[History_students] FW: Gene Siskel Film Center presents "From the Tsars to the Stars: A Journey through Russian Fantastik Cinema"

[Green-Givens, Onie]

FYI.

Onie Green-Givens
History Department
DePaul University
2320 N. Kenmore Ave., Suite 419
Chicago, IL 60614
773/325-7470
Fax: 773/325-4764

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Subject: Gene Siskel Film Center presents "From the Tsars to the Stars: A Journey through Russian Fantastik Cinema"

 

"From May 5 through 30, the Gene Siskel Film Center presents From the Tsars
to the Stars: A Journey through Russian Fantastik Cinema.  The eleven
features and two shorts in the series span almost a hundred years,
encompassing pre-Revolutionary Russia, the Stalin era, the Cold War, the
Sputnik-spurred space race, the glasnost period, and, finally, an ironic
look back from a post-Soviet perspective.  The series' variety is as broad
as its chronology, ranging from folklore to fairytale to animation to
commercial blockbuster to art cinema.  Many of the films have never been
shown before in the U.S., or shown only in hacked-up, English-dubbed
versions."
 
We would really appreciate if you could help us publicize this fascinating film
series.

All of the information regarding the series can be found below.  Students
receive a discount on admission.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
J. Angel De Santiago
GSFC Intern




Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St.

Tickets: $9/general admission, $7/students, $5/Film Center members

Information: 312-846-2800 or www.siskelfilmcenter.org



>From the Tsars to the Stars:
 A Journey through Russian Fantastik Cinema
  
 "This is why we have retro houses--to unleash the secret cinemas of the
 global past.  Few high-powered legacies are as alien to us as the rarely
 screened fantasy cinema of the Soviet kingdom."--Michael Atkinson, Village
 Voice
  
 >From May 5 through 30, the Gene Siskel Film Center presents From the Tsars
 to the Stars: A Journey through Russian Fantastik Cinema.  The eleven
 features and two shorts in the series span almost a hundred years,
 encompassing pre-Revolutionary Russia, the Stalin era, the Cold War, the
 Sputnik-spurred space race, the glasnost period, and, finally, an ironic
 look back from a post-Soviet perspective.  The series' variety is as broad
 as its chronology, ranging from folklore to fairytale to animation to
 commercial blockbuster to art cinema.  Many of the films have never been
 shown before in the U.S., or shown only in hacked-up, English-dubbed
 versions.
  
 Although the series contains excursions into other forms covered by the
 broad Russian term "fantastika" (the Gogolesque EVENINGS ON A FARM NEAR
 DIKANKA, the Tolkienesque RUSLAN AND LUDMILA, the Kafkaesque ZERO CITY), the
 main emphasis is on science fiction.  One could say that the Soviet Union
 itself was science fiction--speculative fiction written as a political
 system, emerging at around the same time as the literary genre and passing
 from the utopian to the dystopian to the entropic.  Now, since the demise of
 the USSR, it has become the mythic (in film critic J. Hoberman's phrase,
 "the Red Atlantis"), a Lost Continent evoking nostalgia, camp, and
 retro-fantasy.  This dimension is shrewdly mined in the most recent film in
 the series, the 2005 mockumentary FIRST ON THE MOON, which recycles the
 tropes of Stalinist ideology while imagining a 1938 trip to the Moon.
  
 Distinctively different from their Western counterparts, Soviet
 science-fiction films are concocted from a mixture of the mystical,
 technocratic, propagandistic, philosophical, and just plain goofy.  That
 last quality should not be underestimated--a touch (or more) of the absurd
 runs through most of the films in this series, more self-aware in some than
 in others.  Examples include the Qbert-like low-gravity hops of the Moon
 explorers in COSMIC VOYAGE, the glittery Esther Williams-appropriate
 swimsuit of THE AMPHIBIAN MAN, the grumpy octopus-alien of TO THE STARS BY
HARD WAYS, and the surreal sights that confront the baffled traveler in ZERO
 CITY.  Russian fantastik cinema may often be didactic, but it is rarely less
 than enchanting.
  
 This series was curated by Alla Verlotsky, Robert Skotak and Dennis Bartok
 and is presented by Seagull Films, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and
 the American Cinematheque in collaboration with Concern Mosfilm, Russian
 State Archive Gosfilmofond, and M-Film Studio.  Generous support is provided
 by the Russian State Agency for Culture and Cinematography, George Gund III
 and Iara Lee and Titra California Inc.  Special thanks to Brandon Maurice
 Williams, Gwen Deglise, Robert Dekker, Karen Shakhnazarov, Sergey Lazaruk,
 Nikolay Borodachev and Mikhail Kosirev.
                   
