curzon magazine sept-oct 2012

Killing Them Softly

Room 237

Untouchable

The Shining

Skyfall

On the Road

About Elly

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Denis Lavant & Kylie Minogue inLawless

Tabu

Ginger and Rosa

®

m a y f a i r • s o h o • r e n o i r • c h e l s e a • r i c h m o n d • w i m b l e d o n

CUR ZONseptember-october 2012 • issue 34

Holy Motors

Barbara

Love

To Rome with Love

CERT TBC

IN CINEMAS OCTOBER 19

“EXTRAORDINARILY UPLIFTING”HHHHH

KATE MUIR, THE TIMES

“STUNNING…BUZZES WITH THE DESIRE TO AMAZE, DAZZLE AND EXCITE”

HHHHHIRISH TIMES

“A MASTERPIECE”

HHHHHALI CATTERALL, Q

“A REMARKABLE CREATIONONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST FILMS”

ROGER EBERT

“A BLAST OF SHEER, IMPROBABLE JOY”NEW YORK TIMES

“UTTERLY ORIGINAL. A TOTAL TRIUMPH”HHHHHDAVID GRITTEN, DAILY TELEGRAPH

“A GENUINE PIECE OFMUST-SEE CINEMA”

SCOTT MENDELSON, THE HUFFINGTON POST

“SOME KIND OF MIRACLE SPELLBINDING...NOT TO BE MISSED”

ROLLING STONE

WINNERCANNES

F I L M F E S T I V A L

CAMÉRA D’OR

WWW.WELCOMETOTHEBATHTUB.COM FACEBOOK/BEASTSOFTHESOUTHERNWILDUK

curzon mayfair, curzon soho, renoir cinema, curzon chelsea and curzon richmond are operated by:

curzon cinemas, 2nd floor, 20-22 stukeley street, london wc2b 5lrAt the time of going to print every effort was made to ensure the information contained in this programme was correct.

However, where circumstances dictate, we reserve the right to make changes.curzon cinemas limited 1934. registered in london: company no. 283280. est. 1934. curzon and curzon cinemas

are registered trade marks, no. 2291124 and no. 2424017 • participant in the europa cinemas/european union media programme

Cinema allows us to see the world through the eyes of others. It can be enlightening, disturbing and, on rare occasions, truly dazzling.

The next two months sees new releases by a number of truly visionary directors.

Leos Carax returns with Holy Motors. Barking mad from start to finish, it is one of the year's most inventive and deliriously entertaining films. Equally breathtaking is Benh Zeitlin’s debut Beasts of the Southern Wild, while another new director, William Eubank, explores the solitary confines of space with Love.

Bond is back with a bang in Sam Mendes’ Skyfall and hopes are high of a return to the octane-propelled thrill ride that Casino Royale delivered. On a more intimate register, Asghar

Director of ProgrammingJason Wood

Director of Sales, Marketing and Distribution, Curzon Artificial Eye

Debbie Rowland

Curzon Operations DirectorNigel Stowe

Curzon Operations ManagerKarolina Kus

Head of Private HiresTessa Conway-Holland

Farhadi’s About Elly, Christian Petzold’s Barbara and Sally Potter’s Ginger and Rosa all offer finely nuanced character studies, while Miguel Gomes’ Tabu shows how inventive world cinema continues to be.

Documentaries once again play a strong hand, from portraits of fashion icon Diana Vreeland and photographer Anton Corbijn to Room 237, an esoteric study of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, which is being re-released in time for Halloween.

Finally, the Met Opera returns to Curzon. Anne Hudson presents a tantalising preview of the new season, which combines the best of cinema technology with the excitement of live performance.Ian Haydn Smith, Magazine Editor

Head of Public EventsAna Cristina Santos

Marketing and Publicity Manager, Curzon Cinemas and Curzon on Demand

Jo Taylor

Magazine EditorIan Haydn Smith

Graphic DesignerNick Boyd

Chief EngineerMick Stephen

[email protected]

issue thirty four]contents]

new releasesAnna Karenina ..........................................08The Queen of Versailles ............................08Lawless ......................................................08Love ..........................................................09Tabu ..........................................................09Hope Springs ............................................09About Elly ................................................. 10To Rome with Love .................................. 10Anton Corbijn Inside Out ........................ 10Keyhole ......................................................12Untouchable ...............................................12Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel ....12Killing Them Softly .................................. 14Holy Motors ............................................. 14Barbara ...................................................... 14Liberal Arts ............................................... 16On the Road ............................................. 16Ginger and Rosa ....................................... 16Beasts of the Southern Wild ......................18Skyfall ........................................................18Elena ..........................................................18Sister .........................................................20Room 237 ..................................................20The Shining ..............................................20

featuresThe Curzon Interview: Christian Petzold ....................................... 24The Atomic Age: Ginger and Rosa ........................................ 28

Chronicle of a Disappearance: About Elly ...................................................30Just Good Friends: Untouchable ................................................ 32The Art of Ressurrection: Holy Motors ............................................. 34A Different Eden: Beasts of the Southern Wild ....................... 38A Year at the Met: New York Metropolitan Opera ....................40Director’s Cut: Chris Marker .....................66

eventsSpecial Previews ........................................06Curzon Q&As ..........................................44Curzon DocDays ......................................46Curzon Screen Salon ................................ 48Make Your Own Damn Art ..................... 48David Byrne in Conversation ...................49À Nous Amours: Mirror & War and Peace .. 50Met Opera .................................................52Met Opera Encore .....................................55Royal Opera House ................................... 56CineKids ................................................... 58Artists’ Film and Video ............................. 59

c inema info Membership: Join Us ........................... 19, 37Curzon on Demand...................................21Venue Info: contact details and more .......62

c u r z o n c i n e m a s . c o m

WIMBLEDON

44 5


special previews]

We have a limited number of complimentary tickets available to Curzon members. To apply for one of the free tickets for these special previews, please email [email protected] with your name, membership number and choice of film (free tickets are limited to one per member).

sunday 14 october 6.30pm [ S o h o ]

tickets: £13.75/£11.55 cineastessunday 14 october 6.30pm [ W i m b l e d o n ]

tickets: £12.00/£10.20 cineastes

Beasts of the Southern Wild [Cert tbc]

Director: Benh Zeitlin • Starring: Quvenzhané Wallis,

Dwight Henry, Levy Easterly, Lowell Landes, Pamela

Harper • US 2012 • 93 mins

Benh Zeitlin’s debut is a breathtaking vision of a unique world, telling the story of Hushpuppy, a young girl growing up in the Louisiana wilds. See page 18 for synopsis.With thanks to Studio Canal.

1 Sept – 9 Oct at BFI Southbank

8½ • MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA • SUNRISE CITIZEN KANE • TOKYO STORY • THE SEARCHERS

LA REGLE DU JEU • 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEYVERTIGO • THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC

GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME10

THE INTERNATIONAL FILM MAGAZINE

GREATEST 10THE INTERNATIONAL FILM MAGAZINE

BFI SOUTHBANKLondon SE1 WaterlooTickets 020 7928 3232bfi.org.uk

S&S Poll_AD Curzon 210x148_08-2012_v1.indd 1 09/08/2012 17:53

sunday 16 september 8.45pm [ S o h o ]

tickets: £13.75/£11.55 cineastestuesday 18 september 6.15pm [ C h e l s e a ]tickets: £13.75/£11.55 cineastes pullman seats £18.00/£15.30 cineastes

Untouchable [Cert tbc]

Directors: Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano • Starring: François

Cluzet, Omar Sy • France 2012 • 112 mins • French with

English subtitles

The most successful French film ever made, Untouchable tells the story of an aristocrat, severely paralysed in a paragliding accident, who is placed in the care of an ex-con, with hilarious results. See page 12 for synopsis.With thanks to Entertainment.

6

Anna Karenina [12A]Tolstoy’s sweeping drama, set amongst the rarefied world of 19th-century Russian high society is adapted here by Tom Stoppard and directed by Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice). Keira Knightley plays the eponymous heroine, caught between a passionless marriage and her affair with Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), which scandalises the royal court. Widely hailed as one of the greatest novels ever written, this is a richly rewarding adaptation.

Love [12A] Continuing the trend for lo-fi sci-fi, as evinced by Moon and Another Earth, William Eubank’s directorial debut finds Gunnar Wright’s astronaut orbiting the earth alone on a space station. Solitude is his enemy and he cannot help slipping into a hallucinatory world populated by a stream of characters. With a nod to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Eubank (who also wrote, shot and designed the film) has created a riveting drama about the human condition in extremis.

Lawless [18]The thinking man’s thriller director John Hillcoat (The Road, The Proposition) returns with a drama set in bootleg-era America and a stellar heavyweight cast. Tom Hardy and Shia LaBeouf play two siblings attempting to make money from prohibition, whose plans are thwarted by Guy Pearce’s government agent. Written by Nick Cave and with music by Cave and Dirty Three alumni Warren Ellis, Lawless continues Hillcoat’s fascination with criminality and a society on the brink of chaos.

Hope Springs [12A]Meryl Streep is on sparkling comedic form in David Frankel’s (The Devil Wears Prada) smart comedy, as a woman who believes her marriage needs spicing up. Unfortunately, her husband (Tommy Lee Jones, playing up his irascible persona to the hilt) doesn’t agree. Nevertheless, she enrols them on a week-long counselling workshop in the hope that things will change. The course is run by a relationships expert (Steve Carrell) who has no idea what he’s let himself in for.

The Queen of Versailles [PG]The spirit of Marie Antoinette lives on in this prescient documentary, which follows a billionaire couple’s attempt to build their own palace in Florida. David Siegel and his third wife Jackie are recorded over a three-year period, as they attempt to construct a huge French chateau. Unfortunately, as the building goes up, they witness their wealth dwindle as the economic downturn takes root. Lauren Greenfield’s film is an impressive and often hilarious account of wealth, greed and hubris.

Tabu [15]Directed by Miguel Gomes, one of the most acclaimed filmmakers to emerge from world cinema in recent years, Tabu takes its title, structure and inspiration from F.W. Murnau’s 1931 classic. Gomes divides his film into two parts, alternating his action between the past and present, Lisbon and Africa. A work of great beauty, whose narration is poetic in tone, Gomes’ portrait of one woman’s life and memory of a love long passed is a unique and emotionally satisfying achievement.

