Free Film Series
Summer Session invites you to enjoy life on campus in August.
Programmed by Chris Balaschak, Ph.D. student, UCI Visual Studies Program
Thursdays in August at 7:00 pm in HIB 100 (view campus map)
(no film on Aug. 2nd)
Suddenly a situation is entirely familiar: are you remembering a past that you have already seen or did you previously remember this future moment? We will see some of modern film's greatest directors confront one of our most perplexing experiences: déjà vu. For each of these films, this perplexing trick-of-the-mind is related to both photography and filmmaking. For each of the directors, the photograph, and the effects of film, become conflated with memory, and it is that joined status that triggers a sense of déjà vu for both the film viewer and the protagonist.
- Free to UCI students, faculty, staff and visitors
- No need to RSVP
- Location: Humanities Instructional Building (HIB), Room 100 (Building #610 on campus map)
- Parking available in the Mesa Structure for $5 or Lot 7 for $7
- Come early at 6:30 pm and listen to music provided by KUCI
- Free snacks provided to enjoy during the film
- Participate in a group discussion after the film
- Programmed by UCI grad students
| Movie |
Description |
August 9, 7:00pm, HIB 100
Blow-Up
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
(UK, 1966, 111 minutes)
Not Rated |
A bored fashion photographer, Thomas (David Hemmings) happens upon a distraught woman, Jane (Vanessa Redgrave), and her lover in an empty London park. Voyeuristically photographing the clandestine couple, Thomas's peeping turns to mystery, as the images he snapped later reveal hidden meaning and suspicious circumstances. Drawn into Jane's mystery, and curious about her illicit affair, Thomas constantly revisits the photographs of that day and increasingly suspects he was witness to a murder. But which memory holds the truth? His own, or the cameras? |
August 16, 7:00pm, HIB 100
Memento
Directed by Christopher Nolan
(USA, 2000, 113 minutes)
Rated R |
Are Polaroid pictures and memory the same thing? Leonard (Guy Pierce) has no choice. His amnesia forces him to use photographs and tattoos as surrogates to his quickly fading recollections. The narrative of the film is itself a series of fleeting moments. Told in reverse chronology, as a series of flashbacks, the director (Christopher Nolan) muddles the memory of the audience as much as his cast. The result is a suspenseful classic, where everything must be viewed with skepticism. |
August 23, 7:00pm, HIB 100
La Jetée
Directed by Chris Marker
(France, 1962, 28 minutes)
Not Rated
Vertigo
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
(USA, 1958, 128 minutes)
Rated PG |
Chris Marker's cult classic, composed entirely of still, black and white photographs, takes place following a catastrophic third World War. A man (Davos Hanich) is prisoner of an institution set to discover methods of time-travel. Sent back in time, the man is haunted by his own memories, a past love, and a past trauma. In this surreal, spiraling film, the repetitions of time, manifest in traumatic memory, becomes an unavoidable, traumatic experience even time travel cannot cure. Filled with references to Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 Vertigo, Marker's film is nearly an essay on the psychological affect of the Hitchcock's classic.
John “Scottie” Ferguson (James Stewart) has retired from being a detective. However, a private hire puts him on the trail of an aloof woman (Kim Novak as Madeleine Elster) who has been slipping in and out of episodes of reliving a past life. As Scottie is drawn in by the mystery, he comes to confront his own fear of falling, as well as the potential death of the woman he has fallen for. In the end Scottie is left to question his own sanity, and the veracity of the world around him, a world seeming to spiral into a field of uncanny repetitions and incredulous circumstances. |
August 30, 7:00pm, HIB 100
Mulholland Dr.
Directed by David Lynch
(USA, 2001, 145 minutes)
Rated R |
An aspiring actress suffers amnesia following a car accident. From that point forward her role becomes murky. Familiar figures drift in and out of view, characters become intertwined, and the liminal space between memory and film becomes the site for a noir narrative only David Lynch could pull off. Dressed in the eerie glow of Los Angeles at night, and filled with the affect of déjà vu, Lynch's film, like the real Mulholland Drive, is a twisting path through the impenetrable sites of the mind's memories. |
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