                                                  -- Martin Rubin
  
  
  
 THE AMPHIBIAN MAN
 (CHELOVEK-AMFIBIYA)
 1962, Gennadi Kazansky and Vladimir Chebotarev, USSR, 95 min.
 With Vladimir Korenev, Anastasia Vertinskaya
  
 Friday, May 25, 6:00 pm
 Tuesday, May 29, 7:45 pm
  
 The title makes it sound like a cheesy Hollywood B-picture, but this punchy,
 poignant fantasy-romance is one of the revelations of the series,
 anticipating EDWARD SCISSORHANDS in several respects.  Set in colorful Cuban
 locations and filmed in a dynamic tropical-expressionist style, it tells of
 a scientist who dreams of a utopian underwater civilization, starting with
his own son, the handsome Ichtyander, whose faulty lungs have been augmented
 with shark gills.  Venturing into our bright, guilty world, Ichtyander
 quickly runs afoul of the authorities and falls in love with a beautiful
 seÒorita who is being forced to marry an evil pearl-dealer.  In Russian with
 English subtitles.  35mm.  (MR)
  
  
  
 COSMIC VOYAGE
 (KOSMICHESKIY REIS)
 1936, Vasili Zhuravlev, USSR, 70 min.
 With Sergei Komarov
  
 Sunday, May 20, 3:00 pm
  
 A renegade scientist, chafing under the restrictions of the Soviet space
 establishment, launches his own rocket to the moon, with a pretty professor
 and a spunky lad on board.  Impressive constructivist sets mark this lively,
 ambitious production, whose look might remind American viewers of Flash
 Gordon serials.  COSMIC VOYAGE is an overtly fictional predecessor to the
 2005 mockumentary FIRST ON THE MOON (see below), which incorporates footage
 from the earlier film.
  
 Preceded by THE CAMERAMAN'S REVENGE (1912, 12 min.), Wladaslaw Starevich's
 stop-motion animation classic about an adulterous beetle; and INTERPLANETARY
 REVOLUTION (1924, 9 min.), an animated sci-fi spoof inspired by the hit
 AELITA, QUEEN OF MARS.  All in 35mm.   In Russian with English intertitles.
 (MR)
  
  Silent films with live piano accompaniment by David Drazin.
  
  
  
 EVENINGS ON A FARM NEAR DIKANKA
 (VECHERA NA KHOTORE BLIZ DIKANKI)
 1961, Aleksandr Rou, USSR, 70 min.
 With Aleksandr Khvylya
  
 Sunday, May 20, 5:00 pm
 Tuesday, May 22, 8:30 pm
  
 This freewheeling comic fantasy is based on a tale by caustic Russian
 fabulist Nikolai Gogol and filmed in rich Technicolor hues. Christmas is
 coming, and village blacksmith Vacula has his hands full.  His fiancÈe
 refuses to marry him unless he fetches her a pair of shoes belonging to the
 Tsarina herself.  On top of it, the Devil is peeved because Vacula painted a
 caricature of him so hilarious that all of hell can't stop laughing.
 Knowing the blacksmith's predicament, the Devil offers to get those shoes,
 if Vacula will sell his soul. . .  In Russian with English subtitles.  35mm.
 (MR)
  
  
  
 FIRST ON THE MOON
 (PERVYE NA LUNE)
 2005, Alexei Fedorchenko, Russia, 76 min.
 With Boris Vlasov
  
 Friday, May 18, 6:00 pm
 Wednesday, May 23, 8:15 pm
  
 Forget Neil Armstrong; newly unearthed footage from secret Soviet archives
 indicates that cosmonaut Ivan Kharlamov reached the Moon in 1938, before
 crash-landing in Chile and being swallowed up by the vagaries of history. A
 recent film-festival favorite, this ingenious alternative-history
 mockumentary combines real and expertly faked archival footage (much of it
 taken from hidden spy-cameras) to tell a clever and disturbing tale rooted
 in the conflict between two irreconcilable forces in Soviet Russia: utopian
experimentation and paranoid surveillance.  In Russian with English
 subtitles.  Beta SP video. (MR)
  
  
  
 THE HEAVENS CALL
 (NEBO ZOVET)
 1959, Mikhail Karyukov and Aleksandr Kozyr, USSR, 80 min.
 With Ivan Pereverzev
  
 Monday, May 7, 6:00 pm
 Thursday, May 10, 8:30 pm
  
 Noble Russians and nasty Americans race to be the first on Mars.   When the
 Yanks crash-land on an asteroid, the selfless Soviets decide to help their
 ideological opponents.  The spectacular launch scenes and space-scapes set a
 standard for science-fiction films that was unsurpassed until 2001: A SPACE
 ODYSSEY.  Roger Corman bought the film, removed the ideology, added some
 monsters, and gave it to newcomer Francis Coppola to reedit as BATTLE BEYOND
 THE SUN.  In Russian with English subtitles.  35mm.  (MR)
  
  
  
 PLANET OF STORMS
 (PLANETA BUR)
 1961, Pavel Klushanstev, USSR, 83 min.
 With Vladimir Yemelyanov
  
 Saturday, May 12, 6:30 pm
 Tuesday, May 15, 8:30 pm
  
 Intrepid cosmonauts land on Venus.  The cold equations of mathematical
 logic, represented by a massive robot named Iron John, are pitted against
 the warm caprices of the human heart, represented by the lone woman on the
 crew.  They find volcanoes, dinosaurs, underwater life forms that resemble
 aquarium fish, and a creature that looks like a giant stuffed pepper with
 tentacles.  But is there intelligent life?  Roger Corman cannibalized
footage from this gaudy fantasy for three 1960s AIP epics: QUEEN OF BLOOD,
 VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET, and VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF PREHISTORIC
 WOMEN.  In Russian with English subtitles.  35mm.  (MR)
  
