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.



Friday 9: Cine/Club: Randall Museum

Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER (1982, USA)

A bold and mesmerizing vision of the future, this film has been one of our most popular, and with good reason. It’s a chilling detective thriller set against one of the most dazzling future cities ever imagined, but its underlying themes about humanity and self-determination are just as strong.
WHY WE CHOSE THIS FILM:

We show Blade Runner every few years because it is a classic of sci-fi film while remaining thoughtful and moving. It follows a stock thriller formula, a dangerous enemy on the loose who can hide in plain sight, but it holds your attention while the characters explore ideas about being an outsider, about displacement and ultimately about what it means be human. It takes the Frankenstein theme to new levels. Visually, the film is breathtaking, creating a world at once foreign and perfectly believeable. There are few films to equal its visual abundance. This is Scott at his best as an outstanding visual stylist.
   
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Ridley Scott is a director who came to filmmaking from the world of television commercials, having produced ads so strong they’re considered classics today (the 1984 Apple commercial being his most famous though it was made after Blade Runner.) His first feature, The Duellists, a Napoleonic War period drama, won the prize for new director at the Cannes Film Festival. It was an artistic triumph, but a commercial failure. He then came to Hollywood and turned out a number of blockbusters starting with Alien and then Blade Runner, each an instant classic. More recent works of note include the action films Gladiator and Black Hawk Down.
Friday 16: Cine/Club: Randall Museum

Julian Schnaubel's THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (2007, France)

This film is an extraordinary tour-de-force from an artist primarily known as a painter. Based on real-life events, it chronicles the heroic efforts of wealthy and sucessful magazine editor who suffers a massive stroke while driving and is left completely paralyzed—even unable to speak—except for one functioning eye. The film weaves his past and present together as he struggles to re-learn how to communicate and ultimately how to create as an artist. The camera work in this film is more daring and inventive than most any you've ever seen and will leave you breathless.
 
WHY WE CHOSE THIS FILM:

This is a powerful film in a lot of ways, but one in particular stands out: point-of-view. POV, as it’s known, is the subjective use of the camera, making the viewer feel like they are seeing things through the eyes of the characters. Many successful films make use of it, but this one in particular uses it consistently and effectively, taking us inside the head of the central character, giving us a window into this man’s inner life. The story it tells is moving—but it tells its story almost entirely with images and that makes it all the more remarkable. The hero must slowly rethink the way he looks at life… and there’s a chance you will too.

Saturday 17: Our FIRST Art Saturday of the year

10:30 Meet on the balcony outside Metreon overlooking Yerba Buena Park (on Mission between 3rd & 4th)

11:00 We'll go see a couple of galleries, followed by a picnic lunch.
Friday 23: Cine/Club: Randall Museum

Fritz Lang's M (1924, Germany)

The inimitable Peter Lorre in his first starring role plays a serial child murderer on the run from the police and a vigilante mob. It's a frightening portrait that's hard to forget. This film's expressionist style and lighting gave birth to the film noir.

 
WHY WE CHOSE THIS FILM:

The simplicity, the suspense, the coupling of the police and the criminal underground to search for the same criminal, and the heartfelt, brilliant performance of Peter Lorre in his debut film make this film unforgettable. We think it will keep you riveted, and you learn a lot about the tension in pre-Nazi Berlin society.

 
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Fritz Lang gained a strong reputation in Germany for films like Metropolis and Die Nibelungen. His visual style laid the foundations for film noir—dark dramatic lighting, moral ambiguity, paranoia, fate—and a real flair for visual concepts. He fled Nazi Germany and in Hollywood created films about social justice, including Fury, and a number of film about doomed ex-cons. He continued to make films through the 50’s, but they, sadly, never equaled the force of his early work.
Friday 30: Cine/Club: Randall Museum

Krzysztof Kieślowski's THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE (1991, Poland)

Is there another person on earth whose life reflects our own? A doppleganger who looks the same and has similar ideas but lives a completely different life? This is the question that this film explores with great power and sensitivity, acted out with two Veroniques: one in Paris, the other in Krakow. Kieslowski communicates with a visual poetry of stunning depth and beauty. This films leaves a lasting impression.
WHY WE CHOSE THIS FILM:

Every year we show a film by Keislowski, but this will be the first time for Veronique. We showed the film to the Film Workshop last year and their enormous enthusiasm for the film convinced us to bring it to a larger audience. Keislowski is all about connections and coincidence—the way fate can weave patterns in our lives, the way events large and small change the path we walk. These concepts are brought into stark relief in this film of two parallel lives.
   
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Kieslowski came out of film school in Poland and worked a number of years within a communist system that kept banning or shelving his films. With his 10hr film, Dekalog—ten one-hour episodes based on the ten commandments—he created a masterwork that won him numerous international honors. This film, The Double Life of Veronique, turned him into a national icon in France, and his trilogy, Red, White, and Blue, based on themes from colors in the French flag, made him famous world over. It was the pressures brought on by fame and enormous homage that contributed to his anxieties and led to his early death by heart attack.