Director: Joe Wright • Starring: Keira Knightley, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kelly Macdonald, Jude Law, Matthew Macfadyen, Olivia Williams • UK, France 2012 • 130 mins

opens 7 september [C] [ r ] [W ]

Director: William Eubank • Starring: Gunner Wright, Corey Richardson, Bradley Horne, Nancy Stelle • US 2011 • 84 mins

opens 7 september [S]

Director: John Hillcoat • Starring: Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Shia LaBeouf, Guy Pearce, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska, Noah Taylor • US 2012 • 115 mins

opens 7 september [S] [W ]

Director: David Frankel • Starring: Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carrell, Jean Smart, Ben Rappaport • US 2012 • 100 mins

opens 14 september [m]


Director: Lauren Greenfield • US 2012 • 101 mins

Director: Miguel Gomes • Starring: Teresa Madruga, Laura Soveral, Ana Moreira, Henrique Espírito Santo, Carloto Cotta • Portugal, Germany, Brazil, France 2012 • 118 mins

opens 7 september [ R ]

new releases] [m a y f a i r ] [S o h o ] [R e n o i R ]

[C h e l s e a ] [r i c h m o n d ] [ W i m b l e d o n ]


98

f or s c re e n i n g t i m e s a n d t o b o ok t i c k e t s p l e as e v i s i t c u r z on c i n e m as. c om w h e re yo u c a n a l s o s u b s c r i b e t o o u r n e w s l e t t e r s

About Elly [Cert tbc]This is a welcome release for A Separation director Asghar Farhadi’s 2009 film. Three families holiday together at a remote and run-down cabin, taking with them a young woman, Elly. When she disappears, concern soon turns to recrimination as the fabric of these families’ worlds is torn apart. Like Farhadi’s subsequent Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear winner, About Elly is a complex moral tale whose Hitchcockian elements make for compelling cinema.

Anton Corbijn Inside Out [Cert tbc]Over the last two decades, Anton Corbijn has photographed some of the world’s most iconic figures, directed acclaimed music videos and been integral to the image of bands such as U2 and Depeche Mode. More recently, he ventured into filmmaking with the Ian Curtis bio-pic Control and George Clooney thriller The American. This intimate documentary charts Corbijn’s rise and the sacrifices he has had to make in order to achieve his success.

To Rome with Love [12A]Continuing in the same vein as his successful Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen’s latest unfolds in Rome, where numerous couples find themselves tempted by the allure of illicit romance. Alec Baldwin is hilarious as the film’s cautionary spirit, guiding a young man ( Jesse Eisenberg) through the pitfalls of infidelity, while Woody Allen arrives to meet his daughter’s fiancé, only to offend his family. It also features the director’s best gag in years, involving a shower and an amateur opera singer.

Director: Asghar Farhadi • Starring: Golshifteh Farhani, Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti, Merila Zare’i • Iran, France 2009 • 119 mins • Persian and German with English subtitles


Director: Klaartje Quirjins • UK 2012 • 90 mins


opens 14 september [ R ] [W ]

Director: Woody Allen • Starring: Alec Baldwin, Penelope Cruz, Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Woody Allen, Judy Davis • US 2012 • 112 mins • English and Italian with English subtitles




Curzon Soho invites you to its inaugural Book Quiz. Start rounding up your literary friends in teams of 6 or less and pit

yourselves against London’s bookish elite. Prizes for winners include a cornucopia of sublime reading materials and DVDs, as well as an all-pervading sense of triumph. Questions will range from E.L. James to Alexander Solzhenitsyn and all points in between. In anticipation of the 2012 Man Booker prize announcement on October 16th, you can do some homework in preparation for a special round on last year’s winner Julian Barnes.

Further details or to reserve a table email: [email protected] thanks to Faber & Faber

CURZON BOOK QUIZ

s p e c i a l e v e n t

booking essential

free entry

wednesday 10 october 7.30pm

[ S o h o ]

A FILM BY ASGHAR FARHADI

★★★★“Powerful and emotionally devastating.”

TOTAL FILM

★★★★“Gut-wrenchingly tense... profoundly affecting”

CINEVUE

www.axiomfilms.co.ukSTARTS 14TH SEPTEMBER

WINNER

F R O M T H E D I R E C TO R O F T H E O S C A RT M- W I N N I N G A S E P A R A T I O N

★★★★“impressive - convincing, very real,

often shockingly,never less than gripping...”

NEW INTERNATIONALIST

12

Elly_curzon_ad_Elly_curzon_ad 09/08/2012 18:58 Page 1

10


Keyhole [Cert tbc]Canadian auteur Guy Maddin has always been fascinated by Hollywood and here he offers up a twisted, nightmarish take on film noir. Jason Patric plays a mobster holed up with his gang inside an old, dilapidated house and surrounded by cops. However, not all is what it initially seems, as the line between the living and the dead, the present and the past, is increasingly blurred. The result is strange, beautifully shot and compelling.

Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel [PG]An intimate portrait of the woman who launched Twiggy’s career, advised Jackie O and once said that ‘‘the bikini is the biggest thing since the atom bomb’’. This documentary looks at the influential head of Harpers Bazaar and editor-in-chief of Vogue, who always kept true to her belief that ‘‘You’re not supposed to give people what they want, you’re supposed to give them what they don’t know that they want yet’’.

Untouchable [Cert tbc]The most successful French film ever made, Untouchable tells the story of Phillipe (François Cluzet), an aristocrat who is severely paralysed in a paragliding accident. He is placed in the care of Driss, an ex-con played by Senegalese actor Omar Sy. Gradually, they learn to rely on each other, both physically and emotionally. With two stunning performances, this film, loosely based on a true story, is a winning combination of laugh-out-loud comedy and heartfelt sentiment.

Director: Guy Maddin • Starring: Jason Patric, Isabella Rossellini, Udo Kier, Louis Negin, Brooke Palsson • Canada 2011 • 94 mins • English and French with English subtitles


Director: Lisa Immordino Vreeland, Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt, Frédéric Tcheng • US 2011 • 83 mins • English and French and Italian with English subtitles


Directors: Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano • Starring: François Cluzet, Omar Sy, Anne Le Ny, Audrey Fleurot, Clotilde Mollet • France 2012 • 112 mins • French with English subtitles

opens 21 september [S] [C] 28 sept [W ]



1212




Killing Them Softly [Cert tbc]Andrew Dominik teams up once again with Brad Pitt, his leading man in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, for this hard-boiled adaptation of George V. Higgins’ crime novel. Pitt plays Jackie Cogan, a hitman hired to track down the thieves who ripped off a high-stakes, mob-protected card game. As the intrigue increases, Dominik’s thriller also becomes a state-of-the-nation critique of contemporary America.

Barbara [Cert tbc]Barbara, a doctor in 1980s East Germany, is desperate to leave the country to join her lover in the West. However, her application to leave incenses the authorities and results in her relocation to a tiny rural district. Unwilling to remain, she hatches a plan to escape. The latest collaboration between the director and star of Yella presents a very different view of the Eastern Bloc and, as has come to be expected of this exceptional filmmaker, is a finely nuanced drama.

Holy Motors [18]Leos Carax’s first film in 13 years was apparently inspired by the filmmaker’s fascination with the afterhours life of stretch limousines. Denis Lavant plays Monsieur Oscar who, over the course of a single day, takes on 10 other guises, ranging from a gangster and ageing millionaire to a troubled parent and anarchic tramp. With sparkling cameos by Eva Mendes and Kylie Minogue, Holy Motors is that rarest of things – a true original.Available on Curzon on Demand from 28 September.

Director: Andrew Dominik • Starring: Brad Pitt, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta, Vincent Curatola • US 2012 • 104 mins

opens 21 september [S]tbc [W ]

Director: Christian Petzold • Starring: Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Rainer Bock, Christina Hecke, Claudia Geisler • Germany 2012 • 105 mins • German with English subtitles


Director: Leos Carax • Starring: Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes, Michel Piccoli, Kylie Minogue • France 2012 • 116 mins • French with English subtitles

opens 28 september [m] [S] [ R ] [ r ] [W ]

“Anyone who loved The Lives Of Others should see this” MSN

HHHH eye fOr fiLM

HHHH The TeLegrAph

HHHH eMpire

A f ilm by ChriSTiAN peTzOLd

“A mesmerisingly taut showcase”

SCreeN iNTerNATiONAL

“Outstanding” vArieTy

OPENS SEPT 28

14


Liberal Arts [Cert tbc]Writer-director Josh Radnor plays Jesse Fischer, a troubled 30-something who returns to his alma mater to celebrate the retirement of his favourite professor (Richard Jenkins). He meets Zibby, an idealistic young student, and falls in love, much to the consternation of those around them. Radnor’s comedy is one of the freshest indie films of the year, featuring another excellent performance by Martha Marcy May Marlene’s Elizabeth Olsen as the fun-loving Zibby.

Ginger and Rosa [Cert tbc]Sally Potter’s latest film is an evocative and beautifully shot portrait of post-war Britain, as seen through the eyes of Elle Fanning’s impressionable young teenager. She plays Ginger, who finds herself increasingly estranged from her mother (Christina Hendricks) and drawn further into the world of her pacifist and anti-nuclear activist father (Alessandro Nivola). However, her friendship with the fiery Rosa (Alice Englert) is severely tested by his unconventional lifestyle.

On the Road [Cert tbc]After countless abortive attempts to adapt Jack Kerouac’s novel, the journey is finally completed by Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries). Sam Riley takes on the author's alter-ego, Sal Paradise, with Viggo Mortensen and Tom Sturridge offering fine support as William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. However, like the novel, the true spirit of Kerouac’s trip is Dean Moriarty, played by Garrett Hedlund, whose previous performances displayed a fraction of the talent that Salles reveals here.

Director: Josh Radnor • Starring: Josh Radnor, Elizabeth Olsen, Zac Efron, Allison Janney, Richard Jenkins • US 2012 • 97 mins

opens 5 october [W ]

Director: Sally Potter • Starring: Elle Fanning, Alice Englert, Christina Hendricks, Annette Benning, Alessandro Nivola, Timothy Spall, Oliver Platt, Jodhi May • UK 2012 • TBC mins

opens 19 october [m] [ R ] [C] [ r ] [W ]

Director: Walter Salles • Starring: Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams, Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortensen, Steve Buscemi • France, UK, US, Brazil 2012 • 137 mins

opens 12 october [S] [C] [W ]



LiberaLArts

Josh RadnoR

ElizabEth olsen

RichaRd jenkins

allison janney

in cinemas 5 octobeRCert tBC

@libeRalaRtsUk /libeRalaRtsFilm

WE’RE ALL LOOKING FOR SOMEBODY ON THE SAME PAGE

★ ★ ★ ★ View London

★ ★ ★ ★ The Times

16


Beasts of the Southern Wild [12A]

Hushpuppy lives with her father in the town of Bathtub, far south of New Orleans. He tells her of a coming storm that will wash away the world. It may even unleash the mythical Aurochs, huge monsters frozen in the Arctic shelf. Benh Zeitlin’s debut has echoes of Terrence Malick and Maurice Sendak in its vision of a world at the mercy of the elements. And it is dominated by a superb performance from Quvenzhané Wallis as Hushpuppy.

Elena [Cert tbc]The third feature from the director of The Return is a moody noir. Elena lives in a separate bedroom to her older husband, whom she met years before when she nursed him in hospital. He now pays her to be his companion. When she asks for money to help her grandson avoid the draft, Vladmir refuses. It is a decision that all may live to regret and is the lynchpin in Zvyagintsev’s smart arthouse thriller, which constantly surprises and simmers with tension.

Skyfall [Cert tbc]Little is known about the latest Bond film, except that it is back on track after the underwhelming Quantum of Solace. Javier Bardem plays Bond’s peroxide nemesis, Ralph Fiennes adds heft to the array of the establishment figures, Bérénice Marlohe and Naomi Harris are the romantic distractions and Ben Wishaw is the latest Q. Expect explosions, intrigue and more than a few surprises from director Sam Mendes, making his first foray into big-budget action films.

