Review

Can't stop the musical: PFA revels in classics of the form

As soon as the silent era hit sound circa 1927, musicals became a leading film genre worldwide. How could their appeal possibly die out?

Yet it gradually did—starting in the 1950s (despite marvels from Singin’ in the Rain to Gigi), escalating in the late ’60s (when myriad big-budget musicals thirsting after The Sound of Music’s success flopped). Nails were thumped into the coffin by later duds like Lost Horizon (1973), Xanadu and Can’t Stop the Music (both 1980).

topics: comedy, directors, drama, music, musicals, pacific film archive

Take Two

PFA revisits Val Lewton's brooding mood, chilling themes

The horror genre has only grown stronger in recent years—not just commercially, but also in terms of creativity (albeit the latter mostly in the genre’s non-mainstream efforts). Throughout cinema’s first decades, however, horror movies were dismissed by most grownups (and nearly all critics) as juvenile, silly, even offensive.

We can look today at the peak work by 1920s horrormeister Todd Browning (director of Lon Chaney’s greatest hits) and his 1930s successor James Whale (of the first Boris Karloff Frankensteins, plus The Invisible Man) and realize they made some of the finest films of their Hollywood era. But at the time, theirs and all other horror films were considered basically stupid—as was anything that hinged on superstition.

topics: actors, cult cinema, curators, directors, pacific film archive

Experience

It's "Playtime" with Jacques Tati in two new series

You could make a case for Jacques Tati as the last great silent comedian—even if he didn’t begin making features until two decades into the sound era. Certainly he had more in common as a filmmaker with the styles of Chaplin and Buster Keaton than any major comic talents of subsequent decades, including primarily slapstick (rather than verbal) ones like Laurel & Hardy.

His contribution remains unique—the closest comparisons being, perhaps, Keaton for his deadpan orchestration of extraordinary physical chaos, and the current cult Swedish director Roy Andersson (You, the Living) for his existential absurdism built through meticulously designed setpieces sans conventional plot or character focus. If Keaton was once a thoroughly mainstream entertainer, and Andersson is something of a rarefied arthouse secret, Tati was a bit of both—a critical favorite who enjoyed his moment of international success, albeit all too briefly.

topics: actors, audiences, cinephiles, comedy, directors, pacific film archive, world cinema, yerba buena center for the arts

Platform

Pamela Jean Smith brings home movies to the big screen

Home movies have been around since the Lumières, and there’s no doubt their fascination goes beyond the den. Though often made for private reasons, they are treasure troves of culture ephemera and social history. Most of all, they speak loss (the French refer to them as "films-souvenirs"). The home movie represents a distinct ecology of moving images, incorporating domestic life, travelogue, ritual and relaxation. When every family has its own private archive, what is the role of the public one? Pamela Jean Smith, a film preservationist at the Pacific Film Archive, has spearheaded the Berkeley chapter of Home Movie Day, an event used to raise awareness of the endangered legacy of amateur celluloid. After many months of fielding submissions, she’s prepared a public program for October 17. Among its other pre-YouTube mementos, the show will pay special tribute to home movies shot in Kodachrome, the rich-hued film stock recently discontinued by Kodak. Increasingly, celluloid itself is part of the home movie’s fable of days gone by. Smith agreed to talk about the selection process for Home Movie Day and how it broadens her mission as a film preservationist.

topics: archives, audiences, authors, bay area, diy, documentary, pacific film archive

Experience

Tangerine dreams: Cinémathèque de Tanger showcases Morocco

No matter what you’ve heard about Tangier—that it’s a town of hustlers, bandits and drugs, or is a mecca for artists and writers from Eugene Delacroix to Henri Matisse to Jean Genet—the strange thing may be that you have heard of it at all. A town of 900,000 on the very northern tip of Africa, only 7 miles from Spain, it is neither the political nor economic capitol of any country nor the site of any major disasters. Yet it’s created an identity as a great fount of stories and light. The newest development in its narrative is that it now has its own independent cinema, the Cinémathèque de Tanger, which opened in 2007. This young institution has curated Another Border, a showcase of its archives on view at the Pacific Film Archive and closing October 1.

topics: activism, african cinema, critics, diy, documentary, pacific film archive, world cinema

Experience

William Klein's restless mind on view at the PFA

William Klein is best known as a photographer and expat New Yorker who moved to Paris in 1948 and never looked back—well, with the notable exception of New York (life is good and good for you in New York…), a mid-1950s exhibition and photobook. It was a much-debated sensation at the time for both its unconventional technique (Klein played liberally with focus, overexposure and wide angles) and rather shocking, vivid, un-pretty view of the Big Apple’s denizens. Today, it’s considered a game-changing landmark in the medium. His subsequent fashion photography (notably for Vogue) was also strikingly innovative. His images have been shown at leading museums around the world, including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art not long ago.

But in 1965 Klein got interested in filmmaking—initially abandoning still photography entirely for it.

topics: activism, art, art film, film history, filmmakers, french cinema, pacific film archive, photography, world cinema

Platform

Judy Bloch moves on after 29 years at PFA

For nearly 30 years Judy Bloch has been behind the classy film publications at the Pacific Film Archive, producing some of the best film annotation in the world, as a writer, editor and guiding presence. She recently retired from UC Berkeley and took a job managing publications for SFMOMA. We asked her about her life and times at PFA.

topics: art, art film, authors, avant-garde, bay area, critics, directors, pacific film archive, world cinema