BAMcinématek presents Black & White Scope: American Cinema, a 21-film series of widescreen monochrome masterpieces, Feb 27 Mar 19 15 films in 35mm! Part Two, International Cinema, to follow in May Jun The Wall Street Journal is the title sponsor for BAM Rose Cinemas and BAMcinématek. Brooklyn, NY/Jan 30, 2015 From Friday, February 27 through Thursday, March 19, BAMcinématek presents Black & White Scope: American Cinema, a showcase of 21 widescreen films by some of the greatest American directors and cinematographers of the mid- 20th century silvery, shimmering beauties that demand to be seen on the big screen. Launched in 1953 by Twentieth Century-Fox, CinemaScope (and later Panavision) nearly tripled the width of the film frame. Fox president Darryl F. Zanuck saw Scope as a celluloid stage for spectacle, pairing it with Technicolor as a one-two punch to slap down the tiny, upstart television screen. Intimate stories would mean nothing on this system, wrote Zanuck, who went so far as to ban the use of black and white in Scope. Soon, though, Fox directors began to renounce color in edgy, topical films such as Nunnally Johnson s The Three Faces of Eve (1957 Mar 17), featuring Joanne Woodward s Oscar-winning performance as a woman with multiple personalities, and Fred Zinnemann s drug addiction story A Hatful of Rain (1957 Mar 16), which turns its wide lens upon the streets of gritty New York. Fritz Lang famously griped that Scope was only good for snakes and funerals, but Samuel Fuller invented the widescreen close-up featuring just the eyes for the shootout in his deranged feminist Western Forty Guns (1957 Mar 2), starring Barbara Stanwyck as a ferocious cattle queen. Fuller s early Vietnam War movie China Gate (1957 Mar 2) features Angie Dickinson as a Eurasian B-girl, while Douglas Sirk s Faulkner adaptation The Tarnished Angels (1957 Mar 18) wraps the director s trademark overheated performances (barnstorming pilot Robert Stack; cynical reporter Rock Hudson) in an array of bravura tracking and crane shots. Like Ingmar Bergman at Mardi Gras (J. Hoberman). For A-list directors like Sirk, black-and-white Scope became a vehicle for serious, realist filmmaking which eschewed the escapist aspects of color while remaining conscious of the tension between the austerity of monochrome and the vastness of the widescreen frame. Scope virtuoso Otto Preminger devised a style of long takes and amazingly complex camera moves for films like Advise & Consent (1962 Mar 15), a proto-house of Cards in which Washington s cavernous halls of power dwarf even megastars like Henry Fonda and Charles Laughton, and the eerie thriller Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965 Mar 15), which has unflappable police inspector Laurence Olivier solving a mystery in the streets of a London that was just starting to swing. An auteur of a different stripe, Billy Wilder mapped the comedic possibilities of the grayscale rectangle, isolating corporate climber Jack Lemmon against a big, lonely city in the bittersweet romance The Apartment (1960 Feb 27), which opens the series, and extending the sight gags to the farthest edges in the hilarious, rapid-fire corporate satire One, Two, Three (1961 Feb 27). BAMcinématek pays tribute to Martin Ritt in a mini-retrospective including No Down Payment (1957 Mar 5), a look at Mad Men malaise in a Southern California suburb, and two photographed by the legendary James Wong Howe: the Rashomon remake The Outrage (1964 Mar 5), with