  
  
 RUSLAN AND LUDMILA
 (RUSLAN I LYUDMILA)
 1972, Aleksandr Ptushko, USSR, 159 min.
 With Valeri Kozinets, Natalya Petrova
  
 Sunday, May 6, 3:15 pm
  
 The celebrated fantasist Aleksandr Ptushko, often compared to Harryhausen
 and Tolkien, was given a Film Center retrospective in 2002, but we were not
 able then to include RUSLAN AND LUDMILA, Ptushko's last and most ambitious
 film.  Based on a Pushkin poem with dialogue in verse form, this fairy-tale
 epic begins in medieval Kiev. The brave knight Ruslan marries the spirited
 princess Ludmila, but, before they can reach the nuptial bed, the bride is
 kidnapped.  Ludmila's distraught father offers her hand to whomever rescues
 her, and Ruslan races three rivals across a spectacular fantasyscape
 containing enchanted forests, wild tigers, crystal palaces, a cave full of
 chained titans, a villainous dwarf with a 50-foot beard, and much more.  In
 Russian with English subtitles.  35mm.  (MR)
  
 There will be a five-minute intermission.
  
  
  
 SOLARIS
 1971, Andrei Tarkovsky, USSR, 165 min.
 With Donatas Banionis, Natalya Bondarchuk
  
 Monday, May 28, 3:00 pm
 Wednesday, May 30, 6:30 pm
  
 This legendary science-fiction film, based on Stanislaw Lem's great novel,
 is frequently compared to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, although Tarkovsky's
 approach is more philosophical and humanistic (Tarkovsky reputedly loathed
 Kubrick's classic for its coldness).  Strange phenomena are experienced by
 the crew of a space station circling a planet whose inexplicable nature
 challenges the very basis of human science.  As he struggles to penetrate
 the unknowable, the astropsychologist Kelvin finds only a mirror that
 reflects back his own memories, fears, and desires in distorted and
 sometimes terrifying forms.  In Russian with English subtitles.  35mm
 widescreen.  (MR)
  
  
  
 STALKER
 1979, Andrei Tarkovsky, USSR, 161 min.
 With Alexander Kaidanovsky
  
 Sunday, May 13, 3:00 pm
 Monday, May 14, 6:30 pm
  
 Tarkovsky's second venture into science fiction extends the intermingling of
 speculation and subjectivity previously explored in SOLARIS.  An alien
 object striking Earth has created an off-limits area known as the Zone--an
 eerie hybrid of industrial wasteland and primeval forest, where mirages and
 mind-bending traps await the unwary traveler.  A guide known as Stalker
 leads an illegal expedition into the Zone's interior, which is rumored to
 contain a Room that grants one's innermost wishes. In Russian with English
 subtitles. 35mm.  (MR)
  
  
  
 TO THE STARS BY HARD WAYS
 (aka THE THORNY WAY TO THE STARS)
(CHEREZ TERNII K ZVEZDAM)
 1981, Richard Viktorov, USSR, 118 min.
 With Yelena Metyolkina
  
 Saturday, May 5, 5:30 pm
 Tuesday, May 8, 8:00 pm
  
 Newly restored and reedited, this Soviet box-office smash remains a cult
 favorite in Russia.  Investigating a derelict spacecraft, Soviet explorers
 find a lone survivor: Yeena, an out-of-this-world female with saucer eyes,
 telekinetic powers, and a catwalk figure.  Yeena's brain has been engineered
 for obedience, making her a potentially dangerous weapon in the hands of
 anyone who knows how to push her buttons.  She guides her Soviet saviors to
 her home planet, which is suffering from massive pollution at the hands of a
 profiteering midget.  STARS was given the MST3K treatment as HUMANOID WOMAN,
 but the film is more imaginative than campy, and the space-vixen is
 genuinely cool.  In Russian with English subtitles.  35mmm widescreen.  (MR)
  
  
  
 ZERO CITY
 (aka ZEROGRAD and CITY ZERO)
 (GOROD ZERO)
 1988, Karen Shakhnazarov, USSR, 103 min.
 With Leonid Filatov
  
 Saturday, May 19, 7:45 pm
 Monday, May 21, 6:00 pm
  
 Arriving on a seemingly routine business trip, the engineer Varakin (Filatov
 in a terrific deadpan performance) is greeted by a secretary calmly typing
 away. . .stark naked.  Welcome to Zero City, a Soviet branch of the Twilight
 Zone, with embellishments by Kafka and BuÒuel.  At a restaurant, Varakin is
served a cake in the form of his own head, and, when he declines to eat it,
 the crestfallen chef kills himself.  Or was it murder, with a motive dating
 back to when the victim became the city's first rock 'n' roller?
 Unpredictable, unsettling, and hilarious, this bizarre satire is one of the
 key films of the tumultuous Perestroika era.  In Russian with English
 subtitles. 35mm.  (MR)