The Highwaymen: Q&A with Director John Lee Hancock and Writer John Fusco
By Ron Gordner, DC Film Society Member
A screening of The Highwaymen (John Lee Hancock, US, 2019) was held March 20th at Landmark's Bethesda Row Cinema with film director John Lee Hancock and screenwriter John Fusco present for Q&A. Film critic Arch Campbell was moderator.
The film is about the little-known story of the two former Texas rangers Frank Hamer (Kevin Costner) and Maney Gault (Woody Harrelson who on May 23, 1934 brought down the infamous Bonnie (Parker) and Clyde (Barrow) after years of bank robbing and escaping the law.
Arch Campbell: I am a critic but also a native Texan four generations back on my father’s side. I want to introduce two people with the film. The screenwriter of such films as Young Guns, Hidalgo, and The Shack: John Fusco (applause). We also have the director of this and other films like The Founder, The Rookie, The Alamo, Saving Mr. Banks and writer and director of award winning 2009 The Blind Side: John Lee Hancock (applause). It’s wonderful to see the wide Texas vistas on this large screen. I guess the question is why do we all know the story of Bonnie and Clyde but few know the story of Hamer and Gault?
John Fusco: When the story took place newspapers weren’t interested in depressing topics but glamorized sports figures, Hollywood stars and infamous gangsters to sell papers. They liked reading about Dillinger; Bonnie and Clyde represented two lovers on the outside of society, the economic times, and they felt they were sticking it to the banks. It was almost like a soap opera being followed. They were great at doing branding before it was fashionable and liked the admiration of being like movie stars with their guns and when it was all over it was Hamer who would not talk about it to the press.
Arch Campbell: We call that the hundred yard stare in Texas. I am always interested in the car they died in which is in a bar in Nevada.
John Fusco: Whiskey Pete’s Casino.
Arch Campbell: I think I saw it or a replica at the State Fair in Texas or the Texas Rangers Museum. Why are we fascinated with this car?
John Lee Hancock: I think what John said is true. We still are interested in this story and the time and the number of bullets, shots and hits. It is very violent but brief and grotesque. They kept firing until it was over.
Arch Campbell: You could feel an excitement in the audience when it was about to happen.
John Lee Hancock: Yes we wanted to show it but not be too much. Like movie promises and burdens carried on their Ranger souls. Hamer says this is where the road ends. They track and kill people well. There is no blessing in that or joy when they are finally killed; it is just sad all around, not a hooray moment and what happened in Arcadia is indeed grotesque.
John Fusco: Yes. The car, we even downplayed the crowds which swelled from about 4,000 to over 12,000 people. The stores raised the prices of sandwiches and other goods. People thronged the car. Women dipped their handkerchiefs in Bonnie’s blood; a man tried to cut off Clyde’s trigger finger. It was horrible. A man calling himself the Crime Doctor bought and took the car on a tour with Bonnie’s mother and Clyde’s father. They showed slides of the crime scene and one night he saw two Rangers in the back of the audience who came up and slapped him and confiscated his slides.
John Lee Hancock: People shouldn’t benefit from others deaths. There really was the phone call from a Dallas paper wanting an interview with Hamer which he didn’t do. Many people wanted to capitalize on their deaths.
Arch Campbell: The story of Ma Ferguson played by Kathy Bates, the governor of Texas is a colorful story.
John Fusco: I know that her husband Paul Ferguson was governor and was impeached for embezzlement. She took over, lost once, came back and won again. They were known for some famous sayings. When Ma was asked about English and Spanish in the school systems she said: English was good enough for Chris, so it is good enough for Texas (laughter). She was a real character. Why break them out of prison, she could have pardoned them.
Arch Campbell: She also had a role in controlling the Texas Rangers or abolishing them for a while.
John Fusco: Yes, there was bad blood. Most resigned and she abolished the others.
John Lee Hancock: Because they didn’t support her politically in her races, so bad blood.
Arch Campbell: Texas is unique and it is still an indigenous culture. How does it fit into the movie?
John Lee Hancock: I don’t know, it’s hard for me to analyze. I got more perspective when I moved to California and could look back on Texas. It has always been a fascinating enigma to me. Texas is so big. When I moved to California, half the way there I was still in Texas. It’s just so big. It’s a state with five distinct areas with different people and accents. It’s the only state that was its own country. You can go to the French delegation in Houston. It is part pompous and part earned.
Arch Campbell: John Lee Hancock is from Texas but John Fusco is from the East Coast. Your career is surrounded by stories of the Southwest, California, and Deep South. How did you find these interests?