Paul Newman as a Mexican bandito, and the Larry McMurtry adaptation Hud (1963 Mar 6), shot on location in Texas and featuring the quintessential Newman performance as the man with the barbed wire soul. The series also includes a third Paul Newman vehicle, Robert Rossen s jazzy poolhall showdown The Hustler (1961 Mar 1); Kirk Douglas in another present-day Western, David Miller s neglected nonconformist manifesto Lonely Are the Brave (1962 Mar 4); and one of the cinema s greatest literary adaptations, a taut rendering of Melville s Billy Budd (1962 Mar 3) directed by Peter Ustinov that emphasizes the homoerotic undercurrent between a gorgeous, young Terence Stamp (as Billy) and enigmatic Robert Ryan (as Claggart). A decade into the CinemaScope revolution, Darryl Zanuck finally embraced black-and-white Scope for his pet project The Longest Day (1962 Mar 7), a newsreelinfluenced, all-star chronicle of the D-Day landing. Carl Foreman s The Victors (1963 Mar 8) is its opposite number, a cerebral anti-war epic that nonetheless offers a dash of international glamour in cameos by Jeanne Moreau, Melina Mercouri, and Romy Schneider. What else goes better in black and white? Horror, of course, as in Robert Wise s rationalist ghost story The Haunting (1963 Mar 19), in which wide-angle lenses and furious camera movements plunge the viewer into every corner of the old dark house. Scary in a different way, Richard Brooks screen version of Truman Capote s In Cold Blood (1967 Mar 13) restages an infamous multiple murder and its aftermath in the actual locations on the flat, barren Kansas plains. By the end of the 1960s, black and white had lost its commercial viability, to be revived only by directors who had the clout to use it for projects they could only envision in monochrome: as a way to evoke Victorian London in David Lynch s Oscar-nominated The Elephant Man (1980 Mar 14), or to cast a romantic gloss over the city in Woody Allen s gorgeous, Gordon Willis-photographed Manhattan (1979 Feb 28). The second part of this series, International Cinema, to follow in May Jun. For press information, please contact: Lisa Thomas at 718.724.8023 / lthomas@bam.org Hannah Thomas at 718.724.8002 / hthomas@bam.org Black & White Scope: American Cinema Schedule Fri, Feb 27 2, 7pm: The Apartment 4:30, 9:30pm: One, Two, Three Sat, Feb 28 4:30, 6:45, 9pm: Manhattan Sun, Mar 1 2, 5, 8pm: The Hustler Mon, Mar 2 5:30, 9:30pm: Forty Guns 7:15pm: China Gate Tue, Mar 3 4:30, 7, 9:30pm: Billy Budd Wed, Mar 4 4:30, 7, 9:15pm: Lonely Are the Brave Thu, Mar 5 4:30, 9:30pm: The Outrage 7pm: No Down Payment
Fri, Mar 6 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30pm: Hud Sat, Mar 7 2pm: The Longest Day Sun, Mar 8 2pm: The Victors Fri, Mar 13 2, 5, 8pm: In Cold Blood Sat, Mar 14 6:45, 9:30pm: The Elephant Man Sun, Mar 15 4, 9:15pm: Bunny Lake Is Missing 6:15pm: Advise & Consent Mon, Mar 16 7, 9:30pm: A Hatful of Rain Tue, Mar 17 5:30, 7:30, 9:30pm: The Three Faces of Eve Wed, Mar 18 5:30, 7:30, 9:30pm: The Tarnished Angels Thu, Mar 19 4:30, 7, 9:30pm: The Haunting Film Descriptions All films in 35mm unless otherwise noted. Advise & Consent (1962) 139min Directed by Otto Preminger. With Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Don Murray. Otto Preminger s gripping political drama chronicles the blackmail, backstabbing, and backroom brokering in Washington, DC, during confirmation hearings for the president s Secretary of State nominee (Fonda). Featuring a censorship-busting depiction of homosexuality (including post-code Hollywood s first trip to a gay bar), Advise & Consent grips like a vice thanks to the skill with which Preminger's stunning mise en scène absorbs documentary detail (Time Out London). Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive. Sun, Mar 15 at 6:15pm The Apartment (1960) 125min Dir. Billy Wilder. With Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray. Billy Wilder s Oscar-winning New York classic strikes an exquisite balance between pathos and comedy in its portrait of a junior insurance exec (Lemmon) working his way up the corporate ladder, while trying to rescue the office elevator girl (MacLaine) from her lovesick malaise. Packed with razor-sharp verbal jabs ( That's the way it crumbles cookie-wise ), The Apartment is an alternately sweet and sour evocation of love and loneliness in the big city. Fri, Feb 27 at 2, 7pm Billy Budd (1962) 123min Dir. Peter Ustinov. With Terence Stamp, Robert Ryan, Peter Ustinov. Herman Melville s tale of good versus evil aboard a British naval ship pits innocent new recruit Billy Budd (Stamp, in his film debut) against sadistic master-at-arms John Claggart (Ryan, at his menacing best).
