ORSON WELLES Centennial Celebration ~ June & July at Cinema Arts Centre

A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet. - Orson Welles

TOUCH OF EVIL (1958)
Hosted by FOSTER HIRSCH • Monday, June 15 at 7:30 pm

Orson Welles was an artist with a vision. One of the great revolutionaries of cinema, Welles never stopped experimenting and pushing the boundaries of cinematic art. The result was an amazing series of masterworks that feel as fresh today as when they were brand new. Join Film Historian Foster Hirsch for a lively centennial celebration of the life and career of the man who is one of cinema’s greatest artists and the most larger-than-life figure in film history.

Welles’ film noir masterpiece stars Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh as a Mexican drug enforcement agent and his wife whose efforts to unmask a corrupt border-town sheriff (Welles) in one of his greatest performances) lead them into a nightmare of blackmail and deception. Marlene Dietrich is unforgettable as the sheriff’s long-ago lover whose gripping monologue provides the film’s haunting finale. Brand New Digital Restoration! (USA, 1958, 95 min., PG-13, DCP)

Foster Hirsch is a pioneer in the development of Film Studies and author of the classic Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir. He is a professor of film at Brooklyn College. He received his B.A. from Stanford University and his M.A., M.F.A., and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI

Hosted by PHILIP HARWOOD • Thursday, June 18 at 7:30 pm

One of the most stylistically adventurous films ever to emerge from Hollywood, Welles’ dazzling film noir tells the tale of an Irish sailor Michael O’ Hara (Welles) whose decision to save a beautiful married woman (Welles’ real life wife Rita Hayworth) from a robbery propels him into a web of passion, intrigue, and murder. The film’s final showdown in a carnival hall-of-mirrors is considered one of the greatest cinematic tour-de-forces of all time. Brand New Digital Restoration! (USA, 1947, 87 min., DCP)

Orson Welles was an artist with a vision. One of the great revolutionaries of cinema, Welles never stopped experimenting and pushing the boundaries of cinematic art. The result was an amazing series of masterworks that feel as fresh today as when they were brand new. Join Film Historian Philip Harwood for a lively centennial celebration of the life and career of the man who is one of cinema’s greatest artists and the most larger-than-life figure in film history.

Philip Harwood is a film historian, who teaches film at LIU: C.W. Post, 92d Street Y, and The JCC in Manhattan. He was Coordinator for Lifelong Learning at Queens College. He taught film studies at the New School for Social Research. He is also a published author.

MAGICIAN:
THE ASTOUNDING LIFE & WORK OF ORSON WELLES (2014)

Hosted by PHILIP HARWOOD • Thursday, June 25 at 7:30 pm

Chuck Workman’s new documentary looks at the remarkable genius of Orson Welles - the meaning of his career as a Hollywood star, a Hollywood director, and a crucially important independent filmmaker. Orson Welles had a remarkable life: a musical prodigy at age 10, a director of Shakespeare at 14, a painter at 16, a star of stage and radio at 20, romances with some of the most beautiful women in the world, including Rita Hayworth. His work was similarly extraordinary, most famously Citizen Kane, created by Welles when he was only 25, but also later masterworks like Touch of Evil, Othello, and The Trial, many produced independently and financed by Welles’ acting in other people’s movies. (USA, 2014, 94 min., PG-13, DCP | Dir. Chuck Workman)

Philip Harwood is a film historian, who teaches film at LIU: C.W. Post, 92d Street Y, and The JCC in Manhattan. He was
Coordinator for Lifelong Learning at Queens College. He taught film studies at the New School for Social Research. He is also a published author.

OTHELLO (1952)

Hosted by PHILIP HARWOOD • Tuesday, June 30 at 7:30 pm

Orson Welles’ gripping adaptation of William Shakespeare’s classic drama of jealousy, love, and betrayal was one of Welles’s most complicated film productions and is considered by many to be one of the finest cinematic renderings of Shakespeare. Welles gives one of his best performances
as General Othello, a moor, who is manipulated into thinking his wife has been unfaithful with one of his officers, when in reality it’s all part of a scheme by the bitter Iago. Brand New Digital Restoration! (USA, 1952, 90 min., DCP)

A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet. - Orson Welles

Orson Welles was an artist with a vision. One of the great revolutionaries of cinema, Welles never stopped experimenting and pushing the boundaries of cinematic art. The result was an amazing series of masterworks that feel as fresh today as when they were brand new. Join Film Historian Philip
Harwood for a lively centennial celebration of the life and career of the man who is one of cinema’s greatest artists and the most larger-than-life figure in film history.

Philip Harwood is a film historian, who teaches film at LIU: C.W. Post, 92d Street Y, and The JCC in Manhattan. He was Coordinator for Lifelong Learning at Queens College. He taught film studies at the New School for Social Research. He is also a published author.

THE TRIAL (1962)

Hosted by ROYAL BROWN • Wednesday, July 8 at 7:30 pm

Welles stunningly visualizes Franz Kafka’s classic novel about the inexplicable persecution of K. (Anthony Perkins), a man accused of a crime but never told what it is. Subjected to ever more surreal episodes of harassment, enticement and insinuation, K. struggles to maintain his dignity despite the best efforts of temptresses Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider and Elsa Martinelli, various interrogations and beatings by strange men in black suits and the unconvincing assurances of Welles’ blustery “Advocate.” Brand New Digital Restoration! (France/Germany/Italy, 1962, 118 min., in English, DCP)

Royal S. Brown is a member of the Ph.D. Program in French at the Graduate Center, CUNY. He received a B.A. from Penn State University and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. He is the author of Overtones and Undertones: Reading Film Music and Focus on Godard.

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