John Fusco: Well, Zayne Grey was a dentist from Ohio (laughter). Billy the Kid was from New York City. I have always found interest in Native American and Western culture. I live part time in Tucson. I love the Western genre and we don’t have the Iliad and the Odyssey in America but we have the Western Areas to explore.
Arch Campbell: I found the film somewhat the negative of the 1967 version of Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. It rarely showed the Rangers.
John Lee Hancock: It started with John’s impetus of writing and it was more about the journey of these two men. I like Penn’s film and others in the 1970s which was during the Vietnam Era and like to stick to the man or establishment. This film was not an answer to that film. I read about Hamer and his story.
John Fusco: Yes, that was a great movie and watershed for the later films of a new era of film making, which excited me to make movies as a kid. Also it interested me in Bonnie and Clyde but the Frank Hamer I researched was not the moustached buffoon shown in that movie captured and sent out on a rowboat. I read about the real Hamer as a famous Ranger spanning time from the famous Western Rangers through the later motorized times. Frank’s widow Gladys and son had sued Warner Brothers over his portrayal in the 1967 film and won so I wanted to justify his role in this film. That idea never left me. I called Frank Jr. At first, he didn’t want to talk to a Hollywood writer. He was a retired game warden and got contacts in the Fish and Wildlife enforcement agency to okay me. I finally got a call from Frank Jr. who said come down to Austin and I will buy you a steak. We sat and talked in a steak house at 11 am in the morning and at the end of the day he just said do right by my Daddy.
Arch Campbell: I see Harrelson and Costner signed on as producers so they must have really wanted to do this picture.
John Lee Hancock: They did. I go way back with Kevin with an earlier film. He read it ten years ago and he said I don’t think I’m old enough yet. About six years ago Woody read the script and said I’m in--when do I start. It took six years.
Arch Campbell: What do you think about how movies are delivered since this is a Netflix movie?
John Fusco: I think that this business is always evolving, including home watching etc. I am first of all a storyteller. If someone tells me a story that the standard studios won’t fund it’s great that Neftlix will support me on this and also on a tv series recently. If you are a sports fan you can see it at home or go to the stadiums if you want the feeling.
John Lee Hancock: I feel the studios have given up on some adult dramas or other genres, so it’s great to have other venues. Someone wrote a script Breaking Bad and it found a place to be seen and win awards. I like the theatre experience and hope it doesn’t go away, but awards and other channels of showing movies and streaming are not going away. Disney and Fox streaming is ongoing. I even got a call from Walmart about possible streaming. You have Amazon, etc. I don’t think the restrictions will hurt a Star Wars or similar film that people still go to the theatres to see. I expect more people saw Roma in the theatres than they did If Beal Street Could Talk. Some small films theatrically last one or two weeks only. I guess that Academy voters, at least two-thirds of them have watched screeners to vote from. So I don’t think we need to get high and mighty about platforms.
John Lee Hancock: I remember when the 1967 film came out people thought it was too violent with the slow motion ambush killings until Paulene Kale saved the day. From our perspective we didn’t want to do slow motion for those 16 seconds but also wanted to show the gravity of it. We went to the actual ambush location and the rounding of the car and the usual running of the roadblocks before. The car appears and disappears on the rolling road. We ending up using the actual spot.
Arch Campbell: I really liked the last touch finally letting Woody drive and also using the mob scenes at the car.
John Lee Hancock: They really had reached the cult of celebrity once the pictures in Joplin were published. They were the original branders--more like the Kardashians today (laugher). They had lots of followers. They clowned with a camera which was left behind and found. We never get a good look at Bonnie and Clyde. The original film used Warren and Faye as sexy and glamorous, so we decided to feed on that somewhat. The first time we really see them in the ambush we see them as really scrawny kids.
Audience Question: Was the ambush scene a bit of an homage to the 1967 film?
John Lee Hancock: I have seen that film many, many times, but I wanted to just see them really then and have her face and reach for the gun and then fire. There is a short moment where they meet eyes.
Audience Question: Has Frank Hamer Jr. seen the finished film?
John Fusco: He died before the final film. In fact the last he had heard from me years ago was that Hamer and Maney (he called him Uncle Maney) would maybe be played by Redford and Newman. He was pleased and was happy that John would direct. We recently did a screening for the Hamer family and Travis the grandson which was emotional.
Arch Campbell: What happened to the car in this film? I heard there may be even up to four cars from the original film on display.
John Lee Hancock: That’s a good question. Kevin got a car gifted, but not that one. We just took off doors etc, someone probably has it in a garage somewhere.
Audience Question: This film took many years from conception with research and relatives… Could this film be done without Netflix?
