LACMA Public Programs April 2010

The following listings are program highlights presented by the film,
education, and music departments of the Los Angeles County Museum of
Art (LACMA). Media inquiries for additional information, or for
complete listings, should be directed to 323 857-6522. For general
museum inquiries, call 323 857-6000.

TALKS & COURSES
The Raza's Edge: The Chicano Presence in L.A. Art History
Saturday, April 3 | 1–4 pm
What is Chicano art? Learn the many answers to this question from
the generation of artists who created new work, established art
organizations, advocated for social change, and trained younger
artists. Two panel discussions will feature members from the major
Los Angeles Chicano art groups and centers that formed in the 1970s.
This town hall-style discussion will provide a forum for a necessary
and ongoing debate over the role of art in the Chicano community and
beyond, while looking back at the emergence of Chicano art, its
legacy, and its future directions.
Bing Theater | Free, no reservations

Gallery Discussion: The Art of Looking
Thursday, April 8 | 12:30 pm
Join LACMA educators for one-hour facilitated gallery discussions
focusing on the permanent collection. On April 8, Briley Rasmussen
discusses eighteenth-century European art.
BP Grand Entrance | Free, no reservations

4th Annual Distinguished Lecture on South and Southeast Asian Art
The Painter Farrukh Beg: A Traveler in Mughal India
Thursday, April 8 | 7:30 pm
The Fourth Annual Distinguished Lecture on South and Southeast Asian
Art presents Milo Beach, former director of the Smithsonian’s Freer
and Sackler Galleries. In this lecture Dr. Beach examines the great
painter Farrukh Beg. After emigrating from Iran in the late
sixteenth century, he worked at four different royal courts in
India, changing his manner of painting each time to match the tastes
of a new patron. His most important but least known works were
placed in the Gulshan Album, a volume assembled by the Mughal
emperor Janhangir. Now in the Golestan Library, Tehran, these
illustrations—the focus of this talk— are among the finest surviving
Mughal paintings, and help define the personality of a restless,
uniquely independent master artist.
Brown Auditorium | Free, no reservations

Curatorial Conversation in the Galleries—New Vision: Photography
Between the Wars from the Vernon Collection
Sunday, April 11 | 2 pm
Join Britt Salvesen, curator and head of the Wallis Annenberg
Photography Department and the Department of Prints and Drawings,
and Kimberli Meyer, director, MAK Center for Art and Architecture,
for a conversation in connection with A New Vision: Photography
Between the Wars from the Vernon Collection.
Ahmanson Building, Level 2 | Free, tickets required—available one
hour before the program

Artist-Led Walkthrough—American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life,
1765–1915
Saturday, April 24 | 8 pm
Join contemporary artist Allison Smith for her take on the
exhibition American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915,
which influenced her creation of two limited editions made
exclusively for LACMA: Civil War Soldiers “Cheater Cloth” and “Flame
Stitch” Scarf. Smith’s diverse artistic practice has long engaged
with American history, the role of craft in the construction of
national identity, and the history of trades people and street
peddlers who populate many of the paintings in American Stories.
Art of the Americas Building, Plaza Level | Tickets are $15 and are
available through the LACMA Box Office: (323) 857-6010 | Attendance
is limited. Art Catalogues at LACMA will host a reception for the
artist prior to the tour.
Ahmanson Building, Level 1 | 6:30 pm

Art + Architecture Tour
The Art Museum Council (AMC) of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
(LACMA) presents its 54th annual Art + Architecture Tour on Sunday,
April 25, 2010. One of the AMC’s most popular events, the Art +
Architecture Tour gives museum members access to some of the finest
homes and private art collections in Los Angeles. This year, the
ticketed and docent-guided NEW ALL-SHUTTLE tour will take place from
10 am to 4:30 pm and includes a Special Projects Boutique located at
one of the homes, where attendees may purchase unique works of art
created specially for the tour.
General admission is $175. Tickets will also be sold at higher
levels—Gold ($350), Emerald ($2,500) for two, and Platinum ($5,000)
for up to four. To purchase tickets or for information about the
additional benefits, please call 323 857-6287.

