ON THE VERGE (OF THE END): ROY ANDERSSON
On the Verge (of the End): Roy Andersson
June 24 – 28, 2015
“Life is a tragedy. There’s no happy end for any of us. We all die. But there’s a lot of comedy in it. There’s comedy and vulnerability.” —Roy Andersson
Master of the droll comedy, Roy Andersson is a Swedish genius rightly gaining wider recognition with his recent Venice Film Festival award-winning film A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence. Cited as “the most distinctively Swedish filmmaker since Ingmar Bergman” (Toronto International Film Festival), he has been a major influence on his country’s fellow directors, including recent Walker guest Ruben Östlund (Force Majeure). Andersson’s characters experience absurd and often horrific circumstances that offer disturbing critiques of our time but create a profound empathy for the concerns of human existence. He describes his three most recent works as a “trilogy about being a human being.”
All films are directed by Roy Andersson and screened in the Walker Cinema. Unless otherwise noted, tickets are $9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors).
SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR
Wednesday, June 24, 7:30 pm
“You have never seen a film like this before. You may not enjoy it but you will not forget it.” —Roger Ebert
The first installment of the trilogy features a magician accidentally bisecting an audience member, a boy who cannot stop writing poetry, and a man who starts a new business selling crucifixes. Andersson’s skill at finding humor in the bleakest of situations is brilliant. Jury Prize Winner, Cannes Film Festival. 2000, DCP, in Swedish and Russian with English subtitles, 98 min.
YOU, THE LIVING
Thursday, June 25, 7:30 pm FREE
“The work of a real original—might almost say a genius” —The Guardian (UK)
In 50 interconnected shorts inspired by Goethe’s poetry series “The Roman Elegies,” Andersson hilariously explores man’s existence, behavior, sorrow, and a profound longing for validation and love. (2007, DCP, in Swedish with English subtitles, 95 min.)
A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE
Friday, June 26, 7:30 pm
Saturday, June 27, 2 and 7:30 pm
Sunday, June 28, 2 pm
“A mixture of absurdist, hilariously deadpan humor, shock, and utter horror.”
—Toronto International Film Festival
Winner of the Golden Lion at the 2014 Venice Film Festival, this film mirrors a bird’s panoramic perspective of the world and shares the fear of a coming apocalypse should humans choose not to intervene. Naturally, Andersson finds humor in all of his scenarios as each is a reminder that things could really be worse. (2014, DCP, in Swedish with English subtitles, 100 min.)
This presentation is made possible by generous support from the Bentson Foundation and Elizabeth Redleaf.
SUMMER NIGHTS/COOL CINEMA
Summer Nights/Cool Cinema
July 8 – August 19, 2015
For 25 years, the Walker Dialogue and Retrospective series has been a vital part of moving image presentations, bringing some of the most exciting and influential filmmakers of our time to the Walker Art Center. Artists like Wim Wenders, Agnès Varda, Isabella Rossellini, Spike Lee, and Joel and Ethan Coen (among many others) came to screen their work in the Walker Cinema and to participate in a Dialogue with a known critic, writer, or historian to talk about their films. This program of over 60 guests has filled the cinema with hundreds of films as part of the retrospective component of the program. In March and April a list was circulated to the community who were asked “What is your top choice.” The top ten films chosen play in the Walker Cinema this summer, giving you a chance to see your favorites projected once more on the cinema screen.
All films screen in the Walker Cinema and are $6 ($5 Walker members, students, and seniors). See 5 films for a $20 pass.
The Walker Dialogue and Retrospective series was launched with support from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and sustained over the past 25 years with generous support from the Regis Foundation and Anita and Myron Kunin.
TAXI DRIVER
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Wednesday, July 8
7:30 pm
Part of Jodie Foster: Growing Up on Screen (February 1991)
“Because it speaks to the lonely devil in all of us, it tops any list” —TimeOut New York
Scorsese’s study in American urban malaise focuses on an introverted, increasingly disillusioned loner, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro). Rejected by his cabbie friend (Peter Boyle) and a political campaign worker (Cybill Shepherd), Bickle attempts to focus his confused rage in a single, large-scale burst of violence. Jodie Foster received her first Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Iris, a 12-year-old prostitute who unwittingly sparks Bickle’s explosion. 1976, 113 minutes.
NASHVILLE
Directed by Robert Altman
Sunday, July 12
2 pm
Part of Robert Altman: An American Maverick (April 1992)
“Everything about Nashville is larger than life” —IonCinema
Robert Altman’s masterpiece parses an anthology of genres to form a melodrama, show-business musical, satiric comedy, and assassination-plot movie. The cast are exploiters, performers, loners, stars and would-be-stars, all writing their own songs. No fewer than 24 unforgettable main characters capture the climate of Music City and America in the mid-1970s in the five days leading to a presidential campaign. 1975, 159 minutes.