John Fusco: The first drafts were unwieldy until I had a eureka moment and stripped away everything but the pursuit. I had written the monologue with Hamer and Clyde’s father. We had Paul Newman getting sick and other issues. John Lee went on to make other movies but kept this in his memory.
John Lee Hancock: Could it be made elsewhere, possibly. It really is a great time to write and make films with a variety of production sources.
Audience Question: How do you write so many memorable characters in your movies?
John Fusco: I have been lucky to find these stories. You seek out those characters. For Hidalgo I liked lifting up the carpet and finding these wonderful untold stories that are forgotten. Frank Hamer is one of those stories. Billy the Kid is another one. This is not an answer to the Penn movie. Hamer was a guy who knew Pancho Villa and Tom Mix. Hamer was offered over $30,000 to play in a movie which he turned down.
John Lee Hancock: These are interesting stories. It took over 15 years to make, but we all have wounds to heal; all are flawed, that makes interesting characters.
The film is available on Netflix and was screened locally at the West End Landmark theater in March.
Peterloo: Q&A with director Mike Leigh
By Annette Graham, DC Film Society Member
An advance screening of Peterloo (Mike Leigh, 2019) was shown at Landmark's E Street Cinema on March 28. Mike Leigh, the film's director, answered audience questions after the film. This Q&A is edited and condensed.
Moderator: Congratulations on such a powerful and epic film. As a Brit, I realized how ignorant I was of my own country's history. Before coming here, I asked my Mom, who grew up in Manchester and she said she had never heard anything about Peterloo growing up near where this happened. She said history books were full of Tudors, Stuarts and royal families. Do you find this is a forgotten episode in British history?
Mike Leigh: Like your mother, I also grew up in Manchester and you could get to where this happened from our house when I was a kid, on the bus in 15 minutes. I never knew about it all, nobody ever taught us about it. In fact, when we were working on the film, a lot of actors in the film who are from the Manchester area, ranging in age from 20s to mid-70s--and we all said the same thing. The question is why is this a piece of hidden history? It's complicated. At the time it happened, it was very widely reported, and remarkably, as you see in the movie, the reporter from the Times came up. The Times was a conservative paper and actually reported it in detail and accurately. It was widely reported and it was an outrage. Throughout the 19th century, Peterloo did resonate as an important landmark in the history of democracy. But somehow it got lost, which was for various reasons why we made the film and this year is, of course, the bi-centenary August 16, 200th anniversary. A great deal is being done in the UK for people to learn about what happened. And of course we feel it is relevant as to what is going on in the UK.
Moderator: Where do you see the parallels to today?
Mike Leigh: The truth is, it is important to say, and of the 21 films I've made, my natural tendency is not to make films that say, "Think this." But rather to leave the cinema, reflect, argue, meditate. In a way, this film is no exception, so I feel reluctant to articulate the implications and parallels of this film. As an intelligent audience, it's for you to feel and it's obvious. I deliberately at the end of the film decided not to do that thing which many historical movies do which is to have messages and labels that say so many people were killed, this is what happened, so many people went to prison, the vote didn't come until 1832 and 1878, and 1919, and because the film ends in an emotional place and it leaves you in a place to engage with your emotions, to be angry, upset, and to reflect. If you want to know about historical aspects of the aftermath, you can find about it easily.
Moderator: It had the look and feel of a heavily researched film. To what extent are the details authentic, the individuals involved?
Mike Leigh: Of course. You can't make this out of your head. It was very thoroughly researched. In the credits you'll see a distinguished historian on board who is principally an art historian who I met first on Mr. Turner. The research is massive and this stuff is very researchable indeed which is to say, if I was to make a film set in the 7th century, it would be very difficult to know how to make the film with any authenticity at all, as to how the world was in the 7th century, how people talked or lived. But 1819 is actually the beginning of modern times and very very researchable. Everything you need to know is in the British Library, the National Archives, in the various archives in Manchester. One day, the actors playing the magistrates and I went to the National Archives in London and the archivists had pulled out actual letters written by the characters, because they all wrote to the home office all the time as you see in the movie. And newspapers, you see how detailed the reporting was. It's all there. Henry Hunt and Samuel Bamford wrote autobiographies in which they quoted their own speeches. Everything is there to research, apart from details about life and how people lived. Also you could tell that the dialect that the working class characters were talking was a slightly archaic English, there were words used that are no longer in our vocabulary. And that is researchable too from various sources. In fact, Samuel Bamford wrote a directory of south Lancashire dialect which was useful to us. There is a massive amount of research on all levels. Even for the brief scene that starts the film, we had a Waterloo military.
