UW CINEMATHEQUE ANNOUNCES LINEUP FOR BLEAK WEEK: CINEMA OF DESPAIR
In Partnership with American Cinematheque, Global Film Festival Involves 80+ Venues Across Three Continents
The Cinematheque at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is proud to announce its participation in Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair, a global film festival presented in partnership with the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles. The UW Cinematheque joins over 80 venues across North America, South America, and Europe for this global festival, with programming selections focused on cinematic misery from all corners of the world. The Cinematheque’s edition of Bleak Week will begin with a 35mm screening of Steve De Jarnatt’s apocalyptic LA comedy Miracle Mile (1989) on Wednesday, June 24th. It will conclude on Tuesday, June 30th when the Cinematheque screens an archival 35mm print of Testament (1983), an Oscar-nominated drama about nuclear devastation.
Now in its fifth year, Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair was created by American Cinematheque head of programming Chris LeMaire in 2022. Bleak Week screens “some of the greatest works of cinema from across the globe that venture into the darkest sides of humanity and the bleakest points in human history,” ranging from marathon-length exercises in harrowing European art cinema to unexpectedly dark Hollywood films. Immensely popular with Los Angeles audiences, the festival has expanded to additional venues across the globe, such as the Music Box Theatre in Chicago and the Prince Charles Cinema in London, in the years since Bleak Week’s initial commencement.
Programmed by the UW Cinematheque’s Josh Martin, Bleak Week Madison features a curated selection of films designed to capture the many flavors of cinematic bleakness offered by various genres and national cinemas. In addition to Miracle Mile and Testament, seven additional films will screen as part of the Cinematheque’s Bleak Week programming. On Thursday, June 25th, a DCP restoration of Sergio Corbucci’s uniquely violent and hard-edged Euro-western The Great Silence will screen.
On Friday, June 26th, the Cinematheque presents a tribute to the unsettling horror cinema of Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa. The 2024 featurette, Chime, will have its Madison Premiere at 7 PM, followed by Kurosawa’s procedural masterpiece Cure at 8 PM. The horror will continue on Saturday, June 27th with a 35mm screening of Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck’s classic chiller Messiah of Evil.
Sunday, June 28th offers a pair of exciting films from France. At 7 PM, experience the rain-soaked misery of the newly restored Such a Pretty Little Beach (1949). Preceding Yves Allégret’s underseen noir, bleakness of a different sort will emerge with Agnès Varda’s sunny-yet-sinister classic Le Bonheur, screening at 5 PM.
On Monday, June 29th, the Cinematheque is excited to have the first ever screening of a brand new 35mm print of Tsai Ming-Liang’s slow cinema musical The Hole.
The Cinematheque’s regular Summer screenings begin the day after Bleak Week, July 1 and will continue through July 24. The full Summer calendar schedule will be released later in May. More information on the series and individual Bleak Week screenings below. All screenings are at the Cinematheque’s regular venue:
UW Cinematheque, 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Avenue. Madison, WI 53706
Admission is free, seating limited. No admission 15 minutes after scheduled start times.
Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair
Join Madison audiences at the UW Cinematheque for a journey into cinematic malaise of all stripes with Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair, presented in partnership with the American Cinematheque. Featuring nine films from around the globe, Bleak Week Madison incorporates recent restorations, new prints, and archival selections to showcase the full spectrum of what cinematic despair can offer. The week of grimness begins with a 35mm screening of Steve De Jarnatt’s Miracle Mile, a comedy that grows increasingly terrifying as the threat of nuclear war becomes a reality. The snowy mountains of Italy provide the setting for The Great Silence, perhaps the most harrowing of all Westerns, presented in a new 4K restoration. Hypnotic sounds and presences proliferate in Chime and Cure, highlighting the one-of-a-kind nightmares of Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Seaside towns harbor strange happenings in both the cult horror film Messiah of Evil, screening on a recently struck 35mm print, and the newly restored postwar French noir Such a Pretty Little Beach. And while the weather may be better in Agnès Varda’s Le Bonheur, the disintegration of familial harmony proves to particularly disturbing no matter the luminous sunshine. Bleakness continues to emerge from unexpected genres in our 35mm presentation of Tsai Ming-Liang’s singular musical The Hole. Finally, to bring Bleak Week full circle, the specter of nuclear war will take center stage again in Testament, screening on a 35mm print from the Academy Film Archive.
WEDS., 6/24, 7 p.m.
MIRACLE MILE
USA | 1989 | 35mm | 87 min.
Director: Steve De Jarnatt
Cast: Anthony Edwards, Mare Winningham, John Agar
It’s the end of the world and only Harry Washello (Edwards) knows it. Late for a date with Julie (Winningham), Harry learns in a phone booth that nuclear weapons have been launched. Is this a joke? Will anyone believe him? Can annihilation be prevented? Kick off Bleak Week in Madison with Steve De Jarnatt’s cult classic, an absurdist up-all-night odyssey across the neon-lit streets of the titular stretch of Los Angeles. As the film’s apocalyptic terror becomes a reality and comedy turns to tragedy, Miracle Mile expertly pulls the rug out from under its audience, rapidly careening towards a harrowing climax. (JM)
THURS., 6/25, 7 p.m.
THE GREAT SILENCE
France, Italy | 1968 | DCP | 105 min. | Italian with English subtitles
Director: Sergio Corbucci
Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignat, Klaus Kinski, Vonetta McGee
The Great Silence is one of the finest of all Euro Westerns. For this violent, mythic, and nihilistic tale, veteran director Sergio Corbucci (Django, Navajo Joe) wisely eschewed the typical sun-baked locations of Spain’s Almeria region in favor of the snow-covered Dolomite mountains. Corbucci achieves an appropriately icy mood reinforced by the haunting Ennio Morricone score. “[Corbucci’s] West was the most violent, surreal and pitiless landscape of any director in the history of the genre” (Quentin Tarantino).