STROSZEK
Directed by Werner Herzog
Sunday, July 19
2 pm
Part of The Great Ecstasy of the Filmmaker Herzog (April 1999)
“This film isn’t just different for the sake of being different, it has a mind of its own.” —ScreenCrave
A bitterly funny tale of three oddly assorted Berlin misfits and their quest for the American Dream that leads to rural Wisconsin, where they find a bleak paradise of TV, football, CB radio, truck stops, and mobile homesteading. The film contains immense physical beauty in its cities, landscapes, and decrepit interiors. 1977, in German, English, and Turkish with English subtitles, 115 minutes.
BADLANDS
Directed by Terrence Malick
Wednesday, July 15
7:30 pm
Part of Produced by Pressman (April 1991)
“[Malick’s] film that everyone universally loves” —Paste
In one of the greatest ever directorial debuts, Terrence Malick takes on the real-life story of 19-year-old Charles Starkweather (Martin Sheen), and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate (Sissy Spacek), who cut a swath of violence throughout the Midwest in the late 1950s, killing 11 people. Renamed Kit and Holly for the story, their characters exude a vast loneliness whose senseless actions propel each other’s recklessness amidst the lolling South Dakota landscape. 1973, format, 94 minutes.
BLOOD SIMPLE
Directed by Joel Coen
Sunday, July 26
2 pm
Part of Joel and Ethan Coen: Raising Cain (September 2009)
“The blackest of film noirs. There’s plenty of blood, but things are seldom simple” —Sundance Film Festival
The Coens stunned the 1984 New York Film Festival audiences with their first feature film, funded partially by Minnesota investors. This atmospherically gothic tale of a doublecross set in a dusty Texas town introduced Frances McDormand and gave M. Emmet Walsh a spine-tingling part written expressly for him. The characters paths cross and re-cross to a point of mistakes and confusion, leaving only the audience with the knowledge of who killed whom. 1984, 99 minutes.
DO THE RIGHT THING
Directed by Spike Lee
Wednesday, July 22
7:30 pm
Part of Spike Lee: In Retrospect (November 1996)
“An intelligent, matter-of-fact examination of race in America” —The New Yorker
Spike Lee’s second feature remains one of the most engaging works in contemporary cinema. When the owner of a neighborhood pizzeria refuses to change his Wall of Fame from all Italian Americans, tension starts to build in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn on the hottest day of the summer. The film runs on this anger, while pulsing with humor, music, and sexuality. A sterling ensemble cast includes Rosie Perez, Samuel Jackson, Danny Aiello, and Ruby Dee. 1989, 120 minutes.
WINGS OF DESIRE (DER HIMMEL ÜBER BERLIN)
Directed by Wim Wenders
Wednesday, July 29
7:30 pm
Part of Wim Wenders: In the Course of Time (December 1991)
“Startlingly original” —New York Times
Damiel (Bruno Ganz), an angel perched atop buildings high over Berlin, can hear the thoughts—fears, hopes, dreams—of all the people living below. But when he falls in love with a beautiful trapeze artist, he is willing to give up his immortality and come back to Earth to be with her. Made shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, this stunning tapestry of sounds and images is cinematic poetry. 1987, in German, English, Turkish, Hebrew, Spanish, and Japanese with English subtitles, 128 minutes.
BLUE VELVET
Directed by David Lynch
Wednesday, August 5
7:30 pm
Part of Isabella Rossellini: Illuminated (November 2006)
“A visually stunning, convincingly coherent portrait of a nightmarish substratum to conventional, respectable society” —IFC Center
In idyllic Lumberton, young Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) discovers a severed ear. In the process of seeking its origin, he meets sweet Sandy (Laura Dern), deranged Frank (Dennis Hopper), and beautiful but battered Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini). A devastating upending of middle America, the film garnered David Lynch an Oscar nomination for Best Director, Rossellini an Independent Spirit Award, and numerous rankings on “Best Films of the Century” lists. 1986, 120 minutes.
CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 (CLÉO DE 5 à 7)
Directed by Agnès Varda
Wednesday, August 12
7:30 pm
Part of Agnès Varda, cine-writer (February 2001)
“A spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama” —Mubi
In this cinematic hall of mirrors, Cleo peers into the world around her for reflections that might give her clues to her identity and future, encountering a fortune-teller, her songwriter, and others as she awaits the results of a critical medical examination. Unusual, funny, and sensitive, the film, which takes place in the span of a day, is a beautiful reflection of early ’60s Paris. 1962, 90 minutes.
