Film 50: History of Cinema: The Cinematic City

Wednesday, February 13, 2013
3:10 p.m. Sisters of the Gion
Kenji Mizoguchi (Japan, 1936). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. In this famous melodrama, Mizoguchi strips away the romantic veneer of the geisha business, both in the story and in a stark visual style that capitalizes on visual elements of the Gion district. “A masterpiece” (Tadao Sato). (68 mins)

Wednesday, February 20, 2013
3:10 p.m. The Bicycle Thief
Vittorio De Sica (Italy, 1948). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. De Sica’s masterpiece of a father and son searching the streets of Rome for their stolen bicycle is considered one of the greatest films ever made. “An allegory at once timeless and topical” (Village Voice). (93 mins)

Wednesday, February 27, 2013
3:10 p.m. The Third Man
Carol Reed (U.K., 1949). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Joseph Cotten pursues Welles through postwar Vienna in Graham Greene and Carol Reed’s cynical masterpiece. “Seeing it on the big screen is like watching it for the first time" (NY Times). (109 mins)

Wednesday, March 6, 2013
3:10 p.m. The 400 Blows
François Truffaut (France, 1959). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Truffaut’s quintessential coming-of-age film is a lyrical but unsentimental portrait of adolescence and of Paris, naturalistically captured by cinematographer Henri Decaë. (99 mins)

Wednesday, March 13, 2013
3:10 p.m. Vertigo
Alfred Hitchcock (U.S., 1958). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Detective Jimmy Stewart combs the Bay Area looking for the secret behind Kim Novak’s beauty in Hitchcock’s sinister ode to voyeurism, death, and amorous fixation. “Perhaps the finest film starring San Francisco” (San Francisco Chronicle). (128 mins)

Wednesday, March 20, 2013
3:10 p.m. The Battle of Algiers
Gillo Pontecorvo (Italy/Algeria, 1966). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. “Because of its perfect fusion of form and content, one of the most strikingly successful subversive films ever made (Amos Vogel).(123 mins)

Wednesday, April 3, 2013
3:10 p.m. Manhattan
Woody Allen (U.S., 1979). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Woody Allen’s visual love poem to the city of his heart. With Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand's Manhatta. (107 mins)

Wednesday, April 10, 2013
3:10 p.m. Do the Right Thing
Spike Lee (U.S., 1989). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Lee’s third feature, a lively, frequently hilarious but hard-hitting drama, charts mounting racial tensions on the hottest day of the year in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. “The funniest, most stylized, most visceral New York street scene this side of Scorseseland” (J. Hoberman, Village Voice). (120 mins)

Wednesday, April 17, 2013
3:10 p.m. Touki Bouki
Djibril Diop-Mambéty (Senegal, 1973). Imported 35mm restored print! Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Two youths cruise the streets of Dakar on a motorbike, looking for adventure and scams, in this African Easy Rider, awash with the raw energy of urban Senegal and global psychedelic youth culture. “Surreal, richly sumptuous, quite extraordinary” (Telegraph UK). (88 mins)

Wednesday, April 24, 2013
3:10 p.m. The Truman Show
Peter Weir (U.S., 1998). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Jim Carrey stars as Truman Burbank, living a life completely planned (by the Hollywood producer of a reality show starring the unwitting Truman) in a completely planned community based on Seaside, Florida. (103 mins)

Wednesday, May 1, 2013
3:10 p.m. Manufactured Landscapes
Jennifer Baichwal (Canada, 2006). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. A pictorially ravishing tour of China's devastated industrial landscapes with photographer Edward Burtynsky. (90 mins)

Special admission prices apply

General admission, $11.50; BAM/PFA members, $7.50; UC Berkeley students, $5.50; Seniors, disabled persons, UC Berkeley faculty and staff, non–UC Berkeley students, and youth 17 and under, $8.50. Programs often sell out, so we recommend purchasing advance tickets.

Tickets for Film 50 go on sale to the general public on December 7. The advance ticket buying window for Sponsor-level members and above is November 30 to December 6. To become a member of BAM/PFA at the Sponsor level today, call (510) 642-5186.