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DECEMBER 3
The Avon Theatre, Alliance Francaise of Greenwich,
& The Greenwich Arts Council present
Favorite film selections from the metro area's best film critics.
THE WILD CHILD
(L'Enfant Sauvage)
Brand new 35mm print!
Hosted by JOE MEYERS, CT Post film critic
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3
Champagne reception - 6:00 PM / Film - 7:00 PM
Carte Blanche Members - FREE / Members - $6 / Students/Seniors - $7 / Nonmembers - $10
Members of the Alliance Francaise of Greenwich & Greenwich Arts Council - $6 |
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ABOUT THE FILM: Acclaimed Oscar-nominated director Francois has created an absorbing film about the true-life tale of a young boy found living alone in the woods of France in the 1700s. Using actual journal entries, Truffaut not only directed and co-wrote the script with Jean Gruault, but also starred as the unflappable Doctor Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, the visionary who takes on the incredible task of civilizing the Wild Child. At the National Institute for the Deaf and Dumb in Paris, a barely clothed and dirty young boy is admitted. Found in a forest, the child is unable to speak, communicate or function in society. Christened Victor by the hospital staff, his case is taken up by Doctor Itard (Truffaut), a lone physician who has an unyielding dedication to re-integrating the lad into society. But the road to tame the beast is a rocky one and Itard will have to work tirelessly to teach Victor how to re-claim his place in the world even if it means staking his reputation on it.
ABOUT THE HOST: Joe Meyers writes about movies for the Connecticut Post. A native of Chicago, Joe did most of his schooling in Philadelphia and studied journalism at Penn State. The former editor of the (now sadly defunct) Delmarva News, he spent two wonderful years in the late 1970s running the first (and only) arthouse movie theater on the Delmarva Peninsula, where he learned many valuable lessons about the differences between commerce and art. A collection of Joe's pieces about film stars of the past - "Whatever Happened to..." - went through several printings. |
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DECEMBER 6
OPERA AT THE AVON
Performances from world-renowned opera companies and festivals.
OTELLO
By Giuseppe Verdi
Performed at Salzburg Festival 2008
Conducted by Riccardo Muti
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6 - 11:00 AM
& SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7 - 11:00 AM
Carte Blanche – Free / Members - $16 / Students & Seniors - $18 / Nonmembers - $20 |
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ABOUTOTELLO: Verdi’s last tragic opera Otello, like Shakespeare’s play, is a shattering psychological drama. The new production for the Salzburg Festival is directed by Stephen Langridge, who in 2006 attracted attention with his production of Offenbach’s Bluebeard in Bregenz. Riccardo Muti, one of the best Verdi conductors of our time, is returning to Salzburg. Alongside to the Spanish baritone Carlos Álvarez as Jago, two rising international singers of the younger generation can be heard as Otello and Desdemona: the Latvian spinto tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko and the Russian soprano Marina Poplavskaya.
Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes, plus one intermission
Sung in Italian with English subtitles |
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DECEMBER 10
DOCUMENTARY NIGHT PRESENTS
THE ROAD TAKEN...
THE MERRITT PARKWAY
Post-film Q&A panel discussion with
Lisa Seidenberg (Director of The Road Taken)
Renee Kahn (Director of the Historic Preservation Program)
& Christopher Wigren (Deputy Director of the CT Trust for Historic Preservation, and co-author of the National Register nomination for the Merritt Parkway)
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10 - 7:00 PM
Carte Blanche – Free / Members - $6 / Students & Seniors - $7 / Nonmembers - $10 |
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ABOUT THE FILM:The Avon Theatre will present a special screening of The Road Taken…The Merritt Parkway, a new documentary by Connecticut independent filmmaker, Lisa Seidenberg. Mixing historical detail, personal anecdotes and rarely seen footage from Connecticut’s past, the film takes an alternately poetic and informative look at the Parkway as a work of art - the unique bridges, the landscaping, and those infuriating twists and turns that gives the road its character. Called the “Queen of Parkways”, the Merritt celebrates its 70th Anniversary this year. The film’s inclusive and surprising cast of characters ranges from architectural historians to humorist Alan Abel, as well as former DOT Commissioner Emil Frankel, and a relative of Stamford Congressman Schuyler Merritt, for whom the parkway is named. The Lakeside Diner makes an appearance, too. The filmmaker, whose previous work includes the feature, Pledge of Allegiance Blues, shown at the Sundance Film Festival, will be present at the screening. The audience is invited to stay for an informal discussion/Q&A about current preservation issues with Renee Kahn, Director of the Historic Preservation Program, and a founder of the Stamford Loft Artists Association and Christopher Wigren, Deputy Director of the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, and co-author of the National Register nomination for the Merritt Parkway.
