112 Years of Cinema
November 24, 2004–October 2005

Unprecedented in scope, this fourteen-month series presents one example of film or video from every year of moving-image history. Spanning the years 1893 (when Edison's first kinetoscope subject, Blacksmithing Scene, was presented to the public) through 2005, 112 Years of Cinema is nonchronological and embraces all genres of film- and videomaking, including fiction and documentary, narrative and non-narrative, animation, and the avant-garde. Titles are drawn from the extensive collection of the Museum's Department of Film and Media, with occasional contributions from film studio libraries and International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF)–member archives. 112 Years of Cinema provides compelling evidence not only in support of the assertion by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., MoMA's founding director, that motion pictures were the art form of the twentieth century, but that they are the art form of the twenty-first as well.

Organized by Steven Higgins, Curator, and Anne Morra, Assistant Curator, Department of Film and Media.

See a list of past screenings in this series

Film’s First Years: 1893–1907. A program of seventeen films spanning the first fifteen years of film history. Drawn primarily from the Museum’s extensive Edison Collection—among them, Butterfly Dance by Annabelle (1895), Jack and the Beanstalk (1902), and The Gay Shoe Clerk (1903)—the program also includes important early works from Europe, such as La Vie du Christ (1906). Program approx. 65 min.

Monday, July 11, 6:00 (silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model); Wednesday, August 24, 6:00 (piano accompaniment by Jon Spurney). T2

Reminiscing in Tempo. USA. 2005. Directed by Gary Keys. Derived mainly from footage shot during Duke Ellington’s 1968 concert tour in Mexico, this film adds material shot in the intervening years. The result is in an intimate portrait of a jazz master, including reminiscences by his family, friends, and colleagues, as well as never-before-seen live performances. 80 min.

Thursday, July 14, 6:00; Monday, July 18, 8:00. T2

Bike Boy. 1966. USA. Directed by Andy Warhol. Joe Spencer stars as The Motorcyclist, a young man who finds himself in the company of various characters from Warhol’s Factory who all deal with him in a confrontational manner, either by making jokes he doesn’t understand, correcting his pronunciation, or challenging his macho posturing. 109 min.

Thursday, July 14, 8:00; Monday, August 22, 6:00. T2

Atlantic City. 1981. USA. Directed by Louis Malle. With Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon. Malle brings a European sensibility to this bittersweet film about the famous resort on the New Jersey coast as it is transformed from a seedy convention center into a gambler’s paradise. Lancaster shines as an old mob runner who dreams of the good old days. 104 min.

Thursday, August 18, 8:00 (T2); Saturday, August 20, 9:00 (T1)

Escape from Alcatraz. 1979. USA. Directed by Don Siegel. With Clint Eastwood. The true story of the 1962 breakout from the high security fortress in San Francisco Bay led by prisoner Frank Morris. Eastwood’s last film under the direction of mentor Siegel, a director renowned for his mastery of the action genre. 112 min.

Thursday, August 18, 8:30; Sunday, August 28, 5:00. T1

The Hired Hand. 1971. USA. Directed by Peter Fonda. Screenplay by Alan Sharp. With Fonda, Warren Oates. In this story of marital fidelity, Fonda plays a drifter who returns from the open range to the wife and child he abandoned years before. 90 min.

Friday, September 2, 6:00; Saturday, September 10, 9:00. T2

The Gauntlet. 1978. USA. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Screenplay by Michael Butler, Dennis Shryack. With Eastwood, Sondra Locke. Ben Shockley is hardly the star detective on the Phoenix police department’s roster. Can he bring a mob witness back from Las Vegas in one piece? 108 min.

Friday, September 2, 8:00; Sunday, September 11, 2:00. T2

The Cooler. 2003. USA. Directed by Wayne Kramer. Screenplay by Frank Hannah, Kramer. With William H. Macy, Maria Bello. At the Shangri-La casino, Bernie, a “cooler,” walks the casino floor spoiling winning streaks with his metaphysical vibe. 102 min.

Saturday, September 3, 2:00. T1; Sunday, September 11, 5:00. T2

China Gate. 1957. USA. Written and directed by Samuel Fuller. With Gene Barry, Nat “King” Cole. A tense drama about mercenaries out to destroy an arms depot near the Chinese border. Angie Dickinson plays Lucky Legs, and uses her famous gams to broker an impossible deal. 95 min.

Saturday, September 3, 4:00. T1; Saturday, September 10, 7:00. T2

Covert Action (Part 4). 1984. USA. Directed by Abigail Child. Part of Is This What You Were Born For?, this film investigates power, sexuality and aggression. 8 min.

Breakdown (The Loveless). 1983. USA. Written and directed by Kathryn Bigelow, Monty Montgomery. With Willem Dafoe, Marin Kanter. A souped-up homage to The Wild One (1954). 82 min.