Peter Ustinov produced, directed, and co-starred in this powerful adaptation, which boasts striking cinematography courtesy of DP Robert Krasker (The Third Man). Tue, Mar 3 at 4:30, 7, 9:30pm Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) 107min Dir. Otto Preminger. With Laurence Olivier, Carol Lynley, Keir Dullea. When a distraught London mother reports that her young daughter has gone missing, everyone s a suspect. But soon, a greater mystery emerges: Does the girl even exist? Exquisitely shot in a shadowy noir style, Otto Preminger s brainteaser features a vintage Saul Bass title sequence, a cameo by Noël Coward, and songs as well as a surprise appearance by psych-rock icons the Zombies. DCP. Sun, Mar 15 at 4, 9:15pm China Gate (1957) 97min Dir. Samuel Fuller. With Gene Barry, Angie Dickinson, Nat King Cole. Samuel Fuller s camera endlessly roves the widescreen jungle landscapes of this rough-and-tumble war drama, Hollywood s first depiction of the conflict in Vietnam. Angie Dickinson stars as Lucky Legs, a Eurasian smuggler who guides a band of mercenary soldiers including her ex-husband (Barry) and an anti-war infantryman (Cole, who croons the title tune) on a mission behind enemy lines. Mon, Mar 2 at 7:15pm The Elephant Man (1980) 124min Dir. David Lynch. With John Hurt, Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft. Hurt earned an Oscar nod for his extraordinary portrayal of the real-life Joseph Merrick a tortured soul with a host of congenital deformities in David Lynch s first studio film. Discovered at a freak show, Merrick is first presented to society as a curiosity, eventually revealing a man with a genteel manner and profound sensitivity. Shot in gorgeous black and white by celebrated cinematographer and horror director Freddie Francis. 35mm print courtesy of Lowell Peterson, ASC. Sat, Mar 14 at 6:45, 9:30pm Forty Guns (1957) 79min Dir. Samuel Fuller. With Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Dean Jagger. Every frame of Samuel Fuller s delirious Freudian western crackles with explosive psychosexual subtext. Barbara Stanwyck stars as the whip-toting dominatrix who rules over an Arizona territory with her army of 40 hired guns until she meets her match in an ex-killer turned lawman (Sullivan). Shot in just 10 days, Forty Guns shows Fuller cutting loose with the anarchic stylistic experiments that made him a forefather of the French New Wave. DCP. Mon, Mar 2 at 5:30, 9:30pm A Hatful of Rain (1957) 109min Dir. Fred Zinnemann. With Eva Marie Saint, Don Murray, Anthony Franciosa. A young Korean War veteran s morphine addiction tears him and his family to pieces in this starkly realistic depiction of drug abuse directed by Fred Zinnemann (High Noon, From Here to Eternity). Bernard Herrmann s edgy score and the gritty location shooting in and around New York City s housing projects ramp up the intensity of this groundbreaking drama. Mon, Mar 16 at 7, 9:30pm The Haunting (1963) 112min Dir. Robert Wise. With Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson. Robert Wise directed this atmospheric chiller called the scariest movie of all time by Martin Scorsese about a group of people staying at a Gothic mansion purportedly haunted by a poltergeist. Drawing on his experience working under legendary producer Val Lewton, Wise employs shadowy lighting, distorting lenses, and disorienting camera angles to create an unsettling mood of sustained dread. Thu, Mar 19 at 4:30, 7, 9:30pm Hud (1963) 112min Dir. Martin Ritt. With Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Neal.