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DECEMBER 13 & 14
BALLET AT THE AVON
THE NUTCRACKER
By Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Adapted by Mihail Shemiakin
Featuring The Mariinsky Ballet
DECEMBER 13 & 14 - 10:00 AM
Carte Blanche – Free / Members - $10
Student & Senior Nonmembers - $13 / Adult Nonmembers - $15 |
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ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE: The premier of one of the world’s most famous ballets, The Nutcracker, took place at the Mariinsky Theater of Russia in 1892. Mikhail Shemiakin, Russian émigré and world-renowned avant-garde artist and sculptor, reinterpreted the historical ballet to suit a more colorful audience. Known as the sophisticated and witty Nutcracker, Mikhail Shemiakin’s version is a more unconventional production different from the traditional versions popular at Christmas. This unique interpretation was filmed in the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, home of the Kirov Ballet Academy and the Nutcracker’s original stage. The 2007 production showcases the eye-catching costumes and startling staging designed by Mikhail Shemiakin. An exhibition of Shemiakin’s costume and design sketches used in the staging of the ballet was presented in the private collections of the Russian Museum in St.Petersburg.
“First-rate performances by the principals, Irina Golub as Masha, Leonid Sarafanov as the Prince and fabulous Anton Adasinsky as Drosselmeyer. Golub has childlike charm and sparkling dancing. The most delightful surprise is the eloquently expansive performance of Ekaterina Kondaurova as the Queen of Snows.” - Ballettalk.com
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JANUARY 7
Favorite film selections from the metro area's best film critics.
LOLA MONTÉS
LOLA MONTÈS
Brand new, restored 35mm print!
Hosted by Ann Lewinson – Fairfield Weekly film critic
Wednesday, January 7 – 7:00 PM
Carte Blanche Members - FREE / Members - $6 / Students/Seniors - $7 / Nonmembers - $10 |
ABOUT THE HOST: Ann Lewinson is a film critic for the Fairfield Weekly and New Haven Advocate. She has written about movies, the performing arts and environmental issues for many publications including Andante, Biography, The Independent, Stagebill and the Sundance Daily Insider. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Agni, Eclipse, Glass Tesseract, Karamu, Out of Line, Pangolin Papers and P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center's Special Projects Writers' Series. A teacher in the English department of Kingsborough Community College, she was a managing editor of HBO.com and a sound editor on several films including Troma's Class of Nuke 'Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown. |
ABOUT THE FILM: In a garishly colored circus, the suckers line up at a buck a kiss with that celebrated adventuress Lola (French sex symbol Martine Carol), as ringmaster Peter Ustinov starts his spiel and the flashbacks begin. Ophüls’ first movie in color and widescreen was the biggest-budgeted French film to date, with his always-mobile camera gliding, tilting, and craning amid dazzling sets and costumes, as the oscillation between the tawdriness of the circus and the romanticism of flashbacks underscores the difference between reality and memory, each flashback with its own color scheme: for Lola’s youth, black-blue-grey; for her affair with 19th century “rock star” Franz Liszt, red and gold; and for her amour with the King of Bavaria (The Red Shoes’ Anton Walbrook), white, blue, silver and gold. Ophüls’ final work, and arguably the masterpiece of a career that encompassed films in five different languages, Lola was a flop on first release and subjected to a brutal butchering by its producers — they even hacked up the original negative. After their eventual bankruptcy, legendary New Wave producer Pierre Braunberger acquired the rights and issued a limited restoration to great acclaim in 1969. But, in the intervening 40 years, restoration technology has progressed dramatically, and many more materials — including the innovative original sound mix —have since turned up. In 2006, Braunberger’s daughter Laurence and the Cinémathèque Française, with the support of the Thomson Foundation,the Franco-American Cultural Fund, and Ophüls’ son Marcel, embarked on a state of the art restoration. Scratches, tears and missing frames were fixed and the full stereophonic magnetic track restored, with the vibrant hues as conceived by production designer Jean d’Eaubonne (Casque d’or, Madame de...) and cinematographer Christian Matras replacing the washed-out existing prints and videos. The at-long-last restored Lola was a sensation at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. – Film Forum
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