[screenings] 1968 (May 23, 24,25)

`This machine kills fascists'

- Woody Guthrie's Guitar Sticker

They like to say – it began in the cinemas. The facts can be debated but the notion is head-over-heels romantic. Quite like- what if Humphrey Bogart ran into Ingrid Bergman in a shopping market alley and not a gin joint over in Casablanca. Which one would you prefer to think of?

It began in the cinemas. It poured out over the barricades. It sloganeered. It rioted. It screamed. It was anarchy. And everybody was going to be released, redeemed. Another romantic notion. But when you light a femme fatale's cigarette and drawl," I traveled 9000 miles to give you a light", you're not really counting the miles.

Everybody was going to be released, redeemed. Could it be achieved? Did everyone really want to be released? Was it lost or was it won? And if so, who lost and who one? When Hunter S Thompson looked out his Las Vegas window and saw the high water mark where the glorious wave broke, did it leave a lasting scar on the shores before it rolled back?

To call the May of 1968 `turbulent' would be an understatement. Tom Wolfe would later describe all of it as `pandemonium with a big grin on'. How much was its success and how much of it failed is a matter of debate. But all who walked out the cinema and on to the barricades have one thing to say- `It was a great time to be alive. It was a great time to be young'.



On its 40th Anniversary of '1968', Bangalore Film Society would like to say,"Cheers"


now dig this….


Friday 23rd May, 2008 Time: 6.30pm





Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) Dir: Agnes Varda

"Boredom is counterrevolutionary"

- 1968 slogan

Director Agnes Varda's first feature length tour de force follows a young pop singer across the streets of Paris from 5 to 7 as she awaits the results of her cancer biopsy. Spontaneous, free-wheeling, sparkling, existential, meditating on mortality and despair, featuring cameos from Godard, Anna Karina and Michel Legrand `Cleo from 5 to 7' announced Varda as one of the most influential directors of the French New Wave and was Nominated for the Palm D'Or at Cannes 62'.



Saturday 24th May, 2008 Time: 6.30pm




Masculin, Feminin (1966) Dir: Jean Luc-Godard

"I love you! Oh, Say it with paving stones"

- 1968 slogan

A film that almost foresaw the spirit of May 68, Godard's iconic `Masculin, Feminin' loosely based on the short stories of Guy de Maupassant, is a series of vignettes that serve as a time capsule of the zeitgeist of the 60s. Bob Dylan, Charlie Parker, Vietnam, Music Stores, Soda Pop, Protests, Revolutions, Instant Photos, Coffee, One Man, One Woman, and an Ocean of Blood, Bridgette Bardot, Swedish art films. Starring Jean-Pierre Leaud as Paul, a young idealist and literary wannabe who falls in love with a pop singer, Godard's `Masculin, Feminin' is a chronicle of the life and love and disillusion and ecstasy of `The Children of Marx and Coca Cola'. Nominated for Golden Bear at Berlin 66'.



Sunday 25th May, 2008 Time: 6.30pm




My Night at Maud's (1969) Dir: Eric Rohmer

"Arise, you wretched of the University"

- 1968 slogan

Auteur Rohmer's third of his `Six Moral Tales' follows three individuals- Jean-Louis- a devout catholic and engineer, Vidal- a philosophy professor and Maud- a rebellious and charming divorcee and their conversations as they reflect on morality and philosophy. `My Night at Maud's' is regarded as a mile-stone in Rohmer's long and highly esteemed career and its highly convoluted, stylized and loopy dialogue was honored and given an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Film. It was also nominated for the Palm D' Or at Cannes 69'.



Venue: Ashirvad, 30, St. Mark's Road cross, Op. State Bank of India

Tel: 2549 2774/ 2549 3705

ADMISSION FOR MEMBERS ONLY. NON-MEMBERS ARE REQUESTED TO ARRIVE 15 MINS EARLY AND REGISTER.
(Members whose membership has expired are requested to kindly renew their membership.)