Audience Question: Did the local populace know that the characters were arrested and beaten? Was there a reaction to that.?
Mike Leigh: Yes, people knew but there was nothing you could do about it. The film is not a documentary, it is a dramatic distillation of facts of course. What I tried to do with them, was that you can see a progression of them trying to be reasonable and gradually becoming more radical and outspoken. They were eventually banged up in prison, put out of the way. They had supporters and there was a reaction but there was nothing anyone could do about it. What I find interesting about those characters is there was no state education, not until 1870 in the UK. So these people didn't necessarily learn how to read. They would have learned to read frorn from the Sunday schools, or self-taught. They were not only literate, they are articulate and on top of that, you hear them quoting the classics which is extraordinary for people with no education. They were hungry for education. I think that in itself is remarkable.
Audience Question: Is the process for doing historical films different from a dramatic film?
Mike Leigh: You are referring to the fact that I don't work from a normal type of script, but I work with the actors to develop characters and relationships and then we improvise. Basically it is exactly the same process, as in Mr. Turner and Topsy-Turvy. We are not discovering what the film is about, we already know what it is about, and we are dramatizing historical events. But within that, there is a great deal of exploration and creativity. You can read all the books in the world and do any amount of research you like, but that doesn't make it happen organically in three dimensions in front of the camera. So you still have to do that, bring it to life. And that means you still have to do the same things to put flesh on the bones of the thing. We worked for six months before we shot anything, working with all the actors, building the characteizations and characters. All of the actors were involved in the research.
Audience Question: Can you comment on the urban London view of the North and North's understanding of their situation?
Mike Leigh: In the beginning, the home secretary talks about the North. He saw it as a kind of jungle. This is the time of the British Empire, and in a way, the north of England was as alien to him as India, Australia or any other part of the empire. He never went up north and had no idea what it was like. All he knew was that it was a jungle of sedition, a threat, basically. You see the juxtaposition early on in the film between the world of the working class family and their working conditions and the powerhouse down in London. In many ways that hasn't changed. George Orwell was talking about that in the 1940s.
Audience Question: You mentioned relevance to today. If we look at the US and UK, do you mean relevance reflecting period pre- or post-2016?
Mike Leigh: We couldn't have anticipated what we were going to go through. Pre- and post-2016, a catastrophe happened here and a catastrophe certainly happened in the UK which has increased to being a mega-catastrophe which at this moment is falling apart at the seams and is totally unprecedented. It's not a matter of exact parallels, but what Peterloo is about is democracy. Democracy gone wrong, an unfortunate manifestation of democracy which we regret. People have the vote but are misinformed enough to vote out of paranoia or xenophobia or ignorance.
Audience Question: What made you want to tell this story?
Mike Leigh: I didn't know about it growing up. When I first started to find out about, and I read a book about it in the 1970s or 80s, I remember thinking, "Someone ought to make a movie about this." At that time, it never occurred to me that somebody might be me because at that time I had no idea that I would make a period movie. I was committed, as I still am, to making films about contemporary life. First, I thought it was a very good subject for a movie. Second, my instinct was that it would be pertinent and relevant. Thirdly, I anticipated that it would be circulating now and now is the bi-centenary of the August 16, 1819 Peterloo Massacre. And fourth, I thought it was a subject of signifance that should be in the world, to be discussed, thought about, known about.
Audience Question: Are there any commemorations planned for August? Is the story being told now?
Mike Leigh: Yes, it is getting a lot of publicity, the film has helped. On August 16 in Manchester a major memorial is going to be unveiled, with the names of all the people killed. It is being more widely known about, talked about and reflected upon.
Moderator: What was there before?
Mike Leigh: In the center of the area where it happened there is a building called the Free Trade Hall. It's famous as the place where Bob Dylan first used an electric guitar. I went to concerts there. It's now a hotel. In the years I was growing up, you didn't know that Free Trade Hall was right where the Hustings was, the whole area now streets, was St. Peter's Field. A plaque was put on the building sometime in the 1980s which simply said that the event took place there, but did not say that the crowd had been mercilessly attacked. There was a great campaign, and eventually, a few years ago the plaque was removed and replaced by one that tells more graphically what happened. So there is a growing awareness of the event in the area. But now there will be a proper memorial.
Audience Question: You are known for improvisational style. How did you direct the crowd in the massacre scene at the end. Did you use storyboarding?