Saturday, September 3, 6:15. T1; Monday, September 5, 6:00. T2

Clueless. 1995. USA. Written and directed by Amy Heckerling. With Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash. Very loosely based on Jane Austen’s Emma, this comedy confection follows Cher and Dionne as they play matchmakers at Beverly Hills High School. 97 min.

Sunday, September 4, 2:00; Thursday, September 8, 8:30. T2

Lost and Found. 2004. USA. Directed by Jeff Scher. An homage to pioneers of animation. 3 min.

Barcelona. 1994. USA. Written and directed by Whit Stillman. With Taylor Nichols, Mira Sorvino. Ted, a transplant to Barcelona by way of Illinois, is having difficulty adjusting to life in Spain. 101 min.

Sunday, September 4, 5:00; Monday, September 12, 5:45. T2

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Past screenings in the exhibition 112 Years of Cinema

Love Me Tonight. 1932. USA. Directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Screenplay by Samuel Hoffenstein, Waldemar Young, George Marion. With Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Myrna Loy. When a tailor falls in love with a princess, they communicate their blossoming affection through the delightful music and lyrics of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. With songs like "Isn't It Romantic?" and "Mimi," this film has been described as one of the finest musicals ever made. 89 min.
Wednesday, November 24, 8:45. T1

Potomok Chinghis-khan (Storm over Asia/The Heir to Jenghis-Khan). 1928. USSR. Written and directed by Vsevold Pudovkin. With V. Ikijinoof, I. Dedintsev, A. Christyakov. This sweeping Soviet epic about the Mongolian uprising against the creation of a puppet government remains stirring and current. Seventy-five years ago, it opened theatrically in New York in an abbreviated version—the same month that MoMA opened. But the Museum later acquired this 35mm print struck from the original Soviet negative. Silent, with piano accompaniment by Stuart Oderman. Russian intertitles, with simultaneous English translation. Approx. 80 min.
Monday, November 29, 5:00. T2

Blacksmithing Scene. 1893. USA. Produced by W. K. L. Dickson and the Edison Company. This cinematic treasure, the first publicly exhibited kinetoscope, was filmed at Edison's Black Maria studio in West Orange, New Jersey, and features three blacksmiths at work in a forge. 30 sec.

The Shamrock Handicap. 1926. USA. Directed by John Ford. Screenplay by John Stone, Elizabeth Pickett, Peter Bernard Kyne. With Janet Gaynor, Leslie Fenton, J. Farrell McDonald. An Irish landowner whose stables are no longer profitable faces poverty unless he sells part of his enterprise to a wealthy American. 67 min. Silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model.

Friday, December 3, 5:00; Monday, December 6, 5:00. T1

Dodsworth. 1936. USA. Directed by William Wyler. Screenplay by Sidney Howard, based on the novel by Sinclair Lewis. With Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Mary Astor. Sam Dodsworth, a recently retired industrialist, and his wife Fran embark on a much-anticipated trip aboard a transatlantic luxury liner. Fran enters into a series of reckless affairs that cause Sam to return home, but not before meeting a paramour of his own. 101 min.

Sunday, December 5, 5:00; Wednesday, December 15, 6:00. T1

Hymn to Her. 1974. USA. Directed by Stan Brakhage. The late filmmaker's homage to his former wife, Jane. 3 min.

The Learning Tree. 1969. USA. Written and directed by Gordon Parks. With Kyle Johnson, Alex Clark, Dana Elcar. Parks explores his own adolescence in Depression-era Kansas, a time and place permitting African Americans little self-expression. 107 min. Monday, December 6, 7:30; Saturday, December 11, 2:30. T2

Phffft! 1954. USA. Directed by Mark Robson. Screenplay by George Axelrod, based on his play. With Judy Holliday, Jack Lemmon, Kim Novak. A young couple gets divorced, but while romancing other partners they begin to wonder whether they were not meant for each other after all. 88 min.

Wednesday, December 8, 6:15; Sunday, December 19, 5:00. T1

Sugarland Express. 1974. USA. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Screenplay by Spielberg, Hal Barwood, Matthew Robbins. With Goldie Hawn, William Atherton, Ben Johnson. The true story of a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde who career toward Sugarland, Texas, to reclaim the baby that was taken from them by the authorities. 110 min.

Thursday, December 9, 8:45. T1; Monday, December 27, 8:30. T2

The Battle of Midway. 1942. USA. Directed by John Ford. Narration written by Ford, Dudley Nichols, James Kevin McGuiness. While serving as Chief of the Field Photographic Branch of the United States Navy, Ford captured the battle as it unfolded on the Midway Atoll. 18 min.

The Land. 1942. USA. Directed by Robert Flaherty and Frances Flaherty. An iconic documentary illustrating the plight of migratory farm workers made obsolete by harvesting machinery. 42 min.

Sunday, December 12, 2:30; Thursday, December 16, 8:00. T2

Adua e le compagne (Adua and Her Friends). 1960. Italy. Directed by Antonio Pietrangeli. Screenplay by Ruggero Maccari.With Simone Signoret, Marcello Mastroianni, Sandra Milo. Four enterprising prostitutes attempt to shake off their pasts by opening a restaurant in a backwater Roman neighborhood. In Italian, English subtitles. 125 min.

