Sunday, November 15th at 3 p.m. at Cinematheque

La Dolce Vita (1960)
(La Douceur de Vivre, The Sweet Life)
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Director: Federico Fellini
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimee, and Yvonne Furneaux
Italy, Running Time: 180 Minutes – 3 hours
In Italian, French & German with Subtitles, Black & White
High Historical Importance

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=EB&Date=19970105&Category=REVIEWS08&ArtNo=401010336&Ref=AR&Profile=1023&Maxw=438

La Dolce Vita (Italian for "The Sweet Life") is a 1960 film by the critically acclaimed director Federico Fellini. The film is a story of a passive journalist's week in Rome, and his search for both happiness and love that will never come. Cited as the film that signals the split between Fellini's earlier neo-realist films and his later art films, it is considered as one of the great achievements in world cinema. It scores a 98 percent on the infamous Tomatometer.

Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) is a journalist in Rome in the 1950s covering tabloid news: movie stars, religious visions and the decadent aristocracy.
The film covers seven days of Marcello's life. Marcello lives with Emma (Yvonne Furneaux), a woman who loves him. Marcello resists her possessive, motherly attitude towards love and her conventional perspective of life, while Emma ignores Marcello's inarticulate search for value and meaning. He encounters numerous women throughout the movie, including Maddalena (Anouk Aimée), a beautiful, wealthy and jaded lover, and Sylvia (Anita Ekberg), a Swedish-American movie star whom he desires. He reunites with his old friend Steiner (Alain Cuny) and his father.

3 p.m. La Dolce Vita – Cinematheque
Meet in the Lobby 10 minutes ahead of time or look for the group inside the theater. We’ll try to save seats in the first two rows of the upper section, center. The flick is 3 hours, so expect to be out around 6 p.m. Seats at this venue are somewhat hard so you may want to bring a stadium cushion.

6:15 p.m. After Film Discussion/Dinner – the After-Party @ Ristorante La Dolce Vita
Since film ends early, we’ll head over to Little Italy’s Ristorante La Dolce Vita , 12112 Mayfield Road, 216.721.8155, for discussion, drinks and perhaps dinner. Parking may be a challenge, but patience will result in a spot nearby on the street. Ristorante La Dolce Vita is named after the wonderful film we saw earlier. The theme is carried out in the restaurant décor, themes and menu.

Owner Terry Tarantino has promised a special treat for Indie Meet Up members attending the after-party at Ristorante La Dolce Vita. You may select a complementary appetizer or a wonderful desert from the menu with each entrée purchased. This is a Members Only! benefit.

http://www.hotelfontana-trevi.com/public/foto/cinema2b.jpg
We will have a reserved table so you must indicate "dinner on your RSVP to have a seat! Please let us know your dinner plans on your RSVP so that we can reserve a seat for you at the "Movie Group" table. We have requested separate checks but due to the size of our group, you can expect a standard gratuity to be added. If circumstances force you to cancel, please try to notify the organizer as early as possible. It’s best to pay your check in cash to streamline the process. If you don't see us when you walk in, ask to be seated with Bill Johnson or the Indie Movie Group.

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh68/javiercamafeo/FellinisLaDolceVita1960.jpg

Plot – Synopsis

In the film's opening sequence, a plaster statue of Christ, suspended by cables from a helicopter, flies past the ruins of an ancient Roman aqueduct. The statue is being taken to the Pope at the Vatican. Journalist Marcello and a photographer named Paparazzo (Walter Santesso) follow in a second helicopter. The symbolism of Christ, arms outstretched as if blessing all of Rome as it flies overhead, is soon replaced by the profane lifestyle and neo-modern architecture of the "new" Rome founded on the economic miracle of the late 1950s. (Much of this was actually filmed in Cinecittà or in EUR, the Mussolini-style area south of Rome.) Marcello's helicopter is sidetracked by a group of bikini-clad women sunbathing on a rooftop; hovering above, he tries but fails to elicit a phone number from them. He laughingly shrugs off his failure and continues on.

The delivery of the statue is the first of many recurring scenes placing religious icons in the midst of characters demonstrating their "modern" morality influenced by the booming economy and the emerging mass-consumer lifestyle.