Mike Leigh: I arrive at material through improvisation but what we always arrive at is very precise and always properly scripted. We didn't storyboard. It was suggested to me at one stage, but I rejected it as being inappropriate. I have worked with the same cinematographer since Life Is Sweet, Dick Pope. And we decide how to shoot it by being there. That's how we made the massacre. Nevertheless, it required a great deal of planning and organization. All the separate elements in the sequence, the magistrates in the house, the people on the Hustings, families on the ground, various other sequences, were all rehearsed and developed separately. Then I worked with a very experienced film stunt director who also happened to own all the horses, all of which are trained horses. You can't do a lot with any old horse and there were a lot of professional stunt people involved. The great thing is, they all embraced my style of filmmaking and made themselves to be real and not just doing standard tricks. Some of it was filmed with three cameras. It took five weeks to shoot and it just took a lot of organization, inventiveness, patience, and good luck with the weather. The weather can be a nuisance in English filmmaking. That wasn't the case; we were lucky.
Audience Question: The soldier who had been at Waterloo and killed at the end of the film seemed symbolic. What was his role in your mind; is he based on a real person?
Mike Leigh: There were quite a number of veterans of Waterloo at Peterloo. There was a Waterloo veteran named John Lees from Oldham who was injured at Peterloo and died two weeks later. There was a notorious inquest into his death. Notorious because, as the evidence began to mount about the massacre, the authorities became more and more nervous, so they cancelled the inquest. So I decided to create a fictious character who would start at Waterloo and meet his end at Peterloo. By symbolic, you mean that he becomes a dramatic focus and gives us a circular journey. Also, it was important to start with the battle of Waterloo because the Napoleonic Wars went on for a very long time and cost massive amounts of money. After the war things were desperate, you had the corn laws, etc. It felt right that we start with Waterloo. The veterans suggested to me the idea of a circular journey of this character, this bugler.
Audience Question: I'm from Oldham, and found that the dialect resonated with me. Maybe this the only movie I saw and understood every word.
Mike Leigh: We know that dialect still exists. Growing up in North Manchester. I was born 1943, I remember old working class people, possibly born 1875-80 who spoke what we call archaic Lancashire dialect and they would have known old people who had been around Peterloo. This is part of our collective received memories. When I was a kid growing up in Manchester I would go to the movies and sit there thinking wouldn't it be great if characters in the film were like real people. What I didn't know that there were already films made in Italy such as Bicycle Thief, which were absolutely about real people. My first instinct was to make films that have three-dimensional, real characters. The challenge with a period film is to bring those same criteria, which I would apply to a contemporary film, to bring those criteria to looking at a period film, which still needs real people. My first period film, Topsy-Turvy, a very unlikely subject for me, about the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. We know this is a chocolate box subject, we know this is unlikely but these are real people putting on a show, with their problems, ups and downs, so here we are applying the same principle to bringing to life this event. Unlike some period films which will remain nameless like The Favourite, (audience laughs) not only is there a complete disregard for any historical actors at any level, but deliberably put people out of their way to make the dialogue contemporary, make costumes only look like period costumes. What I want is to go as far as we can to make things accurate, then you can start to believe in it, as something that is real, three dimensional, organic.
Audience Questison: What is it like working for Amazon Studios?
Mike Leigh: Amazon Studios backed all of the film and they were absolutely supportive. They never interfered with any aspect of the film from A to Z, in casting, pre-production, post-production. They were simply supportive at every level. They behaved as film backers should behave and mostly don't. Even to the extent that when my producer and I took the finished cut film to New York with it running 18 minutes over its contracted length. They looked at it and said, "Don't touch it." So I have nothing but praise for Amazon Studios. They were great.
Audience Question: Could you talk about the casting? Are the actors established in the UK or newcomers? How did you assemble the cast?
Mike Leigh: They are all professional actors. We are blessed in the UK with fantastic actors. There are some extremely intelligent, sophisticated actors. I will only work with intelligent actors. I will only work with character actors. That doesn't mean what it means in Hollywood--old actors who play small parts. It means actors who are committed to playing real people. Not actors who only play themselves or just use their own personalities, or are narcissistic. The majority are very experienced, in theater, TV, films. There are some in the film that I worked with before. There are 160 actors in the film. There is a wide range of experience. They all really got into it. They went beyond ordinary acting the part. They researched; they were committed to the subject; they were inspired by it. They worked together and did all sorts of things. Neil Bell who plays Samuel Bamford actually did the walk from Middleton to Manchester which is quite a long walk, a number of times. But they are all proper actors.
Audience Question: Do you change your approach for a historical character?