Sunday, December 12, 5:00; Monday, December 27, 8:30. T1

Adorable. 1933. USA. Directed by William Dieterle. Screenplay by George Marion, Jane Storm. With Janet Gaynor, Henry Garat, C. Aubrey Smith. Princess "Mitzi" falls in love with a man she believes to be a commoner; in fact, he is a new palace guard who has no idea that his beloved is royalty. MoMA's preservation of Adorable was generously funded by the Louis B. Mayer Foundation. 88 min.

Friday, December 17, 7:00. T2; Friday, December 31, 5:00. T1

sex, lies, and videotape. 1989. USA. Written and directed by Steven Soderbergh. With James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher. Soderbergh's astonishing first feature proved a commercial watershed in the development of American independent cinema. Acclaimed for its original narrative strategies, sly humor, and intelligence, this naughty comedy of manners won prizes at Sundance and Cannes. New 35mm print. 100 min.

Friday, December 17, 8:45. T2; Friday, December 24, 5:00. T1

Looking for Richard. 1996. USA. Directed by Al Pacino. Screenplay by Pacino, Frederick Kimball. With Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Winona Ryder. Pacino takes us from the streets of New York to London's reconstructed Globe Theater, asking strangers and celebrities along the way to comment on the work of William Shakespeare. The interviews are interwoven with scenes of Richard III in production. 112 min.

Thursday, December 23, 5:00. T2; Thursday, December 30, 8:30. T1

Bird. 1988. USA. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Screenplay by Joel Oliansky. With Forest Whitaker, Diane Venora, Sam Robards. A romantic yet unsparingly raw biographical drama about saxophonist legend Charlie "Bird" Parker. 160 min.

Sunday, December 26, 2:30. T2; Wednesday, December 29, 7:00. T1

Bringing Up Baby. 1938. USA. Directed by Howard Hawks. Screenplay by Dudley Nichols, Hagar Wilde. With Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charlie Ruggles. Grant, that most sophisticated of Hollywood actors, is cast against type as a befuddled zoologist pursued by a madcap heiress, portrayed with energetic conviction by Hepburn. Newly preserved from the original nitrate picture and sound elements in the Museum's collection. 102 min.

Saturday, January 1, 2:00; Monday, January 3, 8:15. T1

White Heat. 1949. USA. Directed by Raoul Walsh. Screenplay by Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts. With James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien. Considered bleak and shockingly violent upon its initial release, White Heat stars Cagney as a deeply disturbed killer and gang leader whose mother haunts his every move. The film's apocalyptic ending still manages to stun audiences with its visual and emotional savagery. Newly preserved from the original nitrate picture and sound elements in the Museum's collection. 113 min. Saturday, January 1, 5:00; Saturday, January 29, 8:30. T2

Daughters of the Dust. 1991. USA. Written and directed by Julie Dash. With Cora Lee Day, Alva Rodgers, Adisa Anderson. Director Dash and cinematographer A. Jafa Fielder evoke a lost world of mystery and ancestral bonds in this hauntingly beautiful tale set in the Georgia Sea Islands at the turn of the twentieth century, where traditional Gullah society comes in direct conflict with the modern world of African-American social advancement and cultural aspirations. 112 min.

Wednesday, January 5, 5:00; Sunday, January 30, 2:30. T2

Heaven. 2004. USA. Directed by Todd McCammon. A personal journey through the history of cinema, culminating in its earliest form. 1 min.

Projector. 2004. USA. Directed by Donna Cameron. Cameron takes a portrait of a 16mm Kodak projector and finds it a heroic source of light. 3 min.

With D.W. Griffith program: Money Mad. 1908. USA. With Charles Inslee, Harry Solter, George Gebhardt; The Country Doctor. 1909. USA. With Frank Powell, Florence Lawrence; In the Border States. 1910. USA. With Charles H. West, Henry B.Walthall; The Lonedale Operator. 1911. USA. With Blanche Sweet, Francis J. Grandon; Friends. 1912. USA. With Mary Pickford, Henry B.Walthall, Lionel Barrymore; The Lady and the Mouse. 1913. USA. With Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Lionel Barrymore. A program of short films illustrating Griffith's amazing growth as a filmmaker during his five years (1908–13) as director and head of production for the Biograph Company. All films were restored from the Museum's Biograph Collection, with the exception of Money Mad, which was restored by MoMA from material in the Library of Congress's Paper Print Collection. Griffith films silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model. Program approx. 90 min.