Perceived by the Catholic Church as a parody of Christ's second coming, the scene and the entire film were condemned by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in 1960. Subject to widespread censorship, the film was banned in Spain until 1975 after the death of Franco.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3264/2758850967_533884b743.jpg?v=0

Some Fellini Trivia: The character of Paparazzo, the news photographer (played by Walter Santesso) who works with Marcello, is the origin of the word paparazzi used in many languages to describe intrusive photographers. As to the origin of the character's name itself, Fellini scholar Peter Bondanella argues that although "it is indeed an Italian family name, the word is probably a corruption of the word papataceo, a large and bothersome mosquito. Ennio Flaiano, the film's co-screenwriter and creator of Paparazzo, reports that he took the name from a character in a novel by George Gissing." Gissing's character, Signor Paparazzo, is found in his travel book, By the Ionian Sea (1901).

Production

Although critics have often commented on the extravagant costumes used throughout Fellini's films, few realized that the origin behind La dolce vita was the sack dress, introduced by the designer Balenciaga in 1957. In various interviews, Fellini claimed that the film's initial inspiration was in fact this particular style. Brunello Rondi, Fellini's co-screenwriter and long-time collaborator, confirmed this view explaining that "the fashion of women's sack dresses which possessed that sense of luxurious butterflying out around a body that might be physically beautiful but not morally so; these sack dresses struck Fellini because they rendered a woman very gorgeous who could, instead, be a skeleton of squalor and solitude inside."

Credit for the creation of Steiner (played by Alain Cuny), the intellectual who commits suicide after shooting his two children, goes to co-screenwriter, Tullio Pinelli. Having gone to school with Cesare Pavese, the Italian novelist, Pinelli had closely followed the writer's career and felt that his over-intellectualism had become emotionally sterile, leading to his suicide in Turin in 1950. This idea of a "burnt out existence" is carried over to Steiner in the party episode where the sounds of nature are not to be experienced first-hand by himself and his guests but in the virtual world of tape recordings.

Most (but not all) of the film was shot at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome. Set designer Piero Gherardi created over eighty locations, including the Via Veneto, the dome of Saint Peter's with the staircase leading up to it, and various nightclubs. However, other sequences were shot on location such as the party at the aristocrats' castle filmed in the real Bassano di Sutri palace north of Rome. (Some of the servants, waiters, and guests were played by real aristocrats.) Fellini combined constructed sets with location shots, depending on script requirements—a real location often "gave birth to the modified scene and, consequently, the newly constructed set." The film's famous last scenes where the monster fish is pulled out of the sea and Marcello waves goodbye to Paola (the teenage "Umbrian angel") were shot on location at Passo Oscuro, a small resort town situated on the Italian coast 30 kilometers north of Rome.
http://www.affichescinema.com/insc_d/dolce_vita.jpg
Fellini scrapped a major scene that would have involved the relationship of Marcello with an older writer living in a tower, to be played by 1930s Academy Award-winning actress Luise Rainer. After many difficult dealings with Rainer, Fellini abandoned the scene.

The famous scene in the Trevi Fountain was shot over a week in winter: in March according to the BBC, in late January according to Anita Ekberg. Fellini claimed that Ekberg stood in the cold water in her dress for hours without any trouble while Mastroianni had to wear a wetsuit beneath his clothes - to no avail. It was only after "he polished off a bottle of vodka" that Fellini could shoot the scene with a drunk Mastroianni.

La Dolce Vita won several awards, including a New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Foreign Film and the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival

FEE
Goes toward charges incurred for using the MeetUp website. You can access PayPal or pay your fee to the Organizer at the event.
*************************************************

MOVIE LINKS:
Cinemateque, Cleveland Institute of Art, 11141 East Blvd. http://www.cia.edu/academicResources/cinematheque/filmSchedule.php?action=extended
PARKING: They have a free parking lot.

Movie Reviews

Sunday, November 8th at 3:30 p.m. at Cinematheque

La Strada (1954)
(The Street)
comedy/drama
Director: Federico Fellini
Italy, 108 minutes
Italian with subtitles, Black & White
High Historical Importance

Sunday, November 8th at 3:30 p.m. at Cinematheque
With a special introduction by teacher and author Lou Giannetti.