Director: Benh Zeitlin • Starring: Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry, Levy Easterly, Lowell Landes, Pamela Harper • US 2012 • 93 mins

opens 19 october [S] [W ]

Director: Sam Mendes • Starring: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Wishaw, Helen McCrory, Bérénice Marlohe • UK, US 2012 • TBC mins

opens 26 october [m]tbc [C] [W ]



B e C O m e a R i s i N g s ta R a N d e N j O y f R e e C i N e m a f O R a y e a R !

Our new Rising Star membership offers you one free ticket to any film screening, DocDays and Screen Salon for £300*. You can

also enjoy a fantastic selection of films this September and October, including: Lawless, Anna Karenina, Untouchable, Holy Motors,

Beasts of the Southern Wild and Skyfall.

15% off guest’s ticket • No booking fee • 15% off event tickets, plus discount for guest’s ticket • 15% off bar (inc alcohol) and snacks, plus DVDs* • 15% off online store items and Curzon on Demand films.

tO fiNd OUt mORe, please visit CURZONCiNemas.COm/memBeRship OR

CONtaCt [email protected] OR Call 0330 500 1331

ReCeive all the latest CURZON CiNemas News aNd Updates

*No free tickets for film Q&as, special film events, opera and other selected alternative content.**Not applicable at hmvcurzon wimbledon.

Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev • Starring: Elena Lyadova, Nadezhda Markina, Aleksey Rozin, Andrey Smirnov • Russia 2012 • 109 mins • Russian with English subtitles

opens 26 october [S]

18


Sister [Cert tbc]Ursula Meier’s second feature is an intriguing account of familial responsibility. Simon (Kacey Mottet Klein) spends his days at ski resorts, stealing whatever equipment he can in order to fence it for cash. He lives with his older sister (Léa Sedoux) in a small apartment in a run-down tower block. She offers him little guidance and their relationship is, at best, fractious. But Simon’s desire for something more in his life consumes him, revealing a past the siblings have tried to keep hidden.

The Shining [15]Stanley Kubrick’s classic chiller returns in time for Halloween. A very loose adaptation of Stephen King’s weighty tome, it finds Jack Nicholson’s aspiring writer and his family relocating to an empty hotel for the winter. Hired as the caretaker, he sees the job as an opportunity to finish his novel. However, the hotel’s grisly past soon begins to haunt him. Kubrick’s mastery of the medium ensures The Shining’s position as one of the greatest horror films ever made.

Room 237 [Cert tbc]Want to know more about The Shining? Room 237’s director Rodney Ascher did. Here he gathers together theories, speculations, rumours and ideas that have built up around the film. The result is less a documentary about the film itself than an examination of what it stands for; Room 237 explores the meanings some people believe to be hidden within the film, illuminated by clips, animation and dramatic re-enactments. The result is a beguiling homage to Kubrick’s unsettling film.

Director: Rodney Ascher • US 2012 • 102 mins

opens 26 october [S]

Director: Ursula Meier • Starring: Kacey Mottet Klein, Léa Seydoux, Martin Compston • France, Switzerland 2012 • 100 mins • English and French with English subtitles

opens 26 october [ R ]



watch f i lms in the c inema at

home and on the go

f O l l O w U s – C U R Z O N O N d e m a N d

C U R Z O N O N d e m a N d . C O m

we have a great selection of films coming up over the next two months. to receive more information please join our newsletter for updates: curzoncinemas.com/newsletter.

BeRBeR iaN sOUNd stUdiO [15]

d i rec tor : peteR stR iCklaNd

Available now on Curzon, in cinemas

hOly mOtORs [18]

d i rec tor : leOs CaRax

28th september on Curzon, in cinemas

N e w R e l e a s e s i N s e p t e m B e R

Director: Stanley Kubrick • Starring: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers, Joe Turkell, Philip Stone • UK, US 1980 • 142 mins

opens 2 november [S] preview 26 october

2021

RUst aNd BONe

Directed by Jacques AudiardStarring Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts

Jacques Audiard, the acclaimed director of A Prophet, Read My Lips and The Beat That My Heart Skipped returns with Rust and Bone, a taut, romantic drama about two souls adrift in the world. In her most daring role to date, Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose, The Dark Knight Rises) excels as Stéphanie, an employee at a marine theme park. Late one night, she meets Alain (Matthias Schoenaerts), a bouncer at a nightclub. He is on the brink of returning to street fighting, but has his young son to think about. Their attraction is immediate. When they meet again, a tragic accident has transformed Stéphanie's life. Her anger draws her inexorably into Alain's violent world and in each other they find hope of healing their wounds.

Adapted from the short stories of Canadian writer Craig Davidson, Rust and Bone is the story of two people seeking redemption in a tough world. It sees Audiard returning to a morally ambiguous universe where the law has little meaning and the line between right and wrong is never clear. Unfolding on the fringes of a shadowy underworld, Rust and Bone is as visceral as Audiard's award-winning A Prophet, but shot through with the tenderness of Read My Lips. It is the work of a master filmmaker at the height of his powers and one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the year. • On general release 2 November

“A passionate and moving love story” the guardian

a d v e r t o r i a l

“Marion Cotillard gives an outstanding performance” the times


The Curzon Interview

Christian Petzold talks about his unique take on the Cold War• By Jason Wood •

The latest film from Yella director Christian Petzold, Barbara, presents an alternative view of East

Germany during the 1980s. It follows a doctor, desperate to join her lover in the West, who is despatched to the countryside by the authorities.

During your research for the film, did you speak with people who had had an experience similar to that of your central character?

My parents were from East Germany. Their experience of the communist system in the 1950s, before they became refugees in the 1960s, was never a topic of conversation in our family, so I didn’t know much about it as I was growing up. Then, after 1989, they started to reflect back on the time of the communist regime. They had dreams that it would be an anti-fascist state from 1949, but instead this state was a stony, cold government.

After reading Hermann Broch’s ‘The Enchantment’ (a.k.a. ‘The Spell’), I became more interested in this era. He had written it at the beginning of the 1930s and it is about a female communist in a fascist state. When I started research, this was the basis for my work.

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What were some of the films you watched in preparation for Barbara? The most important influence was Roberto Rossellini’s Stromboli (1950). Ingrid Bergman resembles a member of the bourgeoisie in (East) Germany in 1945. She is in Mussolini's Italy, where the bourgeoisie was also destroyed. Then she marries a fisherman to get out of the camp she is in. She moves with him to Stromboli where she is like a ghost and doesn’t like the way of life there. Moreover, they don’t like her. They see arrogant conceit in her behaviour and she has to learn to live with this. It is the best movie about ghosts.

Were the locations you shot in difficult to find? After the 1945 Allied bombing, they rebuilt West Germany in the 1950s and 60s, so you can’t find many older buildings. But in the German Democratic Republic, they were poor, they couldn't rebuild all the architecture. So you find modern and older houses next to each other. You can see the industrial buildings of the 1920s and the Neo-Capitalist structures of ’89 beside each other – it is very interesting to travel through. The only things we had to remove are the satellite dishes. People became angry with us about that, as it meant temporarily losing their Internet and TV.

We traveled through these areas with the actors, seeing the architecture was part of their rehearsal process. You can read the history of the country through the ruins, its buildings and architecture. Our guide opened up our senses to that. Our location scout found the hospital on a website called ‘Ghost Places in Germany’.

The work on the building started in March, with shooting beginning in August. However, the rehearsals started at the end of July and all the hospitals, apartments and streets were ready so the actors could live and work there for two days.

We renovated it from looking at old photos – it was so authentic that people who worked there in the early 1980s felt like it was caught in a time warp. People of that period said ‘‘we had more time when working in the hospital then’’. There was no capitalistic rhythm. We had football, time to talk, smoke etc. There were ten patients to ten doctors and nurses. I understand that you chose to shoot Barbara more or less chronologically. Is that a traditional approach for you?

Filming chronologically is expensive. But for this film, it was very important for me because of the relationship between Barbara and Andre, and the actors have to build that up and develop it. The film is a documentary about this development. The actors have to realise it. The film was well received at this year's Berlin Film Festival. What do you hope audiences outside of Germany learn from the film?

I think that in our view of the East, there are no colours. The West has colours and it is something to do with commercials. The world without McDonald’s, cars etc. must be a grey world. But this Eastern world has colours too. I shot the film in technicolor. They have colours – they are not grey. You can learn that the world without malls and commercials can be colourful. •

Barbara opens 28 September at: [ R e n o i R ] WWW.RADA.AC.UK/WHATS-ON/RADA-SCREEN | WWW.CURZONCINEMAS.COM/RADARADA, MALET STREET, WC1E 7JN | +44 (0)20 7908 4800

THU 13 & FRI 14 SEP 8:00PMSAMSARA [12A]DIR. RON FRICKE103 mins

SAT 15 SEP 2:30PMTHE LODGER - STORY OF A LONDON FOG [PG]DIR. ALFRED HITCHCOCK 93 mins

TUE 18 SEP 8:00PMSHADOW DANCER [15]DIR. JAMES MARSH102 mins

SAT 15 SEP 4:30PMTHE QUEEN OF VERSAILLESDIR. LAUREN GREENFIELD100 mins

SUN 16 SEP 2:30PMTHE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME [12A]National Theatre Live Encore Screening

SAT 22 SEP 4:00PMTHE IMPOSTER [15]DIR. BART LAYTON99 mins

SAT 29 SEP 2:15PM & 4:30PMTO ROME WITH LOVE [12A]DIR. WOODY ALLEN112 mins

WED 03 & THU 04 OCT 7:30PMBERBARIAN SOUND STUDIO [15]DIR. PETER STRICKLAND92 mins

WED 31 OCT 7:00PMTHE LAST OF THE HAUSSMANSNational Theatre Live Encore Screening180 mins

THE SCREEN @ RADA

Curzon Cinemas and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art have teamed up to bring a new cinema experience to London at The Screen @ RADA. Curzon has created a special programme for RADA, the world’s leading drama school, featuring the best recent releases and re-mastered classics.

With a vibrant bar serving freshly prepared food and drink throughout the day and the new digital cinema screen based in a stylish theatre auditorium, why not watch your next fi lm at RADA!

FOR YOUR NEXT FILM, ADD A LITTLE

DRAMA

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Potter’s films have all examined and challenged the way gender roles are constructed. (Nowhere is this more apparent than in her stunning adaptation of Virginia Woolf ’s Orlando.) Some may look for biographical elements in Ginger and Rosa. It is not clear how much Potter’s own life experiences inform the girls’ journey. However, the story she tells seems more an attempt to capture the essence of the times. Rather than propel us through a course of events, delivering a grand narrative that makes overarching statements about that era, she offers us glimpses – snatched moments from these girls’ lives. Austerity Britain is re-imagined as a series of barren locations, from bombed-out residences that have yet to be built upon, to the wastelands around gas towers and electricity pylons. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan conjures up a dream-like vision, not dissimilar to the textures he created for Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights, albeit in a radically different, urban environment.

