Mar 15th
Jeanne Dielman* (15)
Sub-Title: 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

(King Street Cinema, Ipswich)

(Bel/Fra 1975)
Paradise Films/Unite Trois. 201m.

Domestic routine for a widowed mother and part-time prostitute, who reflects on her humdrum life and ultimately turns murderous.
Honouring the Ipswich film theatre's 50th anniversary with the quintessential type of film for this arthouse venue; not so much a fly-on-the-wall drama as a constant static camera surveillance on its main figure (in some ways, in the manner of Tokyo Story), defying Hitchcock's maxim that drama is life "with the dull bits cut out." Here, all the dull bits are included to emphasize the character's emotional imprisonment, for over 3 hours to boot! Feminist critics took it to heart, so that seemingly out of nowhere it was recently voted No. 1 in the Top Ten Films Ever Made.

Written and Directed by: Chantal Akerman.
Producers: Corinne Jenart, Evelyne Paul.
Starring: Delphine Seyrig, Jan Decorte.
Photography: Babette Mangolte.
Music: Various (from radio).
Editing: Patricia Canio.

JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES. Three hours (representing 3 days) sitting in the company of Delphine Seyrig, recently polled as the Greatest Film Ever Made - for reasons best known to those critics that voted for it.

Mar 11th   
Marriage Story**   
(US 2019)   
Netflix/Heyday Films. 138m.

A New York couple's marriage on the rocks is hurled into the divorce courts when against their better natures they decide to hire Los Angeles lawyers.
Long and talky but compellingly so, a Kramer Versus Kramer for the modern age with added influences of Woody Allen (and in turn from him, Ingmar Bergman) and excellent general performances, excruciatingly pointed in its drama as soon as the devious lawyers enter into the fray.

Written and Directed by: Noah Baumbach.
Producers: David Heyman, Noah Baumbach.
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotts, Azhy Robinson, Julie Hagerty, Merritt Weaver, Martha Kelly, Wallace Shawn.
Photography: Robbie Ryan.
Music: Randy Newman.
Editing: Jennifer Lame.

Preceded by:
Peculiar Patients' Pranks* 
(US 1915. 12m(excerpts). bw. silent; One of the first of Roach's Lonesome Luke series recently found retrieved the archives, using actors in the developing stages of their careers.; w: Dollt Twist; p, d: Hal Roach; s: Harold Lloyd, Snub Pollard, Bebe Daniels.)

PECULIAR PATIENTS' PRANKS. Harold Lloyd back in the days before he found the rounded glasses that made his name.

Feb 27th    
The Long Day Closes** 

(GB 1992)   
BFI/Film Four. 95m.

Terence Davies's visual reminiscences of  his later childhood in rainswept Liverpool in the 1950s, more a series of tableaux than a narrative film, with some variable period continuity for some of the film clips that are overheard on the soundtrack, and some beautifully visual moments.

Written and Directed by: Terence Davies.
Producer: Olivia Stewart.
Starring: Leigh McCormack, Marjorie Yates, Anthony Watson, Nicholas Lamont, Ayse Owens, Tina Malone, Johnny Wilde.
Photography: Michael Coulter.
Music: Bob Last, Robert Lockhart, and others.
Production Design: Christopher Hobbs.

Feb 18th     
I Know That You Know That I Know**
(Io so Che tu Sai Che io So)

(Ita 1982)
Medusa/Scaa. 118m.

A businessman who has neglected his wife and daughter only realises this when they are put under surveillance by mistake.
Endearing Italian domestic comedy indicative of its star/director, set in wet and windy Rome to deliberately de-glamorise it. Functional at first but it wins over by the end.

Written by: Auguso Caminito, Alberto Sordi, Rodolfo Sonego.
Producer: Augusto Caminito.
Director: Alberto Sordi.
Starring: Alberto Sordi, Monica Vitti, Isabella De Bernardi, Ivana Monti, Salvatore Jacono, Micaela Pignatelli.
Photography: Sergio D'Offizi.
Music: Piero Piccioni.

Preceded by: 
Palace of 1001 Nights**
(Fra 1905. Pathe. 20m. bw(tinted). silent.; d: Georges Melies.)

Feb 13th   
Dangerous Liaisons** (15)
(Electric Palace, Harwich)

(US 1988)
Warner Bros/Lorimar.NFH. 119m.

The notorious womanising Viscomte de Valmont plays seduction games with a former lover, including the seduction of a woman of virtue...but love plays a hand.
Choderlos de Laclos's dark novel set in pre-revolutionary France, presented as an 18th century film noir, also harking back to Hollywood's costume melodramas of the 1930s and 40s, with lavish costumes and calculating performances. Lots of sex,but not especially sexy.

Written by: Christopher Hampton, from his play.
Producers: Norma Heyman, Hank Moonjean.
Director: Stephen Frears.
Starring: Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, Uma Thurman, Keanu Reeves, Swoosie Kurtz, Peter Capaldi, Mildred Natwick.
Photography: Philippe Rousselot.
Music: George Fenton.
Costume: James Acheson.

+ followed by a Q&A with director Stephen Frears, as a fund raiser for the Electric Palace

Feb 6th  
Dominique*    
(GB 1978)    
Grand Prize/Sword and Sorcery Productions. 100m.  

A glamorous rich woman is driven mad by her husband and dies, but the tables are turned...
Enigmatic psychological thriller, more cloak than dagger. The resolution is intriguing, although with most of the characters so coldly played it's difficult to care.

Written by: Edward Abraham, Valerie Abraham, based on the story "What Beckoning Ghost" by Harold Lawlor.
Producers: Andrew Donally, Milton Subotsky.
Director: Michael Anderson.
Starring: Jean Simmons, Cliff Robertson, Simon Ward, Jenny Agutter, Ron Moody, Flora Robson, Judy Geeson, Michael Jayston Jack Warner, David Tomlinson, Jack McKenzie.
Photography: Ted Moore.
Music: Paul Whittaker.

Jan 18th   
Front Page Story**    
(GB 1953)  
British Lion. 99m. bw

A newspaper editor forsakes his wife on a busy news day.
Solidly proficient depiction of journalistic practices on a national daily, generally more interesting and moving in its sub-plots than in its central drama, which nowadays looks staid and archaic.

Written by: Jack Howells, Jay Lewis, from the novel "Final Night" by Robert Graves.
Producer: Jay Lewis. 
Director: Gordon Parry.
Starring: Jack Hawkins, Elizabeth Allan, Derek Farr, Michael Goodliffe, Eva Bartok, Walter Fitzgerald, Martin Miller, Patricia Marmont, Joseph Tomelty, Helen Haye, Ronald Adam. 
Photography: Gilbert Taylor.
Music: Jackie Brown.

Preceded by: 
Opening of the Kiel Canal
(GB 1895. 14sec. bw. silent; p: Birt Acres, Robert W. Paul; d/ph: Birt Acres.)

Movietonews (1978)
[National Toy Fair at Birmingham NEC plus Star Wars exhibition at Oxford Street]