The Brattle Theatre’s first-ever “Ultimate Double Feature” Weekend starts Friday. An Ultimate Double Feature pairs a film in which going to a movie is part of the plot with the movie that’s shown. So, on Friday it will show Jean-Luc Godard’s “Vivre Sa Vie” (1962), in which Anna Karina’s tragic aspiring actress skips dinner with her ex-husband to see Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent epic “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (1928). And, when Karina enters the theater, “Vivre Sa Vie” will stop and “Joan of Arc” will start and play in its entirety. When it ends, “Vivre Sa Vie” will resume and play to completion.
Is it a strange way to watch movies? You bet! But it’s nothing if not a unique moviegoing experience, and likely catnip to the Brattle’s audience of seen-it-all cinephiles.
On Saturday, you’ll see “Donnie Darko” (2001), then sit with Donnie, Gretchen, and their invisible bunny-monster friend Frank as they watch Sam Raimi’s “The Evil Dead” (1981). Sunday has Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show” (1971) in a conventional double feature with said last picture, Howard Hawks’ “Red River” (1948). For those who find the Ultimate Double Feature too weird, both of the first two pairings screen in unaltered form the following days.
A different rare screening takes place Sunday at the Somerville Theatre, which will show the Gloria Swanson vehicle “Queen Kelly” (1929), a storied unfinished film. The movie’s director, Eric von Stroheim, was innovative, audacious and famed for his extravagant persona. But he was fired halfway through production because of his obsessive attention to detail (and disregard for budgetary restrictions). Now, Dennis Doros and Amy Heller of Milestone Films have “finished” the picture using a mix of rediscovered footage, production stills and sketches, and newly written intertitles to bridge the gaps. The result is as close as any of us will ever come to experiencing the film as Stroheim envisioned it, and as such a must for lovers of silent film. (If you miss Sunday’s screenings at the Somerville, the Brattle will screen it from March 6 through March 8.)
The Harvard Film Archive‘s Complete Stanley Kubrick retrospective continues this week with a pair of pivotal films in his career: “Spartacus” (1960) shows Sunday. Kubrick replaced Anthony Mann partway through, and while it would be his “biggest” film to that point, the director was disillusioned by his lack of control and later disowned it. This screening is a restoration reedited in 1991 to Kubrick’s specifications. On Monday, its “Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” (1964). Shot in claustrophobic black & white on an English soundstage, “Strangelove” is most closely associated with Kubrick’s style. It remains as relevant as ever, at once one of the funniest and most chilling films ever made. From this point, Kubrick would make the films he wanted to make.
The Brattle Film Foundation, the nonprofit that serves as the backbone of its efforts to champion film on screen, marks its 25th anniversary this year. The celebration starts Monday with features showing at time of the Foundation’s inception, March-April 2001. Highlights on Tuesday and Wednesday include Agnès Varda’s “The Gleaners and I” (2000), Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal” (1957), and, on Tuesday only, Kenji Mizoguchi’s “Ugetsu” (1953). Also showing will be two features from a spotlight on African American cinema, Carl Franklin’s “Devil in a Blue Dress” (1995) on Wednesday and Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust” (1991) on Thursday.
Happy anniversary to the Brattle Film Foundation. I hope you all celebrate by going to one of its shows.
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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