Mike Leigh: Henry Hunt is a complex character. But we very thoroughly and meticulously dramatized what we know about him. He was a wealthy landowner, he was educated, he was a radical committed to the cause. He was a great orator, had a great voice and could project. He was undoubtely a massive egocentrist, a narcissist of the first order. We put it on the screen much as we understood him.
Audience Question: What happened to Hunt?
Mike Leigh: He went to prison for two years. He eventually became a member of Parliament. He then retired and wrote a copious autobiography.
Peterloo is scheduled to open in the DC area in April.
Calendar of Events
FILMS
American Film Institute Silver Theater
"United Artists Retrospective" Part One (March 30-April 29) celebrates the 100th anniversary of the creation of United Artists by Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith. The aim of the new distribution company was to release films made and funded by independent producers. Titles include The Gold Rush, Little Annie Rooney, The Black Pirate, The Thief of Bagdad, The Winning of Barbara Worth, The Woman Disputed, The Garden of Eden, Ramona, Sadie Thompson, The Circus, The Night of Love, and Two Arabian Knights. All silent films have either live or recorded music accompaniment and some are archival 35mm prints.
"Fay Wray and Robert Riskin Retrospective" (March 22-April 28) is inspired by Victoria Riskin's book about her parents "Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir." She will introduce selected screenings. Titles in April are Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, The Texan, The Border Legion, The Clairvoyant, Lost Horizon, Magic Town, You Can't Take It With You, Mister 880 and Meet John Doe. Many are shown in 35mm archival prints.
"Library of Congress Film Preservation Showcase" (April 5-21) is a collection of mostly 35mm prints. Titles are Night Nurse, Big Business Girl, Hypocrites, M, The Naked City, Feel My Pulse, Bare Knees, Time Out for Rhythm, Rockin' in the Rockies, The Road Back, Finishing School, The Ape, Tomka and His Friends, Ramona, In Caliente, Fashions of 1934, Nothing But a Man and The Cool World, also a program of films by Charles and Ray Eames and a "Mostly Lost" program of unidentified films.
"Science on Screen" (March 21-April 8) is presented as part of the 2019 National Week of Science on Screen--classic, cult, science fiction and documentary films. Titles in April are Birders: The Central Park Effect, Alphago and Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf.
Special engagements at the AFI during April include Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the 40th anniversary of Monty Python's Life of Brian, Count Gore de Vol's presentation of Son of Frankenstein with special guest Arch Campbell, The Running Man, Akira and both the final cut of Blade Runner and the new Blade Runner 2049.
Freer Gallery of Art
A series of Japanese classic films continues at the Freer. On April 3 at 2:00pm is The Makioka Sisters (Kon Ichikawa, 1983).
"Crazy Broke Asians" is a four-country series: on April 7 at 2:00pm is 100 Yen Love (Masaharu Take, 2014) from Japan; on April 14 at 2:00pm is Fly By Night (Zahir Omar, 2018) from Malaysia; on April 19 at 7:00pm is Have a Nice Day (Liu Jian, 2017) from China. On April 28 at 2:00pm is Crying Fist (Ryoo Seung-wan, 2005) from Korea.
"Fridays@Freer" presents Dragnet Girl (Jasujiro Ozu, 1933). Come early for music, museum tours, food and drink before the screening.
National Gallery of Art
"A Cuba Compendium" (April 13-27) is a series of old and new films from Cuba. On April 13 at 12:30pm is the DC premiere of Tania Libre (Lynn Hershman Leeson, 2016); on April 13 at 2:30pm is "Coco Fusco: Recent Videos," a collection of short films; on April 20 at 2:00pm is a new 4K restoration of Cuba: Battle of the 10,000,000 (Chris Marker, 1971); on April 20 at 4:00pm is I Am Cuba (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1964); and on April 27 at 2:30pm is The Translator (Rodrigo Barriuso and Sebastian Barriuso, 2018).
Special events in April include a 4K restoration of La Religieuse (Jacques Rivette, 1966) on April 6 at 2:00pm. Re-scheduled from January is Rosenwald (Aviva Kempner, 2015) with the filmmaker in person. On April 14 at 4:00pm is the re-scheduled DC premiere of Gray House (Austin Jack Lynch and Matthew Booth, 2017). On April 21 at 2:00pm and 4:30pm is The Mystery of Picasso (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1956).
The National Postal Museum
On April 1 at 4:00pm is Miles Ahead (Don Cheadle, 2015) about jazz musician Miles Davis. On April 8 at 4:00pm is Imagine: John Lennon (1988). On April 15 at 4:00pm is Jimi Hendrix (1973). On April 22 at 4:00pm is Selena (1997) starring Jennifer Lopez. All are part of the "Music Movie Mondays" series.