Gelsomina, a carefree girl, is sold by her very poor mother to Zampano, a traveling entertainer. She follows him on the road (“la strada”) and helps him during his shows. Zampano ill treats her. She meets “The Fool” a tight rope walker. She feels like going with him, but he puts confusion in her mind by pointing out that perhaps Zampano is in love with her… This Fellini’s film is one of the most important films of post-war Italian cinema. It won 8 awards, among these the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film (1956) and the Silver Lion at Venice Film Festival (1954). More info on La Strada.
http://www.iicbelgrado.esteri.it/IIC_Singapore/webform/..%5C..%5CIICManager%5CUpload%5CIMG%5C%5CSingapore%5Cla-strada_2.jpg

3:30 p.m. La Strada – Cinematheque
Meet in the Lobby 10 minutes ahead of time or look for the group inside the theater. We’ll try to save seats in the first two rows of the upper section, center. The flick is almost 2 hours, so expect to be out around 5:30 p.m. Seats at this venue are somewhat hard so you may want to bring a stadium cushion.

6 p.m. After Film Discussion/Dinner – the After-Party @ Bistro La Strada
Since film ends early, we’ll head over to Bistro La Strada, 2050 East Fourth Street, downtown, 216.861.3663, for discussion, drinks and perhaps dinner. Directions and Parking Info]There is valet parking as well as many surface lots and street parking available nearby.

Owner Terry Tarantino has promised a special treat for Indie Meet Up members attending the after-party at Bistro La Strada. You may select a complementary appetizer or a wonderful desert from the menu with each entrée purchased. This is a Members Only! benefit.

Bistro La Strada is named after the wonderful film we saw earlier. The theme is carried out in the restaurant décor and themes. We will have a reserved table so you must indicate "dinner on your RSVP to have a seat! Please let us know your dinner plans on your RSVP so that we can reserve a seat for you at the "Movie Group" table. We have requested separate checks but due to the size of our group, you can expect a standard gratuity to be added. If circumstances force you to cancel, please try to notify the organizer as early as possible. It’s best to pay your check in cash to streamline the process. If you don't see us when you walk in, ask to be seated with Bill Johnson or the Indie Movie Group.

http://www.calgarycinema.org/images/posters/lastrada1.jpg

Plot – Synopsis

Federico Fellini’s La Strada is a touching tale of life on the road and one of the finest films ever made. Made in 1954, in the time when the Italian Neo-realism movement was at its peak, La Strada stood out as an original piece of work which was as much neo-realist cinema as it was not. The film is set in a typical Felliniesque universe, a perfect meeting point of the real and the surreal. Much on the lines of classic neo-realist cinema, the story, the characters and the events provide an accurate depiction of reality being faithfully shot on location but at the same time they provide a sense of surrealism by having a fable-like thread running through the film that is unseen but not unfelt. La Strada, meaning simply ‘The Road’ takes us on a road trip through the lives of Zampano (played by American actor Anthony Quinn), a strongman who travels from town to town performing his incredible feat of breaking an iron chain by simply expanding his chest and his assistant Gelsomina (played by Fellini’s wife Giulietta Masina) who accompanies him on the snare drum and collects money in a hat once the performance is through. Here we are provided with two highly contrasting characters: Zampano- a merciless, brutish and heartless giant who shows no sign of human emotion and believes in having his way by the use of sheer force and Gelsomina- a sweet, innocent, child-like woman who shows a lot of inner beauty and a sense of loyalty to Zampano even after his constant abusive nature and ill treatment of her.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DKcZQ4C7Ij8/SZz8NJolxdI/AAAAAAAAAg8/X9d50zK91yA/s320/eyes-la+strada+2.jpg

Half-way through the story we are given a third perspective with the arrival of The Fool (played by Richard Baseheart). His incredible behaviour and his feat of having a serving of pasta while walking a tight rope give him an almost angelic feel. He is constantly seen annoying the violent Zampano and teasing Gelsomina who is clearly awed by him. He assigns a signature melody to Gelsomina and she picks it up and makes it her own.
The relationship between The Fool and Gelsomina is provided as a sense of hope for her in a life that seemingly cannot escape the towering shadow of Zampano. The Fool makes her an offer to leave Zampano and come with him, an offer that leads to his eventual accidental death at the hands of Zampano. Gelsomina clearly shook up by the death of the only good thing in her life slowly descends into a downward spiral of madness. Zampano, unable to manage her growing madness is forced to leave her.