FRI., 6/26, 7 p.m.
CHIME
Japan | 2024 | DCP | 45 mins. | Japanese with English subtitles
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Cast: Mutsuo Yoshioka, Seiichi Kohinata, Hana Amano
Japanese maestro Kiyoshi Kurosawa returns to horror with a featurette that condenses his signature atmospheric approach to the genre. The inexplicability of the scenario is terrifying alone: a man hears a faint chime and is suddenly driven to murder. Uneasy and viscerally upsetting, Kurosawa’s nightmare in miniature packs a formidable punch. (JM)
FRI., 6/26, 8 p.m.
CURE
Japan | 1997 | DCP | 111 mins. | Japanese with English subtitles
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Cast: Koji Yakusho, Masato Hagiwara, Tsuyoshi Ujiki
Follow up the minimalistic terror of Chime with Kurosawa’s ultimate masterpiece. In Cure, police detective Takabe (Koji Yakusho) investigates a string of grisly killings. The kicker? Several perpetrators have been caught, yet none possess any memory of committing the crime in question. Bathed in a sinister ambience and aided by its unnerving soundscape, the film follows Takabe as he forays deeper into the heart of darkness, discovering a hypnotist with potent powers of suggestion. A singular horror classic, Kurosawa’s procedural chiller possesses an enduring existential ambiguity that remains impossible to shake. (JM)
SAT., 6/27, 4 p.m.
MESSIAH OF EVIL
USA | 1974 | 35mm | 90 min.
Director: Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz
Cast: Marianna Hill, Michael Greer, Elisha Cook, Jr.
Best known as co-screenwriters for George Lucas’ American Graffiti (1973) and Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck also directed this creepy and distinctly alluring high point of 1970s horror cinema. Searching for her father in the beachfront town of Point Dume, Arletty (Hill) gets more than she bargained for when she encounters unusual happenings in this remote California community. With art direction from the legendary Jack Fisk, Messiah of Evil is a spooky exemplar of the genre that ultimately taps into a dreamier, more disquieting wavelength. Beautifully restored in 2023 by the Academy Film Archive, a recently struck 35mm print, courtesy of the American Genre Film Archive, will be screened. (JM)
SUN., 6/28, 5 p.m.
LE BONHEUR
France | 1965 | DCP | 80 min. | French with English subtitles
Director: Agnès Varda
Cast: Jean-Claude Drouot, Claire Drouot, Marie-France Boyer
Describing the unexpected bitterness of Le Bonheur, Agnès Varda once offered a provocative and resonant metaphor: “I imagined a summer peach, with its perfect colors, and inside there is a worm.” Despite its wealth of luscious pastels, Varda’s first film in color finds potent irony in these warm and inviting surfaces. The film follows the Chevalier family, initially a portrait of domestic harmony. Yet as husband François (Jean-Claude Drouot) strays from his marriage in the presence of the beautiful Émilie (Boyer), Varda peels away the layers to uncover the worm at its story’s disturbing center. (JM)
SUN., 6/28, 7 p.m.
SUCH A PRETTY LITTLE BEACH
France | 1949 | DCP | 91 min. | French with English subtitles
Director: Yves Allégret
Cast: Gérard Philipe, Madeleine Robinson, Jean Servais
Awash in a desolate atmosphere of intense portent, few films summon a mood of misery quite like Such a Pretty Little Beach. In postwar France, a man (Philipe) on the run returns to the seaside enclave of his tragic war-torn youth during the town’s rain-drenched off-season. Classically expressionistic, the inhospitable nature of the climate reflects our protagonist’s own fraught psychological torment and a newfound guilty conscience, spurred on by an unspeakable act committed in Paris. An immersive character study, a new restoration of Allégret’s long-undersung noir will be screened. (JM)
MON., 6/29, 7 p.m.
THE HOLE
Taiwan, France | 1998 | 35mm | 95 min. | Mandarin with English subtitles
Director: Tsai Ming-Liang
Cast: Yang Kuei-Mei, Lee Kang-Sheng, Miao Tien
In The Hole, unusual interactions between two residents (Lee and Yang) of an apartment building in an apocalyptic, virus-ridden Taipei become the foundation for a one-of-a-kind movie musical. Goodbye, Dragon Inn filmmaker Tsai Ming-Liang’s work is often harsh and excruciatingly sad. Yet amid the static long takes and palpable loneliness, Tsai always finds clever ways to complicate the grimness of his subjects, tinkering with genre and bone-dry humor. One of Tsai’s finest films, The Hole will screen on a brand new 35mm print courtesy of Big World Pictures. (JM)
TUES., 6/30, 7 p.m.
TESTAMENT
USA| 1983 | 35mm | 89 min.
Director: Lynne Littman
Cast: Jane Alexander, William Devane, Lukas Haas
In an Oscar-nominated performance, Alexander stars as Carol Wetherly, wife and mother in a close-knit family in a small Northern California town. The Wetherlys lead their ordinary lives until a sudden nuclear attack upends everything. In the aftermath, Carol struggles to maintain her humanity as death, in the form of radiation sickness, invades her community. Testament might be the most emotionally shattering of all major studio releases in the 1980s, but “the movie is more than just a devastating experience…it has a message with a certain hope” (Roger Ebert). 35mm print courtesy of Academy Film Archive.