For more extensive English language information about our programmes, please visit our bilingual website www.filmhuisdenhaag.nl. There you can toggle between the Dutch and English site using a button located at the top right of your screen!
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English summary
HOLLywOOd BLONdES
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Over the coming months, English-speaking expats can especially look forward to a bit of film history. Of course we also hope that many of you will enjoy the sparkling fresh selection of six premieres from Great Britain and the USA, plus the wonderful import of three recent Turkish productions. Filmhuis Den Haag is organising a grand festival with the theme of Hollywood Blondes! And it goes without saying that the fi lms starring these Sexy, Cool & Next-door Blondes like Jane Mansfi eld, Kim Novak and Doris Day are all English spoken. Our programme Silent Movie & Live Music will pay tribute to the Silent Stars among these famous ladies; they may not be as well-known today, but Olive Thomas, Marion Davies and Lillian Gish deserve just as much attention. Finally, the renowned British fi lm journalist Mark Cousins knocks over quite a few archive cabinets to create his particular vision on the entire history of cinema! It lasts no less than 900 minutes, and leaves you craving for more!
Partly to mark the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death, Filmhuis Den Haag has compiled a ‘Hollywood Blondes’ programme that will be touring 16 cities in the Netherlands during the autumn months of 2012. The overview shows the development of three different (Hollywood)archetypes: Sexy blondes, like Jean Harlow, Mae West and Lana Turner; Cool blondes, among which Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren; and Blondes next-door, such as Ginger Rogers and Virginia Mayo. The Hollywood Blondes programme consists of 20 classic movies from the years 1930 to 1963. See pages 09-11 for the titles and screening dates.
SILENt HOLLywOOd BLONdES
The actresses from the years 1910 and 1920 – and the type of blondes they embodied – are presented in four screenings, with live music performed on the grand piano by our regular Silent Movie accompanists Charles Janko, Kevin Toma, Wim van Tuyl and Yvo Verschoor. The early fi lm heroines, often with a head of blonde ringlets, were passive and self-sacrifi cing. In the mid-20s the ‘fl apper’ emerged, that is, the self-confi dent young woman with a sense of humour and an indefatigable urge to live it up. These fl appers were an early version of the romantic stars in the screwball comedies and musicals of the 1930s. But in between, in the late 1920s, we had the ‘gold-digger’ and the ‘blonde bombshell’: sexy women that dug their nails into men who could not resist the temptation, even though they knew it would end badly. These ultra-feminine raid techniques were initially depicted with a comical undertone, but soon after the ‘fi lm noir’ captured the imagination, with hard-hearted, fateful and especially blonde women. Silent Blondes sometimes suffered almost cinematographic misery in their private lives: the biographies of Mary Miles Minter, Mary Nolan and Olive Thomas cannot be read dry-eyed! Monday 17 September 7.30pm Marion Davies Monday 22 October 7.30pm Mary Miles Minter & Olive Thomas Monday 19 November 7.30pm Mae Murray & Mae Marsh Monday 17 December 7.30pm Alice Terry & Jean Harlow c.s.
MARION dAVIES
tHE StORy Of fILM: AN OdySSEy
As per tradition, during the autumn months Filmhuis Den Haag offers a course in general film history. This time, however, we don’t have lecturers made of flesh and blood to comment on their selection from 117 years of world cinema, but a canned voice who expertly and enthusiastically guides us through a stupendous number of film excerpts, in his own singular style. Mark Cousins is well-known for his passionate approach and the nasal Irish voice with which he presented film programmes on the BBC for many years. In 2004 he wrote ‘Story of film’, because “there is no accessible, one-part history for a general, intelligent audience”. Now there’s a film adaptation, with the 10 chapters of the book converted into 15 episodes of 60 minutes each. Although the series is set up in chronological fashion, Cousins ranges far beyond the obligatory excerpts. Part 1, on the period 1895-1918, of course contains de Lumières, Méliès and their peers -- but also Saving private Ryan / Steven Spielberg (1998), Trois couleurs: bleu / Krzysztof Kieslowski (1993), Casablanca / Michael Curtiz (1942), Nagaya shinshiroku (The record of a tenement gentleman) / Yasujiro Ozu (1947), Odd man out / Carol Reed (1947), 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle / JeanLuc Godard (1967), Taxi driver / Martin Scorsese (1976) and The French connection / William Friedkin (1971). Bien étonnés de se trouver ensemble! And it just carries on like that, eight weeks in a row. Simply spellbinding!
tuRkEy ON tOuR
The year 2012 marks 400 years of relations between the Netherlands and Turkey. To celebrate the occasion, Leids Film Festival is highlighting recent Turkish cinema. We are screening three films, on Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 October. In Autumn, a 22-year old politically engaged student named Yusuf leaves prison to head straight back to his birthplace near the Black Sea. But is a romantic involvement with the dreamy-eyed Eka, a Georgian prostitute, the best way to fend off loneliness? Night of silence is about an arranged marriage: neither bride nor bridegroom had any choice. He was recently released from prison where he spent years on account of two honour killings. And she is a girl of just fourteen! Finally, there’s the comedy The losers’ club, based on a ‘true story’ about a popular radio show for rebellious youth in the 90s. The losers’ club was one of the highest-grossing Turkish fi lms in 2011.
tHE StORy Of fILM: AN OdySSEy
yOuR SIStER'S SIStER
PREMIERES tRISHNA
From 30 August The idiosyncratic fi lm director Michael Winterbottom transported the classic tale of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles to contemporary Rajasthan in India. yOuR SIStER’S SIStER
From 6 September In this feel-good comedy by Lyn Shelton, Jack is invited by his close friend Iris to spend the weekend alone on her family’s deserted private island, to regain his bearings after his brother’s death. Upon arrival it turns out that Iris’s sister Hannah had planned to do exactly the same. After an evening full of drink and profound conversation, they end up sharing the bed. tHE ANGELS’ SHARE
From 6 September The angel’s share (note the apostrophe) is the alcohol that escapes the oak barrels in which whiskey lies aging; but The angels’ share is the latest film by Ken Loach. Robbie and his criminal mates can forget about any kind of regular job, given their lengthy criminal record. A trip to a distillery triggers a brilliant plan: why not take the future into their own hands by producing ‘Uisge Beatha’, or the ‘Water of Life?’ Whether their endeavours are successful, only the angels can tell. dIANA VREELANd: tHE EyE HAS tO tRAVEL
From 4 October A fascinating documentary about the former chief editor of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Vreeland was renowned for her sense of humour and vivid statements such as ‘the bikini is the biggest thing since the atom bomb’. BEAStS Of tHE SOutHERN wILd
From 18 October A dazzling debut film by Benh Zeitlin: a gripping story and a visual delight! In the swamps of Louisiana, near the coast, the six-year old Hushpuppy lives with her alcoholic father Wink. They are just one storm away from utter devastation. tHE MANCHuRIAN CANdIdAtE
From 4 October A reissue of the classic 1962 film by John Frankenheimer. A US Army major suffers recurrent nightmares about his intelligence work during the Korean War. He discovers that others in his unit have similar nightmares.
dIANA VREELANd
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