Many years go by and Zampano returns to where he had last seen Gelsomina and he hears her signature melody being whistled by one of the locals. After further inquiry, he finds out that she had died a sad and lonely person. Zampano, for the first time is emotionally overwhelmed and breaks down into tears.
Professor John Parris Springer bronze.uco.edu/.../italy/springer/strada.html in his essay Fellini’s Magic Neo-realism states that Fellini had used the three main characters of the film as metaphors to the three natural elements of Water, Air and Earth. Gelsomina is often shown to be excited when around a beach or any other water-related body and everytime she is seen interacting with water a sense of cleansing is brought about. The Fool is a depiction of Air. His introduction on the tight rope far above the ground and the fake wings attached to his back signify a sense of flight and a relation to air. He also has a sense of blowing in and around both Zampano and Gelsomina. The element of Earth was embedded into the character of Zampano, a cold, immovable being who is eventually ‘cracked up’ and ‘barren’ by the departure of water (the element of Gelsomina).

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3095/3159677770_ea1eae9c9a.jpg

La Strada was Federico Fellini’s third film and won the first Best Foreign Language Oscar for him. Alongside his masterpiece 81/2 (1963), it takes its righful place as Fellini’s finest piece of work.
BrokenProjector.com © 2007-2008 Gautam Valluri
FEE
Goes toward charges incurred for using the MeetUp website. You can access PayPal or pay your fee to the Organizer at the event.
*************************************************

MOVIE LINKS:
Cinemateque, Cleveland Institute of Art, 11141 East Blvd. http://www.cia.edu/academicResources/cinematheque/filmSchedule.php?action=extended
PARKING: They have a free parking lot.

Movie Reviews. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/

Sunday, November 1, at 6:30 pm
Fellini’s Casanova (1976)
(Il Casanova di Federico Fellini)
Director: Federico Fellini
Italy/France, 165 minutes – 2 hours, 45 minutes
Language: English, Color
Rated “R”
Genre: Drama, Romance
High Historical Importance

Casanova - Fellini’s fantasy about the love life of fabled 18th-century libertine Casanova (Donald Sutherland) is one of the maestro’s most opulent films, with Oscar-winning costumes and a memorable Nino Rota score. 35mm print from the Universal Pictures studio archive! Adults only! This is the first of nine Fellini films that the Cinematheque will screen in November and December.
“The initial sequence says it all. It is carnival time in Venice. Fireworks are raining down on the citizens, the young and the old, the beautiful and the misshapen. Suddenly, with the help of an elaborate system of weights and pulleys, the giant head of Venus begins to emerge from the Grand Canal. The crowd cheers as the master of the revels extols the goddess of love. The head rises creakily to eye level and a cable breaks. Slowly she sinks back into the dark waters. A mother screams to a child, "Cross yourself!"
http://img.youtube.com/vi/JZMoQUQ5bak/0.jpg
Using as his text Giacomo Casanova's "The Story of My Life," Federico Fellini has created another revel of a movie—spectacular, but singularly joyless—that has the effect of celebrating the absolute end of romance and eroticism. There's nothing left but sex, and sex is a terminal disease. Love is a placebo.” – The New York Times

4 p.m. Eats & Discussion – the Before-Party @ Nighttown
Since the film is so long, we’ll meet for dinner before at Nighttown, 12387 Cedar Road, 216.795.0550. We’ll be in the ornate lounge area that is styled after a turn-of-the-century bordello. Nighttown is so popular that the last time we were here people skipped the movie and just came for dinner. They are welcoming us back with a gracious 15 Percent Discount for everyone at our table.

Nighttown is on Cedar Hill just west of Fairmount. Metered parking is available in the rear with an entrance off Cedar just west of the club. We will have a reserved table so you must indicate "dinner on your RSVP to have a seat! Please let us know your dinner plans on your RSVP so that we can reserve a seat for you at the "Movie Group" table. We have requested separate checks but due to the size of our group, you can expect a standard gratuity to be added. If circumstances force you to cancel, please try to notify the organizer as early as possible. It’s best to pay your check in cash to streamline the process. If you don't see us when you walk in, ask to be seated with Bill Johnson or the Indie Movie Group.