British and Continental Gold and Silver in the Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford
Tuesday, April 27 | 7 pm
Timothy Schroder, consultant curator, Department of Sculpture,
Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass, Victoria & Albert Museum, London,
lectures on British and continental gold and silver in the Ashmolean
Museum. One of the world’s leading authorities on silver (as well as
a former decorative arts curator at LACMA), Schroder has recently
researched and catalogued this outstanding collection in his latest
book. With over 550 objects, many of which are of spectacular
quality and incredible rarity, it is one of the most important
collections of its kind in the world, equaled only by collections of
English silver at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Brown Auditorium | $20 General Admission, $15 LACMA members, free
for Decorative Arts and Design Council members and students with ID
| Tickets: 323 857-6528 or email decartscouncil[at]lacma.org
These lectures were made possible by the Elsie de Wolfe Foundation.

The Director’s Series: Conversations with Michael Govan—Renzo Piano
Thursday, April 29 | 7 pm
Before the newest building for art, the Lynda and Stewart Resnick
Pavilion, opens at LACMA this fall, LACMA Chief Executive Officer
and Wallis Annenberg Director Michael Govan and architect Renzo
Piano will discuss his design of the building—from a glass ceiling
to a flexible floor plan that will house three radically diverse
exhibitions when it opens. The pavilion’s expansive space and
natural light make it a distinctive addition to Piano’s impressive
oeuvre of museum buildings and an exciting addition to LACMA’s
campus.
Bing Theater | Tickets: $10 for LACMA and AIA members; $15 general
admission
The program is part of the LACMA/AIA, LA Masters of Architecture
lecture series.

Conversations with Artists: Moyra Davey
Thursday, April 29 | 7 pm
Join New York-based artist Moyra Davey for a discussion about her
photographic practice and writing.
Brown Auditorium | Free, tickets required—available one hour before
the program

Gallery Conversations: Modern and Contemporary Art
Saturdays & Sundays, April | 1–4 pm
Introducing a new way to experience LACMA! Drop by the modern and
contemporary art galleries for informative and informal
conversations about works of art with Gallery Educators. Please note
this program will not be offered on April 3–4.
BCAM Level 3 and Ahmanson Building Level 2 | Free, no reservations

Docent Slide Talks
Renoir in the 20th Century
Thursday, April 8 & 22 | 2 pm
Sunday, April 11 & 25 | 3 pm
Museum docents present slide talks including the highlights of the
special exhibition Renoir in the 20th Century.
American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915
Thursday, April 1, 15 & 29 | 2 pm
Sunday, April 4 & 18 | 3 pm
Museum docents present slide talks including highlights of the
special exhibition American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life,
1765–1915.
Brown Auditorium | Free, no reservations

MUSIC
Art & Music
LACMA's award-winning concert series celebrates the museum's
exhibitions and permanent collection with the finest musicians from
around the world. The series' debut season (2006–2007) was awarded
first prize by Chamber Music America & ASCAP for Adventurous
Programming of New Music. Art & Music tickets can be purchased
online at lacma.org, at the LACMA box office, or by calling 323-857-
6010.
Art & Music is supported in part by the Estates of James B. and Jane
C. Welton, and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc. In-kind media
support is provided by Classical KUSC FM 91.5.
Eighth blackbird, with vocalist Lucy Shelton

In celebration of the American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life,
1765-1915 exhibition
Wednesday, April 28 | 8 pm
The Grammy Award-winning chamber ensemble returns to LACMA for the Los
Angeles premiere of their fully staged production of Schoenberg's
Pierrot Lunaire. "Choreographer Mark DeChiazza revitalized Pierrot in
an intriguing new staging… successfully returning the prickly speechsong
cycle to its expressionist musical theater roots"
(MusicalAmerica). Opening the concert is the 2009 Pulitzer Prizewinning
work Double Sextet by Steve Reich, commissioned by eighth
blackbird, along with Missy Mazzoli's Still Life with Avalanche.
Bing Theater | $18–25

Jazz at LACMA
Featuring the art of jazz as practiced by leading Southern
California artists, these free concerts are presented in the Los
Angeles Times Central Court every Friday evening from April to
November.
Friday Night Jazz is made possible in part by the Johnny Mercer
Foundation. In-kind support is provided by K-JAZZ 88.1.
Red Holloway Quartet with Gerryck King and the J.O.S. Band
Friday, April 16 | 6 pm

The 2010 Jazz at LACMA season opens with one of Southern California’s
true living legends—and an international superstar—saxophonist Red
Holloway. Highlights from his star-studded career include performances
with Lionel Hampton, Jack McDuff, Billie Holiday, Sonny Rollins, and a
long partnership with Sonny Stitt. “Holloway on tenor sax was in
splendid form, voluptuous in the ballads, agile in bop, and his hard
swinging work on the calypso was one of the festival's peak points.”—
Variety.
LATCC | Free, no reservations