These images create a richly evocative tapestry of Ginger’s development, but also raise more general questions about responsibility. The weaving of Ginger’s emotional and social growth, encouraged by a collection of intellectuals who help shape her worldview, highlight the importance of taking account of one’s personal, as well as political, accountability. Her relationship with her mother (Christina Hendricks) and the contradictory nature of her father, forces Ginger to accept that taking stock of one’s own life is just as important as trying to change the world. •

Ginger and Rosa opens 19 October at: [ m a y f a i r ] [ R e n o i R ] [ C h e l s e a ]

[ r i c h m o n d ] [ W i m b l e d o n ]

THE ATOMIC AGE

Sally Potter’s new film captures a maelstrom of political and personal rebellion in 1960s London

• By Ian Haydn Smith •


Ginger and Rosa opens under a cloud. The atomic age dawns as the full power of the allied forces’ arsenal is unleashed into

the sky over Japan. The peace that follows promises the birth of a new era.

In 1962, Khrushchev’s Soviet forces appear to be amassing a nuclear arsenal in Castro's Cuba, much to the protestation of the Kennedy administration. In response to this provocation, the US has delivered an ultimatum to the Eastern Bloc: remove all arms from America’s doorstep or face a cataclysmic response.

Ginger and Rosa, the daughters of two close friends, grow up in a Britain experiencing seismic changes. They gradually come to realise that the victory which ended the Second World War was not so much the cessation of a global conflict, as a line being drawn under the past, with the future a more terrifying prospect.

Sally Potter’s seventh feature is an ambitious account of a world in flux, as witnessed by a teenage girl. Ginger, played by the precociously talented Elle Fanning, not only carries the burden of a fractured family life – she is also weighed down by a society seemingly hell-bent on its own destruction.

Ginger’s father (Alessandro Nivola), a pacifist who was a conscientious objector in the war against Germany, is an outspoken academic whose writings are admired by the ‘Ban the Bomb’ movement. Both Ginger and Rosa (a striking performance by newcomer Alice Englert) attend CND demonstrations, but it soon becomes clear that Rosa’s passions lie along a more intimate path.

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c u r z o n c i n e m a s . c o mc u r z o n c i n e m a s . c o m

Chronicle of a DISAPPEARANCE

The release of Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly cements his reputation as a

world-class filmmaker• By Ailsa Ferrier •

Asghar Farhadi first came to the attention of the UK audience, and indeed the world, with his powerful 2011 drama A Separation, which went on to win an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film. The writer-director’s previous film, About Elly, is finally released here. It is another intricate story that explores themes

of morality and social dynamics, this time between a group of middle class Iranian friends.

About Elly follows three families who travel together to the Caspian Sea for a holiday in a dilapidated villa. The group are joined by a young woman, Elly, whom one of the women, Sepideh, knows through her child’s kindergarten. This buoyant and jovial group make the most of their faded beachside retreat, but after one night Elly, still intends to return, as planned, to Tehran. Sepideh is intent on setting her up with one of the men in the group and tries to stop her leaving. A series of events follow, culminating in Elly’s disappearance.

Unsure as to whether Elly has drowned or left for Tehran on her own accord, the group are plunged into a grief-stricken panic, especially as they begin to realise how little they know about their companion. Farhadi’s storytelling ratchets up the tension, as he dissects notions of responsibility and truth, observing the unintentional cruelty of an insular group towards an outsider, whilst commenting on the extent to which we attempt to influence the fate of others. The universality of Farhadi’s approach bears comparison to the work of Alfred Hitchcock, as well as the noir-tinged fiction of Patricia Highsmith. And yet, the filmmaker never loses touch with the culture within which this drama unfolds. The democratic decision-making process lies at the heart of the conflict, compounded by conventions, etiquette and boundaries that exist between men and women. Continually, the group returns to its concern over Elly’s honour in light of their uncertainty over her marital situation, accentuated by Farhadi’s emphasis on reaction to events rather than the events themselves; the interpretation of what happened is what’s important here. The presence of the children, like those in Farhadi’s later film, only further underline the dishonesty at play, although the director is too astute to offer up an easy target. No one here is really right or wrong. Hossein Jafarian’s frenetic camerawork accentuates the constant flux in pace and the tension of the situation. The deserted house and landscape, initially appearing dream-like in their cosy isolation, transforms into a decaying prison from which the increasingly weary and paranoid group are unable to leave. This whip-smart story of class, gender, social interference and misjudgment would not be out of place in an Austen novel. There is no doubt that this is narrative cinema at its most sophisticated, re-affirming Farhadi as a one of the most assured filmmakers working today. •

About Elly opens 14 September at: [ S o h o ]

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Jut Good Friends

An unexpected friendship lies at the heart of this year’s biggest French movie • By Aurelie Godet •

The humour of Untouchable – jokes are plentiful and fired off in rapid succession – is driven by the radical contrasts that separate the two men and the various respective misunderstandings or culture clashes. Their views widely diverge on the ways to seduce a woman, on what makes a quip funny, or what type of music is worthy of attention. But it is the gradual discovery of what they have in common that offers the richest rewards. Their quest is ultimately about finding the right attitude toward life, which must include laughter, but also dignity, freedom and even rebellion; scrolls of marijuana will be tasted, police officers will be conned, offensive jokes will be spat out relentlessly.

Co-directors Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache uncompromisingly mock stereo-types about physical disability and suburban misery, and succeed in mixing emotional drama and uninhibited – at times regressive – comedy. Their focus on the frailty of the human condition is all the more insightful in that it condemns the insidious trap that is pity, and promotes instead honesty and lightness of being. •

Untouchable opens 21 Sept at: [ S o h o ] [ C h e l s e a ] 28 Sept at: [ W i m b l e d o n ]


Philippe’s luxurious mansion and applies for the position of personal aide, Philippe’s curiosity is stirred. Despite the fact that the young man’s sole motivation is to add a stamp to his unemployment forms and continue earning social benefits, Philippe is seduced by Driss’ insolence and total lack of interest for the position, and hires him. Driss protests for the sake of it, but quickly welcomes the chance to escape his impoverished home and family troubles, and to taste the high life.

Much of the film’s success is down to the performances of its perfectly cast leads. It is impossible to resist the earnest generosity that emanates from Sy’s portrayal of Driss. A popular TV comedian, his charm and energy blossom here, which saw him win the best actor Cesar. Cluzet, the star of Tell No One (2006) and last year’s Little White Lies, is experienced and insightful enough to complement Driss with a wide range of emotional nuances and allow Philippe’s humanity to express itself and eventually take over. The symbiosis is evident and their irresistible fun-ride carries audiences along.

U ntouchable is a heart-warming tale that has, to date, conquered the hearts of 40 million people around the world. It has become

the highest-grossing French film ever released in Germany, even beating the last installment of the Harry Potter franchise at the box office.

Inspired by a true story, the dramedy tells the story of an unusual bond that develops between Philippe (François Cluzet), a wealthy white man who becomes a paraplegic after a hang-gliding accident, and Driss (Omar Sy), a black, streetwise misfit. Courted by all from his wheelchair throne, Philippe despises the display of sycophantic empathy his position earns him. So when Driss, a recently released ex-con, drags his feet to

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THE ART OF RESURRECTION

IProdigal cinematic iconoclast Leos Carax sets

a new bar for filmmaking• By Aurelie Godet •


In the first scene of Holy Motors, a man, played by its writer-director, wakes up in bed. Dressed in his pyjamas, he shuffles across the room, the wallpaper of which depicts a stunning forest background. Activating a secret door in the wall, he finds

himself on the balcony of a cinema, where he takes a seat amongst the public. This surreal opening sets the tone for what he is about to unleash and should be viewed in a literal context: Leos Carax, the enfant terrible of French cinema, is returning to the world of film after a lengthy absence.

Carax gained cult status at a young age with Boy Meets Girl (1984) and Mauvais Sang (1986), both starring theatre actor Denis Lavant and initiating a life-long partnership between the shy filmmaker and his onscreen alter ego. Les amants du Pont-Neuf (1991) highlighted Carax’s taste for tales of love at once tender and violent. His focus on outcasts and enthusiastic collage of visually striking scenes had critics associate him with the style-conscious ‘cinema du look’, as epitomised by the work of Jean-Jacques Beineix (Diva, 1981) and Luc Besson (Subway, 1985). But it eventually became clear that Carax, whose work is thoughtful and often haunted by death, was forging a path of his own.

Les amants is a memorable spectacle of dark romanticism, but it also turned out to be a sad turning point in the filmmaker’s career. After a series of misfortunes, the film’s production – and budget – went off the rails, making producers wary of this seemingly wayward talent. Carax’s next film, Pola X (1999), which observed the downward spiral of a social rebel, was difficult to finance, and a box-office failure. But after a decade-long hiatus, Carax returns with a bang.

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In Holy Motors, Denis Lavant takes on no less than 11 roles. He initially appears as Monsieur Oscar, a powerful businessman entering his limousine on his way to the first meeting of a hectic day. But appearances are deceiving. We soon discover that the vehicle’s interior is set up like an actor’s dressing room. Each time his driver-secretary (the imposing Edith Scob, seen in Summer Hours (2008) and linked in the film to the pivotal role she played in Georges Franju’s 1960 classic Les Yeux sans visage) announces a new mysterious ‘job’, Oscar transforms himself into an entirely different person. He then experiences actual moments in their lives, before hopping back in the car and off to his next assignment.

Lavant is not the only one dazzling us with his unique talent for metamorphosis. In a breathtaking display of unbridled ambition, Carax explores various film genres with startling success, from the erotic ballet of a motion capture shoot to a blackly humorous gangster film and a psychological drama. Even musicals are honoured, with a majestic set piece featuring Kylie Minogue.

Always in motion, the film takes us through Paris and the history of cinema. Amongst the many film references, Carax even revisits his own body of work, in the form of Monsieur Merde, the disturbing tramp who first appeared in Carax’s contribution to the portmanteau film Tokyo (2007). In Holy Motors, American beauty Eva Mendes is the stoic victim of Merde’s rampage, representing both sexual desire and motherly comfort.

A vertiginous study of the art of living and the lies of reality, Holy Motors succeeds in being both profound and entertaining. It is a rare combination, taking audiences on its journey through crepuscular and enchanted compositions. Those willing to let themselves be carried away by it will be rewarded with an unforgettable experience of film magic. Carax, both a tormented soul and a driven explorer, reaches out to the horizon of his art, leaving the spectator with an overwhelming high. •

Holy Motors opens 28 Sept at: [ m a y f a i r ] [ S o h o ] [ R e n o i R ]

[ r i c h m o n d ] [ W i m b l e d o n ]Available on Curzon on Demand from 28 Sept

B e C O m e a N i C O N a N d e N j O y l i v e O p e R a f O R f R e e

Our new Icon membership offers one free ticket to any Curzon film screening and public event. You can enjoy the entire New York

Met Opera Live season starting 13 October, or our Royal Opera House screenings from 23 October, for just £500.

15% off guest’s ticket • No booking fee • 15% off bar (inc alcohol) and snacks, plus DVDs* • 15% off Curzon on Demand films.

Or how about two free tickets to any public screening? Become an Auteur for £950 and start enjoying opera and so much more today!

