Among fans of classic and international film, few festivals are held in as high regard as Il Cinema Ritrovato. Held every year in the gorgeous open-air piazzas of Bologna, Italy, Il Cinema Ritrovato (“Cinema Rediscovered”) presents a solid week of new restorations, ranging from canonized classics to rediscovered obscurities. Of course, Bologna is a bit of a hike from Cambridge, which is why The Brattle Theatre, in association with Cineteca di Bologna and the cinema studies program at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, presents “Cinephile Heaven: Cinema Ritrovato on Tour,” a compact selection of some of the most exciting features from this year’s festival, all screened in brilliant 4K. The series begins Friday, naturally enough, with work from two (very different) Italian masters: Federico Fellini’s semiautobiographical masterpiece “8½” (1963) and Lucio Fulci’s deranged giallo horror class-sick “Don’t Torture a Ducking” (1972). Saturday begins on a lighter note with “Fleischer Fairy Tales,” a newly restored program of golden-age animated shorts featuring Betty Boop and friends, before delving into a film noir double feature of Fritz Lang’s “The Big Heat” (1953) and Michael Mann’s “Thief” (1981) and a late-show screening of James Bidgood’s indescribable queer classic “Pink Narcissus” (1971). Sunday is a grab bag, reflecting Ritrovato’s eclectic nature: two precode Hollywood classics in Dorothy Arzner’s “Christopher Strong” (1933) and Josef Von Sternberg’s “Shanghai Express” (1932), Robert Bresson’s rarely screened late masterwork “Four Nights of a Dreamer” (1971) and Marva Nabili’s “The Sealed Soil” (1977), the earliest known surviving film directed by an Iranian woman, which also screens Wednesday.
Monday is Silent Film Day, and far be it for The Brattle to miss an opportunity to celebrate. Thankfully, Ritrovato has no shortage of silents in its vault, bringing to the screen a double feature of Charlie Chaplin’s comic masterpiece “The Gold Rush” (1925), which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, and Frank Borzage’s dazzling romance “7th Heaven” (1927), winner of the very first Oscars for Best Actress, Director and Adapted Screenplay. Also on Monday is Sam Peckinpah’s “Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid” (1973), which, far from silent, features a landmark soundtrack from Bob Dylan (who co-stars alongside Kris Kristofferson and James Coburn). Tuesday brings a pair of against-type gems from legendary auteurs: Alfred Hitchcock’s single-location thriller “Lifeboat” (1944) and Chantal Akerman’s candy-colored musical “Golden Eighties” (1986). The series closes Oct. 2 with Alejandro González Iñárritu’s indie breakthrough “Amores Perros” (2000) and, just in time for the dawn of October, Brian De Palma’s timeless adaptation of Stephen King’s “Carrie” (1976). You may not be sitting under the stars in an Italian piazza, but the cozy confines of The Brattle are the next best thing.
The Somerville Cine-Club returns Thursday, this time with a free outdoor screening in the verdant grounds of the Somerville Community Growing Center. Howard Hawks’ “His Girl Friday” (1940) is rightly held as a classic of screwball comedy, with all the outrageous shenanigans, rat-a-tat dialogue and swooning romance that are the hallmarks of the genre. Its pleasures, however, run far deeper than the typical slamming-doors farce. In adapting Ben Hecht’s hit play “The Front Page,” Hawks made the brilliant decision to gender-flip ace reporter Hildy Johnson, casting Rosalind Russell in the role that would come to define her career. The result is one of the all-time great films about journalism, and one of the very few films of its era that allows its female protagonist to place her career above her place in the home (while Hildy does remarry her former editor, played by a never-better Cary Grant, she chooses him over her less-fun fiancé in no small part because he respects and promises to nurture her gifts as a writer). The Cine-Club has selected a 16 mm short from its collection as an appetizer (which, in honor of the Growing Center, promises to be “horticulture-focused”), and, as always, invites community members to stick around for a postfilm discussion.
Anniversaries are as perfect excuse as any to celebrate a favorite film on the big screen, and this week brings a couple of biggies. On Friday, the Somerville Theatre presents a 50th anniversary midnight presentation of the ultimate midnight movie, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975) projected on 35 mm film and accompanied by a shadowcast performance by Boston’s legendary Teseracte Players (moviegoers will presumably provide their own toast and rice). On Tuesday, the Kendall Square Cinema celebrates the 30th anniversary of Cher Horowitz and friends with a screening of Amy Heckerling’s totally-as-if valley girl classic “Clueless” (1995). Favorite movies are like old friends, and there’s not much more fun than throwing them a big (and, in the case of “Rocky Horror,” reliably raucous) birthday party.
Oscar Goff is a writer and film critic based in Somerville. He is film editor and senior critic for the Boston Hassle and his work has appeared in the monthly Boston Compass newspaper and publications such as WBUR’s The ARTery and iHeartNoise. He is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, and the Online Film Critics Society.
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