Paul Newman stars as the titular man with the barbed wire soul, the rotten-through-and-through progeny of a Texas ranchman (Douglas) whose hard-drinking, womanizing, shiftless ways lead to an explosive rift within the household. This blistering anti-western with Academy Award-winning photography by the great James Wong Howe offers a starkly unromanticized vision of the frontier. DCP. Fri, Mar 6 at 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30pm The Hustler (1961) 134min Dir. Robert Rossen. With Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie. Paul Newman created one of the most indelible characters of the 1960s in Fast Eddie, the hotshot young pool shark who sets out to defeat reigning champ Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason) but not before confronting his own personal demons. Eugen Schüfftan s Oscar-winning cinematography perfectly captures the gritty atmosphere of smoky backroom pool halls where reputations can be made and broken with a single shot. DCP. Sun, Mar 1 at 2, 5, 8pm In Cold Blood (1967) 134min Dir. Richard Brooks. With Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe. This adaptation of Truman Capote s true crime classic about the 1959 murder of a Kansas family by two drifters is told in semi-documentary style, depicting the actual locations, including the crime scene, where the case unfolded. The result is a riveting tale of crime and punishment rendered in starkly expressionistic black and white by legendary cinematographer Conrad Hall. Fri, Mar 13 at 2, 5, 8pm Lonely Are the Brave (1962) 107min Dir. David Miller. With Kirk Douglas, Gena Rowlands, Walter Matthau. Kirk Douglas delivers one of his all-time best performances as a rugged, defiantly independent cowboy who obstinately resists both modernization and the authority of the law. Blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo s screenplay is an elegiac lament for the loss of personal freedom, while the expansive widescreen frame captures the dramatic majesty of the New Mexico landscape. Wed, Mar 4 at 4:30, 7, 9:15pm The Longest Day (1962) 178min Dirs. Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki. With John Wayne, Henry Fonda. This colossal all-star epic depicts the events of D-Day from both the Allied and Axis perspectives. Helmed by three different directors and featuring a sprawling cross-continental cast of familiar faces everyone from John Wayne to Jean-Louis Barrault The Longest Day boasts Oscar-winning Scope cinematography that captures the sweeping spectacle of the largest seaborne invasion in history. DCP. Sat, Mar 7 at 2pm Manhattan (1979) 96min Dir. Woody Allen. With Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Mariel Hemingway. The ultimate New York movie chronicles the romantic hang-ups of a neurotic TV writer (Allen) fumbling his way through flings with an adoring 17-year-old (Hemingway) and his best friend s high-strung mistress (Keaton). Manhattan marks the magic moment when Woody Allen s wit was matched by an equally accomplished visual style. In sublime black and white, and set to the sounds of Gershwin, the city s skyline and, most famously, the Queensboro Bridge never looked lovelier. Sat, Feb 28 at 4:30, 6:45, 9pm No Down Payment (1957) 105min Dir. Martin Ritt. With Joanne Woodward, Sheree North, Tony Randall. This corrosive, unjustly forgotten drama casts a jaundiced eye on 1950s suburbia and the postwar American Dream, exposing the cracks domestic abuse, alcoholism, racial prejudice in the lives of four young couples residing in a California subdivision. No Down Payment features a powerhouse ensemble cast, including Tony Randall, turning in a particularly wrenching performance as a desperate, drunken car salesman. Thu, Mar 5 at 7pm
One, Two, Three (1961) 115min Dir. Billy Wilder. With James Cagney, Horst Buchholz, Pamela Tiffin. The trademark Billy Wilder one-liners fly fast and furious as spouted by James Cagney playing a West Berlin-based Coca-Cola executive trying to crack the Communist market in this breakneck satire of American corporate imperialism. Among the outlandish gags: the Stasi using the novelty tune Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini as a torture device. Fri, Feb 27 at 4:30, 9:30pm The Outrage (1964) 97min Dir. Martin Ritt. With Paul Newman, Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom. Kurosawa s Rashomon is transposed to the American Wild West as four participants in a rape and murder including a Mexican bandit (Newman), the dead man (Harvey), and his wife (Bloom) give differing accounts of what occurred. Featuring a supporting cast that includes Edward G. Robinson and William Shatner, The Outrage is lent a haunted, nightmarish atmosphere thanks to James Wong Howe s psychologically charged camerawork. Thu, Mar 5 at 4:30, 9:30pm The Tarnished Angels (1957) 91min Dir. Douglas Sirk. With Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone. Visionary subversive Douglas Sirk transforms the Faulkner novel Pylon about a band of stunt fliers wallowing in sin and sleaze in Depression-era New Orleans into a transcendent melodrama. The luridly expressionist Scope cinematography yields one visual knockout after another including a memorably sordid Mardi Gras bacchanal. It should be seen in a theater or not at all (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader). Wed, Mar 18 at 5:30, 7:30, 9:30pm The Three Faces of Eve (1957) 91min Dir. Nunnally Johnson. With Joanne Woodward, David Wayne, Lee J. Cobb. Joanne Woodward