Museum of American History
On April 8 at 5:00pm is All That Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979) starring Roy Scheider. On April 10 at 5:45pm is Bird (Clint Eastwood, 1988) about Charlie Parker. On April 11 at 5:15pm is America's Musical Journey (Greg MacGillivray, 2018) in 3D. On April 11 at 6:00pm is Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002), winner of six Academy Awards. On April 12 at 6:00pm is La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016). On April 13 at 3:35pm is Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014). On April 14 at 3:15pm is Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959) starring Marilyn Monroe. On April 22 at 5:00pm is Mo' Better Blues (Spike Lee, 1990). Part of the Smithsonian Theaters' Jazz Film Festival.
National Museum of African American History and Culture
On April 5 at 7:00pm is The Burial of Kojo (Sam Blitz Bazawule, 2018) from Ghana. The filmmaker will discuss the film.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
On April 17 at 7:00pm is the Vietnam war documentary The Anderson Platoon (Pierre Shoendorffer, 1967). Joseph Anderson will be present for discussion.
National Museum of Women in the Arts
On April 7 at 2:15pm is Part I of a film series on contemporary women artists. Short films about Marina Abramovic, Lynda Benglis, Louise Bourgeois and Graciela Iturbide are in Part I. More in May and June.
Goethe Institute
Landmark's West End Cinema hosts a new film series "Wunderbar Films: German Cinema 101" - Film and Discussion with Hester Baer, Associate Professor and Head of Germanic Studies at the University of Maryland. Films will be shown once a month and are divided into four categories: contemporary German film, films of the German Democratic Republic (DEFA Studio), films of the Weimar Republic (1920s), and New German Cinema (1970s). The series began in October and continues on April 8 at 6:30pm with the Weimar Republic film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Weine, 1920. An introduction to the film will be provided by Dr. Peter Pfeiffer, Professor of German and a discussion will follow the screening.
On April 11 at 6:30pm is Wackersdorf (Oliver Haffner, 2018), about politics and nuclear power in a small Bavarian town. The filmmaker and others will take part in discussion after the film.
National Air and Space Museum
The short comedy To Plant a Flag (Bobbie Peers, 2018) is on April 1 at 4:50pm; April 4 at 4:40pm and April 4 at 6:55pm.
On April 2 at 7:30pm is the award-winning documentary Chesley Bonestell: A Brush With the Future (Douglass Stewart, 2018). The filmmaker and producers will be present to discuss the film.
Strathmore
On April 18 at 8:00pm is The Triplets of Belleville (Sylvain Chomet, 2003), a cine-concert with composer-conductor Benoît Charest playing his Oscar-nominated score for the film.
French Embassy
"Highlights of Cannes" is a series of four films most of are Palme d'Or winners at the Cannes Film Festival. On April 9 at 7:00pm is Under the Sun of Satan (Maurice Pialat, 1987) starring Gérard Depardieu and Sandrine Bonnaire. This film won the Palme d'or at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. On April 23 at 7:00pm is A Man and a Woman (Claude Lelouch, 1966), also winner of the Palme D'Or and two Academy Awards. More in May.
The Japan Information and Culture Center
On April 10 at 6:30pm is the documentary Weaving Shibusa (Devin Leisher, Erik Motta and Mehdi Ahmadi, 2016), about the innovators behind Japanese denim.. A panel discussion follows with two leading figures from the denim industry. On April 17 at 6:30pm is the award-winning The Ballad of Narayama (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1958), based on a folk tale and starring Kinuyo Tanaka. Both are shown in conjunction with the exhibit "Indigo Threads: Weaving Japanese Craftsmanship and American Heritage."
The Textile Museum at GWU
On April 11 at noon is Blue Alchemy: Stories of Indigo (Mary Lance, 2011), a documentary about the importance and history of indigo.
National Archives
On April 1 at 7:00pm is a preview screening of The Best of Enemies (2019) with an introduction by Congressman G. K. Butterfield of North Carolina. Following the screening, civil rights activist and journalist Courtland Cox will moderate a discussion with Osha Gray Davidson, the author of the source book, and Lottie Joiner, editor-in-chief of the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis.
Bethesda Row
"Cinema Arts Bethesda" is a monthly Sunday morning film discussion series. On April 7 at 10:00am is Amerika Square (Yannis Sakaridis, 2016) from Greece, a satirical look at the migrant crisis.
Breakfast is at 9:30am, the film is at 10:00am and discussion follows, moderated by Adam Spector, host of the DC Film Society's Cinema Lounge and author of the column "Adam's Rib." A season pass is available.