[screenings] Delete This Message (March 28,28,30 2008)

Ten signs the machines are taking over

1. You wake up early morning and instead of the birds, the chai-wallahs and M.S. Subhalakshsmi you hear the symphony of Windows starting in a million PCs.
2. With your cell-phone in your pocket you feel ‘phantom vibrations’ or hear ‘phantom ringtones’ even when it is not ringing.
3. Instead of burning protest candles at Mahatma Gandhi Chowk you start an online petition and circulate it among your friends and acquaintances.
4. You think you’ll get a pre-paid rickshaw after 10 at night but find the printer is not working and end up paying according to the flying meter. You think it’s a conspiracy between the police and the auto. But maybe it’s the printer and the meter. Maybe.
5. You quietly pay for your soft drink you haven’t ordered for just because the teller has ‘already entered it in the machine’ and now, can’t seem to do anything about it.
6. Your counterfeit operating system stopped functioning because it automatically downloaded an update which you never really asked for.
7. On the first of every month your mobile balance reads in negatives because you inadvertently applied for every update from stocks to cricket to health tips even when you really did not want to.
8. When you’re trying to light a cigarette at M.G. Road you’re afraid that maybe ‘they’ are looking at you.
9. You think 1984 and 2001 are years gone by.
10. You cried when Arnold Schwarzenegger descended into the hot vat of iron at the end of Terminator 2.

Be afraid. This computer screen is looking at you. Studying your every move.

For further information on how to identify suspicious activity among gadgets ranging from pen drives to your seeming friendly microwave ovens, Bangalore Film Society invites you to share your experiences and learn what you can do about it from the experts- Jean Luc-Godard, Fritz Lang, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke.

BFS presents ‘Delete this message after you have read it’

“It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open..”
-Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein

Please note change in regular timings. Movie screenings begin at 6.15pm.


Friday 28th March, 2008 Time: 6.15pm






Alphaville, The Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution (‘65/99mn) Dir: Jean Luc-Godard

Godard’s freewheeling comic book take on the sci-fi genre follows hulking, tough talking private eye Lemmy Caution as he arrives to infiltrate the strange city of Alphaville which is being ruled over by a supercomputer by the name of Alpha 60, which has replaced all love and human contact with clinical logic. Winner of Golden Bear 65’.

Saturday 29th March, 2008 Time: 6.15pm






2001: A Space Odyssey (‘68/141mn) Dir: Stanley Kubrick
(Tribute to late Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008), sci-fi messiah and a man who saw tomorrow)

One of the greatest films ever made. An epic tale of the story of man. A chronicle of birth, life, desire, progress and extinction. A meditation on the absolute. Kubrick and Clarke’s sci-fi spectacle rejects easy definition. Featuring pioneering special effects and haunting symphonic pieces in hypnotic sequences and one of the most iconic villains (supercomputer HAL 9000) of all time, 2001 is as all-encompassing an experience as cinema can be.

Sunday 30th March, 2008 Time: 6.15pm






The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (‘33/122min) Dir: Fritz Lang

Auteur Lang’s prophetic and subversive pulp suspense that predicted the rise of the German Third Reich follows heroic Inspector Lohmann’s efforts to investigate a series of fiendish crimes seemingly committed by the evil genius Dr. Mabuse. But what is most worrying is that Dr. Mabuse is currently locked up not just physically but mentally in an asylum for the criminally insane. An inspiration for the likes of Claude Chabrol, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse was one of the chief reasons Lang had to leave native Germany for Hollywood.

Venue: Ashirvad, 30, St. Mark's Road cross, Op. State Bank of IndiaTel: 2549 2774/ 2549 3705/ 9886213516ADMISSION FOR MEMBERS ONLY. NON-MEMBERS ARE REQUESTED TO ARRIVE 15MINS EARLY AND REGISTER.(Members whose membership has expired are requested to kindly renew their membership.)


(pics by: Musicman, Impawards, Ibaicu)