gives a tour-de-force Oscar-winning performance as a woman with multiple personalities in this daring portrayal of mental illness. Acclaimed cinematographer Stanley Cortez (The Night of the Hunter, The Magnificent Ambersons) alters his lighting technique and shooting style to reflect the character s different psychological states. DCP. Tue, Mar 17 at 5:30, 7:30, 9:30pm The Victors (1963) 175min Dir. Carl Foreman. With George Peppard, George Hamilton, Eli Wallach. This titanic all-star war saga follows a squad of American GIs as they trudge through the horrors of World War II from Britain to Italy to France to Berlin. Featuring appearances from a host of European superstars including Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, and Melina Mercouri The Victors trades flagwaving heroics for a blistering, war-is-hell message. One hair-raising scene: an execution set to Sinatra s Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. Sat, Mar 7 at 2pm About BAMcinématek The four-screen BAM Rose Cinemas (BRC) opened in 1998 to offer Brooklyn audiences alternative and independent films that might not play in the borough otherwise, making BAM the only performing arts center in the country with two mainstage theaters and a multiplex cinema. In July 1999, beginning with a series celebrating the work of Spike Lee, BAMcinématek was born as Brooklyn s only daily, year-round repertory film program. BAMcinématek presents new and rarely seen contemporary films, classics, work by local artists, and festivals of films from around the world, often with special appearances by directors, actors, and other guests. BAMcinématek has not only presented major retrospectives by major filmmakers such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Manoel de Oliveira, Shohei Imamura, Vincente Minnelli (winning a National Film Critics Circle Award prize for the retrospective), Kaneto Shindo, Luchino Visconti, and William Friedkin, but it has also introduced New York audiences to contemporary artists such as Pedro Costa and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. In addition, BAMcinématek programmed the first US retrospectives of directors Arnaud Desplechin, Nicolas Winding Refn, Hong Sang-soo, and, most recently, Andrzej Zulawski. From 2006 to 2008, BAMcinématek partnered with the Sundance Institute and in June 2009 launched BAMcinemaFest, a 16-day
festival of new independent films and repertory favorites with 15 NY feature film premieres; the sixth annual BAMcinemaFest ran from June 18 29, 2014. Credits The Wall Street Journal is the title sponsor of BAM Rose Cinemas and BAMcinématek. Steinberg Screen at the BAM Harvey Theater is made possible by The Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust. Pepsi is the official beverage of BAM. Brooklyn Brewery is the preferred beer of BAMcinématek. BAM Rose Cinemas are named in recognition of a major gift in honor of Jonathan F.P. and Diana Calthorpe Rose. BAM Rose Cinemas would also like to acknowledge the generous support of The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, The Estate of Richard B. Fisher, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, Brooklyn Delegation of the New York City Council, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Bloomberg, and Time Warner Inc. Additional support for BAMcinématek is provided by The Grodzins Fund, The Liman Foundation, and Summit Rock Advisors. BAMcinématek is programmed by Nellie Killian and David Reilly with assistance from Gabriele Caroti and Jesse Trussell. Additional programming by Ryan Werner. Special thanks to Chris Chouinard/Park Circus; Joe Reid & Caitlin Robertson/20th Century Fox; Todd Wiener & Steven Hill/UCLA Film & Television Archive; Kristie Nakamura/Warner Bros. Classics; Paul Ginsburg/Universal Pictures; Judy Nicaud/Paramount Pictures; Christopher Lane & Michael Horne/Sony Pictures Repertory; May Haduong & Cassie Blake/Academy Film Archive; Vicky Preminger. General Information BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, and BAMcafé are located in the Peter Jay Sharp building at 30 Lafayette Avenue (between St Felix Street and Ashland Place) in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. BAM Harvey Theater is located two blocks from the main building at 651 Fulton Street (between Ashland and Rockwell Places). Both locations house Greenlight Bookstore at BAM kiosks. BAM Fisher, located at 321 Ashland Place, is the newest addition to the BAM campus and houses the Judith and Alan Fishman Space and Rita K. Hillman Studio. BAM Rose Cinemas is Brooklyn s only movie house dedicated to first-run independent and foreign film and repertory programming. BAMcafé, operated by Great Performances, offers a bar menu and dinner entrées prior to BAM Howard Gilman Opera House evening performances. BAMcafé also features an eclectic mix of spoken word and live music for BAMcafé Live on Friday and Saturday nights with a bar menu available starting at 6pm. Subway: Train: Bus: Car: 2, 3, 4, 5, Q, B to Atlantic Avenue Barclays Center (2, 3, 4, 5 to Nevins St for Harvey Theater) D, N, R to Pacific Street; G to Fulton Street; C to Lafayette Avenue Long Island Railroad to Atlantic Terminal Barclays Center B25, B26, B41, B45, B52, B63, B67 all stop within three blocks of BAM Commercial parking lots are located adjacent to BAM For ticket information, call BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100, or visit BAM.org. BLACK & WHITE SCOPE: AMERICAN CINEMA, Feb 27 Mar 19 at BAMcinématek