Alan Pasqua Quartet
Friday, April 23 | 6 pm
Pianist and recording artist Alan Pasqua started with the New Tony
Williams Lifetime along with guitarist Allan Holdsworth, and went on
to perform with such diverse musicians as Eddie Money, Bob Dylan,
Santana. Aretha Franklin, Sammy Hagar, Al Jarreau, Queen Latifa, and
Burt Bacharach. In addition to his busy recording and touring
schedule, Pasqua was recently named chairman of the Jazz Studies
Department at USC.
LATCC | Free, no reservations

Jazz at LACMA: John Proulx
Friday, April 30 | 6 pm
The jazz scene is abuzz about young singer/pianist/composer John
Proulx. His piano playing is hot and swinging, and his voice recalls
the smooth, mellow sounds of a young Chet Baker. John's latest CD,
Baker’s Dozen—Remembering Chet Baker, is a tribute to the late
trumpet player and vocalist. "Proulx is front and center,
overflowing with fresh zeal and sparkling energy."—Jazz Times.
LATCC | Free, no reservations

Sundays Live
Sundays at 6 pm, Bing Theater
Sundays Live is an ongoing series and includes free classical music
concerts presented by LACMA in cooperation with Friends of Sundays
Live. These concerts take place in the Bing Theater and feature midcareer
professionals and student virtuosos taking center stage.
Please note: Sundays Live concerts can be heard live via streaming
audio at lacma.org, or by delayed broadcast the following Wednesday
at noon on KCSN, 88.5 FM.

Sunday, April 4 | 6 pm
Jason Yoshida, lute; Suzanna Giordano Gignac,
Baroque violin & viola; Janet Worsley Strauss, Baroque violin;
Leif Woodward, Baroque cello.
Bing Theater | Free, no reservations

Sunday, April 11 | 6 pm
Members of the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra
Amy Hershberger, violin; Elizabeth Hedman, violin; Valerie Malvinni,
viola; Heiichiro Ohyama, viola; Paula Fehrenbach, cello. Gernot
Wolfgang Thin Air and Beethoven String Quintet in C major Op. 29.
Bing Theater | Free, no reservations

Sunday, April 18 | 6 pm
The Capitol Ensemble with guest artist cellist Lynn Harrell
Bing Theater | Free, no reservations

Sunday, April 25 | 6 pm
Emerging Artists
Chamber ensembles from the Colburn School.
Bing Theater | Free, no reservations

FILM
TICKETS & INFORMATION
Film tickets are on sale now and can be purchased in advance at the
museum box office or at www.lacma.org: $7.00 for members, seniors
62+, and students with ID; $10.00 for nonmembers. Tickets to the
second film on a double bill are $5.00 and are available at the box
office the night of the screening. Films are subject to change. Many
films are unrated and may not be appropriate for younger viewers.
To check current programs, call the museum box office at 323 857-
6010 or the film recording at 323 857-6000; or visit
lacma.org. Email film[at]lacma.org to receive the film department’s
weekly e-newsletter.

Weekend Series
The Films of Jean Renoir
Diary of a Chambermaid
Friday, April 2 | 7:30 pm
Célestine, the saucy chambermaid in Octave Mirbeau's sardonic novel,
joins the household of a decadent and eccentric aristocratic family
determined to seduce a wealthy man. But in this theatre of deceit
and delusion, her forthright manner provokes reactions she cannot
control. Working with a group of friends—Paulette Goddard, whom he
admired and envisioned as Célestine, her then-husband Burgess
Meredith, co-author of the screenplay, and Eugene Lurie, his
production designer on The Rules of the Game—Renoir created a
completely artificial French milieu on sets that were "bathed in
that aquarium light so typical of Hollywood" (in the words of André
Bazin) where his cast of masters and servants act out their tragic
farce. “Humiliation festers at the heart of every person in the
film. Ultimately it leads them not into humility but into a desire
to revolt and a desire to dominate others. All relations are based
on a struggle for power, every one of these people want control. The
film is a drama of domination.”—Pierre Leprohon
1946/b&w/91 min. | Scr: Jean Renoir, Burgess Meredith; dir: Jean
Renoir; w/ Paulette Goddard, Burgess Meredith, Hurd Hatfield,
Francis Lederer, Judith Anderson
Bing Theater | $10 general admission. $7 museum members, seniors
(62+), students with valid ID

