2014 Chicago
Film Festival
The 50th Chicago Film festival is stocked with former prize
winning films, where one in particular will be catching my attention, the first
Jan Troell feature Here's Your Life (1967), a three-hour
epic work that won the Gold Hugo for Best Film and Best Director in 1967,
before being released the following year in a truncated version that cut an
entire hour out of the film.
The others are easier to find, George Cukor's A Star
Is Born (1954), Milos Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
(1975), Bergman's Fanny and Alexander, 3-hour version (1983),
Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), von Trier's Breaking
the Waves (1996), Haneke's The Piano Teacher (2001), Claire Denis
White
Material (2009) - - stuff like that.
But these oldies but goodies are taking up much of the space
of new films, so there may be fewer new films this year.
The Festival is showing the Oscar nominated Foreign Films
from 10 countries, http://www.thewrap.com/50-countries-enter-oscar-foreign-language-race-the-complete-list-so-far/,
while they will also screen the Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the Dardennes,
Olivier Assayas, and Sissako films from Cannes,
all regular priced, also the new Fred Wiseman.
The biggest conflict is Sunday the 19th, as all playing at
the same times are the one-time only screening of Fred Wiseman's National
Gallery, the one-time only screening of a Chuck Workman documentary on
Orson Welles, Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles,
and the one-time only screening of an already rarely screened Colleen Moore
silent film, Why Be Good? (1929) - - a real faux pas in the
scheduling, as any one of this trio could easily be among the best films
screened at the fest.
While other festivals garner more acclaim by premiering more
highly touted, festival seasoned films, nonetheless, we get excited about it
every year as you never really know what to expect, as there can always be
surprises that come out of nowhere that can take your breath away.
Here's hoping.
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