Archives > 2005 > Special Programs
- A Very Special Evening with Debra Winger and Arliss Howard
- Opening Night Film - PEAS AT 5:30 Erbsen auf halb 6
- Closing Night Film - BALLETS RUSSES
- Formative Films with Mountaineer Jim Whittaker
- Almost Midnight Movies!
- Silent Movie - FLESH AND THE DEVIL
- FILM 2880 - 2005
- Reel World Flix - DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING FOR YOUTH
A Very Special Evening with Debra Winger and Arliss Howard
Hosted by Robert K. Horton
The announcement of Debra Winger as one of this year's Port Townsend Film Festival special guests produced a surge of anticipation that continues to build as the festival approaches. Winger has not been in Port Townsend since filming AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN in 1981 (and probably has thought little about it since), but there have been numerous Debra sightings reported over the last 24 years. Perhaps that's why many local residents consider her one of the town's own. After all that fame and acclaim (and presumable fortune), an official retirement, then a comeback, the prodigal daughter is returning "home," and she's bringing her talented husband with her.
The film is four years old now, but BIG BAD LOVE, released in 2001, was the first film Winger made in six years, after a self inflicted retirement from "the business," which she says she never liked. It is the second film she made with Howard. Their first was WILDER NAPALM (1993), a quirky comedy that might have been inspired by Stephen King were he a comedic writer.
The chemistry between them is evident in both films. Howard, lesser known but equally talented, has been making movies and appearing on television for more than 20 years. Some of his other films include: FULL METAL JACKET, TEQUILA SUNRISE, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, TO WONG FOO, THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, and AMISTAD.
BIG BAD LOVE
USA/2001/111 min.
Howard began his directorial and screenwriting career with BIG BAD LOVE. BIG BAD LOVE Vietnam veteran Leon Barlow (Arliss Howard) is a struggling writer, with a personal life to match. His unsympathetic ex-wife Marilyn (Debra Winger) doesn't approve of his visits with his two children, and he has problems with alcohol. Yet even when Leon manages to catch up on child-support payments, things in his life seem to decline further, until a sudden tragedy and then good fortune catch him off guard.
is one of those films that is either loved or hated. Roger Ebert hated it. Manohla Dargis, then writing for the Los Angeles Times, said the film was "a mess, but ... a sincere mess." Moira Macdonald in the Seattle Times wrote that "the film often achieves a mesmerizing poetry." We concur with Moira. BIG BAD LOVE is a brilliant character study, one of the most undersung movies of the decade.
Director, Arliss Howard; Producers, Arliss Howard, Bob Johnston, Barry Navidi, Manfrede Wilde, Debra Winger; Writers, James Howard, Arliss Howard from stories by Larry Brown; Cinematographer, Paul Ryan; Editor, Jay Rabinowitz; Music, Tom Waits.
Cast: Arliss Howard, Debra Winger, Paul LeMat, Rosanna Arquette, Angie Dickinson, Michael Parks.
SPONSOR: Green Eyeshade
Opening Night Film
PEAS AT 5:30 Erbsen auf halb 6
with Director Lars Buchel
In German, with English subtitles.
Germany/2004/110 min.
West Coast Premiere
PEAS AT 5:30 takes the notion of "the blind leading the blind" literally in this refreshingly offbeat romance that never dips into sentimentality. Though his characters are sightless, Buchel drenches his film in enticing water imagery that provides them with a tactile compass point and the audience with some of the most dazzling settings caught by equally remarkable cinematography. While his tale morphs from one genre to another, its theme remains stable: the need for touch. The story centers on a stage director named Jakob who is left blind following an automobile accident. He soon falls into a guarded yet heightened relationship with his guide/teacher, Lilly, who is also blind. Summoned by his dying mother in Russia, Jakob embarks on a journey in every sense of the word, accompanied by Lilly, much to his initial dismay. The development of their relationship leads to the redemption of both.
A word for the wary: No sex, but some lovely foreplay.
Director, Larz Buchel; Producers, Hanna Huth, Ralf Zimmermann; Screenwriters, Ruth Toma, Lars Buchel; Cinematographer, Judith Kaufmann; Editor, Peter R. Adam.
Cast: Fritzi Haberlandt, Hilmir Snaer Gudnason, Tina Engel, Harald Schrott.
SPONSOR: Skookum and Windermere Real Estate Port Townsend
Closing Night Film
BALLETS RUSSES
with Directors Dan Geller & Dayna Goldfine and Dancer Marc Platt
USA/2004/120 min.
West Coast Premiere
Ego, politics, war, money, fame, glamour, love, betrayal, grace ... and dance. BALLETS RUSSES is a feature-length documentary covering more than fifty years in the lives of a group of revolutionary artists. It tells the story of the extraordinary blend of Russian, American, European and Latin American dancers who, in collaboration with the greatest choreographers, composers and designers of the first half of the 20th century, transformed ballet from mere music hall divertissement into a true art form. Using intimate interviews with surviving members of the Ballets Russes companies (now in their 70s, 80s, and 90s) as well as rare archival materials and motion picture footage, BALLETS RUSSES is both an ensemble character film and an historic portrait of the birth of an art form.