The Avalon
On April 3 at 8:00pm is Roll Red Roll (Nancy Schwartzman, 2018), a documentary about the assault of a teenage girl by Steubenville, Ohio's football team. A panel discussion follows the film, moderated by Jenn Abelson, Washington Post investigative reporter and Paloma Delgado. Panelists include Fabiana Diaz, Neil Irvin, Susan Prout, Twanna Hines and others. Part of the "Avalon Docs" series.
On April 10-11 is the "Czech That Film" festival. On April 10 at 8:00pm is The Golden Sting (Radim Spacek, 2018), about a Czech men's basketball team 1938-1951. The film is based on historic events amd received nine Czech Lion nominations. The director will be present for Q&A. On April 11 at 5:15pm is the comedy Patrimony (Jirí Vejdelek, 2018). On April 11 at 8:00pm is Suitor (Jan Hrebejk, 2017) set in the late 1950s.
On April 14 at 10:30am and April 16 at 10:30am is Rembrandt (Kate Mansoor, 2016), part of the "Exhibition on Screen" series.
On April 17 at 8:00pm is One Nation, One King (Pierre Schoeller, 2018), set in Paris of 1789, part of the "French Cinematheque" series.
On April 24 at 8:00pm is Saving Neta (Nir Bergman, 2016), for the "Reel Israel" film series.
Italian Cultural Institute
On April 2 at 6:00pm is The Place (Paolo Genovese, 2017) based on the TV show The Booth at the End. On April 11 at 6:00pm is the restored Sangue Bleu (Nino Oxilia, 1914) with Daniele Furlati, pianist in residence at the Cineteca di Bologna, accompanying the movie with a live piano score.
Library of Congress
The Mary Pickford Theater
at the Library of Congress continues its series of films showcasing the Library's collection and including newly preserved films. On April 2 at 7:00pm is Split Second (Dick Powell, 1953), a film noir set in a Nevada ghost town. Preceded by a 1953 newsreel. On April 18 at 7:00pm is Them! (Gordon Douglas, 1954), a science-fiction film about giant mutant ants.
"Capital Classics" at Landmark's West End Cinema
Classic films are shown at the West End Cinema on Wednesdays at 1:30pm, 4:30pm and 7:30pm. On April 3 is Superman (Richard Donner, 1978). More TBA.
Embassy of Spain
On April 15 at 7:00pm is the documentary El Desencanto (Jaime Chavarri, 1976) with a discussion following the film. On April 17 at 7:00pm is a program of films by Segundo de Chomon with live music.
Atlas Performing Arts Film Series
On April 7 at 4:00pm is "Silent Comedy Shorts of the Jazz Age," a program of classic silent comedies with live music accompaniment by Andrew Simpson. Titles include Easy Street (1917) starring Charlie Chaplin; Liberty (1929) starring Laurel and Hardy; Too Many Mammas (1924) starring Charley Chase; and Picking Peaches (1924), starring Harry Langdon.
On April 30 at 7:00pm is Chavela (Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi, 2017), a documentary about a legendary gay singer. The filmmaker will be present for discussion.
Alden Theater
"New Disney Classics" is a series of 1990s Disney films, shown every second Wednesday January through June. On April 10 at 12:30pm is The Lion King. "Midday Movies: Foreign-Lanuage Films" is a series of foreign films shown every fourth Wednesday through May. On April 24 at 1:00pm is the Japanese film Shall We Dance? (1996).
Angelika Film Center Mosaic
On Wednesdays in April are films by Stanley Kubrick. On April 3 at 7:00pm is 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on April 10 at 7:00pm is Eyes Wide Shut (1999); on April 17 at 7:00pm is Barry Lyndon (1975) and on April 24 at 7:00pm is Lolita (1962).
Angelika Popup
On Wednesdays in April are films by Stanley Kubrick. On April 3 at 7:00pm is 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on April 10 at 7:00pm is Eyes Wide Shut (1999); on April 17 at 7:00pm is Barry Lyndon (1975) and on April 24 at 7:00pm is Lolita (1962).
Reel Affirmations XTra
On April 18 at 7:00pm and 9:00pm is Tucked (Jamie Patterson, 2018). Note the new location: Landmark's E Street Cinema.
Busboys and Poets
On April 3 at 6:00pm is Normal Is Over (Renee Scheltema), a documentary about how humans have imperiled our planet.
The Jerusalem Fund
On April 9 at 5:30pm is a program of short films produced by Farah Nabulsi. Titles include Oceans of Injustice, Nightmare of Gaza, and Today They Took My Son. The filmmaker will be present for Q&A.
FILM FESTIVALS