6:30 p.m. Casanova – Cinematheque
Meet in the Lobby 10 minutes ahead of time or look for the group inside the theater. We’ll try to save seats in the first two rows of the upper section, center. The flick is nearly 3 hours, so expect to be out around 9:30 p.m. Seats at this venue are somewhat hard. Considering the length of the film, you may want to bring a stadium cushion.

http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com/at/tem/tem053.jpg

Plot – Synopsis

18th Century Italy. Giacomo Casanova has a reputation as a great lover. He passes through many adventures in search of passion. He meets the aging Marquise d’Urfe who wants him to impregnate her so that she can reincarnate in her child’s body, is jailed as a black magician but escapes, and enters a love-making competition held by the Prince del Brando, along with many other adventures.

Federico Fellini emerged in the late 1950s, making gorgeous, often deliriously effervescent films of post-War Italy such as Nights of Cabiria (1957), La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8½ (1963). Following his international acclaim as a result of these, Fellini went onto make a trilogy of titularly self-presented films, beginning with Fellini Satyricon (1969), following through Fellini's Roma (1972) and ending with Fellini's Casanova. In each film Fellini revels in extravagantly decadent excess. The films are hugely sprawling in length – Casanova runs at over three hours, for instance. They are films driven by the production designers and costumers – plot comes a distant second to the scenery on display. In Satyricon Fellini made a decadent spectacle out of Ancient Rome and Roma was a series of meditations on present-day Italy, while Casanova charts the decadent spectacle of the Italy of modern antiquity.
The sheer extravagance of Fellini's Casanova is absolutely stunning. Fellini romps in the outlandish creations the design teams come up with – huge orgies in the street by costumed attendees, nuns wearing scarlet-hooped corsetry. When Casanova travels upon the sea he floats upon rippling black polyurethane; at one point he makes love to a woman wearing a crown of candles. There’s a visit to the skeleton of a leviathan where surrealistic slideshows of dreamy womb horror images play, while outside women dance up and down on a horse-drawn swing and a man with a woman painted on his stomach juggles, while inside Casanova arm-wrestles a seven foot-tall giantess.
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/2661/casanovanr7.jpg

Reviews –

Fellini's Casanova is much less about the self-proclaimed 18th-century philanderer, his life and his times, than it is the surreal, guilt-ridden confessions of a nice, middle-class Italian husband of the 20th century. This fellow, on reaching middle age shortly before the sexual revolution, is still tormented by fantasies that seem to him to be wicked and to the rest of us merely exhausting.
I don't know how else to interpret this strange, cold, obsessed film, which I find fascinating, because I find the man who made it fascinating, a talented mixture of contradictory impulses, and as depressing as an eternal hangover. Other people, less convinced of the Fellini genius, may be driven up the wall.
With Juliet of the Spirits in 1965, Mr. Fellini seems, in retrospect, to have entered his Roxy Theater-Radio City Music Hall period by making a series of films in which he has steadfastly insisted on giving the customers more than their money's worth of movement, color, sound, light, costumes, décor, specialty acts, sideshow freaks, quick changes and dazzling, theatrical artifice.
The Clowns and Roma, documentary variations on themes close to Mr. Fellini's heart, were virtually meditations upon his methods. In Amarcord, his best film since 8½, the superabundance of style was given purposeful shape by benevolence and good feelings.
Fellini's Casanovarecalls Fellini's Satyricon. Though its concerns are narrower, it's as otherworldly as that nightmare vision of the pre-Christian Roman Empire. Like that film, too, Casanovamakes no attempt to recreate an identifiable era, but, rather, to create a completely subjective impression.
Nothing is real. Mr. Fellini, who now works exclusively within a studio, creates everything himself. The studio is the locus of his interior world. It's not for him to go on location to shoot a tree or a sky when he can choose the sort of tree or sky he wants from the scenic designer. Never for a moment does he ask us to believe that any tree or sky ever looked this way, only to understand that this is how he feels about them.
Now, in Casanova, Fellini has gone one step further by, in effect, constructing his leading actor. He has molded the features of Donald Sutherland, who plays Casanova, much as if he were constructing a set, adding an imperial forehead and extending the nose and chin so that no matter how the actor turns, no matter how he is photographed, they define a grotesque absurd condition.
In one of the more chilly sequences of the movie, Casanova becomes infatuated with a beautiful, life-sized mechanical doll, which he takes to bed with him. The always chastely, almost prudishly photographed sexual encounter that follows has no more, or less, meaning than any of Casanova's other affairs. It's all close-ups of Casanova's sweating forehead, accompanied by panting of the sort that suggests a critical shortness of breath. In these encounters, the orgasm is a death rattle.
The closing image of the film is the aged Casanova dreaming of his youth, dancing with this mechanical doll across the frozen waters of the Grand Canal, where, below the ice, we can see the head of Venus with its empty eyes.
The image is daring and beautiful, but it is repeating the film's single note for one more time than is easily supportable. Like Satyricon, Casanova has the form of a frieze that ends by meeting itself where it began. With the exception of a casual reference to Casanova's father, and a sequence—the best in the film—in which he runs into his aged mother in Germany, Casanova is less characterized than he is presented as if he were someone in a pageant. The New York Times - Vincent Canby