Marc Platt
Born Marcel Le Plat, he became one of the first Americans to dance with the Ballet Russe after being discovered by Leonide Massine as a teenager in Seattle.
Director/Producer/Writer/Editor: Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine.
Cast: Dame Alicia Markova, Frederic Franklin, Maria Tallchief, Marc Platt, Mia Slavenska, Nathalie Krassovska, Tatiana Riabouchinska, George Zoritch, Trina Baranova. Tamara Tchinerova Finch, Yvonne Chouteau, Tatiana Stepanova, Nini Theilade, Miguel Terekhov, Wakefield Poole, Yvonne Craig, Raven Wilkinson, Rochelle Zide, Nina Novak.
SPONSOR: The Historic Lynwood Theatre
Formative Films with Mountaineer Jim Whittaker
All movie-lovers have favorite films, movies that have touched them in some way, creating a response that remains with them since first viewing.
This year's Formative Film curator is Jim Whittaker, who in the 40 years after his successful record-breaking climb of Mount Everest in 1963 has accomplished more than many people do in their entire lives. He has assisted in presidential campaigns, led expeditions to K2-one of the toughest climbs in the world, some say harder than Everest, helped to place a combined US-Chinese-Russian team at the summit of Everest, sailed about the world with his wife and teenage sons, and written an autobiography. "And I'm still learning," he says.
Jim Whittaker was in his mid-20s when he saw what became one of his favorite films, M. HULOT'S HOLIDAY.
M. HULOT'S HOLIDAY
France/1953/86 min.
One of the most revered comedies from the early 1950s, M. HULOT'S HOLIDAY was one of the first art house hits, playing for weeks at most venues. Roger Ebert describes the film and its central character, M. Hulot: "The movie tells the story of a holiday by the sea. Hulot is a tall man, all angles, 'a creature of silhouettes,' as Stanley Kauffmann observed. He arrives at the seaside in his improbable little car, which looks like it was made for a Soap Box Derby and rides on bicycle wheels. Decked out in holiday gear and smoking a pipe, Hulot is friendly to a fault, but he is the man nobody quite sees. The holiday-makers are distracted by their own worlds, companions and plans, and notice Hulot only when something goes wrong, as it often does.
"M. HULOT'S HOLIDAY is not a comedy of hilarity but a comedy of memory, nostalgia, fondness and good cheer. There are some real laughs in it, but the film gives us something rarer, an amused affection for human nature-so odd, so valuable, so particular."
Director, Jacques Tati; Producers, Fred Orain, Jacques Tati. Writers, Pierre Aubert, Jacques Lagrange, Henri Marquet, Jacques Tati; Cinematographers, Jacques Mercanton, Jean Mousselle; Music, Alain Romans.
Cast: Jacques Tati, Nathalie Pascaud, Louis Perrault, Michele Rolla, Andre Dubois, Suzy Willy, Valentine Camax, Lucien Fregis, Raymond Carl.
SPONSOR: Vineyard Lane and Jean's House of Travel
Almost Midnight Movies!
AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN
USA/1982/122 min.
If the City of Port Townsend ever adopts an official movie, AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN will win the honor hands down. Filmed in the spring of 1981 almost entirely in and about Port Townsend (with a couple of sequences shot on Whidbey Island and in Tacoma), the film's cast and crew engaged almost everyone in town in some fashion. When a casting call came for extras, 400 people - or eight percent of the town's population - turned out, photos and resumes in hand. Carpenters were enlisted, at wages they'd only dreamed of. Motels remodelled to accommodate the lesser cast and crew. Townsfolk with waterfront houses happily relocated so they could rent to the stars at prices one still dreams of. And when the movie opened a year later, it played the Uptown for four weeks before moving to the drive-in. One watched to search for friends as much as for the story. And here, one more time ...
A word for the wary: sex, nudity, language, and a happy ending.
Director, Taylor Hackford; Producers, Martin Elfand, Douglas Day Stewart; Writer, Douglas Day Stewart; Cinematographers, Donald Thorin; Editor, Peter Zinner; Original Music, Mark Knopfler, Jack Nitzsche, Buffy Sainte-Marie, ZZ Top.
Cast: Richard Gere, Debra Winger, David Keith, Robert Loggia, Lisa Blount, Lisa Eilbacher, Louis Gossett Jr., David Caruso, Pia Boyer, Ruffin LeBrane, Lowell Bogart, among others.
SPONSOR: Bread & Roses
GOING UNDER
USA/2004/98 min.
Northwest Premiere
A sensuous and emotionally complex tale of impossible love between a married psychotherapist and a professional dominatrix he becomes involved with. They have been meeting once a week for more than two years. In the privacy of a dungeon, she pierces, prods and ultimately soothes him as they engage in what is commonly known as sado/masochistic "play." Careful protocols about behavior are enforced, but when he seeks to see her "outside," the rules and the relationship change.
