Our Art Saturday programs are free and meet above the waterfall in Yerba Buena Gardens (Mission between 3rd and 4th Streets) between 10:45 and 11:15. No need to RSVP. Students tour downtown art galleries and museums to take in the very latest in contemporary art before they are treated to a picnic lunch. After lunch we go see a new release film. A cultural education unlike any other!

Cine/Club is free and is held on Friday nights. These events are free to students, their guests, mentors, parents and friends of Art & Film. No need to RSVP. Screenings are held at the Randall Museum (199 Museum Way) and at Dolby Labs (100 Potrero Avenue). Refreshments are served at 6:30 and the film begins at 7 unless otherwise noted.

Discussions are held after each film, led by Ronald Chase, director of Art & Film, and guest moderators such as Heather Woodward of SotA and Jeanne Finley of CCA.



Saturday 1: Art Saturday

10:30 Meet on the balcony outside Metreon overlooking Yerba Buena Park (on Mission between 3rd & 4th)
11:00 We'll go to SFMOMA, followed by a picnic lunch and see a film in the afternoon.
Friday 7: Cine/Club: Randall Museum

F W Murnau's SUNRISE (1927, USA)

This is the touching and beautifully filmed story of an unfaithful husband and his long-suffering young wife from the country who end up spending an unexpected and unforgettable evening in the big city. This is the German director Murnau’s first and last film made in Hollywood. He was killed in a car accident the next year. It won the first (and only) Oscar for Best Picture: Unique and Artistic Production. It’s still a masterpiece.
WHY WE CHOSE THIS FILM:

Cine/Club loves introducing you to silent films. Most years, they're usually Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton comedies (they’re great, too). This one is a drama, but it's just as compelling. The performances are powerful and the camera work is some of the best of the silent era. Whole villages, city streets and miles of train track were built just for the film. We really love to hear you exclaim, “That was a wonderful movie! I didn’t realize a silent movie could be so good!”
   
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:

Murnau is one of a handful of the greatest directors in film. All of his films were silent, because he died in 1931, just as sound-films were appearing on the scene. His last film was made in Hollywood, but most of his work was done in Germany and he left behind him a legacy that includes one of the first vampire movie, Nosferatu, and a film that made German Expressionism popular, The Last Laugh.

The popularity of his films in the United States led to his Sunrise, which is set in an imaginary Europe. The use of camera movement, of imagery, naturalistic acting and simple story helped bring silent films in America to the high level that film had achieved in Europe. It remains one of the marvels of film, and we hope you will try it. You just might get hooked.
Friday 14: Cine/Club: Randall Museum

Orson Welles' CITIZEN KANE (1940, USA)

This is the real thing. The one you've heard about. The one people reference when they want to reference serious film. Welles brings us the story of famous newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, based on the life of the very real William Randolph Hearst (once owner of the SF Chronicle among many other papers). His life, his loves and his death stands as a one time monument in film. If you haven’t seen it more than once, your future as a cultured, informed person is questionable.

 
WHY WE CHOSE THIS FILM:

As American films go, there is probably no bigger deal than Citizen Kane, and lest you be decried an ignoramus and probably have an engagement or two broken off (“What, you’ve never seen Citizen Kane? Take your ring, back, you peeg!”) we’d advise you to come to this screening.

First it asks important questions. What are American values? What does it mean to have powerful, rich, famous? These are major questions and ones worth contemplating, particularly in our culture of celebrity worship and conspicuous consumerism. It’s original title was American. It’s about ambition, about integrity, about bad decisions, and about, let’s see, politics, and art and so on and so on.

   
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:

Orson Welles was the boy wonder; as a child he wrote poetry, painted, played the piano, made puppets, acted, and performed magic shows. In his playroom he used to stage Shakespeare plays. His father died when he was twelve and he became the ward of a Chicago doctor. Instead of going to college, he chose a drawing tour of Ireland, and while in Dublin bluffed himself into an interview with the director of the Gate Theater, and won a lead in their current production. He stayed on to act in and direct several productions. He returned home, secured a role in a famous touring theater company, married a Chicago socialite and hooked up with a producer named John Houseman. Together they formed the Mercury Theater, which branched into radio, and caused the nation to shake with a production of “The War of the Worlds” (broadcast like a news commentary).
   
He was finally invited to Hollywood, originally for a version of Conrad’s The Heart Of Darkness that never got off the ground. Then Citizen Kane established him as a controversial genius of film, but things were never the same. He began a new film, The Magnificent Ambersons, but made the disastrous mistake of leaving before the film was edited to film a documentary in Brazil. One disappointment followed another, as films were taken from him, re-edited and ruined in his estimation. His focus became divided between living the life of a famous celebrity (he married film legend Rita Hayworth) and struggling to make his own films. He was labeled “box-office poison," was decried for being temperamental and difficult, and he struggled from then on to make any films. He continued to triumph as an actor, most notably in The Third Man and Touch of Evil, both memorable examples of film noir. He made several more films before he died, but none came to the level of his first.

Saturday 15: Art Saturday

10:30 Meet on the balcony outside Metreon overlooking Yerba Buena Park (on Mission between 3rd & 4th)
11:00 We'll go see galleries, followed by a picnic lunch and see a film in the afternoon.
Friday 21: Cine/Club: Randall Museum

Ariane Mnouchkine’s MOLIERE (1978, Italy)

How well do you know Moliere? Even if you've read a few of his works, we're betting you know next to nothing about the man, and that's a shame. Scandal, intreague, bankrutpcy and supreme triumph marked his life, which is brought to the big screen by a master of the theater. Not only is this film the most vivid and exhilarating portrait of one of the greatest playwrights in history, it is one of the most accurate and exciting portraits of a historical age. Here is a period film with life and breath, filled with unforgettable images. Come be astonished.

 
WHY WE CHOSE THIS FILM:

Moliere doesn't get so much attention here in America. This film vividly recreates the late 1600’s, the atmosphere of the religious wars and the court of Louis IV, but above all it’s an astounding look at theater during that time: the mimes, the pantomimes, the classic drama, and the freewheeling lives of actors. It’s filled with color and life.
   
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Ariane Mnouchkine is one of the most important theater directors in France. She founded her own theatre, Theatre du Soleil (Theater of the Sun), and is known for mind-boggling spectacles, like a Kabuki-inspired version of Richard II, and for producing theater in unexpected spaces, like barns and gymnasiums. Moliere was made with Theatre du Soleil, the entire cast is made up of actors from the theater for example. Of Mnouchkine's few films, this is the greatest and her ability to collaborate with her theater company so completely might be the reason why.