Elena et les hommes
Friday, April 2 | 9:15 pm
The first act of Renoir’s effervescent romantic comedy is set in the
1880s on Quatorze Juillet, a patriotic holiday complete with
military maneuvers and carnival crowds celebrating in Parisian
streets decked out with colorful banners. A radiant Ingrid Bergman
stars as Eléna, a beautiful but impoverished countess who drives men
of all stations to fits of desperate love. When Eléna elicits the
fascination of a famous general, she finds herself at the center of
romantic machinations and political scheming, with the hearts of
several men—as well as the future of France—in her hands. As Renoir
himself has acknowledged, Eléna with its mise en scène of rooms and
hallways, its madcap pursuits and changes of costume, its character
types and broad strokes mirrors The Rules of the Game. “Thirty years
of on-the-set improvisation have made Renoir the pre-eminent
technician in the world. He does in one shot what others do in ten.
And the others take shots to say things that Renoir can dispense
with entirely…There has never been a freer film than Eléna. In form,
the brilliant audacity of simplicity. To the question, What is
cinema? Eléna replies: More than cinema.”—Jean-Luc Godard.
1956/color/98 min. | Scr/dir: Jean Renoir; w/ Ingrid Bergman, Jean
Marais, Mel Ferrer, Jean Richard, Juliette Gréco.
Bing Theater | $10 general admission. $7 museum members, seniors
(62+), students with valid ID.

Nana
Saturday, April 3 | 7:30 pm | Live musical accompaniment
Nana, the ninth novel in Émile Zola's 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart
series that includes La bete humaine, tells the story of Nana
Coupeau, a streetwalker and music hall performer. Rising to highclass
cocotte, she destroys a string of wealthy lovers—among them
Count Muffat, whose faithfulness earns him humiliation after
humiliation—before dying a horrible death from smallpox. In Renoir's
ambitious adaptation, Nana is played by Catherine Hessling, Renoir's
wife and a former painter's model for Auguste, and Werner Krauss of
Caligari fame plays the count. The film cost a million dollars to
make and was a commercial failure due mainly (according to Renoir)
to the public's inability to accept Hessling's extreme performance:
"She was not a woman at all but a marionette... I restricted
Catherine's makeup to a thick white base; her eyes and mouth were
completely black. She became a kind of puppet—a puppet of genius."
François Truffaut writes, “There are various characteristic themes
here: the love of spectacle, the woman who chooses the wrong
vocation, the actress trying to find herself, the lover who dies of
his sincerity, the showman. It is the first of Renoir's films in
which acting took precedence over the story and the plastic
elements. It was made under the influence of Foolish Wives which
explains why Nana is one of only two Renoir films in which money
plays an important role" -
1926/b&w/150 min. | Scr: Pierre Lestringuez; dir: Jean Renoir; w/
Catherine Hessling, Jean Angelo, Werner Krauss, Claude Autant-Lara
Bing Theater | $10 general admission. $7 museum members, seniors
(62+), students with valid ID.

Boudu Saved from Drowning
Friday, April 9 | 7:30 pm
Michel Simon gives one of the most memorable performances in screen
history as Boudu, a Parisian tramp who takes a suicidal plunge into
the Seine and is rescued by a well-to-do bookseller, Edouard
Lestingois (Charles Granval). The Lestingois family decides to take
in the irrepressible bum, and he shows his gratitude by shaking the
household to its foundations. With Boudu Saved from Drowning, Renoir
takes advantage of a host of Parisian locations and the anarchic
charms of his lead actor to create an effervescent satire of the
bourgeoisie. ”Boudu is a simple shaggy-man story told in an open way
and it is the openness to the beauty of landscape and weather and to
the variety of human folly that is Renoir's artistry. He lets a
movie breathe... Renoir went out of the studio and so Boudu provides
a photographic record of an earlier France that moved to a different
rhythm, and because of the photographic equipment, is seen in a
softly different light. The shop fronts look like Atget; the houses
might have modeled for Bonnard."—Pauline Kael
1932/b&w/85 min. | Scr/dir: Jean Renoir; w/ Michel Simon, Marcelle
Hainia, Charles Granval.
Bing Theater | $10 general admission. $7 museum members, seniors
(62+), students with valid ID.

