This week’s picks are by This week’s picks are by Tom Grieve, blogger, cinephile and person searching for a job in cinema. Check his worlk out at www.thomasgrieve.tumblr.com

I’ve gone for some classics this week. Five films from five different decades created in five different modes. There’s a German silent horror, an all-time great poetic love story, a euphoric musical, a soulfully tragic piece of New Hollywood and a grand, epic gangster movie.

There’s so much to choose from here at Screening Film nowadays and that can only speak to the health of independent and community cinema—so well done everybody.

I love each one of these films and can highly recommend watching them all on a big screen in the dark.

THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI WITH LIVE SCORE BY PARTIAL FACSIMILE

10/09/2015 – 07:30 pm
Fabrica – 40 Duke Street, Brighton, BN1 1AG

It’s one of those that you have to see at some point. Held up as the high point of German Expressionist film, it’s influence still bubbles up in films today. Just submit yourself to Robert Weine’s 1920 nightmare, and, since its jagged landscapes and intense psychological terror were conceived at a time well before home video, you might as well see it projected on the big screen as intended. The new restoration is excellent and the level of detail retained is astonishing—especially in some of the close-ups. There’s a live score too, with artists collective Partial Facsimile accompanying the screening.

L’ATALANTE

08/09/2015 – 07:30 pm
DAVID LEAN CINEMA – Croydon Clocktower, Katharine Street, Croydon, CR9 1ET

Jean Vigo’s L’Atalante also has a fair amount of cinephile pedigree, coming in, as it does, at number 12 on Sight and Sound’s once-a-decade list of the greatest films ever made. Filmed in 1934, the film follows a rural girl as she embarks upon her new life with her husband aboard the barge that he captains along the Seine. The newlyweds, finding themselves trapped on a small boat with an assortment of cats and crewmembers, naturally begin to bicker and resent each other. Shot with an almost documentary sense of realism that occasionally gives way to moments of overwhelming lyricism (see: the famous underwater dance). This was Vigo’s only feature length film and there isn’t a lot else like it.

SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN

09/09/2015 – 02:00 pm
Regent Street Cinema – 309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2HW

I knew that I wanted to include Singin’ in the Rain amongst this week’s recommendations. After all, it’s a masterpiece and perhaps the quickest, most ecstatic one hour forty-three minutes in cinema. I hadn’t seen it in a maybe a year though and so this felt like a perfect excuse to revisit.

This time I sat my eleven-year-old sister down with me. I’d anticipated that she might be impressed with the spectacle, the chaos and the sheer joy of the film. But she surprised me slightly with her constant gasps at the physical stunts and athleticism of Gene Kelly and co. Today’s close framing, quick cuts and CG filler can work, but there’s something astounding about real bodies flipping and hurling themselves about in an extended unbroken long shot.

THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS

12/09/2015 – 06:00 pm
Close-Up – 97 Sclater Street, London, E1 6HR

I haven’t visited yet, but Close-Up Cinema’s programme is the one that most consistently lines up with my tastes. There’s usually classical auteur cinema placed alongside more obscure picks that reach into film history. This month they’re featuring a selection of Buster Keaton features and shorts in addition to a range of films that probe into ‘70’s New Hollywood.

My pick is Bob Rafelson’s King of Marvin Gardens. Presented from a 35mm print, this melancholy piece sees Rafelson reteam with his Five Easy Pieces star Jack Nicholson. Full of cavernous interiors and desolate exteriors; fading out-of-season Atlantic City provides a fitting backdrop to the desperate flailing of characters dreaming of the big time and coming up short.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA

07/09/2015 – 06:30 pm
THE PRINCE CHARLES CINEMA – 7 Leicester Place, London, WC2H 7BY

The obvious comparison to make when talking about Once Upon a Time in America is Coppola’s The Godfather films, and, for my money, Leone’s film might actually come out on top. His elegiac take on Jewish Lower East Side gangsters demands that the engaged viewer do some wrestling. The complicated chronology, the significance of that ringing telephone and the characters’ treatment of women all warrant inspection. But settle into its 229-minute runtime and you’ll find a grand, deeply rewarding and baroquely atmospheric epic

Find Tom on his blog, Kinds of Light: www.thomasgrieve.tumblr.com, or on twitter: @thomasgrieve

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