FEE
Goes toward charges incurred for using the MeetUp website. You can access PayPal or pay your fee to the Organizer at the event.
*************************************************

MOVIE LINKS:
Cinemateque, Cleveland Institute of Art, 11141 East Blvd. http://www.cia.edu/academicResources/cinematheque/filmSchedule.php?action=extended
PARKING: They have a free parking lot.

Movie Reviews. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/

On the heels of the Italian Film Festival, we are just in time for the Jewish Film Festival. While we are going to see this one, be sure to check out some of their other films.
http://www.clevejcc.org/FilmFest.asp

Tickets are $9. The movie will most likely sell out, so make your reservations as follows:
Mandel JCC Member Service Desk during regular hours – no fees (Closed on Saturdays)
(866) 546-1358 handling fee ($2/ticket) will be added
Purchase tickets online, a handling fee ($2/ticket) will be added http://www.clevejcc.org/FilmFest.asp

If you want me to get tickets for you, use Paypal ($10) by Friday October 9 at 3pm and I will purchase them for you.

Note: This is NOT the Helen Mirren version that has just completed filming.

7:00 EATS
It is hard to believe, but our group has never been to this Cleveland favorite eatery. http://www.boulevardblue.com/ It is under a ten minute drive to the theater.

Please let us know your dinner plans on your RSVP so that we can either save you a seat at the "Movie Group" table or plan to meet you at the movie. Checks are processed in groups of 2 or 3 so please bring CASH to pay for your meal.

If you don't see us when you walk in, ask to be seated with the Movie Group.

9:00 MOVIE
Meet at the ENTRANCE DOOR 5 minutes ahead of time or look for the group inside the theater or meet us afterward outside the entrance door in the lobby.

AFTER MOVIE DISCUSSION
Jimmy's at 2195 Lee is a block left of the theater and is expecting us afterward for coffee, beer and beet cake.

http://allthefestivals.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/the-debt.jpg

DESCRIPTION
Alternating between the 1960s and the present, The Debt tells the riveting tale of three young Mossad agents assigned to capture a Nazi war criminal and return him to Israel to stand trial.

REVIEW
The Debt is an effective thriller and a worthwhile addition to the ... Film Festival lineup.
http://hoopla.nu/films/hahov/thedebt.html

FEE
Goes toward charges incurred for using the MeetUp website. You can access PayPal or pay your fee to the Organizer at the event.
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MOVIE LINKS:

Cleveland Cinemas (Cedar Lee), Cleveland Heights, 2163 Lee Road. http://www.clevelandcinemas.com/cinemadrilldown.asp?intCin=2921

PARKING: Paid Parking is now 24 X 7, so bring a couple of quarters. Credit cards work in the garage. A free parking lot is on Edgewood road, one block west of Lee road at Cedar.

Cinematheque, Cleveland Institute of Art, 11141 East Blvd. http://www.cia.edu/academicResources/cinematheque/filmSchedule.php?action=extended

PARKING: They have a free parking lot.

Cleveland Museum of Art Panorama Series, 11150 East Blvd. http://www.clevelandart.org/events/film.aspx

PARKING: They have an attendant parking garage. There is also street parking.