The Testament of Doctor Cordelier
Friday, April 9 | 9:10 pm
Renoir’s free adaptation of the Jekyll and Hyde story was made for
French television on a small budget, and is distinguished by its icy
black and white images and its lucid abstract style. “Dr. Cordelier,
an eminent psychiatrist, seeks to prove the existence of the soul by
causing it to materialize. Experimenting on himself he creates the
alter ego of Opale who is bestial, cruel and destructive… The
interest and novelty of this version lie in Renoir’s masterful use
of Jean-Louis Barrault (Children of Paradise) who was chosen for the
contrasting qualities of his dry, classical acting and his light,
nimble, ethereal miming. Thus the change in the character is the
result of a complete physical transformation. Barrault’s abilities
give Renoir a wide latitude in expressing the intellectual thrust
that informs his film.”—Jean Douchet
1961/b&w/95 min. | Scr/dir: Jean Renoir; w/ Jean-Louis Barrault,
Teddy Billis, Michel Vitold.
Bing Theater | $10 general admission. $7 museum members, seniors
(62+), students with valid ID.

A Day in the Country
Saturday, April 10 | 7:30 pm
On a Sunday in 1880, a Parisian businessman takes his wife, his
daughter, and the daughter's fiancé to the countryside for a picnic
on the banks of the Seine where two passing oarsmen stop and flirt
with the mother and daughter; when their men go fishing, the two
women accept the offer of a boat ride, and their afternoon on the
river becomes a interlude they will always remember. Adapted from a
story by de Maupassant. Renoir's film was shot near the town of
Marlotte where Cezanne lived, and captures like no other film the
landscape, fashions, and atmosphere of Impressionist painting. "The
love scene on the island is one of the most beautiful in all of
cinema. It owes its effectiveness to a couple of gestures and a look
from Sylvie Bataille that have a wrenching emotional realism. In the
space of a few frames she expresses all the disenchantment, the
pathetic sadness that follows the act of love... Renoir manages to
transcribe this feeling visually by use of the superb storm
sequence."—André Bazin
1936/b&w/40 min. | Scr/dir: Jean Renoir; w/ Sylvia Bataille, Georges
D'Arnoux, Jeanne Marken, Jean Renoir.
Bing Theater | $10 general admission. $7 museum members, seniors
(62+), students with valid ID.

The Rules of the Game
Saturday, April 10 | 8:20 pm
Buoyed by the success of Grand Illusion and La bête humaine, Renoir
formed his own production company to make a film constructed around
a group, in his words, “to depict a class… to show a rich, complex
society where, to use an historic phrase, we are dancing on a
volcano.” In conceiving a film about the dangers facing contemporary
European society, he cloaked his criticism in “the form of
eighteenth century French comedy”, allowing him to populate his
scenario with masters and servants, scheming aristocrats, saucy
maids, and cuckolded husbands, all of whom are caught up in a
intricate plot driven by gossip, jealousy, and mistaken identity.
Into this game, set in a chateau owned by the Marquis de la Chesnaye
where his sophisticated guests have assembled for a weekend of
hunting and parties, comes an outsider who does not respect the
rules and in so doing brings the comedy to a tragic conclusion.
Using deep focus photography that captures both background and
foreground action, and long takes that allow the camera to follow
the narrative from room to room, Renoir moves invisibly among the
characters whose romantic intrigues, social rivalries, and human
foibles are observed by an unblinking eye that refuses to judge. In
viewing this multi-layered masterpiece today, one is struck by the
film’s audacious blend of farce and realism, the lightness in
Renoir’s touch, the deftness and speed of the storytelling, the
tour de force editing of the hunting sequence, the brilliance of the
acting, the wit of the dialogue, the individuality of the characters
and the timelessness of their concerns. As a work of art it is both
modern and classic; it is a film about history and it became part of
history. To add to the complexity, Renoir cast himself as the
character Octave who, like his off-screen counterpart, "directs" the
onscreen action. Though far from omnipotent or faultless, he
connects with all the major characters in the film—he's the only
character comfortable hanging out with the servants—and very often
"guides" them with his enthusiasm or advice. Octave is the movie's
glue.
1939/b&w/110 min. | Scr: Jean Renoir, Carl Koch; dir: Jean Renoir;
w/ Nora Gregor, Marcel Dalio, Jean Renoir, Paulette Dubost, Gaston
Modot.
Bing Theater | $10 general admission. $7 museum members, seniors
(62+), students with valid ID.

