Once upon a time, myth
was an
indispensable part of life... Our film essays have been expanded in their
scope to serve as tools for anyone interested in our mission,
even if you can't attend the festival. Now, they're a year round,
online resource for the growing universe of filmmakers, cinephiles,
educators, and students joining our virtual conversation. Click on any title to
read the essay. And
don't miss our line-up of documentaries!
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La Belle et la
Bete (Beauty and the Beast) (1946, 96 min.)
screenplay by by
Jean Cocteau (also story) (also dialogue), Jeanne-Marie Leprince de
Beaumont (story). directed by Jean Cocteau, René
Clément (uncredited)
Long before Mme.
Marie Leprince de Beaumont's
1757 fairy tale was Disney-fied, Jean Cocteau created this silent
classic, a
darkly poetic Beauty and the Beast that will mesmerize young and old
alike.
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Yojimbo (1961, 110
min / USA:75 min)
written by Ryuzo
Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa. directed by Akira Kurosawa.
A
samurai caught in the middle of a gang war in feudal Japan. Akira
Kurasawa's
witty, fast-paced homage to John Ford and proto-spaghetti western.
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Monty Python and
the Holy Grail (1975, 91 min.)
written by
Graham Chapman & John Cleese & Eric Idle & Terry Gilliam
& Terry Jones & Michael Palin. directed by Terry Gilliam
& Terry Jones
"Beware
the Knights Who Say 'Ni'!"
"Bring out ye dead!" "Just a flesh wound!" The world's most
famous comedy troupe takes on Arthurian legend and grail mythology in
what may
be the most quotable movie ever.
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Chinatown (1974,
131 min.)
written
by Robert Towne. directed by Roman Polanski.
More than just a
brilliant update of the noir detective story, Chinatown
retells Oedipus Rex as it constructs a mythological Los Angeles out of
the
city's seamy past. The film has Nicholson and Dunaway at their best.
"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
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Mad Max 2: The
Road Warrior (1981, 94 min.)
written
by Terry Hayes & George Miiler
& Brian Hannant. directed by George Miller.
Post-apocalyptic
future meets mythological past
in the high-octane film that made Mel Gibson a star. In a future,
Australian
wasteland, gas is rare and precious. Only a drifter can help a
gas-rich
community escape a gang of marauders.
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Man Dancin' (2003,
113 min.)
written by Sergio
Casci. directed by Norman Stone.
WEST
COAST PREMIERE!!
What
happens when you want to go straight in a
broken city? After nine years in jail, Jimmy Kerrigan returns to the
tough
Glasgow town where he grew up, intent on giving up his criminal past.
But will
crime give up on him? A different kind of gangster movie.
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The Lord of the
Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (extended) (2001,
208
min (special extended edition))
screenplay by
Frances Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson. directed
by Peter Jackson.
J.R.R.
Tolkien's Middle Earth comes to life in the movie event of the
decade. Watch again as the young Hobbit
Frodo leaves the Shire on his quest to destroy the One Ring. The
Extended
Version: 3 hrs. and 28 min. |
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Orfeu Negro
(Black Orpheus) (1959, 100 min.)
adapted by Marcel
Camus, Jacques Viot from the play "Orfeu do Carnaval." directed
by Marcel Camus.
Death pursues a
streetcar conductor and a shy
country girl through the streets of Rio de Janeiro during Carnival.
This
aurally sumptuous retelling of the Orpheus myth won the 1960 Academy
Award for
Best Foreign Language Film.
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The Wizard of Oz (1939, 101
min /
USA:112 min (uncut pre-release version))
screenplay by
Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allan Woolf, from the novel by L.
Frank Baum. directed by Victor Fleming, King Vidor (uncredited),
Richard Thorpe (uncredited)
For
the big screen, Frank L. Baum's intricate
political allegory became a Technicolor dream of cowardly lions,
witches both
good and wicked, and flying monkeys (still as frightening as they were
65 years
ago). Perhaps no film has inhabited the popular consciousness to the
same
extent.
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