The Matrix vs. Seconds
Keanu Reeves and Rock Hudson battle their identities.
Audio will alternate with each seating 4:00pm Seconds audio 6:30pm The Matrix audio 9:00pm Seconds audio
You may have seen The Matrix
(1999), but it's very likely you have never watched it simultaneously
with John Frankenheimer's Seconds
(1966), starring Rock Hudson. Both films could be seen as
epic allegories about gay identity or capitalist identity
or simply, existential identity. Why must Keanu choose between
the blue or red pill?
An early 90s urban legend quoted in a French magazine had
Keanu marrying David Geffen. A real British tabloid story
noted that one of the Wachowski Brothers (co-directors of
The Matrix) enjoyed wearing women's undergarments. Was that
Wachowski Brother playing the Keanu legend against his own
desires? Was Keanu in on an apocryphal joke?
Biographers have noted that the closeted Rock Hudson had
a Martin Sheen-like nervous breakdown while filming Seconds.
Hudson plays a scientifically altered, younger version of
an aging banker who has paid to be cosmetically reborn as
a young, sexy swinger. Mid-60s sex romps ensue. And soon
after, Hudson's character is faced with a profound alienation.
October 11
Tokyo Olympiad vs. Olympia: Part 1
High-modern and high-fascist visions of athletes.
Audio will alternate with each seating 4:00pm Tokyo Olympiad audio 6:00pm Olympia: Part 1 audio 8:00pm Tokyo Olympiad audio 10:00pm Olympia: Part 1 audio
Leni Riefenstahl claimed Olympia:
Part 1(1938) was not Nazi propaganda and that
she was simply a documentarian of human movement. Her cinematography
has been called fascist by many critics, most famously by
Susan Sontag in several critical essays and interviews.
Compare Olympia: Part 1 with Kon Ichikawa's gorgeous, modernist
peaen, Tokyo
Olympiad (1965). The uniforms, the crowds,
the Olympic stadium, the earnest athletes; they all convey
a modernist optimism about design and beauty that seems
very charming and entirely believable. Yet despite a World
War between them, both films share many visions of athletic
glory. And what's the difference?
October
18
F
is For Fake vs. Dial M for Murder
Orson and Alfred by alphabet.
Audio will alternate with each seating 4:00pm Dial M for Murder audio 6:00pm F is For Fake audio 8:00pm Dial M for Murder audio 10:00pm F is For Fake audio
We're not sure if there are any synergies besides their
alphabetic titles, but seeing Orson's last great masterpiece
next to Alfred's waltz with Grace Kelly should reveal something,
right?
Orson Welles' F
is For Fake (1974) deserves the same
level of praise as Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil. This
past year, Criterion Collection released it on DVD. Alfred
Hitchcock's Dial
M for Murder (1954) is a murder-melodrama
wrapped in Hitchcock's formalist, baroque aesthetic. October 25
Psycho vs. Psycho
Hitchcock photocopied, in color
Audio will alternate with each seating 4:00pm Psycho (Van Sant) audio 6:00pm Psycho (Hitchcock) audio 8:00pm Psycho (Van Sant) audio 10:00pm Psycho (Hitchcock) audio
Just because we can, doesn't mean we should...show these
two films together and indulge a conceit of synchronicity.
But just because Gus Van Sant did a re-make of Psycho
(1998) shot-for-shot and frame-by-frame, we actually see
Anne Heche apeing Janet Leigh in the shower with the knife.
We expect that Anthony Perkins and Vince Vaughn will not
get along. Hitchcock's original Psycho
(1960) is a very, very Freudian film.