Weekend Series
Underground Films & Termite Art: A Tribute to Manny Farber
LACMA pays tribute to painter, carpenter, professor, and critic Manny
Farber (1917–2008) with a film series honoring his eclectic, all-inclusive
taste. From his start in the ‘40s at The New Republic and The Nation onto
a short stint in Time replacing James Agee and columns in magazines
ranging from men’s monthly Cavalier to Artforum, Farber wrote on film with
unprecedented verve. His cinematic interests ranged from the unpretentious
pictures of “male action” directors like Raoul Walsh, Howard Hawks,
Anthony Mann, and William Wellman (singled out by Farber long before they
became fodder for auteur theories in Paris and London) to North American
experimental film (Warhol, Snow), European art cinema (Jean-Luc Godard,
Marguerite Duras, Werner Herzog) and all sorts of ephemera in between.
With his complete, published film writings finally available in an
impressive Library of America volume and this five-night, six-decadespanning
retrospective, Manny Farber is out from the underground.
We would like to thank Kent Jones and Robert Polito for their guidance and
support; in addition to the following institutions for the loan of rare
prints: the UCLA Film and Television Archive, the French Film and TV
Office, Los Angeles, and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.
All quotes from Manny Farber.

Me and My Gal
Friday, April 16 | 7:30 pm
Prolific, one-eyed auteur Raoul Walsh’s best film, per Farber, stars
Spencer Tracy (“buoyant…combining outrageous swagger with a self-mocking
he enjoys to the hilt”) as a harbor cop who falls for Joan Bennett’s
chowder house waitress (“a Harlow-ish sass machine” and “a slinky, don’t
push me around toughie”). The pair gets mixed up with a mobster, a
paralyzed vet who blinks in Morse-code and an imminent bank robbery. “A
portrait of a neighborhood, the feeling of human bonds in a guileless
community, a lyrical approximation of Lower East Side and its uneducated,
spirited stevedore-clerk-shopkeeper cast. There is psychological rightness
in the scale relationships of actors to locale, and this, coupled with
liberated acting, make an exhilarating poetry about a brash-cockyexuberant
provincial. Walsh, in this lunatically original, festive dance,
is nothing less than a poet of the American immigrant.”—Manny Farber.
1932/b&w/80 min. | Scr: Arthur Kober; dir: Raoul Walsh; w/ Spencer Tracy,
Joan Bennett, Marion Burns.
Preceded by: A Hound for Trouble 1951/color/7 min. | Dir: Chuck
Jones | In this animated short, “earnest, herky-jerky” Charlie Dog
stows away to Pisa

Band of Outsiders
Friday, April 16 | 9:10 pm
In 1968, Farber inventoried Jean-Luc Godard’s features to that point and
described each of them as if it were a different animal species in a zoo:
Band of Outsiders was a “whooping crane.” (In comparison, A Woman is a
Woman was a “pink parakeet” and Contempt a “diamond-black snake”). A pair
of young rapscallions enlists Anna Karina to help them commit a robbery––
in her own home. But not before traipsing about wintry Paris with a highspeed
dash through the Louvre and spastically dancing the Madison in a
cafe. “A parody of a sex triangle, its people not real, but more like
fleas…crammed with ricochet movements.”—Manny Farber.
1964/b&w/93 min. | Scr/dir: Jean-Luc Godard; w/ Anna Karina, Claude
Brasseur, Sami Frey

Wavelength
Saturday, April 17 | 5 pm
Farber heralded Michael Snow’s single-take milestone—an uninterrupted
diagonal zoom across a room, “probably the most rigorously composed movie
in existence”— as “The Birth of a Nation of Underground films.” In his
UCSD exams, he even asked his students to draw the space depicted in the
film, “The way it looks from the camera’s original setting; include (and
label for clarity) all the important objects.” Also screening: George
Kuchar’s first color film, the “ribald, inexplicable” camp classic Hold Me
While I’m Naked; D.W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat, which juxtaposes a
tycoon’s lavish lifestyle and the hardship of the lower classes, in a
precursor to Sergei Eisenstein’s epic montages; and a documentary of 1940s
street life in Spanish Harlem as seen through the lens of Helen Levitt and
James Agee, “a somber study of the American figure, from childhood to old
age... The chief sensation is of people zestfully involved in making
themselves ugly and surrealistic, as though everything Goya’s lithographs
indicated about the human race had come true.”
1966–1967/color/45 min./16mm | Dir: Michael Snow
Preceded by: Hold me while I’m Naked 1966/color/15 min./16mm | Dir: George
Kuchar; A Corner in Wheat 1909/b&w/16 min./16mm | Dir: D.W. Griffith; In
the Street 1948/b&w/16 min./16mm | Dir: James Agee, Helen Levitt, Janice
Loeb
Free admission

A Tribute to Manny Farber
Saturday, April 17 | 7:30 pm
An onstage conversation about Farber’s life and work with his colleagues
and collaborators. Confirmed participants include Farber’s widow, the
painter and writer Patricia Patterson; filmmaker and UCSD professor Jean-
Pierre Gorin; writer and World Film Foundation executive director Kent
Jones; and Robert Polito, editor of The Complete Film Writings of Manny
Farber and director of the New School’s creative writing program.

