Denver’s authority on contemporary and classic film, Walter Chaw, hosts a collection of films by Alfred Hitchcock, arguably the greatest filmmaker of the 20th century. Hitchcock films are full of symbolic freak flags, and Walter Chaw will take you on a guided tour of Hitch’s world with post-film discussion. Check out Chaw’s current film reviews at filmfreakcentral.net. |
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The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Tuesday, January 26, 6-9 p.m.
Central Library, Level B2 Conference Center
Starring Michael Redgrave, Margaret Lockwood, Dame May Whitty.
“The Lady Vanishes functions as a point-by-point primer to Hitchcock’s touchstones: The twisty plot assembles seemingly irrelevant pieces into a tense whole. Innovative cinematography foregrounds important objects, letting them dominate the frame, while elaborate trick shots give a setbound drama a sense of vast space. There's the signature director's cameo, the irritating yet adorable central couple, the unhurried slice-of-life conversations, and the glamorous verve. Above all, The Lady Vanishes contains one of cinema's most iconically Hitchcockian sequences, as two characters plop down right in front of a key clue to a mystery, then completely miss it for excruciating minutes on end. Nothing's happening onscreen but banal chatter, yet the tension is unbearable.” – Tasha Robinson, The Onion A.V. Club. 96 minutes. Rated Passed. |
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Notorious (1946)
Tuesday, February 2, 6-9 p.m.
Central Library, Level B2 Conference Center
Starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman.
“Notorious is the most elegant expression of the master's visual style, just as Vertigo is the fullest expression of his obsessions. It contains some of the most effective camera shots in his – or anyone's – work, and they all lead to the great final passages in which two men find out how very wrong they both were.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times. 101 minutes. Rated Approved.
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Strangers on a Train (1951)
Tuesday, February 9, 6-9 p.m.
Central Library, Level B2 Conference Center
Starring Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker.
“Every moment of Strangers on a Train is meticulous, constructed with a careful, metered brilliance and allowed to unfurl with an excruciating clockwork precision. Note the barred shadows of the gate across the street from Guy’s (Granger) apartment when Bruno (Walker) stops by to tell him that Guy’s wife sleeps with the fishes, or how Guy joins Bruno, guilty, when the police come calling. It's a film told as much with images as it is with narrative, cribbing liberally from Patricia Highsmith's debut novel while keeping intact Highsmith's emerging throughlines of protean anti-heroes at prey amongst swiftly tilting moral certitudes. After the magnificent process-and-miniatures stunt that ends the film (involving a carousel gone out of control – at the hand of an idiot policeman, natch), when Bruno whispers "oh, Guy," he's holding fast to the last remnants of a love affair jealously guarded, slipping now through his fingers.” – Walter Chaw, filmfreakcentral.net. 101 minutes. Rated PG. |
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I Confess (1953)
Tuesday, February 16, 6-9 p.m.
Central Library, Level B2 Conference Center
Starring Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden.
“Just the visual beauty of Alfred Hitchcock's I Confess speaks volumes for its inclusion on the short list of the master's masterpieces. This is one of the most astonishing-looking films in all of black-and-white cinematography; its palette of greys a veritable vice press on the already quailing Montgomery Clift. A late, breathtaking montage wherein Clift, walking the streets of Quebec (filmed on location by the great Robert Burks), crosses a silhouette of a statue of Christ on His last walk to Calvary defines by itself character and theme: Hitchcock's wrong-man obsession clarified as Catholic guilt transference. The power of Hitchcock's best films is a potent mixture of audacious cinematic genius and the suspicion that original sin makes mistaken identity merely the intrusion of cosmic judgment.” – Walter Chaw, filmfreakcentral.net. 95 minutes. Rated Approved.
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The Birds (1963)
Tuesday, February 23, 6-9 p.m.
Central Library, Level B2 Conference Center
Starring Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy.
Alfred Hitchcock’s films adhere to an idea he called the “moving-around principle,” whereby the ideal cinematic form is the chase. He commented: "I don't know why. That's the way it is. But just as the film - be it in preparation, in the camera, or in the projection booth - has to move around, so in the same way I think the story has to move around also." In The Birds, Hitchcock’s leads are chased first by each other (romantically) and then by external, natural forces that are sinister and unexplained. Eventually, in one of his finest late-career films, the birds chase the humans right out of the movie – Hitchcock’s creepy version of fowl play. 119 minutes. Rated PG-13. |