Wednesday, January 5, 8:15. T1; Thursday, January 6, 5:00. T2

Blind Husbands. 1919. USA. Written and directed by Erich von Stroheim. With Stroheim, Sam de Grasse, Francellia Billington. In this, his first directorial effort, Stroheim solidifies his reputation as "the man you love to hate," portraying an amoral seducer who comes between a doctor and his wife. The film's uncompromising realism and Stroheim's sophisticated treatment of his sexual subject matter amazed audiences and critics alike. This print is preserved from an early acetate copy acquired from Universal in 1941, and represents the shortened 1924 reissue—the best surviving material on this film. Silent, with piano accompaniment by Stuart Oderman. Approx. 87 min.

Saturday, January 22, 7:30. T1; Sunday, January 23, 5:00. T2

Man of Aran. 1934. Great Britain. Directed by Robert Flaherty. Screenplay by Robert and Frances Flaherty. With Colman “Tiger” King, Maggie Dirrance. Flaherty and his crew spent two years on the island of Inishmore, off the west coast of Ireland, living with and studying the customs of fishermen. A classic documentary and a lyrical tribute to the islanders’ life of hardship and grace. 75 min.

Wednesday, February 2, 5:30; Saturday, February 5, 2:30. T2

Notorious. 1946. USA. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay by Ben Hecht. With Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains. Set in the world of espionage and persistent Nazi sympathy in South America, this Hitchcock classic perfectly captures postwar paranoia. Alicia begins a loveless affair with a spy named Alex to aid the agenda of Devlin, an enigmatic American operative, with whom she also plays a dangerous

game. 101 min.

Wednesday, February 2, 7:30. T2; Saturday, February 5, 2:00. T1

Bonjour Tristesse. 1958. Great Britain. Directed by Otto Preminger. Screenplay by Arthur Laurents, based on Françoise Sagan’s novel. With Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Jean Seberg. Love and jealousy play out against the sensual setting of the French Riviera when a teenager, desperate for her playboy father’s attention, sets a disastrous plan in motion. 94 min.

Thursday, February 3, 8:00; Sunday, February 20, 2:30. T2

Captain Blood. 1935. USA. Directed by Michael Curtiz. Screenplay by Casey Robinson. With Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland. An Irish physician sold into slavery escapes to freedom, transforming himself into the dreaded pirate Captain Blood. Flynn’s first swashbuckling role fixed his raffish screen personality in the public’s mind forever. 119 min.

Friday, February 4, 5:30. T2; Monday, February 7, 8:15. T1

The Straight Story. 1999. USA/France. Directed by David Lynch. Screenplay by Mary Sweeney, John Roach. With Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton. Seventy three-year-old Alvin Straight travels from Iowa to Wisconsin on his riding mower to visit the ailing brother with whom he hasn’t spoken in over a decade. Based on a true story, this uncharacteristically tender film from Lynch quietly celebrates the decency of the common man. 112 min.

Friday, February 4, 8:00. T2; Monday, February 7, 6:00. T1

Le Mépris (Contempt). 1963. France/Italy. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Screenplay by Godard, based on Alberto Moravia’s novel Il Disprezzo. With Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance. With various languages spoken on set and egos clashing, it’s little wonder that the characters in this film are unable to get down to the business of making a screen version of The Odyssey. Bardot’s languid performance makes this often comical Godard film a must-see. In French, English subtitles. 103 min.
Saturday, February 5, 5:00; Saturday, February 12, 2:00. T1

The Killing. 1956. USA. Written and directed by Stanley Kubrick. Dialogue by Jim Thompson. With Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards. The gritty account of how a motley bunch of underworld losers attempt the racetrack heist of the century. Kubrick’s first critical success is a tour-de-force of hardboiled writing, noirish design, and nononsense acting. 78 min.

Sunday, February 6, 2:00; Monday, February 14, 6:00. T1

Padre Padrone. 1977. Italy. Written and directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. With Omero Antonutti, Saverio Marconi, Fabrizio Forte. At six years of age, Gavino is dragged out of the schoolhouse by his cruel father, and effectively enslaved in a desolate mountain hut on the island of Sardinia to live out his life as a shepherd. Based on the autobiography of Gavino Ledda, Padre Padrone won the Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Festival. In Italian, English subtitles. 113 min.

Thursday, March 3, 5:30. T2

The Big Trail. 1930. USA. Directed by Raoul Walsh. Screenplay by Jack Peabody, Marie Boyle, Florence Postal. With John Wayne, Marguerite Churchill. Led by Breck Coleman (played by a very young John Wayne), a wagon train sets out on the Oregon Trail and faces enormous peril during the journey West. This 35mm preservation print,made from 70mm nitrate materials, retains the visual magnificence of the now-obsolete Fox Film Grandeur widescreen photographic process. 122 min.

Thursday, March 17, 5:30; Saturday, March 26, 1:00. T2

The Cat and the Canary. 1927. USA. Directed by Paul Leni. Screenplay by Robert F. Hill, Alfred A. Cohn. With Laura La Plante, Creighton Hale. Annabelle West stands to inherit a fortune—if she can retain her sanity in an old mansion filled with strange doings and evil intentions. John Willard’s highly successful play was turned into one of silent cinema’s most famous and influential comedy thrillers. Silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model and Jon Spurney. Approx. 75 min.

