“Dry your eyes, baby; it’s out of character.”
– Devlin, Notorious
“Why did you lie to me?”
“Because I’m a wild animal.”
– Mrs and Mr. Fox, Fantastic Mr. Fox
We’ve all got a role to play. Yours is joining us in celebrating Wellington Film Society’s 80th birthday with a weekend-long takeover of the Embassy Theatre.
From its very first screening in 1946, Wellington Film Society has celebrated the art of onscreen performance and that’s why we’ve chosen ‘Playing the Part’ as our theme for the weekend. We will be screening eight films, one from each decade of our history, built around this theme. As well as a showcase of great actors, this will be a celebration of the way their characters have to use performance, deception and conformity to ‘play a part’ within the onscreen worlds they inhabit.
Festivities will kick off at 6pm on Friday 5 June with a movie from our very first year: Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious. Starring two of the 20th Century’s greatest screen presences, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, the pair showcase some truly hot onscreen chemistry. Hitchcock uses the visual language of film noir to great effect in this story about spycraft where our gorgeous leads must go undercover to track down Nazis in Brazil following World War 2.
Later that night, we will be jumping forward in time for our 90s pick, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights. Set in the adult film world of Los Angeles in the 70s and 80s, preternatural talent Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) meets, clashes and makes up with his found family. With Anderson’s penchant for glorious ensemble casts and showy filmmaking, this is a celebration of hanging out with your homies and trying out different personas, onscreen and off.
Day 2 opens with the film that secured the number 1 spot in the prestigious 2022 Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time poll*: Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Chantal Akerman’s masterpiece of feminist filmmaking is a tough watch: its 200 minute runtime showcases the mundanity of domestic labour, warts and all. But its radical thesis, embodied in an unaffected Delphine Seyrig, continues to challenge audiences with what it means to ‘play a part’ when the script is written by patriarchy.
For a lighter film about the performance of gender we have Peking Opera Blues directed by the legendary Tsui Hark. Three women: a revolutionary (Brigitte Lin), a courtesan (Cherie Chung) and an aspiring Peking Opera performer (Sally Yeh) find unlikely allies in each other in 1910s China. With a generous helping of queer subtext and crossdressing hijinks that would make Shakespeare himself blush, this will be a wonderful complement to our main-programme series of Hong Kong Cinema.
The strangest film in our lineup may very well be The Lure, a Polish horror musical about a pair of mermaids who find work performing in a nightclub under the names ‘Silver’ and ‘Gold’. Director Agnieszka Smoczyńska has a lot of fun subverting Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid as our protagonists are pulled between land and sea, human men and their own kind. What better way to spend your Saturday night than by cheering on these singing, dancing, man-eating sirens?
Our final day will kick off with a film about brushing up against the limits of the role imposed on us by nature: Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. This stop-motion romp, adapted from Roald Dahl’s classic children’s novel, will be open to audience members of all ages. The tale of a cunning fox (George Clooney) who leads a group of woodland creatures in an uprising against mean-spirited farmers will be a wonderful opportunity to introduce the next generation to the Embassy!
Next is Douglas Sirk’s lush melodrama: Imitation of Life. Lana Turner stars as an aspiring actress who befriends a Black woman (Juanita Moore) and her biracial but white-passing daughter (Susan Kohner). Like many of Sirk’s films, it was disregarded in the 1950s for its focus on ‘women’s issues’ but has gone on to be acclaimed as a depiction of race, class and gender in mid-century America.
We are closing out our festival with one of the most striking films about film ever made, Federico Fellini’s 8 ½. Marcello Mastroianni stars as a stand-in for the auteur who is grappling with a nasty case of director’s block, exacerbated by his failure to cast the part of ‘the perfect woman’ (embodied by recently departed icon Claudia Cardinale). This avant-garde masterpiece has gone on to be regarded as one of the most influential films of all time.
Screenings are open to members of Wellington Film Society. To manage the demand, we are likely to use a booking system and details of how to book will be announced shortly. Fantastic Mr. Fox will be open to children, with specific details to come.
* In addition, Notorious came in at number 133, Imitation of Life at number 17 and 8 ½ at number 31.