Special Programs

Details:

In October Block Cinema will present several special film events, including a visit from renowned British experimental filmmaker, John Smith who will appear in person to screen and discuss his work. We’ll also present a screening of the acclaimed new documentary, In Country, about Vietnam War reenactors, with co-director Mike Attie in person. The series opens with an archival print of the rarely seen independent film, Julius Caesar (1950) starring a young Charlton Heston and shot in and around Chicago and Evanston!

 

Julius Caesar

Thursday, October 2, 2014 7:00 PM
(David Bradley, 1950, US, 35mm, 106 min.)

Not to be confused with M-G-M 's 1953 mega-production, film collector and Chicago native David Bradley's Julius Caesar was the first feature adaptation of Shakespeare’s play and Bradley's second collaboration with then relatively unknown Charlton Heston (Mark Antony). Shot on 16mm with post-synchronized sound recorded primarily in an Evanston swimming pool, Caesar is a rich marriage of low-budget student productions (much of the cast was recruited from Northwestern's theater department) and independent small gauge filmmaking, elevated by beautiful location photography at Chicago's Museum Campus and the Indiana Sand Dunes. 

Co-presented with and introduced by the Northwest Chicago Film Society

 

In Country

Thursday, October 9, 2014 7:00 PM FREE
(Mike Attie, Meghan O'Hara, 2014, US, video, 80 min.)

The new documentary In Country follows a “platoon” of Vietnam War reenactors (many of them actual veterans of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan) who re-stage battles deep in the Oregon woods. Weaving together scenes of their reenactments and their real lives, plus archival footage from the Vietnam War, In Country blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy, and past and present to tell a story about men haunted by their own experiences on the front line. The screening will be introduced by co-director (and new Northwestern faculty member), Mike Attie.

Co-presented with Northwestern University’s MFA in Documentary Media

 

John Smith in Person

Wednesday, October 15, 2014 7:00 PM FREE
(approx. 100 min.)

Together with Northwestern’s Art Theory & Practice department, CATE (Conversations at the Edge), and the University of Chicago’s Film Studies Center, Block Cinema will co-host London-based, experimental filmmaker John Smith for a screening and a discussion. A prolific filmmaker since the early 1970s, Smith’s film and video work combines humor with word, sound and image play. Tonight’s program includes work from 1975 to 2001, focusing on themes as disparate as linguistic theory, amphibians and skinheads. Films include Associations, Om, Gargantuan, Lost Sound, and Shepherd’s Delight.

Tonight’s screening is sponsored by the department of Art Theory & Practice

Contact The Block Museum of Art for more information: (847) 491-4000 or email us at block-museum@northwestern.edu