Vintage 1957...
10 May 2007
A season of films celebrating 50 years of the European Union from 23 - 25 May at Ciné lumière & the Goethe-Institut London
To celebrate 50 years of the European Union, European cultural institutes and Embassies in London have come together to organise a season of films made in 1957, the year the Treaty of Rome was signed. On the line-up will be Fellini's Oscar-winning Le Notti di Cabiria, The Confessions of Felix Krull from Germany, Louis Malle's Lift to the Scaffold, Bergman's classic Wild Strawberries, Wadja's masterful Kanal and The Wolf Trap from the Czech Republic. Screenings will be divided between the Institut français and the Goethe-Institut London. Season organised by the Czech Centre, Goethe-Institut London, Institut français, Italian Cultural Institute, Polish Cultural Centre and the Embassy of Sweden in the UK. Supported by the European Commission.
PROGRAMME
WED 23 MAY
Nights of Cabiria
6.15pm | dir. Federico Fellini | cert. 15 | Ciné lumière
Italy | 1957 | 110 mins | with Giulietta Masina, François Périer, Franca Marzi
This 1957 Oscar winner for 'Best Foreign Film' centres on a midguided prostitute who works the streets of Rome. We watch her activites day and night but what she's really after is true love. After a bad run with men she finally meets an accountant who is besotted with her. Has our heroine finally found someone to love her for who she is?
THU 24 MAY
Confessions of Felix Krull
5.00pm | dir. Kurt Hoffman | cert. 18 | Ciné lumière
Germany | 1957 | 107 mins |
with Host Buchholz, Liselotte Pulver Based on the famous novel by Thomas Mann, the film tells the story of a confidence trickster who wins the favour of others by performing the roles they desire of him. From childhood Krull lacks morality and has a masterful ability to play any part he desires. Krull makes an art of his criminality and is motivated less by greed than by the sheer joy of a job well done. A deliberate parody, the film is nonetheless a severely critical commentary on the modern bourgeoisie.
Kanal
7.00pm | dir. Andrzej Wajda | cert. 18 | Ciné lumière
Poland | 1957 | 95 mins |
with Teresa Izewska, Tadeusz Janczar, Tereza Berezowska September, 1944.
During the final few days of the Warsaw uprising against the Nazis, Lieutenant Zadra and his platoon of 43 men get cut off from their comrades. In the face of German attack, they go down into the city's underground sewer system to seek refuge. When there, they realise that conditions are just as difficult below as they are above.
Lift to the Scaffold
8.45pm | dir. Louis Malle | cert. 15 | Ciné lumière
France | 1957 | b&w | 90 mins | dir. Louis Malle, with Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly
Julien Tavernier, an ex-paratrooper, and his mistress Florence plot the murder of her husband Carala. Tavernier executes the plan, but finds himself trapped inside the office lift and unable to meet with Florence as agreed. This intelligent thriller, of which Miles Davis' musical score is an integral element, was a precursor to the French New Wave. It was director Louis Malle's debut feature.
FRI 25 MAY
The Wolf Trap
6.30pm | dir. Jirí Weiss | Goethe-Institute London
Czechoslovakia | 1957 | 90mins | Written by Jarmila Glazarová (also novel) and Jiří Weiss | with Jana Brejchová, Jiřina Šejbalová, Miroslav Doležal
The title of this highly-regarded Czech drama translates as Wolf Trap. Set in the 1920s, the story revolves around an ambitious young provincial politician (Miroslav Doležal) who enters into a marriage of convenience with a smotheringly possessive - and much older - woman (Jiřina Sejbalová). Hoping to temporarily escape his overbearing wife's clutches, the husband strikes up a friendship with her young ward (Jana Brejchová). The relationship blossoms into a deep abiding love, but the jellyfish husband can't bring himself to declare his ardor to the girl. Director Jiří Weiss does a masterful job staging his story of frustration and denial against a backdrop of post-WWI bourgeois banality. Vlčí jáma was one of the best-received entries at the 1958 Karlovy Vary Film Festival
Wild Strawberries
8.45pm | dir. Ingmar Bergman | cert. 15 | Goethe-Institut London
Sweden | 1957 | 90 mins | with Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin
Professor Isak Borg, 78, is summoned from his home in Stockholm to the university of Lund in southern Sweden to receive an honorary doctorate for his services to science. He travels there with his daughter-in-law, who feels resentful toward him because his son, her husband, displays all the egotistical traits of the old man and does not want to have children. They encounter three hikers and take them along in the car with them to Lund. While visiting his family's former summer house, Borg is assailed by nightmares in which his failings are brought home to him.
Prices
Ciné lumière: £7, conc. £5; double bill: £9, conc. £7
Goethe-Institut London: £5, conc. £4
For photos or further info about the screenings, contact
Natacha Antolini at natacha.antolini@ambafrance.org.uk or 020 7073 1365
Maren Hobein at hobein@london.goethe.org or 020 7596 4047
Ciné lumière at the Institut français
17 Queensberry Place, London SW7
T. 020 7073 1350 | www.institut-français.org.uk
Goethe-Institut London
50 Princes Gate, London SW7 T. 020 7596 4000 | www.goethe.de/london