Our Art Saturday programs run every 1st and 3rd Saturday from September 18th through May 7th. No need to RSVP. Students tour downtown 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. Unless noted otherwise, we meet on the balcony outside Metreon overlooking Yerba Buena Park between 10:30 and 11am. Come join us.

Cine/Club 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 7pm unless otherwise noted.

Discussions are held after each film with moderators Heather Woodward of School of the Arts, and Ronald Chase, director of Art & Film.


Friday 14: Cine/Club: Dolby Labs

Wong Kar Wai's 2046 (2004, China)

We being the new year with a fine recent work by one of the most important film makers working today. A love story that takes place simultaneously in the past, present and future with great style and visual beauty.

PARENTAL WARNING: Some nudity and mild sex scenes.

 
WHY WE CHOSE THIS FILM:

2046 is an excellent example of what makes Wong Kar Wai one of the most important filmmakers working today, and of how much he's grown as a director. In particular, his characters grow more nuanced and sympathetic with each film (as in his latest masterpiece, The Hand). 2046 is one of his most accomplished and beautiful films, and though it was practically ignored by Americans critics when it opened here, we think you’ll be in awe of its visual beauty, it’s emotional depth and its rightful place in film history.
   
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:

Wong Kar Wai developed a cult following from his very first feature, and it has grown with every release since. He is the real thing: bold, daring and stylish to a fault; a director that speaks to Generation X hipsters. (He's one of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite living directors, that should tell enough.)

His early films were love stories filled with poetic takes on sex, violence and despair. His heroines and heroes can’t relate or communicate but they can mope and suffer with the best of them. Still, this ambitious director wanted more than mere cult status, and the past few years have seen him grow toward a deeper emotional terrain, mirroring many of the same philosophical strains of Kieslowski’s late films, not to mention the new-wave films of Alain Renais (especially Hiroshima, Mon Amor). He now holds a niche in film history all his own.
 

Saturday 15: Art Saturday

10:30 Meet on the balcony outside Metron 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

Buster Keaton's THE GENERAL (1927, USA)

Consumate comedian Buster Keaton takes on the Union and the Confederate South in this wild send up of the Civil War. Not exactly the sort of material you usually see in a comedy, is it? But Keaton takes the events of the Great Locomotive Chase of 1862, where a group of Union Army volunteers took control of a train and traveled into enemy territory , tearing up the tracks and burning bridges as they went, and turns it into daring, comedic gold. It is considered one of Keaton’s best and most important films. It’s use of mime, movement, and ironic historical detail are at an all time high. It is ambitious and grand and hilarious at the same time.

 

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:

It has taken a long time for Buster Keaton to take his place as the reigning inventive genius of the silent comics, but he has outstripped the reputation of his rival, Charles Chaplin, and now heads the class. Much of this comes from his lack of sentimentality, his comic inventiveness, and a dash of existential angst. He was born into a Vaudville family and started on the stage at age 3 performing horrifyingly dangerous stunts. We would now describe his childhood as excessively abusive, as the beatings from his alcoholic father didn’t come near the savagery of the stage beatings he went through. (One act had his father sweeping the floor with his child’s body). But by the time he was ten he had learned such a bag of tricks, including dangerous acrobatic falls and a deadly sense of comic timing. Audiences were convinced he was a midget masquerading as a child.

   
Keaton entered films as the side-kick to famous comedian Fatty Arbuckle when films were still being shot in New York. He moved on to Hollywood and produced, directed and acted in a string of stunning works, Go West, The Navigator, and Sherlock, Jr. At the height of his success he made one bad decision: he sold his studio and signed a contract with MGM in which he lost control of his films. He discovered he could not work under these conditions, and his mental and physical health went south. He divorced his wife, went bankrupt and continued to slide into obscurity.
   
Sad, but not quite a tragedy. In 1947 he performed a series of live numbers with a circus in Paris, which began the revival of the Keaton legend. He appeared alongside Chaplin in the film Limelight, had a cameo in Sunset Blvd., was the subject of two film bios, and finished his life with a series of performances in small and large film roles that left him exhausted. (One of his last great honors was having a film written for him by Samuel Beckett, the Nobel Prize playwright.) He received the longest standing ovation of any film artist at the Venice Film Festival in 1965. Since his death in 1966 his films have been regularly revived and shown in festivals throughout the world.
Friday 28: Cine/Club: Dolby Labs

Pedro Almodóvar's ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (1999, Spain)

Mother/Actress/Saint/Sinner goes the blurb for the trailer, but in reality this film is a marvelous exploration of the ways women relate to each other. A great follow up to last year’s Talk to Her, also by Almodóvar.

 
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:

Last year we offered you Talk to Her and it was such a bit hit with our students we thought you might enjoy more. Almodovar is arguably Spain’s most famous film director. He began with a series of over-the-top camp comedies that were a combination of gay fantasy and social satire, but as his films matured and became more ambitious he produces some of the most thoughtful and provocative work around.
   
This film is no exception. It perhaps is best summed up with the director’s unusual dedication: To all actresses who have played actresses. To all women who act. To men who act and become women. To all the people who want to be mothers. To my mother." It uses coincidence, generational conflicts, deaths and births of children, and a lot of theatrical references to weave a fascinating whole.