Movie Reviews. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/

NOTE TO FIRST TIME GOERS: If this is your first movie with the group, there is no fee to attend.

This group has been successful partly because members have a genuine interest in meeting fellow independent movie goers. We don't always know where to look for you, especially first timers.

We have multiple meeting places: 1. Entrance door to the movie in the theater hallway 5-10 minutes before the movie starts, 2. By the Marquee (or entrance door) after the movie, or 3. Reserved table at a restaurant under the name "Movie Group".

We don't always sit together in the movie theater but if you see a bunch of people talking about good movies they have seen, it is probably us. Please join in. We are always happy to get new people involved.

NOTE TO ALL: In the world of Independent films, it is recommended that you check back a few days before the event to make sure the movie, restaurant, location or time has not changed.

Sunday, October 11, at 4:25 pm
Paris
Paris (2008)
France, 2009
130 minutes, drama/romance/comedy
Director: Cédric Klapisch
French with subtitles
Paris is a movie about love, life.......and Paris!

Pierre, a professional dancer, suffers from a serious heart disease. While he is waiting for a transplant which may (or may not) save his life, he has nothing better to do than look at the people around him, from the balcony of his Paris apartment. When Elise, his sister with three kids and no husband, moves in to his place to care for him, Pierre does not change his new habits. And instead of dancing himself, it is Paris and the Parisians who dance before his eyes. Rated R for language and some sexual references.

http://thecia.com.au/reviews/p/images/paris-1.jpg

4:25 p.m. Paris – Cedar-Lee Theatre
Meet in the Lobby 10 minutes ahead of time or look for the group inside the theater. We’ll try to save seats in the first two rows of the upper section, center. The flick is 130 minutes, so expect to be out around 6:40 p.m.

SPECIAL NOTICE – Members only!
We have arranged for a special Members Only discounted ticket purchase at the Cedar-Lee Theater. When you purchase tickets, request the Independent Movie Group discount! That will entitle you and guest (s) to a discounted $5.50 ticket. This special discount applies only to scheduled movie events of the Independent Movie Goers Group on MeetUp.com. It does not apply to non-scheduled movies or for non-members. Please make sure to RSVP in a timely fashion so that your name appears on our Event List prior to submission to Cedar-Lee management.

http://www.nighttowncleveland.com/images/facade_small.jpg

7 p.m. After Film Discussion – the After-Party @ Nighttown

Since film ends early, we’ll head over to Nighttown, 12387 Cedar Road, 216.795.0550, for discussion, drinks and perhaps dinner. Weather permitting we’ll have a table (s) in Stephen’s Green, the covered patio area. If it’s chilly, we’ll be in the lounge area. Nighttown is so popular that the last time we were here people skipped the movie and just came for dinner. I will invoke my Press Club 15 percent Discount for everyone at our table.

Nighttown is on Cedar Hill just west of Fairmount. Metered parking is available in the rear with an entrance off Cedar just west of the club. We will have a reserved table so you must indicate "dinner on your RSVP to have a seat! Please let us know your dinner plans on your RSVP so that we can reserve a seat for you at the "Movie Group" table. We have requested separate checks but due to the size of our group, you can expect a standard gratuity to be added. If circumstances force you to cancel, please try to notify the organizer as early as possible. It’s best to pay your check in cash to streamline the process. Ask to be seated with Bill Johnson or the Indie Movie Group.

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Movie Goer comments:

Ray Harley from Blairgowrie, Scotland
“A wonderfully complex study of both the city, and it's people on a wonderfully complex group of characters. Every one was as interesting as any other, regardless of the stature of the actor playing them, and you were invested in them all because of it. Juliette Binoche and Albert Dupontel were the most familiar names to me, but their characters were not allowed to dominate the story.

”All along the way you were taken on journeys that were unsignposted and shocking, in some cases, because of it.

