October 2, 2003

Block Cinema features ‘Professor’s Picks’ this year

Block Cinema, a collaboration of the School of Communication and the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, screens classic and contemporary films in the museum’s James B. Pick and Rosalyn M. Laudati Auditorium.

Casablanca, October 23, 8 p.m.

Block Cinema features a series on different themes, directors or countries during each quarter of the academic year.

Throughout fall 2003, faculty members will introduce their favorite films and lead post-screening discussions. These “Professor’s Pick” screenings will showcase the expertise of professors from across the University, providing a wide variety of views on movies and methods of interpretation.

Inspired by the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art’s “Drawn Toward the Avant-Garde: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century French Drawings from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Copenhagen” exhibition (Sept. 26 to Nov. 30), Block Cinema has programmed a series of “Classic French Films.” They include movies directed by Jean Renoir, the son of French impressionist Auguste Renoir; Jean Vigo, the “poet maudit” of 1930s French Cinema; Robert Bresson, a devout but doubting Catholic, whose minimalist direction strips cinema to its essential facts; and a few from the cadre of directors who made up the French New Wave.

There also will be an “Independent Film” series that will focus on some of the best independent films of the 1980s and early 1990s by such directors as John Sayles, Jim Jarmusch, Todd Haynes and the Coen brothers, who were heavily influenced by such iconoclastic mavericks as Orson Welles, John Cassavetes and the directors of the French New Wave. Each film will shed light on a very specific group of people whether it is a minority group, a bunch of down-and-out losers, or wealthy New York debutants.

Block Cinema, in partnership with like-minded groups, also brings numerous special and rare screenings to Chicago, in addition to its regular schedule. All foreign films are subtitled in English, unless otherwise noted. Detailed descriptions of the films are available in the tri-quarterly Block Cinema calendar and on the Block Cinema Web site listed below.

Block Cinema is curated by Block Cinema staff and a student group called the Film and Projection Society (FPS).

General admission is $6, or $4 for Northwestern faculty and staff, Block Museum members, students and senior citizens. Special Block Cinema events are $10, unless otherwise noted. A season pass is $20, but does not include admission to special events. Tickets and season passes are available at the door 30 minutes before showtime.

For more information about the fall 2003 screenings, call the Block Cinema Hotline at (847) 491-4000 or go to the Block Cinema Web site at www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/education/nufilms.html.