Monday, April 4, 5:30; Friday, April 22, 8:30. T2

Real Women Have Curves. 2002. USA. Directed by Patricia Cardoso. Screenplay by George LaVoo, Josefina Lopez. Ana, a bright, young Latina high school senior, is torn between familial duty and a promising future. After graduation she can go to college with a scholarship, or she can work in her family’s small clothing factory making bridal gowns. In one unforgettable scene, Ana inspires her girlfriends to strip down to their underwear and laugh about, and accept, their less-than-perfect bodies. 86 min.

Monday, April 4, 6:00; Thursday, April 7, 6:00. T1

I’ll Be Seeing You. 1944. USA. Directed by William Dieterle. Screenplay by Marion Parsonnet. With Ginger Rogers, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple. It’s Christmas, and ex-convict Mary Marshall has just been released from the state penitentiary. On her way home she meets Sergeant Morgan, on a furlough from a mental hospital. The two fragile souls attempt to cram a lifetime into their eight days of freedom. 85 min.

Monday, April 4, 7:45. T1; Thursday, April 21, 7:30. T2

The House of Mirth. 2000. Great Britain. Directed by Terence Davies. Screenplay by Davies, based on the novel by Edith Wharton. With Gillian Anderson, Dan Aykroyd, Laura Linney. Turn-of-the-century New York is not a hospitable place for unmarried young women of the genteel class, and so Lily Bart must either marry well or find a way to cover her gambling debts. Although she is determined to be self-sufficient, strict societal codes hamper her independence. 140 min.

Wednesday, April 6, 5:30. T2; Saturday, April 30, 5:00. T1

Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows). 1959. France. Directed by François Truffaut. Screenplay by Truffaut, Marcel Moussy. With Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, Claire Maurier. Truffaut’s semiautobiographical account of his youth as seen through the eyes of his cinematic alter ego, Antoine Doinel. Filmed in and around Paris, many scenes, particularly the devastating final freeze-frame, remain indelible. In French, English subtitles. 93 min.

Wednesday, April 6, 6:00; Saturday, April 23, 7:30. T1

Through the Canadian Rockies. 1915. USA. Director unknown. A rare Essanay Company travelogue.

Regeneration. 1915. USA. Directed by Raoul Walsh. Screenplay by Walsh, Carl Harbaugh. With Rockcliffe Fellows, Anna Q. Nilsson, William Sheer. Filmed on location in a variety of New York City neighborhoods, including Chinatown, the Lower East Side, and the Bowery, this early Fox feature recreates the “General Slocum” disaster, a 1904 tragedy in which over one thousand people lost their lives while taking a day trip on the East River. Both silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model and Jon Spurney. Program approx. 75 min.

Wednesday, April 6, 8:15; Thursday, April 21, 5:30. T2

The Spoilers. 1914. USA. Directed by Colin Campbell. Screenplay by Campbell, Lanier Bartlett.With William Farnum, Bessie Eyton, Thomas Santschi. One of Edison’s earliest

competitors, the Selig Polyscope Company, was founded in Chicago in 1896. After many years of successful shortfilm production, it entered the feature market in the spring of

1914 with this box-office smash, a gritty reworking of Rex Beach’s popular novel. Silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model. Approx. 108 min.

Thursday, April 7, 5:30. T2; Sunday, April 24, 2:00. T1

The Mystery of the Leaping Fish. 1916. USA. Directed by John Emerson. With Douglas Fairbanks, Bessie Love. A notorious two-reeler about an opium ring and how it gets smashed by detective Coke Ennyday (Fairbanks).

Hoodoo Ann. 1916. USA. Directed by Lloyd Ingraham. Screenplay by Granville Warwick (D.W. Griffith). With Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Mildred Harris. This charming Fine Arts feature stars Marsh as an orphan who believes herself “hoodooed” with bad luck. Both silent, with piano accompaniment by Stuart Oderman. Program approx. 95 min.

Thursday, April 7, 7:45. T2; Wednesday, April 27, 5:45. T1

Brute Force. 1947. USA. Directed by Jules Dassin. Screenplay by Richard Brooks. With Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford. Lancaster heads a cast of hard-bitten character actors in a tale of brutal prison life, but it is Cronyn who steals the film with his mannered yet unforgettable portrayal of a cynically sadistic prison boss. Dassin’s spare,

unforgiving style is perfectly suited to this grim morality tale. Restored by MoMA. 98 min.

Friday, April 8, 6:00; Saturday, April 23, 5:00. T1

Öszi almanach (Almanac of Fall). 1985. Hungary. Written and directed by Béla Tarr. With Hédi Temessy, Erika Bodnár, Pál Hetényi.Within the confines of a bleak apartment, Hédi lives with her nurse, Anna. The women coexist in a quiet world until Hédi’s alcoholic son moves in and demands money to feed his addictions. As in all of Tarr’s brilliant films, relationships are strained to the point of no return. Sit back and wait for the fireworks... In Hungarian, English subtitles. 120 min.