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36

A DIFFERENT

EDEN

Benh Zeitlin’s Cannes and Sundance festival winner is a visionary debut

• By Ian Haydn Smith •

Hushpuppy lives in the small, eccentric settlement of Bathtub, which lies south of New Orleans and, precipitously,

outside Louisiana’s vast network of protective levees. As a result, the enclave’s residents are permanently exposed to the destructive whims of nature. Hushpuppy’s father, Wink, believes a storm to end all storms is imminent, which will cleanse the world, but also wash away their home. He is ailing. Hushpuppy’s mother, as Wink puts it, swam away years ago. Left to her own devices, the young girl has gathered together everything she needs to survive – even, she believes, an ability to talk to animals and to her absent mother. American cinema has two modes when it comes to representing the deep south. It can be a place fraught with danger to outsiders, as evinced by John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972)

and Walter Hill’s Southern Comfort (1981), in which locals are portrayed as interbred hicks whose behavioural traits rarely extend beyond feral savagery. Then there is the poetic depiction of the dispossessed. David Gordon-Green’s elegiac George Washington (2000) and Lance Hammer’s stark Ballast (2008) are two recent examples. These films, told from the perspective of their young male protagonists, refuse to shirk the harsh realities of life in the region, which can be unforgiving for those without means.

Zeitlin says of Beasts that he wanted to combine ‘‘the poetics of an art film with something that feels like Die Hard ’’. He achieves this with the pre-credit sequence – an octane-charged, Fellini-esque carnival replete with grotesques and pyrotechnics. Pieced together like an action sequence by Crockett Doob, with the assistance of experienced

Quvenzhané Wallis was five years old when she was cast as Hushpuppy and seven by the time it was completed. And she is astonishing. That we believe in this place, a magical realist fantasyland, is down to the conviction with which she guides us through it.

Zeitlin first encountered this area of Louisiana when he shot his post-Katrina-inspired short Glory at Sea there, in 2006. Evidence of the environmental impact upon the region, from both the elements and the industrial plants that litter the distant landscape, is always present, but never forced upon us. We could choose to see this film as a parable of our wanton destruction of nature, or America’s neglect of its underclass. But Zeitlin is too clever to preach. The wonder of his film is that for all the hardship, Beasts of the Southern Wild is an exuberant and joyful celebration of life. •

Beasts of the Southern Wild opens 19 October at: [ S o h o ] [ W i m b l e d o n ]


editor Affonso Gonçalves, it sets the tone for the rest of the film. We are immediately immersed in Hushpuppy’s realm; everything we see is witnessed through her eyes. And to her, Bathtub is the world.

This prelapsarian idyll, leavened by the tales her father has told her, is a accompanied by Hushpuppy’s innocent narration. It recalls Linda Manz’s naïf in Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978). However, Linda was older and vaguely aware of the failings inherent in those closest to her. For Hushpuppy, everything Wink tells her is gospel, from the disappearance of her mother and the impending storm, to the polar ice caps melting. That might release the mythical, child-eating Aurochs. That the appearance of these creatures seems only natural highlights how perfectly Zeitlin has conjured up this universe.

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technical and dramatic skills, one able not only to raise the roof with sheer visceral intensity, but to shape lyrical phrases and convey Otello’s rapid mood shifts and mental deterioration with expressive shading.

Three further Verdian works feature in this season’s line-up, two of them in new productions. Michael Mayer’s vision for Rigoletto sees the action transposed from sixteenth-century Mantua to Las Vegas in the 1960s, the era of the Rat Pack – a decadent modern world encapsulating the larger-than-life excesses and underlying depravity of the original setting. The libertine Duke of Mantua becomes ‘The Duke’, a Sinatra-type figure whose ‘court’ is the lavish casino over which he presides. Rigoletto, the deformed court jester, is one of his acolytes, a complex character of Shakespearean proportions, whose outward deformity and capacity for cruelty hide a secret – a beloved daughter, Gilda, whose very existence he seeks to keep hidden in a misguided attempt to preserve her innocence.

Rigoletto’s brilliance, both melodic and dramatic, has made it one of Verdi’s most perennially popular works. Un ballo in maschera is less well known and more problematical. Based on a real-life incident – the assassination in 1792 of the liberal King Gustav III of Sweden – it blends the extremes of light and dark in a way that unsettles, turning from frivolous operetta to music of Wagnerian intensity with disorienting speed. To capture the sudden mood swings and dangerous edginess of this archetypal love triangle which ultimately leads to murder, director David Alden has chosen to place the action in a slightly dreamlike, vaguely nightmarish, early twentieth-century environment, redolent of film noir, with its steamy intensity and distortions.

Aida – another love triangle, this one set in ancient Egypt – returns in one of the Met’s best-loved and most visually extravagant productions. However, whilst the story’s setting certainly provides opportunities for indulging in pomp, namely the famous triumphal march in Act II, Aida actually contains some of the most delicate music Verdi ever wrote, and is driven, not by bombast, but by the psychological torment and interpersonal conflict of its protagonists. An exploration of one of the composer’s favourite themes – the conflict between the personal and the public, and the way in which the former is invariably crushed by the latter – it centres on the character of the eponymous heroine, the enslaved Ethiopian princess torn between duty to her father and her people and love for the enemy warrior, Radamès.

A YEAR AT THE MET

CA preview of the New York

Met Opera’s 2012-13 season• By Anne Hudson •

The Met’s new season of live broadcasts kicks off with one of the most enduring of all operatic romantic comedies, Donizetti’s

L’elisir d’amore, starring the effervescent Anna Netrebko. Updated to the Risorgimento by director Bartlett Sher, it’s a brilliantly constructed work, sentimental but not cloying, balancing razor-sharp wit with heart-rending pathos. Donizetti, who was peerless at delineating character through vocal music and the barest of orchestral means, gave each of his four protagonists their own musical idiom, combining these to sparkling effect in a series of ingenious duets and ensembles.

Following this beguiling mix, there’s a change of mood entirely – Verdi’s Otello, reckoned by some to be the composer’s greatest achievement. Librettist Arrigo Boito condensed the 3,500 lines of Shakespeare’s play down to a mere 800, giving Verdi a framework ideally suited to a man for whom maintaining forward momentum was paramount. The title role is probably the most taxing for tenor in the whole of Italian opera, demanding a singer with exceptional


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There’s more visual spectacle in David McVicar’s production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare, a triumph when it premiered at Glyndebourne in 2005. McVicar’s intricate knowledge of the piece has enabled him to exploit every musical nuance with dazzling ingenuity, and his decision to update the action from the Roman Empire

to the last years of the British Raj allows the opera’s themes of love, war and colonialism to find a particularly powerful resonance – as well as providing an excuse for some colourful, Bollywood-style dance numbers.

McVicar will also direct a new production of the season’s second Donizetti opera – Maria Stuarda, a bel canto masterpiece being performed at the Met for the first time. Based on the play by Schiller, it charts the fateful relationship between Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I, whose peaceful coexistence on the same small island is a political impossibility. One of the world’s most celebrated mezzo-sopranos, Joyce DiDonato, sings the title role of Maria, a proud, manipulative woman gradually stripped of everything except her dignity as she proceeds on her harrowing journey to the scaffold, pausing along the way for one of opera’s most blistering confrontations – the fictional meeting of the two women at Fotheringay, overflowing with a vitriol that would strip paint.

Another Met premiere is Thomas Adès’s The Tempest, commissioned by the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and first performed there in 2004. The score, which runs the gamut from the almost dissonant to the exquisitely lyrical, will be conducted by Adès himself, with baritone Simon Keenlyside as Prospero. Robert Lepage does the directing honours in a production that recreates the interior of the 18th-century La Scala, a reference to Prospero’s Milanese roots as well as to the fact that the great opera house, in those days, was the ‘ultimate big box of magic’ with its state-of-the-art machinery and capacity to manufacture illusion.

In Lepage’s concept, this is the theatrical world Prospero has conjured up on his island, and whose magic he will use to confound his enemies.

Two works which couldn’t be farther apart, both stylistically and thematically, are Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, set in ancient Rome and allegedly written in just twelve days, and Riccardo Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini, inspired by an episode from Dante’s Inferno. La Clemenza is an old-fashioned piece, a throwback to the days of Handel and the formalities of opera seria, which can sometimes seem overly severe. In the right hands, though, this story of a king intent on assuaging his guilt over past wrongs by granting clemency to those who betray him emerges as an enthralling character study, full of richness and subtlety. Meanwhile, there’s nothing remotely subtle about Francesca da Rimini, a neglected pearl of the verismo school, whose richness is of the voluptuous, overwrought variety, and whose lush, Wagner-inflected score, in conjunction with the Met’s ravishing production, promises to cast a heady and sensuous spell.

Finally, there are two works of truly epic proportions – Berlioz’s five-act, five-hour Les Troyens, adapted from Virgil’s ‘The Aeneid’, which details the fall of Troy and the subsequent tragic love affair between Dido and Aeneas, and Wagner’s last work, Parsifal. Their scale, however, is the only real similarity between the two works. Whereas Berlioz’s effusion of lyricism is contained within a rigid, episodic structure, Wagner’s final masterpiece, the one he called his ‘farewell to the world’, is the epitome of the free-flowing music-drama he pioneered, whilst its complex symbolism, both Christian and pagan, repels easy definition. It has an aura of ritual about it, often provoking mystical responses. François Girard, the director of the Met’s new production, has described it as a sacred piece in the history of music. •

The New York Met is showing at: [ m a y f a i r ] [ R e n o i R ] [ C h e l s e a ] [ r i c h m o n d ] [ W i m b l e d o n ]

Giulio Cesare La Clemenza di Tito Francesca da Rimini L’elisir D’amore

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events]

CURZON Q&As CURZON Q&As

The latest film by The Road and The Proposition director John Hillcoat is an all-star drama set in prohibition-era America. Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman and Shia LaBeouf are three brothers whose bootlegging business finds them up against Guy Pearce's ruthless government agent. Following the screening of this film, director John Hillcoat and the film's screenwriter and composer Nick Cave will be onstage to talk about their latest collaboration, as well as their fruitful creative partnership, which stretches back to Hillcoat's feature debut, Ghosts of the Civil Dead, in which Cave starred. See page 8 for synopsis. With thanks to Momentum Pictures.

One of the leading figures of 20th century style and culture, Diana Vreeland didn’t so much report on the fashions that defined an era as decided what they would be. As she once said, ‘‘You’re not supposed to give people what they want, you’re supposed to give them what they don't know that they want yet’’. This film is an intimate portrait of the one-time head of Harpers Bazaar and editor-in-chief of Vogue. Director Lisa Immordino Vreeland will be present to talk about the making of this revealing documentary. See page 12 for synopsis.With thanks to Studio Canal.

Leos Carax returns to cinema after a 13-year hiatus with a brilliant, visually striking film that was one of the toasts of this year's Cannes Film Festival. Artificial Eye is proud to announce that the red carpet UK premiere of this critically acclaimed film will be held at the Curzon Mayfair, followed by a Q&A with Kylie Minogue. Curzon Cinemas have been fortunate enough to be allocated a number of tickets to buy for this prestigious and private event. Dress code is smart. See page 14 for synopsis and page 34 for an article on the film. With thanks to Artificial Eye.

