KANSAS CITY

USA 1996 - DCP - 116 minutes

In English

Director: Robert Altman

Screenplay: Robert Altman, Frank Barhydt

Producers: Robert Altman, Matthew Seig, David C. Thomas

Cast: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Miranda Richardson, Harry Belafonte, Michael Murphy, Dermot Mulroney, Steve Buscemi

Wednesday, July 14 7:00 p.m. | RR1 Friday, July 16 3:00 p.m. | RR1

Music: Music Director: Butch Morris; Produced by Hal Willner; Performed by James Carter, David Murray, Geri Allen, Joshua Redman, Ron Carter, Cyrus Chestnut, Mark Whitfield, Kevin Mahogany, Craig Handy, Olu Dara, David “Fathead” Newman, Christian McBride, Nicholas Payton, Curtis Fowlkes, Clark Gayton, James Zoller, Jesse Davis, Tyrone Clark, Victor Lewis

Print Courtesy: Arrow Films

Restoration courtesy of Arrow Films and the American Genre Film Archive.

MIFF is excited to welcome back one of our favorite Achievement Award Winners, Michael Murphy, to introduce the North American premiere of this new digital restoration of KANSAS CITY, one of great director Robert Altman’s most wonderful later films, an unusual and thrilling ‘30s era gangster story. Set in part in a boisterous after-hours nightclub in the city and era of Altman’s youth, it features some of the hottest jazz you’ve ever heard, played with ‘30s authenticity yet contemporary cutting-edge energy by jazz masters like David Murray, James Carter, and Geri Allen. And it sports a great ensemble cast including Miranda Richardson, Harry Belafonte, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Steve Buscemi, and Michael himself. It’s a breathtaking musical, thespian, and cinematic improvisation that we witness.

“KANSAS CITY is a wonderful film, done with all Altman’s offbeat virtuosity, maverick humor, and creative daring. The actors, like the musicians, sometimes stick to the melody, and sometimes jam away. KANSAS CITY is, in some respects, a twisted love poem, a torch ballad floating in the smoke-choked air. Altman, who loves jazz, probably wants to emulate the players and their achievements, wants to make his movie like the great Basie guys blew their horns. As a director, he tries to catch their strategy: In a world like this, sitting in darkness, you’ve just got to make some music, play that tune as fine and lovely as you can.”—Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

Sponsored by Peter and Joan Beckerman

Sunday, July 11 7:00 p.m. | RR1

Thursday, July 15 3:30 p.m. | RR2

Russia 1975 – DCP – 105 minutes

In Russian with English subtitles

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky

Producer: Erik Waisberg

Screenplay: Aleksandr Misharin, Arseniy Tarkovskiy, Andrei Tarkovsky

Cast: Margarita Terekhova, Oleg Yankovskiy, Filipp Yankovskiy

Print Courtesy: Janus Films

From SOLARIS to STALKER, the ‘70s were when the great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky directed one dazzling, original, distinctive, influential masterpiece after another. THE MIRROR falls between the two, and is equally stunning, though still a bit less known— which is just one reason why this gorgeous restoration is beyond wondrous. A senses-ravishing odyssey through the halls of time and memory, Tarkovsky’s sublime reflection on 20th century Russian history is as much a poem composed in cinematic images as it is a hypnagogic hallucination. In a richly textured collage of varying film stocks and newsreel footage, the recollections of a dying poet flash before our eyes, dreams mingling with scenes of childhood, wartime, and marriage, all imbued with the mystic power of a trance. Largely dismissed by Soviet critics upon its release due to its elusive narrative structure, THE MIRROR has since taken its place as one of the titan director’s most renowned and influential works, a stunning personal statement from an artist transmitting his innermost thoughts, and feelings directly from psyche to screen.