Routine Pleasures
Saturday, April 17 | 9 pm
Dedicated to Chuck Jones and Gustave Flaubert, Gorin’s essay film is also
a fitting tribute to Farber. Intercutting between the activities of a
group of model-train hobbyists burrowed in a Del Mar hangar and Farber at
work on his still-life canvases, Gorin’s film explores imaginary
landscapes, ideas of scale, work methods, Howard Hawks and the impact of
childhood. Though he largely stopped publishing in the late 70s, Farber
penned a short tribute to Gorin and his “investigations of anonymity in
innocuous places” for the 2004 Vienalle: “he’s something, with crescendos
of wild, inventive wit… an uncompromising critical predator, he will
circle his subject until he nails it.”
1986/color/81 min./digital | Scr: Jean-Pierre Gorin, Patrick Amos; dir:
Jean-Pierre Gorin.
Introduction by Jean-Pierre Gorin

Christmas in July
Friday, April 23 | 7:30 pm
When lowly clerk Dick Powell submits a jingle to the Maxford Coffee
Contest—"If you can't sleep at night, it's not the coffee, it's the bunk”—
he winds up the subject of a practical joke that sends him on a dizzying
rollercoaster of fame, fortune and reckless spending. With its ensemble of
oddball characters and wisecracking script, Preston Sturges’s succinct and
inventive second feature is a madcap send-up of American materialism. The
writer/director was a Farber favorite: “The most spectacular manipulator
of sheer humor since Mark Twain… a very modern artist or entertainer,
difficult to classify because of the intense effort he made to keep his
work outside conventional categories. The high-muzzle velocity of his
films is due to the anarchic energy generated as they constantly shake
themselves free of attitudes that threaten to slow them down.”
1940/b&w/67 min. | Scr/dir: Preston Sturges; w/ Dick Powell, Ellen Drew,
Raymond Walburn, Alexander Carr, William Demarest

The Exterminating Angel
Friday, April 23 | 8:45 pm
A group of high-society friends are invited to a mansion for dinner.
But after the meal is finished, the servants mysteriously disappear,
a planned performance involving sheep and a trained bear cancelled,
and the assembled guests find themselves unable to leave. As the
hours and days pass, the idle rich enter survival mode as anarchy
slowly starts to creep in. Luis Buñuel’s spellbinding takedown of
the mores and dependencies of the frivolous upper classes, elegantly
shot by Gabriel Figueroa, is a pageant of deadpan absurdities and
sharply mordant imagery. Farber described the Spanish surrealist’s
films as “One snare after another, so that people get wrapped around
themselves in claustrophobic whirlpool patterns…a Buñuel movie has a
heady, haunting effect, like an exquisitely enjoyed meal, the
weather of a foreign country, something private and inexpressible: a
favorite pornographic book.”

India Song
Saturday, April 24 | 5 pm
Farber characterized the work of novelist-turned-filmmaker Marguerite
Duras as “cryptic movies of beautiful people trapped in rituals.” India
Song is literally just that. Ambassador’s wife Delphine Seyrig whiles away
Calcutta’s summer monsoon in a mesmerizing ballroom dance with various
suitors that defies space and time. Steering away from direct sound in
favor of a ravishing sonic mosaic, this avant-garde period film screened
continuously in Paris for nearly four years. “One wonders about the
importance of elegantly held cigarettes, a Venetian-red gown which is
possibly held in place by adhesive tape, and the over-dosage of a Thirties
fox-trot, ‘Blue Skies,’ re-phased and played 300 choruses.” —Manny Farber.
1975/color/120 min. | Scr/dir: Marguerite Duras; w/ Delphine Seyrig,
Michel Lonsdale, Mathieu Carriere
Free admission