The director of Orlando, Yes and Rage returns with a beautiful account of two girls growing up in the nuclear age. Featuring an all-star cast, including Elle Fanning, Christina Hendricks, Timothy Spall, Alesando Nivola, Annette Benning and Oliver Platt, and evocatively shot by Robbie Ryan, Ginger and Rosa skilfully weaves a complex tableaux of a small group of individuals in post-war Britain, raising questions about morality and the limits of responsibility. We are delighted to welcome Sally Potter after the two screenings to discuss her latest film.

See page 16 for synopsis and page 28 for an article on the film. With thanks to Artificial Eye.

Lawless [18] plus Q&A with John Hillcoat and Nick Cave

tickets £25.00/£21.25 cineastes • tuesday 4 september 6.15pm [ S o h o ]

Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel [PG] followed by a discussion with Lisa Immordino Vreelandtickets £17.50/£14.85 cineastes • wednesday 19 september 6.20pm [ m a y f a i r ]

Holy Motors [18] plus Q&A with Kylie Minogue, and (TBC) director Leos Carax

and lead actor Denis Lavanttickets £50.00/£42.50 cineastes • tuesday 18 september 6.00pm [ m a y f a i r ]

Ginger and Rosa [Cert tbc]

plus Q&A with Sally Pottertickets £17.50/£14.85 cineastes • friday 19 october 6.00pm [ R e n o i R ]

tickets £17.50/£14.85 cineastes • sunday 21 october 4.40pm [ r i c h m o n d ]

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Brave Father Where I Should Go

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thursday 11 october 6.30pmWe Went to War [Cert tbc] plus Q&A with Michael Grigsby and Rebekah Tolley

Directors: Michael Grigsby, Rebekah Tolley • Ireland, UK 2012 • 78 mins

In 1970, a young British director Michael Grigsby made the first film about veterans returning home from the Vietnam war, I Was a Soldier, portraying three young men

struggling to reclaim their own versions of normality after a year on the frontline. Some 40 years later, Grigsby and producer Rebekah Tolley return to the stories of those once

young Americans, now aged and scarred by lives lived far too brutally and far too young. Michael Grigsby and Rebekah Tolley will be present for a discussion.

Curzon DocDays

tickets: £13.75/£11.55 cineastes

[ S o h o ]

Curzon presents outstanding documentaries with discussions and Q&As as part of our ongoing DocDays strand.

wednesday 12 september 6.10pmBrave Father and Where I Should Go [Cert tbc] plus panel discussion

wednesday 26 september 6.20pm5 Broken Cameras [Advised 15] plus Q&A with director Emad Burnat

Director: Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi • Occupied Palestinian Territory, Israel, France, Netherlands 2011 • 90 mins

5 Broken Camers was filmed from the perspective of a Palestinian farm labourer Emad Burnat. It was shot using six different video cameras, five of which were destroyed in the

process of documenting his family’s life, as well as Palestinian and International resistance to Israeli appropriation of land. Emad lives in Bil'in, west of Ramallah, in the West Bank,

and this documentary is a powerful and moving account of life in one of the world’s most politically volatile regions.

monday 29 october 6.20pmCall Me Kuchu [Advised 15] plus Q&A with director Malika Zouhali-Worrall

Directors: Katherine Fairfax Wright, Malika Zouhali-Worrall • USA, Uganda 2012 • 87 mins

In Uganda, LGBT men and women are called Kuchus. This film is the extraordinary story of a courageous group of Kuchu activists, lead by the charismatic David Kato, as they fight

for equality in the face of fundamentalist Christian pastors, exposés from tabloid journalists, and manipulative politicians who would have them imprisoned or executed for being HIV

positive. Director Malika Zouhali-Worrall will join us for a post-screening discussion.

Director: Li Junhu • China 2007 • 55 mins

Brave Father follows a father and son over four years, highlighting the struggle of parents in

China to see their children graduate.

Director: Li Junhu • China 2010 • 60 mins

Where I Should Go is the story of two families from the countryside who struggle for their

childrens' right to recieve a proper education.


Curzon Screen Salontickets £13.75/£11.55 cineastes • sunday 30 september 2.25pm [ r i c h m o n d ]

tickets £11.50/£9.70 cineastes • sunday 30 september 5.10pm [ R e n o i R ]


David Byrne in ConversationHow Music Works

tickets £25.00/£21.25 cineastes • wednesday 24 october 6.30pm [ C h e l s e a ]

Curzon Screen Salons are a series of illustrated bi-monthly talks, presented by Ian Haydn Smith, Editor of Curzon Magazine.

HOLY MOTORS [18] and the Cinema of Leos CaraxBarking mad or pure genius? Possessed of revelatory insight or just a grand folly? The latest film by French cinema’s not-quite-enfant terrible is a magnificent exploration of the role cinema plays in our lives. This Salon places Carax’s small but singular body of work in the context of French cinema, from its emergence out of the Cinema du look movement of the early 1980s, through to Pola X and the premiere of Holy Motors at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

events]


MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN ART - The World of Bob & Roberta Smith

plus Q&A with director John Rogers and artist Patrick Brill tickets: £13.75/£11.55 cineastes • saturday 22 september 4.00pm [ S o h o ]

Curzon Cinemas brings you a special screening of Make Your Own Damn Art, a documentary about the artist Patrick Brill. We are pleased to welcome John Rogers and Patrick Brill for a

post-screening discussion.

Curzon Cinemas, in partnership with Canongate Books, is proud to bring you an evening with David Byrne, to celebrate the publication of his new book ‘How Music Works’.

Make Your Own Dawn Art [Cert tbc] Director: John Rogers • UK 2012 • 75 mins

The artist Bob & Roberta Smith is, in reality, Patrick Brill. Renowned for his humorous, opinionated, polemical art works, what distinguishes Brill from the mainstream contemporary art world is his commitment to the idea that art is a vital part of democracy, and that art itself must be democratic. The film follows him over three years, presenting a unique insight into one of Britain's most important artists, whilst also reflecting on art and the role it plays in society.

David Byrne will discuss how profoundly music is shaped by time and place, and how the advent of recording technology has forever changed our relationship to playing, performing and listening to music. Taking us on a journey from Wagnerian opera houses to African villages, from his earliest high school recordings to his latest work, Byrne acts as both historian and anthropologist, showing us how his own work with Talking Heads and his many collaborations have taken shape.

Touching on the joy, physics, and business of making music, this is a rare opportunity to join David Byrne in a celebration of music’s liberating, life-affirming power.

David Byrne is the Scottish-born co-founder of Talking Heads and a celebrated solo artist. He has been the recipient of many awards, including an Oscar and a Golden Globe. The author of ‘Bicycle Diaries’ and ‘The New Sins’, he lives in New York City.

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56th BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 11-21 october

[ m a y f a i r ] [ R e n o i R ]


À NOS AMOURS [ R e n o i R ]

Once again, Curzon Mayfair is proud to be a partner venue for the BFI 56th LondonFilm Festival from 11 to 21 October, where you can experience the best of this year’s new

films first. We also welcome the festival to Renoir Cinema for the entire duration.

The full programme will be announced on Wednesday 5 September, please see bfi.org.uk/lff and curzoncinemas.com/lff for more details.

Following May’s sold-out 35mm screenings of Stalker, À Nos Amours returns to Curzon Renoir. A collective founded by filmmakers Joanna Hogg and Adam Roberts, it is dedicated to programming over-looked, under-exposed or especially potent cinema. anosamours.co.uk

events]

tickets: £11.50/£9.70 cineastestuesday 11 september 6.10pm

Mirror [U] Director: Andrei Tarkovsky • Starring: Margarita Terekhova,

Filipp Yankovsky, Ignat Daniltsev • USSR 1975 • 108 mins

A Nos Amours follows up its sold-out presentation of Tarkovsky’s Stalker with his 1975 masterpiece. A man in his 40s is going to die and remembers his past: his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that also tell the story of the Russian nation. Tarkovsky wrote about the film: “Mirror was not an attempt to talk about myself, not at all. It was about my feelings towards people dear to me; about my relationship with them; my perpetual pity for them and my own inadequacy – my feeling of duty left unfulfilled.”

tickets: £17.50/£14.85 cineastessunday 7 october 10.00am War and Peace [PG] Director: Sergey Bondarchuk • Starring: Lyudmila Savelyeva,

Vyacheslav Tikhonov • USSR 1967 • 431 mins, 3 short

intervals

Roger Ebert has said of Sergey Bondarchuk’s film, “War and Peace is the definitive epic of all time. It is hard to imagine that circumstances will ever again combine to make a more spectacular, expensive, and splendid movie.” It took seven years to make. One battle scene alone required 120,000 extras. 35,000 costumes were designed. Sergey Bondarchuk was nothing if not ambitious. Adapted from Leo Tolstoy’s novel of the same name, A Nous Amour will present the four parts over one glorious day.

Make your New York Met Opera experience even

more luxurious at Curzon, with two glasses of delicious

Berry Bros Sparkling Prosecco for just £10.00

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c u r z o n c i n e m a s . c o mc u r z o n c i n e m a s . c o m

2012-2013 season New York Metropolitan Opera Live in HDtickets: £35.00/£29.75 cineastes and under 15s • chelsea & mayfair pullman seats: £45.00/£38.25 cineastes • royal box seats at curzon mayfair: £55.00/£46.75 cineastes

[ m a y f a i r ] [ R e n o i R ] [ C h e l s e a ] [ r i c h m o n d ] [ W i m b l e d o n ]

We are proud to bring you the new season of the New York Metropolitan Opera Live in HD.

events]

saturday 13 october 5.55pmGaetano Donizetti’s L’ELISIR D’AMOREConductor: Maurizio Benini • Production: Bartlett Sher • Cast: Anna Netrebko, Matthew

Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecien, Ambrogio Maestri • 182 mins with interval

Anna Netrebko takes the lead in Donizetti's magical romance.

saturday 27 october 5.55pmGiuseppe Verdi’s OTELLOConductor: Semyon Bychkov • Production: Elijah Moshinsky • Cast: Renée Fleming, Johan

Botha, Michael Fabiano, Falk Struckmann • 207 mins with interval

Verdi’s towering masterpiece is based on Shakespeare’s tragedy.

saturday 10 november 5.55pmThomas Adès’ THE TEMPESTConductor: Thomas Adès • Libretto: Meredith Oakes • Production: Robert Lepage • Cast:

Audrey Luna, Isabel Leonard, Iestyn Davies, Alek Shrader, Alan Oke, William Burden, Toby

Spence, Simon Keenlyside • 210 mins with interval

British composer Thomas Adès makes his company debut conducting the Met premiere of his opera, widely praised as a modern masterpiece, which is directed by Robert Lepage.

saturday 1 december 5.55pmWolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s LA CLEMENZA DI TITOConductor: Harry Bicket • Production: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle • Cast: Lucy Crowe, Barbara

Frittoli, Elina Garanca, Kate Lindsey, Giuseppe Filianoti • 193 mins with interval

Mozart’s last Italian opera features a charismatic cast conducted by Baroque specialist Harry Bicket and led by Giuseppe Filianoti.

saturday 8 december 5.55pmGiuseppe Verdi’s UN BALLO IN MASCHERAConductor: Fabio Luisi • Production: David Alden • Cast: Karita Mattila, Kathleen Kim,

Stephanie Blythe, Marcelo Álvarez, Dmitri Hvorostovsky • 234 mins with interval

Verdi’s vivid drama of jealousy and vengeance returns to the Met for the first time in more than 20 years in a new production by acclaimed opera director David Alden.

saturday 15 december 5.55pmGiuseppe Verdi’s AIDAConductor: Fabio Luisi • Production: Sonja Frisell • Cast: Liudmyla Monastyrska, Olga Borodina,

Roberto Alagna, George Gagnidze, Štefan Kocán, Miklós Sebestyén • 234 mins with interval

Verdi’s iconic opera set in ancient Egypt stars powerhouse Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska, who makes her Met debut in the title role of an enslaved Ethiopian princess.

saturday 5 january 2013 5.00pmHector Berlioz’s LES TROYENSConductor: Fabio Luisi • Production: Francesca Zambello • Cast: Deborah Voigt, Susan

Graham, Marcello Giordani, Dwayne Croft, Kwangchul Youn • 341 mins with interval

Francesca Zambello’s acclaimed 2003 production of Berlioz’s Trojan War epic returns to the Met for its first revival, conducted by Fabio Luisi.

