In October at the Cinematheque, three master filmmakers utilize Fyodor Dostoevsky’s enduring short story White Nights to discover new, different, and personal visions within its tale of lonely hearts, chance encounters, and impossible love. From Luchino Visconti’s luminous dreamscape of postwar longing Le notti bianche, to Robert Bresson’s quietly transcendent Parisian reverie Four Nights of a Dreamer, to James Gray’s deeply felt contemporary Brooklyn reimagining Two Lovers, each film reflects the anxieties and romantic ideals of its own time while remaining faithful to Dostoevsky’s profound understanding of desire, memory, and human connection.
SAT., 10/3, 6 p.m.
FOUR NIGHTS OF A DREAMER
France | 1971 | DCP | 82 min. | French with English subtitles
Director: Robert Bresson
Cast: Guillaume des Forêts, Isabelle Weingarten, Maurice Monnoyer
Set within a bohemian world in contemporary Paris, Four Nights of a Dreamer follows Jacques, a lonely artist searching for the girl of his dreams. One night he saves the beautiful Marthe from plunging into the Seine in despair over her rejection by an avoidant lover. Jacques compassionately attempts to reunite the young woman with her beau, but his feelings for Marthe soon become less than platonic. Bresson’s previously hard-to-see version of Dostoevsky’s White Nights is told in his inimitable minimalist style, yielding surprisingly romantic and emotional results. Plus, Paris was never more beautifully photographed at night. A recent 4K restoration will be screened.
SAT., 10/3, 8 p.m.
TWO LOVERS
USA| 2008 | 35mm | 110 min.
Director: James Gray
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Gwynneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw
Phoenix delivers a quietly devastating performance as Leonard, a melancholic Brooklyn man torn between the promise of a stable future with the kind-hearted Sandra (Shaw) and his consuming obsession with his enigmatic neighbor Michelle (Paltrow). An American reimagining of Dostoevsky’s White Nights, director Gray (Paper Tiger, We Own the Night) transforms the classic tale of unrequited love into a lived-in, authentic portrait of contemporary New Yorkers yearning for human connection. “A film of unusual perception, played at perfect pitch by Phoenix, Shaw, Paltrow and the other actors…It is calm and mature” (Roger Ebert).
SAT., 10/10, 7 p.m.
WHITE NIGHTS (LE NOTTI BIANCHE)
Italy | 1957 | DCP | 101 min. | Italian with English subtitles
Director: Luchino Visconti
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Maria Schell, Jean Marais
Visconti’s ravishing adaptation of a Dostoevsky story stars Mastroianni and Schell as two lonely souls whose chance meeting on a moonlit canal blossoms into a fragile romance haunted by past loves and melancholy longing. Set within a dreamlike, studio-built city of shadowy streets and shimmering canals, the film transforms a fleeting encounter into an achingly beautiful meditation on love. This new 4K restoration brings the breathtaking black-and-white imagery of Le notti bianche back to the big screen, allowing cinema viewers to discover one of the great masterpieces of postwar Italian cinema.