THE BIG LEBOWSKI
Directed by Joel Coen
Wednesday, August 19
7:30 pm
Part of Joel and Ethan Coen: Raising Cain (September 2009)
“A hilariously defective detective spoof” —The Washington Post
This film has earned a richly deserved spot in the American cultural landscape. Its episodic story is held together by an ensemble one could find only in LA: nihilists, pornographers, avant-garde artists, and fanatical bowlers. Starring Jeff Bridges as “The Dude” mistaken for a millionaire, The Big Lebowski captivates the audience with its rambling characters amidst the Coens’ magnificent bowling alley scenes. 1998, 117 minutes.
SUMMER MUSIC & MOVIES
Summer Music & Movies: Bigger Than Life
Mondays, July 27–August 17
Loring Park, FREE
The ever-popular Summer Music & Movies offers a sparkling sampler of live music and films under the stars. Local bands kick-start each night, and this year’s films are adaptations from comic books and stories of adventure inspired by the artists in the International Pop exhibition. On August 17, a special closing event features Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed, a delightful silent animated film with a live score by Mark McGee’s ensemble MAKR’s Coven.
Music begins at 7 pm; movies begin at dusk (approximately 8:45 pm). In case of rain, events move to the Walker Cinema.
MONDAY, JULY 27
Music: Gary Louris and Friends
“Gary Louris is one of the unsung heroes of contemporary roots music.” —Paste Magazine
Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Gary Louris has built a deeply compelling body of music whose artistry and integrity has won the loyalty of an international audience and the respect of both critics and his peers. Best known for his seminal work with The Jayhawks, Louris showcases songs spanning his entire 30-year career.
Film: BARBARELLA
Directed by Roger Vadim
“About equal doses calculated camp comedy and unintentional hilarity” —Slate
Barbarella (Jane Fonda) must capture Doctor Durand-Durand from another constellation to protect Earth from his evil weapon—the Positronic Ray. In a string of outrageous events, she encounters a group of vampire dolls and takes refuge in the wings of a blind angel (John Phillip Law) in this goofy science fiction fantasy. Based on a French comic strip, its rambling structure, ultra-sexualized characters, and deliberately over-the-top effects make Barbarella the cult film it is. 1968, video, 98 minutes.
MONDAY, AUGUST 3
Music: Chastity Brown Band
“Melding bits of soul, jazz and rootsy Americana into a potent stew, at times Chastity sounds like a young Mavis Staples, but with an edgy urgency instead of any retro affectation.” —Jim McGuinn, 89.3 The Current
Throw all genres and hyphenates together you want to describe her—indie, roots & soul, rock, blues & country—they are all right, and also not enough. Chastity Brown writes songs that are carried deep in the American psyche, the hunger, desperation and confidence that runs through our times.
Film: DANGER: DIABOLIK
Directed by Mario Bava
“When he springs into action, however, the film springs with him.” —A.V. Club
John Phillip Law is Diabolik—a dashing masked anti-hero living underground with his partner in crime Eva (Marisa Mell) running from the law for his many burglaries. Valiantly, the two never harm the innocent and remain genuinely in love. This B-movie is based on an Italian comic strip and bears the familiar dynamic action, carefree sensuality, and campy pop art set design of other films from the decade. 1968, video, 105 minutes.
MONDAY, AUGUST 10
Music: All Tomorrow’s Petty
“Buy me a drink, sing me a song. Take me as I come ’cause I can’t stay long.”
—Tom Petty
All Tomorrow’s Petty is a loose-knit, all-star collective that gives Petty songs a postmodern twist via all manner of late-20th and early-21st century indie rock filters. Affectionately covering selections from the vast Petty canon rendered with a variable degree of interpretive license, the core group includes members of Halloween Alaska, The Pines, Gramma’s Boyfriend, Ginkgo, Rogue Valley, et al.
Film: BATMAN: THE MOVIE
Directed by Leslie H. Martinson
“A witty homage to the Dynamic Duo’s exaggerated exploits” —New York Times
Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) must battle sharks, a submarine shaped like a penguin, and the Penguin himself when they are lured to a yacht to save the Commodore Schmidlapp. This spirited feature adaptation of the 1960’s television series features most of the original cast members and other familiar enemies like Catwoman, the Joker, and the Riddler. The “Dynamic Duo” delivers hilariously straight performances amidst outlandish scenarios. 1966, video, 105 minutes.