”A quite extraordinary tale that deserves a far wider audience than it is likely to get. Overall the film was a shining example, in my opinion, of what makes French cinema the best in the world.”

gyurmi3 from Hungary
“This is a great, lovable film. I am still under the influence of it. Me and my girlfriend simply had to sit in a good restaurant in town afterwards to discuss it over a bottle of Chardonnay. This is so much about life! The director wisely lets the viewers to decide about some points that have been intentionally left in a subtle haze. And he does not want to teach us, does not want to moralize and tell us a great story. This is a fresh, very French movie which is just a great start for the new spring season. It is 130 minutes long, still a lot of people (including us) were reluctant to stand up at the end and leave the room seeing the "Fin" sign. Thanks Monsieur Klapisch for the great evening, and of course everybody who contributed his film, first of all the actors - all of them were very credible and smashing. Sorry if I sound overenthusiastic, but - for me - this was a great experience, indeed. I can only recommend it to everybody. Go, and see it, and make yourself a great evening!”

Paris Trailer

Reviews –
Reviewed By: Jennie Kermode – Eye for Film
He loved Paris. He idolised it all out of proportion...
Opening with a dizzying journey through the titular city, immediately giving us a fresh perspective on one of the most frequently filmed places in the world, Cedric Klapisch's portrait of Paris is right up there with Woody Allen's classic Manhattan. It's a love letter, a symphony, a passionate tribute to the history and architecture and people of a place like nowhere else on Earth. Klapisch may not have Gershwin to aid him, but he has Baudelaire, and his subdued imagery, taking in every corner of the place, celebrating fruit markets and warehouses as much as monuments and the Seine, helps to create a film you'll never forget.

Nominally centered on the life of a former dancer who has just discovered that he has a potentially fatal heart condition, Paris is really an ensemble piece, bringing together tales of the loosely connected lives of citizens from all walks of life. There's also a brief visit to Cameroon, where a young man dreams of travelling to Paris to see the fashion model he met during her vacation. These people are learned and naive, confused and intensely focused, happy and sad, yet they are all a part of something greater, and as the film progresses we gradually come to understand how the city itself lives through them.

Isolated in his apartment on account of his illness, Pierre (Romain Duris) is the perfect point of focus, watching people from his window and speculating about their lives. His sister Élise (Juliette Binoche) makes herself his carer, but has problems of her own, wondering if she's too old now to have a hope of finding love. We also meet lecturer Roland (Fabrice Luchini), a history professor besotted with a yound student but unprepared, despite his borrowed observations, for what dealing with youth really means; and his brother Philippe (François Cluzet), a comfortable middle aged architect dismayed by the accusation that he's normal.

This is a film full of understated humour. Sometimes we are laughing at the characters as much as with them, but there is a sense in which their ridiculousness makes them all the more real and all the more worthy of affection. It is also a film which is truly grim in places and which pulls no punches in dealing with matters of life and death, but this is all a part of its beauty. Likewise it interweaves the legacy of the past with the technology and fashions of the present, showing a city which is changing all the time and yet remaining itself.

This film will leave you spellbound as only Paris can.

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The Los Angeles Times
Seeing another side of Paris

In his bittersweet valentine to the City of Light, Cedric Klapisch crisscrosses an array of mostly working-class Parisians whose lives intersect. The setup is a common one for contemporary filmmakers; what lifts Paris from the sub-genre pack is a fine ensemble, in particular the emotional chemistry between two of the screen's most magnetic actors, Juliette Binoche and Romain Duris.

Duris' dancer faces a life-threatening heart ailment. He remains eager for life, even if he must experience it from his balcony or at the corner boulangerie, run by a comically chirpy martinet (the superb Karin Viard). Taking care of him, his sister (Binoche) comes to a new understanding of the joking remark that opens the film: "The universe is everywhere."

There are fine moments throughout. A history professor (Fabrice Luchini) text-stalks a beautiful student (Mélanie Laurent) and, in a terrific scene, visits a psychotherapist (Maurice Benichou), all but begging for his defenses to be torn down. But, as good as the cast is, the multiple stories dilute the film's effect, and authorial string-pulling is often evident.

If the idea of interconnectedness feels secondhand, what's fresh and affecting is the way Binoche's and Duris' characters navigate life and death. From the catacombs to the city's heights, Paris turns an unblinking gaze on the beauty of melancholy and the daring leap toward joy.
-- Sheri Linden

FEE
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MOVIE LINKS:
Cinemateque, Cleveland Institute of Art, 11141 East Blvd. http://www.cia.edu/academicResources/cinematheque/filmSchedule.php?action=extended
PARKING: They have a free parking lot.

Movie Reviews. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/