Parsifal

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events]saturday 19 january 2013 5.55pmGaetano Donizetti’s MARIA STUARDAConductor: Maurizio Benini • Production: David McVicar • Cast: Joyce DiDonato, Elza van

den Heever, Francesco Meli, Joshua Hopkins, Matthew Rose • 195 mins with interval

David McVicar, who directed last season’s Met premiere of Anna Bolena, presents the company premiere of the second opera in Donizetti’s famous trilogy of operas about Tudor history.

saturday 16 february 2013 5.55pmGiuseppe Verdi’s RIGOLETTOConductor: Michele Mariotti • Production: Michael Mayer • Cast: Diana Damrau, Oksana

Volkova Piotr Beczala, Željko Lucic, Štefan Kocán • 211 mins with interval

Rising Italian conductor Michele Mariotti leads the new production premiere of Rigoletto, seen in a new staging by the Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer, in his Met debut.

saturday 2 march 2013 5.00pmRichard Wagner’s PARSIFALConductor: Daniele Gatti • Production: François Girard • Cast: Katarina Dalayman, Jonas

Kaufmann, Peter Mattei, Evgeny Nikitin, René Pape • 340 mins with interval

Jonas Kaufmann plays the title character in this production of Wagner’s opera, conducted by Daniele Gatti and directed by noted film and opera director François Girard, here making his Met debut.

saturday 16 march 2013 4.00pmRiccardo Zandonai’s FRANCESCA DA RIMINIConductor: Marco Armiliato • Production: Piero Faggioni • Cast: Eva-Maria Westbroek,

Marcello Giordani, Robert Brubaker, Mark Delavan • 237 mins with interval

Zandonai’s early 20th-century melodrama returns for its first revival in over 25 years in Piero Faggioni’s opulent and realistic production.

saturday 27 april 2013 5.00pmGeorge Frideric Handel’s GIULIO CESAREConductor: Harry Bicket • Production: David McVicar • Cast: Natalie Dessay, Alice Coote,

Patricia Bardon, David Daniels, Christophe Dumaux, Guido Loconsolo • 271 mins with interval

David McVicar’s second new production of the season was previously a hit at Glyndebourne.

New York Metropolitan Opera SUMMER ENCORES

tickets: £25.00/£21.25 cineastes and under 15s • mayfair pullman seats: £35.00/£29.75 cineastes • royal box seats at curzon mayfair: £45.00/£38.25 cineastes

[ m a y f a i r ] [ r i c h m o n d ]

Curzon is proud to bring you the last performances from the Summer Encore season of the New York Metropolitan Opera in HD.

sunday 16 september 2.20pm [ m ]

sunday 16 september 8.00pm [ r ]

Donizetti’s LUCIA DI LAMMERMOORConductor: Marco Armiliato • Production: Mary Zimmerman

• Cast: Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczala, Mariusz Kwiecien,

Ildar Abdrazakov • approximately 143 mins

Anna Netrebko sings the title role of Donizetti’s bel canto tragedy in her Met role debut, with Piotr Beczala as her lover, Edgardo. Mariusz Kwiecien plays her tyrannical brother. Mary Zimmerman’s hit production is staged as a Victorian ghost story. Original transmission: 7 February 2009

sunday 30 september 7.15pm [ m ]

tuesday 2 october 7.40pm [ r ]

Strauss’ DER ROSENKAVALIERConductor: Edo de Waart • Production: Nathaniel Merrill • Cast: Renée Fleming, Susan Graham,

Christine Schäfer, Eric Cutler, Thomas Allen, Kristinn Sigmundsson • approximately 200 mins

This comic masterpiece by Richard Strauss combines love and intrigue in 18th-century Vienna. It stars Renée Fleming as the aristocratic Marschallin and Susan Graham in the trouser role of her young lover. Edo de Waart conducts the cast, which also includes Kristinn Sigmundsson and Thomas Allen. Original transmission: 9 January 2010

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Virgil’s great poem ‘The Aeneid’, which dramatises the fall of Troy and Enée’s (Aeneas’) doomed affair with Didon (Dido), Queen of Carthage.

thursday 13 december 7.15pmThe Royal Ballet’s THE NUTCRACKERLive broadcast from The Royal Opera HouseChoreography: Lev Ivanov • Production: Peter Wright • Dancers:

Roberta Marquez, Steven McRae • 130 mins, one interval

From the very first notes of Tchaikovsky’s overture to The Nutcracker, a sense of mystery and magic pervades the theatre as Herr Drosselmeyer sets in train the events that will see his beloved nephew, Hans Peter, freed from the enchantment of the evil Mouse King by the resourceful Clara. Peter Wright’s classic 1984 production is a wonderful Christmas treat.

tickets: live performances: £17.50/£14.85 cineastes and under 15s • mayfair pullman seats: £25.00/£21.25 cineastes • royal box seats: £35.00/£29.75 cineastes • pre-recorded

performances: normal ticket prices apply[ m a y f a i r ] [ r i c h m o n d ]

Curzon proudly presents the exciting 2012-2013 season of the Royal Opera House, now also screening at Richmond.

tuesday 23 october 7.15pmThe Royal Ballet’s SWAN LAKELive broadcast from The Royal Opera HouseChoreography: Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov • Dancers:

Zenaida Yanowsky, Nehemiah Kish • 180 mins, two intervals

The live broadcast season opens with Anthony Dowell’s acclaimed production. Surely the greatest of all romantic ballets, Swan Lake is a perfect synthesis of choreography and music.

sunday 25 november 11.00amBerlioz’s LES TROYENSPre-recorded from The Royal Opera HouseConductor: Antonio Pappano • Cast: Es Devlin, Anna

Caterina Antonacci, Bryan Hymel • 330 mins, two intervals

The passion and sheer scale of this 2012 production by David McVicar has made it one of the great Royal Opera House events of the last decade. The story is taken from

2012-2013 season ROYAL OPERA HOUSE

events]

tuesday 15 january 2013 7.15pmPuccini’s LA BOHèMEPre-recorded from The Royal Opera HouseConductor: Mark Elder • Cast: Rolando Villazón, Maija

Kovalevska • 165 mins, two intervals

Teeming with period detail, John Copley’s definitive production is traditional opera at its best. From a shabby garret to the bustling Café Momus, this minutely observed panorama of 1830s Parisian life, beautifully designed by Julia Trevelyan Oman, captures the joy and tragedy of Puccini’s masterpiece.

wednesday 20 february 2013 7.15pmTchaikovsky’s EUGENE ONEGINLive broadcast from The Royal Opera HouseConductor: Robin Ticciati • Cast: Simon Keenlyside,

Krassimira Stoyanova • 190 mins, one interval

An opera full of poignancy and sensitive to the nuances of growing-up and wrestling to understand your emotions, Eugene Onegin is an inspiring vehicle for Kasper Holten’s first production for The Royal Opera.

thursday 28 march 2013 7.15pmThe Royal Ballet’s THE ADVENTURES OF ALICE IN WONDERLANDLive broadcast from The Royal Opera HouseComposer: Joby Talbot • Production: Christopher Wheeldon •

180 mins, two intervals

Those familiar with Lewis Carroll’s literary menagerie of colourful characters will enjoy the clarity with which Christopher Wheeldon portrays them in dance. Alice’s adventures in Wonderland is brilliantly imagined, which has something for everyone to treasure.

monday 29 april 2013 7.15pmVerdi’s NABUCCODelayed Live broadcast from The Royal Opera HouseConductor: Nicola Luisotti • Cast: Daniele Abbado, Plácido

Domingo, Liudmyla Monastyrska • 170 mins, one interval

Plácido Domingo takes another thrilling step into the baritone repertory, playing Nabucco for the first time. Based on the biblical story of King Nebuchadnezzar, it focuses on his imprisonment of the Hebrews, the struggle against his unscrupulous daughter, Abigaille, his divine punishment and final salvation.

monday 27 may 2013 6.45pmRossini’s LA DONNA DEL LAGOLive broadcast from The Royal Opera HouseConductor: Michele Mariotti • Production: John Fulljames,

Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego Flórez • 200 mins, one interval

A new production of an important yet rarely performed masterpiece, based on Sir Walter Scott’s poem ‘The Lady of the Lake’, La donna del lago is the most romantic of Rossini’s Italian operas.

monday 24 june 2013 6.45pmBritten’s GLORIANALive broadcast from The Royal Opera HouseConductor: Paul Daniel • Cast: Susan Bullock, Toby Spence,

Kate Royal • 180 mins, two intervals

This important new staging of Gloriana marks three major anniversaries: 60 years since the Queen’s Coronation and the opera’s premiere at the Royal Opera House, as well as the centenary of Benjamin Britten’s birth. It is a lyrical portrait of the public and private faces of Elizabeth I.

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CineKids - family filmstickets: £3.50/£2.95 cineastes

[ R e n o i R ] [ W i m b l e d o n ]

Curzon CineKids presents a programme inspired by some of our favourite children’s books. For more details on events and screenings. Please visit curzoncinemas.com

or hmvcurzon.com and sign up to the CineKids newsletters.

events]

sat 1 & sun 2 september 10.30am [ W ]

Horrid Henry The Movie [U]

UK 2011 • 92 mins


Winnie The Pooh [U]

US 2011 • 63 mins


Arrietty [PG]

Japan 2011 • 94 mins


Le Petit Nicolas [PG]

France 2012 • 91 mins • French with English Subtitles • Ages 6+


Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days [U]

US 2012 • 94 mins

sun 23 september 10.30am [ R ] sat 13 & sun 14 october 10.30am [ W ]

Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar and other stories [U]

UK 1993 • 30 mins plus 1-hour workshop

Our Wimbledon screening is in partnership with Wimbledon BookFest.

sat 6 & sun 7 october 10.30am [ W ]

The Lorax [U]

US 2012 • 86 mins

sat 27 & sun 28 october 10.30am [ W ]

Despicable Me [U]

US 2010 • 95 mins

Please Note: It is the law that no child under 8 may be left alone in a cinema. No adult unaccompanied by a

child will be admitted to these screenings.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Le Petit NicolasThe LoraxDiary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

CineKids - drawing on film workshoptickets: £3.50/£2.95 cineastes

[ W i m b l e d o n ]

saturday 20 october 10.30am • sunday 21 october 10.30amDrawing On Film Workshop

Films and Workshop duration 2 hours, suitable for all ages

Winding back to the past we take a hands on look at celluloid film. Inspired by the 1930s filmmaker Len Lye, children and parents will be able to draw directly onto 16mm film to create their own abstract animations. This screening is in partnership with Wimbledon FilmFest.