**
MONDAY, AUGUST 17
Music: MAKR’s Coven with The Adventures of Prince Achmed**
This live music + film program begins at dusk—approximately 8:45 pm.
“McGee’s musical fingerprints are all over the modern musical sounds being generated throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul.” —City Pages
Mark McGee aka MAKR (Father You See Queen, Ronia, Marijuana Deathsquads), Fletcher Barnhill (Joint Custody, FUGITIVE), Katharine Seggerman (B.O.Y.F.), Aaron Baum (Night Moves, Tiny Deaths), and Nicholas Larkins Perez (Perez) join forces to present a new live Walker-commissioned score for The Adventures of Prince Achmed, “one of the great classics of animation—beautiful, mesmerizing and utterly seductive” (Milestone Films).
German animator Lotte Reiniger’s hand cut silhouettes are photographed movement by movement to create the flowing storyline of Prince Achmed—a man who mistakenly saddles an enchanted flying horse while trying to protect Princess Dinarsade from a sorcerer. No original print remains, but the National Film Archive houses the oldest colored nitrate version of the classic silent animated film now transferred to digital video. 1926, video, silent, German intertitles with English subtitles, 67 minutes.
RELATED EXHIBITION: INTERNATIONAL POP
On view through August 29, 2015
Organized by the Walker Art Center, International Pop chronicles the global emergence of Pop art from the 1950s through the early 1970s. While previous exhibitions and prevailing scholarship have primarily focused on the dominance of Pop activity in New York and London during this time, this exhibition examines work from artists across the globe who were confronting many of the same radical developments, laying the foundation for the emergence of an art form that embraced figuration, media strategies, and mechanical processes with a new spirit of urgency and/or exuberance.
This groundbreaking exhibition follows the trajectories of Pop and its critical
points of contact with global developments in art such as Nouveau Réalisme (France), Concretism and Neo-Concretism (Brazil), the Art of Things (Argentina), Anti-Art (Japan), Capitalist Realism (Germany), Happenings, and Neo-Dada. As such, the landmark exhibition recaptures the energy and inquisitiveness of this moment in art, expanding the frame of its influence and diversity while reenergizing questions around the true significance, breadth, and definition of Pop art.
Created in dialogue with an international array of curators and scholars, International Pop features some 140 works from 14 countries as well as a dedicated film/video program daily in the galleries.
The Walker-produced exhibition catalogue offers an in-depth study of the international Pop phenomenon with essays by scholars, film critics, and curators from Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Britain, the United States, Hungary, and Italy; an extensive visual chronology; a roundtable discussion; and selection of stunning images, many rarely seen outside their countries of origin.
Following its presentation at the Walker, International Pop will tour to the Dallas Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art through 2016. Curators: Darsie Alexander with Bartholomew Ryan. Visual Arts Curatorial Fellow: Mia Lopez
Summer Music & Movies is presented by the Walker Art Center in partnership with the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board. Support is provided by the Bentson Foundation.
ON THE TERRACES
Pop Re-Mix Patio Nights
Thursdays, August 6, 13, and 20
6–10 pm, FREE
Garden Terrace Room and Outdoor Terraces
In case of rain, events move into the Garden Terrace Room
Stunning views combine with International Pop-inspired fun to set the scene for the most happening patio nights in town. Explore the roving spirit of the Pop movement with Tropicália beats, a DIY liquid light show, sixties-inspired fashion and much more. Each night has a unique flavor best paired with a cocktail from the terrace bar.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 6
Art-Making: Labor Camp, 6–8 pm
Join Polish-born artist Piotr Szyhalski and founder of Labor Camp, an ongoing project which celebrates the beauty and dignity of labor, for a night of collective creative production.
Screening: Selling Democracy: Marshall Plan Films, 6–10 pm
The post-WWII German Economic Miracle greatly influenced many of the German artists featured in the International Pop exhibition. Stirring up the can-do spirit to rebuild the country were the films of the Marshall Plan Motion Picture Section which turned people’s despair into optimism.
DJ: Clint Simonson, 6–10 pm
Founder of the local DIY label De Stijl Records, Simonson plays innovative and hard-to-find global pop treasures.
Music: Dosh & Ghostband, 8 pm
Martin Dosh and Jon Davis unite as Dosh & Ghostband to dish out techno-addled, IDM-damaged, bass ’n’ bliss groove music. Left-field sonics, Afro-Latin percussion, Chicago house, playful melodies, and squelching sequences swirl together in a delightfully polyrhythmic aural experimentation.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 13
Art-Making: DIY Liquid Light Show, 6–10 pm
The Garden Terrace Room is turned into a handmade psychedelic environment as liquid and light mix on overhead projectors.
