CATE BLANCHETT: SELECTIVE RETROSPECTIVE

Notes On A Scandal

A sharp psychological thriller from Richard Eyre, with an outstanding cast led by Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett.

Booking Ref

Sun 13 Aug 17:15 – Studio

Tue 22 Aug 15:45 – Studio

Barbara Covet (Dench), a veteran history teacher at a London school, is captivated by new art instructor and kindred spirit Sheba Hart (Blanchett). The younger woman’s charisma intensely draws in the older, and the two become friends, but when Barbara learns of Sheba’s affair with a teenage student her moral outrage turns to narcissistic manipulation as she tries to conceal their secret. Eyre (‘The Dresser’, ‘Atonement’) directs the film beautifully, with great support from an insistent, ever-present score by Philip Glass. This is an original, unpredictable film, erotic and surprisingly intense, with a cast that also includes Bill Nighy and a young Juno Temple.

UK 2006 RICHARD EYRE 98M

Blue Jasmine

Loosely based upon ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, this is one of Woody Allen’s finest films, featuring an outstanding performance by Cate Blanchett.

Booking Ref

Fri 18 Aug 18:15 – Studio

Thu 24 Aug 16:00 – Studio

Jasmine French used to be on the top of the heap as a New York socialite, but now returns to her estranged sister in San Francisco utterly ruined. As she struggles with haunting memories of a privileged past bearing dark realities she ignored, she tries to recover. It proves a losing battle as her narcissistic hang-ups and their consequences begin to overwhelm her. Cate Blanchett, who played Blanche on Broadway only a few years previously, gives one of the most complicated and demanding performances of her movie career.

USA 2013 WOODY ALLEN 98M

Manifesto

From the acclaimed visual artist Julian Rosefeldt, featuringCate Blanchett in 13 vignettes incorporating 20th-century art movements.

Sun 20 Aug 20:45 – Studio

Tue 22 Aug 13:30 – Pic Palace

This film draws on the writings of Futurists, Dadaists, Suprematists, Dogma 95 and other groups, as well as the musings of individual artists, architects, dancers and filmmakers, ultimately questioning the role of the artist in society today. Blanchett inhabits 13 different personas – among them a puppeteer, a newsreader, and a homeless man – Blanchett imbues new dramatic life into these famous words. ‘Manifesto’ may not adhere to any conventional narrative structure, but it’s compulsively watchable all the same. This is a brilliant display of Blanchett’s unstoppable talent and Rosefeldt’s ability to use one art form – filmmaking – to explore so many others.

AUSTRALIA/GERMANY 2015 JULIAN ROSEFELDT 95M

Tue 22 Aug 10:00 –

Nightmare Alley

A grifter (Bradley Cooper), working his way up from his low-ranking carnival worker to lauded psychic medium, matches his wits with a psychologist (Cate Blanchett) bent on exposing him.

Stanton Carlisle is a drifter with a talent for theatrics and hustling people out of their money. He lands a job at a carnival where he learns the essentials of mentalism from a pair of masters of the art. He also meets the love of his life and the two of them leave the carnival to take his act on the road. Then he meets a psychologist who sees through his façade. Cate Blanchett’s performance as the psychologist is outstanding and the production design one of the most stunning that you’ll ever see; it certainly earned its Academy Award nomination. Cooper gives a multi-dimensional performance that helps carry the film and he gets plenty of help; this film noir boasts a formidable acting lineup (Willem Dafoe, Rooney Mara, Mary Steenburgen, Ron Perlman, Richard Jenkins), stunning period detail and is handsomely shot. Underrated on its release, Guillermo del Toro’s masterpiece needs another viewing to appreciate its richness.

USA 2021 GUILLERMO DEL TORO 150M

WHAT MAKES CATE BLANCHETT’S WOMEN SO COMPELLING?

An illustrated talk by Pamela Hutchinson

So compelling – yet so awful! From the young Queen Elizabeth to brutal Lydia Tár, the seductive older women in ‘Carol’ and ‘Notes on a Scandal’, and the high-society hysteric of ‘Blue Jasmine’, Cate Blanchett makes a habit of embodying the most captivatingly imperious, and often cruel, women that the screen has ever witnessed. This illustrated talk will explore her singular career and examine some of her very best performances. Find out why she is one of the most fascinating actresses working in world cinema today and how she creates such unforgettably powerful characters.

Pamela Hutchinson is a freelance critic, curator and film historian, based in West Sussex. She writes for titles including ‘Sight and Sound’, ‘Empire’ and the ‘Guardian’ and regularly appears on BBC Radio. Her publications include BFI Film Classics on ‘The Red Shoes’ and ‘Pandora’s Box,’ as well as essays in edited collections.

90M

CATE BLANCHETT: SELECTIVE RETROSPECTIVE

Mon 21 Aug 14:30 – Auditorium (Plus Q&A)

Tickets £13.50

Special Event TÁR

Set in the international world of Western classical music the film centres on Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett), considered the greatest living composer/conductor and the very first female Chief Conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Having achieved an enviable career few could even dream of, Lydia Tár is at the top of her game. As a conductor, she not only orchestrates, she also manipulates. As a trailblazer, the passionate virtuoso leads the way in the male-dominated classical music industry. She is taking on one of her most significant challenges: a live recording of Gustav Mahler ’s Symphony No. 5; and, while juggling work and family, she is also preparing for the release of her memoir. However, forces that even the imperious maestro can’t control slowly chip away at her elaborate facade, revealing the genius’s dirty secrets and the insidious, corrosive nature of power. What if life knocks Lydia off her pedestal? ‘Tár’ marks yet another career peak for Blanchett – many will argue her greatest – but, disgracefully, did not bring her the deserved Oscar.

USA/GERMANY 2022 TODD FIELD 158M

“No one but Blanchett could have delivered the imperious hauteur necessary for portraying a great musician heading for a crack-up or a creative epiphany. No one but Blanchett has the right way of wearing a two-piece black suit with an opennecked white shirt, the way of shaking her hair loose at moments of abandon, the way of letting her face become a Tutankhamun mask of contempt.” – Peter Bradshaw

We are delighted to welcome Cate Blanchett for a Q&A after this screening.