Artis’ Moving Image at Curzontickets: £12.00/£10.20cineastes • tuesday 11 september 6.30pm

[ W i m b l e d o n ]

Turner Prize nominated artist filmmaker Luke Fowler will join us for a Q&A following the screening of his film Pilgrimage from Scattered Points (2006), a fascinating portrait of avant-garde English composer Cornelius Cardew and the Scratch Orchestra. Also screening are recent student films from CCW Graduate School selected from an open submissions competition. Courtesy of Luke Fowler and LUX, London.

Moving Image South: Luke Fowler Pilgrimage from Scattered Points [Advised 16]

plus Q&A with Luke Fowler

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hmvcurzon.com | 23 the Broadway | WimbledonImage: The Tempest

Operatic delights at hmvcurzon Wimbledon

We are delighted to be screening the New York Met Opera Live 2012-2013 season at hmvcurzon Wimbledon. The season begins 13 October with Donizetti’s L’Elisir D’Amore. Other highlights include Verdi's Otello and Donizetti's Maria Stuarda.

SUMMER OF MADNESS

C a k e s F o r a l l C e l e b r at i o n s


old compton st

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General Manager:Robert McCraeOnline:curzoncinemas.com/sohoBox Office and Recorded Information: 0330 500 1331

location and transport:99 Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D 5DYTube:Leicester Square, Piccadilly CircusOverground: Charing CrossBuses:14, 19, 38

peak ticketMon to Fri after 5pm to close ...........£13.75Sat and Sun after 2pm to close ..........£13.75Cineaste .............................................£11.55S

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General Manager:Jordan BeddingOnline:curzoncinemas.com/mayfairBox Office and Recorded Information: 0330 500 1331

location and transport:38 Curzon Street, London W1J 7TYTube:Green Park, Hyde Park Corner (exit 3)Overground: VictoriaBuses:14, 19, 22, 36, 38, 73, 82, 137

peak ticketMon to Fri after 5pm to close ...........£14.50Sat and Sun after 2pm to close ..........£14.50Cineaste .............................................£12.30Pullman seats ..........£18.00/£15.30 Cineastem

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early birdMon to Fri from open to 5pm .............£8.00Sat and Sun from open to 2pm ...........£8.00Cineaste ...............................................£6.80Pullman seats ............£10.00/£8.50 Cineaste

Mayfair Royal Box (4 seats) .............£100.00Cineaste .............................................£85.00

Children (under 15) open to 5pm .......£7.00

early birdMon to Fri from open to 5pm .............£8.00Sat and Sun from open to 2pm ...........£8.00Cineaste ...............................................£6.80


v e n u e i n f o r m a t i o nadvance booking Online: curzoncinemas.comVISA, MASTERCARD and SWITCH accepted. £1.00 booking fee per transaction (non-members only).In person: From 20 mins before the first performance of the day until 20 mins after the last performance commences.By phone: 10am-8pm Mon to Sat, 10am-7pm Sun. VISA, MASTERCARD and SWITCH accepted. £2.00 booking fee per transaction (non-members only).

group bookingsBuy nine tickets and get the tenth free.

interactive cinemaPlease let us know if you have a good, or bad, experience at any Curzon cinema – your suggestions, comments and ideas are always welcome. Email our Operations Director: [email protected], or write direct to the cinema manager.

newslettersJoin thousands of others and receive the most up-to-date information on all our films and events. To sign up for Curzon Cinemas’ newsletters, visit curzoncinemas.com/newsletter.

for your enjoymentWe aim to provide you with the best in sound, vision and comfort. We offer THX and/or DOLBY

sound in all nine screens across five sites, and the most luxurious seats in London.

latecomersWe appreciate that you may sometimes be late for your film for reasons beyond your control. However, latecomers can sometimes spoil the enjoyment of the film for others and may not be admitted.

disabled accessCurzon Cinemas has a commitment to providing extensive facilities and access for the disabled. Curzon Mayfair has access to the foyer, bar areas and screen 1. Curzon Soho, Curzon Richmond and hmvcurzon have full access to all parts of the building including all screens. We intend to extend these facilities to our two other sites as soon as practically possible. Our full range

of facilities is listed in our CURZON CINEMAS ACCESS

LEAFLET, available at the box office. If you would like the leaflet posted to you, write to: Curzon Cinemas, 2nd Floor, 20-22 Stukeley St, London WC2B 5LR.

bank holidaysPeak ticket prices apply on all Bank Holidays, except for shows before 2pm when Early Bird ticket prices apply.

refundsWe are unable to offer a refund or exchange on tickets once they have been booked or paid for – however, in exceptional circumstances a refund may be given at the cinema manager’s discretion, subject to a £5 admin fee.

3d screeningsAll 3D screenings will have a £2 supplement added to the ticket price.

conditions of entryMobile phones must be switched off during a screening or event.

The use of audio or visual recording equipment is strictly prohibited in all auditoria.

Our Cinema Managers have the right to refuse admission at any time.


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early birdMon to Fri from open to 5pm .............£8.00Sat and Sun from open to 2pm ...........£8.00Cineaste ...............................................£6.80Pullman seats ............£10.00/£8.50 Cineaste


General Manager:Mick McAloonOnline:curzoncinemas.com/richmondBox Office and Recorded Information: 0330 500 1331

peak ticketMon to Fri after 5pm to close ...........£13.75Sat and Sun after 2pm to close ..........£13.75Cineaste .............................................£11.55

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Site Manager: Sean Doggett Online: curzoncinemas.com/chelseaBox Office and Recorded Information: 0330 500 1331

location and transport:206 Kings Road, London SW3 5XP Tube: Sloane Square (District and Circle Lines)Overground: VictoriaBuses: 11, 19, 22, 49, 211, 319

peak ticketMon to Fri after 5pm to close ...........£13.75Sat and Sun after 2pm to close ..........£13.75Cineaste .............................................£11.55Pullman seats ..........£18.00/£15.30 CineasteC

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location and transport:Water Lane, Richmond TW9 1TJTube: Richmond (District Line)Overground: RichmondBuses: 33, 65, 190, 337, 371, 391, 419,490, 493, H22, H37, R68, R70Parking: Friars Lane Car Park, Paradise Road




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Site Manager: Laurence SordelloOnline: curzoncinemas.com/renoirBox Office and Recorded Information: 0330 500 1331

location and transport:Brunswick Centre, London WC1N 1AWTube:Russell Square (Piccadilly Line)Overground: King’s Cross, EustonBuses:7, 59, 68, 91, 168, 188

peak ticketMon to Fri after 5pm to close ...........£11.50Sat and Sun after 2pm to close ..........£11.50Cineaste ...............................................£9.70

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[ R ]early birdMon to Fri from open to 5pm .............£7.00Sat and Sun from open to 2pm ...........£7.00Cineaste ...............................................£5.95


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Site Manager:Amica LaneOnline:hmvcurzon.comRecorded Information: 0330 500 1331

peak ticketMon to Fri after 5pm to close ...........£12.00Sat and Sun after 2pm to close ..........£12.00Cineaste .............................................£10.20

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transport:23 The BroadwayWimbledon SW19 1RETube: Wimbledon(District Line) Overground:WimbledonBuses: 57, 93, 131, 156, 163, 164, 200, 219, 493, N87

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6465

Chris Marker died on 29 July. With his passing, cinema lost one of its greatest essayists and most inquisitive filmmakers. To

his peers he was a provocative and restless figure, constantly surveying the world around him, commenting on its progress and fascinated by new technologies. For his friend and collaborator Alain Resnais, he was “the prototype of the 21st-century man”.

A philosophy student before the outbreak of the Second World War, Marker became a member of the Resistance during the conflict and then a journalist. As part of the Rive Gauche group of filmmakers and artists, which included Agnès Varda, Resnais, Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jacques Demy and Henri Colpi, he helped inspire a new generation of directors who would eventually become the Nouvelle Vague. His most significant film of this period was La Jetée (1962), a 28-minute, photomontage sci-fi drama that is now seen as a key work of the genre and has inspired countless imitators, most notably Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys (1995). The story of a prisoner in a post-apocalyptic world who travels through time “to call past and future to the rescue of the present”, its simplicity belies a moving portrait of our capacity to love and details how important to our essence human interaction is.

As the 1960s progressed, Marker, like so many other filmmakers, became increasingly politicised. A result of this was the 1967

director’s cut] Chris Marker 1921-2012

portmanteau film Loin du Vietnam, which also featured contributions by Jean-Luc Godard, Resnais, Varda, William Klein, Joris Ivens, Michele Ray and Claude Lelouch. He went on to create S.L.O.N. (Société pour le lancement des oeuvres nouvelles), which encouraged workers to form their own film collectives and, following the events of 1968, gave up his personal activities in favour of dedicating himself solely to the work of this group.

In the 1970s, Marker returned to his own work, with the hugely ambitious A Grin Without a Cat (1977), whose title was inspired by ‘Alice in Wonderland’, but which focussed on the political landscape before and after May 1968. Around the same time, Marker travelled the world extensively. His experiences would eventually inform Sans Soleil (1982), arguably cinema’s finest essay. The following year, he recorded Akira Kurosawa on the set of his ‘King Lear’ adaptation Ran. The result was the affectionate portrait A.K (1985).

In recent years, Marker broadened his interest in multimedia, as he quietly withdrew from the public arena. The work he left us highlights the possibilities of an exciting and ever-changing medium. •


66

Artificial Eye

Mia Hansen-Løve

Goodbye, First Love

AVAILABLE ON DVD, BLU-RAY ANDON DEMAND 10 SEPTEMBER

A warm, wistful, touching and impassioned tale of the bliss and blisters of teenage love, from the immensely talented young director of Father of My Children, Mia Hansen-Løve.

Daniel Nettheim

The HunterA haunting, mysterious and adrenaline-fuelled thriller about a mercenary hired to track down the elusive Tasmanian Tiger, featuring a powerful, bristling performance by Willem Dafoe.

New Releases

www.artificial-eye.com

AVAILABLE ON DVD, BLU-RAYAND ON DEMAND 29TH OCTOBER

Free super saver delivery and unlimited free one-day delivery with Amazon Prime available. Terms and conditions apply. See Amazon.co.uk for details.

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Alison Klayman

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

This stunning portrait of a digital age dissident who inspires global audiences and blurs the boundary between art and politics is the must-see documentary event of the year.

AVAILABLE NOW ON DEMANDAND ON DVD & BLU-RAY 8TH OCTOBER

Béla Tarr

The Turin Horse

AVAILABLE NOW ON DEMANDAND ON DVD & BLU-RAY 10TH SEPTEMBER

Raw, compelling and emotionally devastating, Béla Tarr’s depiction of a descent into the void is groundbreaking cinema of the most artistically precise and philosophically rigorous order.

OTR_Curzon_OBC_Artwork_V1.indd 2 09/08/2012 12:32

curzon magazine sept-oct 2012

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