Friday, April 8, 8:30; Monday, April 18, 5:30. T2

The Band Wagon. 1953. USA. Directed by Vincente Minnelli. Screenplay by Betty Comden, Adolph Green. With Fred Astaire, Jack Buchanan, Nanette Fabray. The classic songs of Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz propel this story of a movie star (Astaire) who tries to revive himself and his career in a Broadway show with more than its fair share of preproduction woes. Buchanan, Fabray, and Oscar Levant provide deft comic and musical support. New MoMA print from the original negatives. 112 min.

Wednesday, April 13, 8:30. T2; Saturday, April 30, 7:45. T1

Saturday, April 16, 8:00. T2

Teen Kanya (Two Daughters). 1961. India. Written and directed by Satyajit Ray. With Anil Chatterjee, Chandana Bannerjee, Soumitra Chatterjee. In the first story, a young man leaves the city to work as a postmaster in a rural village, where he is looked after by an illiterate young orphan girl. The second story concerns a college student whose widowed mother has chosen a girl for him to marry. Rejecting her choice, he picks a tomboy who is not ready to give up her freedom. 115 min.

Monday, April 18, 7:00; Thursday, April 21, 8:30. T1

Ace in the Hole (The Big Carnival). 1951. USA. Directed by Billy Wilder. Screenplay by Wilder, Walter Newman, Lesser Samuels. With Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Porter Hall. Chuck Tatum is a reporter whose career is going nowhere fast. His luck changes, though, when he takes a job with a small paper in New Mexico and a mining accident occurs. The power of the press is explored in this Wilder gem. 110 min.

Wednesday, April 20, 5:30; Thursday, April 28, 7:45. T1

The Big Lebowski. 1998. USA. Directed by Joel Coen. Screenplay by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. With Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore. The Dude, a very laid-back guy, is roughed up by two toughs because his wife has neglected to pay her debts around town. But how is this possible when The Dude isn’t even married? With his long hair and slack jaw, Jeff Bridges is pitch-perfect in the comedic role of a lifetime. 117 min.

Wednesday, April 20, 7:45. T1; Saturday, April 23, 8:00. T2

Citizen Kane. 1941. USA. Directed by Orson Welles. Screenplay by Welles, Herman Mankiewicz. With Welles, Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane. A fragmented look at newspaper publisher Charles Foster Kane’s life through the reminiscences of his business associates. Often voted the most significant film of all time, Citizen Kane was added to the National Film Registry in 1989. The original 1941 trailer precedes the feature. Program 123 min.

Thursday, April 21, 6:00; Saturday, April 30, 2:00. T1

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. 1943. Great Britain. Written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. With Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton

Walbrook. Beautifully restored by the bfi National Film and Television Archive in England, this film recounts the key events in the life of a British army officer, from the Boer War to World War II. The three most significant women in his life are all portrayed by a luminous Kerr, in one of her earliest screen performances. 166 min.

Sunday, April 24, 4:15. T1

A Perfect World. 1993. USA. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Screenplay by John Lee Hancock. With Kevin Costner, Eastwood, T. J. Lowther. Eastwood followed his classic “end of the West” Western, Unforgiven, with this modern-day fable about a manhunt for an escaped convict (Costner, in perhaps the best performance of his career) who kidnaps a young boy (Lowther). The two forge an unusual relationship as they are hunted by a Texas Ranger (Eastwood) and a criminal psychologist (Laura Dern). 138 min.

Monday, April 25, 8:00; Thursday, April 28, 5:00. T1

Centuries of June. 1955. USA. Directed by Joseph Cornell. Cinematography by Stan Brakhage. A silent meditation on a once grand Victorian house fallen into disrepair. 10 min.

The Night of the Hunter. 1955. USA. Directed by Charles Laughton. Screenplay by James Agee, based on the novel by Davis Grubb. With Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish. An atmospheric tale of childhood innocence, religious fanaticism, and hypocrisy. Mitchum is perfection as the lecherous and murderous preacher. Added to the National Film Registry in 1992. 92 min.

Sunday, May 1, 2:00. T1; Wednesday, May 18, 8:15. T2

Media Burn. 1975. USA. Directed by Ant Farm. The American obsession with cars and broadcast media makes this thirty-year-old work by the Ant Farm collective particularly relevant today. 23 min.

Four More Years. 1972. USA. Directed by TVTV. Called a "classic work of guerilla television" by Electronic Arts Intermix, this irreverent and ironic look at the 1972 Republican Convention and Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign is cheeky, yes, but still an important window onto one of America’s most volatile eras. 61 min.

Sunday, May 1, 2:00; Thursday, May 12, 6:00. T2

Window Water Baby Moving. 1959. USA. Directed by Stan Brakhage. Infused with the direct style of a documentarian and the sensitivity of an artist, this film is a joyful portrait of the birth of Brakhage’s first child. 12 min.