A word for the wary: Not for kids, and some adults.
Director, Eric Werthman; Producer, Jessica Gohlke, Vladan Nikolic; Writer, Jessica Gohlke; Screenplay, Eric Werthman; Cinematographer, Vladimir Subotic; Original Music/Composer, David Darling; Production Designer, Ann McKinnon; Picture Editor, Vladan Nikolic; Sound Editor, Logan Susnick.
Cast: Roger Rees, Geno Lechner, Miho Nikaido.
Preceded by HIGHWAY AMAZON
USA/2002/12 min.
World Premiere
Join bodybuilder Christine Fetzer as she travels the USA wrestling men in hotel rooms.
Director: Ronnie Cramer.
SPONSOR: Bread & Roses
Silent Movie
FLESH AND THE DEVIL
Accompanied by Michael Mortilla at the grand piano
USA/1926/112 min.
According to the New York Times, Herman Suderman's "bulky, verbose" novel was turned into an "exquisitely silent" FLESH AND THE DEVIL, in 1926. On leave from the Army, lifelong friends John Gilbert and Lars Hanson return to their loving families. At a reception, Gilbert makes the acquaintance of the hauntingly beautiful Greta Garbo ... enough to thoroughly captivate Gilbert, thus paving the way for a feverish sexual liaison. While intense male-bonding scenes between John Gilbert and Lars Hanson prompt "knowing chuckles" when seen today, FLESH AND THE DEVIL holds up "quite well." Clarence Brown's "directorial touches still seem fresh after years of imitation by lesser talents. Ostensibly a Gilbert vehicle (he receives top billing), FLESH is dominated through sheer force of personality by the divine Garbo; in anyone else's hands, her enigmatic, impulse-driven temptress would have been just another cardboard vixen."
Director, Clarence Brown; Producer, Irving Thalberg; Titles, Marian Ainslee; Cinematographer, William Daniels; Editor, Lloyd Nosler; Art Department, Cedric Gibbons, Frederic Hope.
Cast: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lars Hanson, Barbara Kent, William Orlamond, George Fawcett, Eugenie Besserer, Marc McDermott, Marcelle Corday.
SPONSOR: The San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Greta Garbo 1905 - 1990
Enigmatic and elusive, Greta Garbo made some of the most endearing and enduring films of the 1920s and 1930s. She personified Hollywood glamor, and exerted a major influence on women's fashions, hair styles and make-up.
"The finest element in a Garbo film was Garbo," the New York Times wrote in her obituary in 1990. "She invariably played a disillusioned woman of the world who falls hopelessly and giddily in love. Tragedy is often imminent, and her tarnished-lady roles usually required her to die or otherwise give up her lover. No one could suffer like Garbo."
No one could photograph like Garbo, either. She was called, "a soul-revealing Nordic princess" by German reviewers seeing their first Garbo pictures in the 1920s. Throughout her career, which ended in 1941 at age 36 on her own volition, Garbo's beauty was seen as unsurpassed and often was compared to the legendary Helen of Troy (who no one living had ever laid eyes on).
It seemed she could not take a bad picture until her later years when she was occasionally caught off-guard on a Manhattan street. Still mysterious in retirement, those occasional unflattering pictures were always picked up by the wire services.
FILM 2880 - 2005
Fast Filmmaking Contest for digital guerrillas (or is that gorillas?) On Friday, September 9, at 7pm, filmmakers from around the world received a theme, a line of dialogue and the name of a common household prop via email. By Sunday night, September 11, again at 7pm, - exactly 2,880 minutes (or 48 hours) later - filmmakers produced a short film of less than 10 minutes that they had written, shot, edited, and scored, complete with titles and credits - without any creative work done prior to 7pm Friday.
One month later the top ten films from the 2005 Film 2880 contest will be shown at the historic Rose Theatre on the closing day of the 6th annual Port Townsend Film Festival. Films are judged on originality, use of prop and dialogue, and adherence to the theme and production values.
Film 2880 exists to challenge the resourcefulness and creativity of filmmakers, film students and anyone crazy enough to sign up. The annual filmmaking project was founded and is still managed by filmmaker Peter Wiant, who is assisted this year by graphic designer Lou Faulkner.
SPONSORS: The Fountain Cafe and Bainbridge Performing Arts
Reel World Flix - DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING FOR YOUTH
In late August, twelve area students between the ages of 14 and 18 created a short documentary from concept to edited product in just six days. Under the tutelage of videographer Jane Champion and writer/ educator Jessica Plumb, the students developed the story and vision, engaged in pre-production planning and scheduling, chose a production style, shot the film using different techniques, and, finally, edited and scored the piece. The results of this intense workshop will be presented in this screening, followed by a discussion of the work by students and professional filmmakers.
Camera equipment for this project was provided by 4-H Jefferson County.
SPONSORS: Skookum and Bainbridge Island Arts & Humanities Council