Screening: Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable with the Velvet Underground, 6–10 pm
Directed by Ronald Nameth
In 1967, director Ronald Nameth captured all of the excitement of a live Velvet Underground multi-media performance augmented with projections and dancing, essentially breaking new ground in rock shows.
DJ: Adora Tokyo, 6–10 pm
Creatively inspired, and rhythmically led, Adora Tokyo whose talents span the worlds of music and fashion, cultivates vibes beyond flashing lights and disco balls.
Fashion Show: Emma Berg and Christian Joy, 7 pm
Fashion mavens—Emma Berg, named “Best Designer” at the 2014 Minnesota Fashion Awards, and New-York based Christian Joy, who has outfitted Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs—present fresh looks inspired by the exhibition International Pop.
Music: Wolf Lords, 8 pm
Renowned vocalist and songwriter Aby Wolf (Dessa, Brother Ali) teams up with multi-instrumentalist and beat mastermind Grant Cutler (LookBook, Solid Gold, Zoo Animal, Jeremy Messersmith) for lushly minimal soundscapes and groove-oriented atmospherics.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 20
Art-Making: Yuya Negishi, 6–8 pm
Drop in and draw with painter and muralist Yuya Negishi, whose work is a combination of traditional Japanese art and Warhol-esque pop.
Screening: Pulp Pop Clips, 6–10 pm
Ed Halter, curator of International Pop Cinema has selected a series of clips from groovy, knowingly low-brow spectacles of international cinema from the late 60s, in which camp became something of an international style melding the art-house with the drive-in.
DJ: Paul Harding, 6–10 pm
Enjoy an eclectic sampling of tracks from Brazil and beyond by world DJ Paul Harding, host of KFAI’s Foreign Currency, and longtime former host of Radio K International.
Music: Robert Everest Quartet, 8 pm
From Tropicália to Neo-Concretism and from Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo, singer/songwriter/guitarist Robert Everest and his accomplished quartet dig deep into Brazilian musical history for a sumptuous survey of sounds and songs.
IN THE GALLERY
Walker Dialogues: 25 Years
Through December 2015
Watch memorable clips from the nearly 60 guests who have come to the Walker as part of the Dialogue series. On three monitors presented in Dan Graham’s sculpture New Space for Showing Videos, this installation, within the exhibition Art at the Center: 75 Years of Walker Collections, is scheduled to run through December. Viewers will be treated to behind-the-scenes stories by filmmakers and actors such as Werner Herzog, Steve McQueen, John Sayles, Agnès Varda, Robert Altman, Spike Lee, Clint Eastwood, Danny Glover, Isabella Rossellini, Julian Schnabel, Jodie Foster, Chen Kaige, Jim Jarmusch, and more. Enjoy passionate descriptions of artists’ personal motivations and creative philosophies.
FREE FILM ON VIEW
WALKER DIALOGUES: A HISTORY
June 30, 2015 – January 30, 2016
Best Buy Bay
Screens daily from 11 am
The Walker-produced documentary is perfect preparation for the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Walker Dialogues, in a conversation between current Film/Video curator Sheryl Mousley and former curator Bruce Jenkins. Starting in 1990 with veteran actor/director Clint Eastwood and up to the most recent, director Steve McQueen in 2013, this piece represents the wide range of talent that has come to the Walker. From worldwide visitors Wim Wenders and Abbas Kiarostami, to animators Timothy and Stephen Quay (The Brothers Quay), to Agnés Varda of the French New Wave, and storytellers Joel and Ethan Coen—the Dialogues offer a unique chance to hear how the 60 guests each contribute to filmmaking. 2014, video, 66 minutes.
Major support to preserve, digitize, and present the Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection is generously provided by the Bentson Foundation.
ON THE WEBSITE
In May 2015, the Walker Cinema website will launch an enhanced area devoted to the history of the Walker Dialogues. Over fifty Walker-produced brochures and commissioned essays by leading critics and scholars will also be available online, where users will have the ability to search the programs, view past schedules and artist filmographies.
WALKER GALLERY HOURS AND ADMISSION
$14 adults; $12 seniors (65+); $9 students (with ID)
Free to Walker members and children ages 18 and under.
Free with a paid event ticket within one week of performance or screening.
Free to all every Thursday evening (5–9 pm) and on the first Saturday of each month (10 am–5 pm).
Enjoy free gallery admission on Thursday nights from 5 to 9 pm.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 11 am–5 pm
Thursday, 11 am–9 pm
Closed Mondays