All My Babies. 1952. USA. Directed by George C. Stoney. Made by one of the great documentarians for the Medical Audio-Visual Institute of the Association of American Medical Colleges, this canonical film chronicles the work of midwives in rural Georgia. 55 min.

Sunday, May 1, 5:00; Wednesday, May 11, 6:00. T2

The Toll Gate. 1920. USA. Directed by Lambert Hillyer. Screenplay by Hillyer, William S. Hart. With Hart, Anna Q. Nilsson, Joseph Singleton. Black Deering is the leader of a bandit gang and a fugitive from justice. In his flight he encounters and is attracted to Mary Brown, a young widow. He discovers that Mary’s husband is alive; in fact, he is the man who gave Deering up to the authorities. A moral quandary ensues. Silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model and Jon Spurney. Approx. 66 min.

Sunday, May 1, 5:00 (Model). T1; Thursday, May 19, 8:00 (Spurney) T2

Hard Times in Hardscrapple. 1917. USA. Directed by Al Santell. With Lloyd Hamilton, Albert “Bud” Duncan. A rare Ham and Bud slapstick western, produced by Kalem. 14 min.

Straight Shooting. 1917. USA. Directed by Jack Ford. Screenplay by George Hively. With Harry Carey, Molly Malone, Hoot Gibson. Cheyenne Harry is hired by cattleman “Thunder” Flint to help drive off a troublesome group of homesteaders. When he finds that Flint and his men are terrorizing women and children, Harry joins forces with the settlers. Approx. 55 min. Program silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model.

Monday, May 2, 5:30. T1; Saturday, May 14, 6:30. T2

Elephant Boy. 1937. Great Britain. Directed by Robert Flaherty and Zoltan Korda. Screenplay by John Collier, Akos Tolany, Marcia de Silva, based on a Rudyard Kipling story. With Sabu, Walter Hudd, W. E. Holloway. In his first film role, Sabu stars as Tommai, a young mahout (elephant keeper). When another mahout mistreats his elephant, he drives the beast into the jungle for safety, and there witnesses the legendary dance of the wild elephants. 82 min.

Monday, May 2, 6:00; Wednesday, May 11, 8:00. T2

Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life. 1925. USA. Directed and photographed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. Titles by Terry Ramsaye, Richard P. Carver.With Cooper, Schoedsack, Marguerite Harrison, Haidar Khan. Three westerners travel to Iran and join with the nomadic Bakhityari tribesmen as they undertake a forty-eight day trek across deserts, rivers, and mountains to reach summer pasture for their flocks. Silent, with piano accompaniment by Stuart Oderman and Jon Spurney. Approx. 66 min.

Friday, May 6, 8:30 (Oderman); Thursday, May 19, 6:00 (Spurney). T2

Mildred Pierce. 1945. USA. Directed by Michael Curtiz. Screenplay by Ranald MacDougall, based on the novel by James M. Cain. With Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Eve Arden. Divorcée Mildred Pierce must figure out a way to make a living to support her daughters. Through hard work, her small restaurant becomes a success, and Veda, her eldest, grows accustomed to luxuries. Mildred and Veda eventually vie for the affections of the same man, and what happens next is pure Cain pulp. 110 min.

Saturday, May 7, 2:00. T1; Monday, May 30, 3:30. T2

Gloria. 1980. USA. Written and directed by John Cassavetes. With Gena Rowlands, Buck Henry, John Adames. When the Dawn family is rubbed out by the mob for cooperating with the FBI, their small son is the only survivor. Former mob-girlfriend Gloria rescues the boy, and the two go on the lam. With her mass of blond hair and her high heels, the tough-as-nails Gloria has seen it all—and nobody pushes this lady around…. 121 min.

Saturday, May 7, 4:15; Monday, May 30, 3:45. T1

Love Affair. 1939. USA. Directed by Leo McCarey. Screenplay by Delmer Daves, Donald Ogden Stewart. With Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya. Dunne and Boyer are magically paired as shipboard lovers who promise to meet again in six months atop the Empire State Building to see if they still want to get married. Although a tragic accident derails the planned rendezvous, love will conquer all. An enduring romantic melodrama, whose stars transcend their melodramatic material. 88 min.

Sunday, May 8, 3:30; Sunday, May 15, 2:00. T2

All the King’s Men. 1950. USA. Directed by Robert Rossen. Screenplay by Rossen, based on the novel by Robert Penn Warren. With Broderick Crawford, Joanne Dru, John Ireland. The grand rise and even grander fall of Willie Stark, a rural politician once hell-bent on cleaning up the corruption around him. Stark is eventually seduced by corrupt practices and becomes no better than the men he once vilified. Warren’s novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. 110 min.

