Polanski with the readily available collection of shorts available on dvd as part of the Repulsion/Cull de Say box set, we are playing the early seventies seldom seen hedonistic utopian classic “What!” The great thing about all these directors early work is firstly that they show what tremendous careers were spawned from these independent productions. Secondly, while all these films are great they are not that great giving us all hope for the future in our own productions. These fledgling debut efforts from masters like Kubrick, Lynch and Von Trier are comparable in many ways to lots of films we regularly show at MUFF from our local filmmakers. So once again our message to the powers that be in the industry, support independent, avant-garde and guerrilla filmmaking…look what happens when you do!
Stanley Kubrick
Fear and Desire
plus Day of the Fight, Flying Padre and Seafarers
Full program length Approx 2 hours
Kubrick’s rare first feature Fear and Desire has a special screening
at this years MUFF. Shot in the early fifties in a National Park just
outside of LA, Kubrick makes a memorable portrait of men in war. Early
Kubrick themes of the Doppelganger and the meaningless brutality of
war are here as are some stunning photography and set pieces like the
rape of the captive girl and the killing of the German soldiers. Don’t
miss seeing this important link in the Kubrick legacy. This film is
good, but not so good…it
leaves hope for us all! Screening with three ultra rare Kubrick shorts
The Day of the Fight, Flying Padre and Seafarers.
KINO DENDY | 14th July 7pm
David Lynch
Early Shorts
Approx 90 mins
Well what can you say here folks. From the earliest short of men throwing
up, a literal moving painting to the comedy and surrealism of The Cowboy
and The Frenchman, that certainly inspired Mathew Barney, Lynch’s shorts
are like all of his films… wonderful and strange. The Grandmother
is a tale of childhood bed wetting and abuse that leads to the growth
of a bizarre tree in the child’s bed where he pisses it each night… that
then naturally precedes to give birth to an old woman! This short is
a taste of things to come in Eraserhead style and is truly amazing.
The Alphabet is also equally bizarre and unsettling as the nightmare
of Lynch’s
first wife is brought to life in wait for it… nightmarish fashion…an
alchemy of weird vision and sound. Pure genius. A recent short work
for the Lumiere anniversary is included for good measure.
Pop Shop | Tue 12th July 9pm
Lars Von Trier
Nocturne and Images of a Relief
Approx Running time 90 mins
Lars Von Trier’s early film Images of a Relief is an interesting and
revealing early work. Von Trier said on early films of directors, “Most
of the directors that are worth seeing today made fools of themselves
at the start, and those are some of the most interesting films to see
because when one makes a fool of oneself, that’s because one bares
or exposes oneself…the more skilled a director becomes the better
one becomes at controlling oneself. ‘A little bit but not too much’.
But it is in these uncontrolled and exposed films that one finds the essential
core of what that director is all about”. In Images of a Relief set
just after WW2 in Denmark, a fleeing German soldier is tortured for
a crime against a child he did not commit and after he dies is raised
to heaven in a holy ascension... that some have considered a fascist statement.
Fascist? Lars Von Trier, the post-modern darling of the contemporary
film world? So could Von Trier have right wing revolutionary tendencies?
What do you thank that apocalyptic scene at the end of Dogville might mean,
the exterminating angel? Could Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark be interpreted
as a film that totally exploits the emotions of the viewer in a semi
sadistic display of the powers of the director as master manipulator, par
excellence. Von Trier’s new film “Manderlay”, his slavery
film, uses racist language like Clowning Nigger, Talking Nigger and Proudy
Nigger to describe story ‘categories’ of slaves…while
we haven’t
seen the film it certainly raises some questions. Von Trier has a portrait
of eugenicist and Boy Scout founder Baden Powell hanging up in his
office, what up with that Lars? Von Trier was going to direct Richard Wagner’s
ring cycle at Bayreuth but had to pull out due to scheduling difficulties.
Lars VON Trier…his real name is Lars Trier but the Von makes him sound
more Germanic and was his nickname at film school. We could go on but
you get the picture. Von Trier is a revolutionary filmmaker we all
agree on. What type of revolutionary he is not so clear? He could be some
form of left wing revolutionary? This question is something someone from
Senses of Cinema could take up, a political ontology of Lars von Trier or
some astute interviewer could quiz Lars on in future. Anyway these shorts
are well worth watching to make up your mind.
Pop Shop | Fri 15th July 9pm
Roman Polanski
The early short films
Full program length 90 mins
Polanski’s early shorts are some of the most accomplished of all these
directors. His genius apparent right there from the start. But he was
in Poland so it took a little time for the word to get out. Two Men
and a Wardrobe is a classic surreal comedy excursion that begins and
ends with two Men leaving and then going back to the sea in a myth
of Sisyphus style journey of futility. We will play many other great
shorts with of course our favourite Polanski short Le Goss et le maigre
aka The Fat and the Lean that is a pure cinematic pleasure. Don’t miss
these brilliant examples of short cinema.
Pop Shop | Fri 15th July 7pm
David Cronenberg
Stereo and Crimes of the Future
Full program length approx 2 hours
Two brilliant early mini features from the Canadian maestro of the
body perverse. Cronenberg is at his most bizarre and obtuse here in
these films. The strange corporations, new technologies and bodily
mutations of his later works are all here… shot with stark brilliance on location
at post modern architecture University campuses and buildings of Cronenberg’s
choice revealing a strong sense of architectural horror. If you haven’t
caught these two classic mini features you have missed out!
Pop Shop | Tue 12th July 7pm