Sunday, May 8, 5:00. T1; Friday, May 27, 8:30. T2

Miller’s Crossing. 1990. USA. Directed by Joel Coen. Screenplay by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. With Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, John Turturro. Leo, a political heavyweight,

and his right-hand man Tom are both after the hardboiled Verna. Verna decides to stick with Leo, whose protection she needs to get her shiftless brother out of his frequent scrapes with the law. Barry Sonnenfeld’s cinematography deftly captures the look and feel of the Great Depression. 114 min.

Sunday, May 8, 5:30. T2; Saturday, May 21, 6:00. T1

Little Caesar. 1931. USA. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Screenplay by Francis Faragoh, based on the novel by W. R. Burnett. With Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Glenda Farrell. Robinson’s breakthrough role, presented in a print restored from original nitrate elements held by MoMA and UCLA. Rico, known as “Little Caesar,” climbs the underworld ladder of success, from smalltown hood to Chicago crime boss, only to be undone by his own hubris. 78 min.

Monday, May 9, 5:30; Saturday, May 14, 2:00. T1

Diner. 1982. USA. Written and directed by Barry Levinson. With Paul Reiser, Kevin Bacon, Ellen Barkin. First-time director Levinson brings to the screen an especially personal story of a group of friends who spend an inordinate amount of time in their beloved Baltimore diner discussing issues of life over French fries and gravy. The first in Levinson’s Baltimore trilogy, followed by Tin Men (1987) and Avalon (1990). 109 min.

Wednesday, May 11, 5:30. T1; Saturday, May 14, 8:30. T2

The Cartographer’s Girlfriend. 1987. USA. Written and directed by Hal Hartley. With Marissa Chibas, Steven Geiger. Bob’s monotonous life is disrupted when he meets a beautiful woman. Despite being able to map the world around him, he is emotionally lost. 29 min.

Surviving Desire. 1992. USA. Written and directed by Hal Hartley. With Martin Donovan, Mary Ward. Jude is a handsome young literature professor at an upstate New York college who obsesses over a passage from The Brothers Karamazov. 56 min.

Wednesday, May 11, 8:00. T1

The Honeymoon Killers. 1970. USA. Written and directed by Leonard Kastle. With Shirley Stoler, Tony LoBianco, Doris Roberts. Based on the true-life account of Ray Fernandez and Martha Beck, who were known as the Lonely Hearts Killers. Ray is a seducer who swindles women out of cash. Initially Martha is accepting of Ray’s seductions, but her own desires lead them into very dangerous territory. The Honeymoon Killers was cited by François Truffaut as one of his favorite American films. 107 min.

Thursday, May 12, 8:00. T2; Saturday, May 21, 8:30. T1

The Boy with Green Hair. 1948. USA. Directed by Joseph Losey. Screenplay by Ben Barzman, Alfred Lewis Levitt. With Pat O’Brien, Robert Ryan, Dean Stockwell. Peter Ryan is an all-American boy who is orphaned and then shuttled from one unloving home to another. He eventually winds up with Gramp, a kindly old vaudevillian. A morality tale about society’s treatment of those it doesn’t consider “normal.” 82 min.

Friday, May 13, 8:30. T2; Wednesday, May 25, 5:30. T1

Taxi Driver. 1976. USA. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Screenplay by Paul Schrader. With Robert DeNiro, Albert Brooks, Jodie Foster. Travis Bickle—loner, insomniac, cabdriver—drives the streets of New York at night growing more and more disgusted with the state of the city. He becomes so detached from reality that on his first date with the elegant Betsy he takes her to a porno movie. Taxi Driver was added to the National Film Registry in 1994. 114 min.

Saturday, May 14, 4:00. T2; Wednesday, May 25, 7:30. T1

La Dixième Symphonie (The Tenth Symphony). 1918. France. Written and directed by Abel Gance. With Séverin-Mars, Jean Toulot, Emmy Lynn. Eve Dinant, mistress of Fred Ryce, buys him off in order to marry her true love, a composer named Enric Damors. Damors knows nothing of his wife’s past, so when Ryce suddenly reappears, he misinterprets Eve’s reaction. The resulting complications serve as inspiration for his Tenth Symphony. English intertitles. Silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model and Jon Spurney. Approx. 85 min.

Sunday, May 15, 5:00 (Spurney) T2; Monday, May 23, 5:30 (Model) T1

Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh). 1924. Germany. Directed by F.W. Murnau. Screenplay by Carl Mayer. With Emil Jannings, Maly Belschaft, Emilie Kurz. A masterful tale starring Jannings as the proud doorman of a grand Berlin hotel who finds himself demoted to the job of towel boy in the men’s washroom. This recent restoration by the Filmmuseum Berlin and the Murnau-Stiftung is of the original German release version; the few German-language intertitles require no translation. Silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model and Stuart Oderman. Approx. 77 min.

Monday, May 16, 5:30 (Oderman); Saturday, May 21, 4:00 (Model). T1

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. 1921. USA. Directed by Rex Ingram. Screenplay by June Mathis. With Alice Terry, Rudolph Valentino, Alan Hale. Ingram and Mathis crafted this profoundly moving version of Vicente Blasco Ibañez’s