Scarface
Saturday, April 24 | 7:30 pm
Another of Farber’s exemplary male action directors, Howard Hawks is
at his darkest in this gangster masterpiece. Paul Muni plays the
title character, a maniacal thug who tommy-guns his way to the top
of Chicago’s criminal underworld. Reveling in the brutal fun of
Muni’s psychopathic rampages while lingering slyly on his
domineering relationship with Ann Dvorak, his fast-talking little
sister and possibly the prototype for the tough, prickly-tongued
women in the director’s subsequent films, Scarface is exemplary of
pre-Code cynicism. “A passionate, strong, archaic photographic
miracle…a damp black neighbor to the black art in Walker Evans’s
subway shots or the Highway 90 photographic shot at dawn by Robert
Frank.”—Manny Farber.
1932/b&w/99 min. | Scr: Ben Hecht; dir: Howard Hawks; w/ Paul Muni,
Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley

The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser (aka Every Man for Himself and God Against
All)
Saturday, April 24 | 9:15 pm
Werner Herzog’s award-winning 1974 film recasts the enigmatic true story
of a man who turns up in nineteenth-century Nuremberg claiming to have
been raised in solitary confinement. Portrayed here by a real-life
schizophrenic with “the clarity and stark innocence of a Rousseau
portrait,” Kaspar Hauser is incapable of speech, reason or even memory.
With literally no concept of society, this full-grown wild child, perhaps
of aristocratic descent, soon grows terrified of so-called civilization.
In 1977 Farber published his final film article. That same year, he
submitted an application for a Guggenheim Fellowship to fund Munich Films,
1967–1977: Ten Years that Shook the Film World. Farber received the grant
and set to work on researching this book which would cover a new
generation of filmmakers “whose particular concern is the weave of
formalist inventions with political dimensions.” Though Farber’s book was
neither finished nor published, he spent the years leading up to it
covering this “German phenomenon.” For him, Herzog stood out as “a selfpropelled
artist who’ll never give up” and “a filmmaker still on the
prowl, making an exploratory work each time out.”
1974/color/110 min. | Scr/dir: Werner Herzog; w/ Bruno S., Walter
Ladengast, Brigitte Mira

Voyage to Italy
Friday, April 30 | 7:30 pm
Long-wedded British couple Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders embark on a
trip to Naples on family business. But as Mediterranean sensuality clashes
with English stringency somewhere between the lava fields of Vesuvius and
the catacombs of Fontanelle, the disintegration of the marriage suddenly
becomes evident. A massive influence on the soon-to-be-filmmakers at
Cahiers du cinema, it ranked as the third best film of all time, behind
F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise and Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game, in a 1958
poll of French critics. Under the surface of its minimal plot,
Rossellini’s film amasses subtle details and small moments towards one of
cinema’s most enigmatically poignant conclusions. Though Farber never
published anything on it, Rossellini’s film was a source of inspiration
for at least one of his paintings and it was often screened in his UCSD
classes. And Farber’s summation of Rossellini’s films—“his people are
always sent out to face uncontrollable crowds, unpredictable weather, or
unconquerable terrain”—easily applies to this 1953 masterwork.
1953/b&w/97 min. | Scr: Vitaliano Brancati, Roberto Rossellini; w/ Ingrid
Bergman, George Sanders

On Dangerous Ground
Friday, April 30 | 9:15 pm
Robert Ryan plays an embittered big city detective sent upstate in pursuit
of a murderer. In the midst of the snowbound open country, he falls for
Ida Lupino, the killer’s blind sister. With its sonorous Bernard Hermann
score, whose motives reappear in 1958’s North by Northwest, Nicholas Ray’s
underrated film shifts from hard-edged noir to a lyrical melodrama. Farber
describes the film as “a treadmill of stumbling, fumbling, smooching,
hurtling movement… [a] fascinating jumble of action that results when two
awkward, determined characters try to outclaw each other at the job of
detecting.”
1952/b&w/82 min. | Scr: A. I. Bezzerides; dir: Nicholas Ray; w/ Ida
Lupino, Robert Ryan, Ward Bond

Tuesday Matinees
Every Tuesday at 1 pm, LACMA presents a classic film from the Warner
Bros./Turner Entertainment Company’s library. Admission: $2; $1,
seniors (62+).

Father of the Bride
Tuesday, April 6 | 1 pm
A doting father faces mountains of bills and endless trials when his
daughter marries.
1950/b&w/93 min. | Scr: Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett; dir:
Vincente Minnelli; w/ Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, Elizabeth Taylor.
Bing Theater | $2 general admission; $1 seniors 62+

Athena
Tuesday, April 13 | 1 pm
A society lawyer falls in love with the daughter of a family of
fitness fanatics.
1954/color/97 min. | Scr: William Ludwig, Leonard Spigelgass; dir:
Richard Thorpe; w/ Jane Powell, Debbie Reynolds, Virginia Gibson.
Bing Theater | $2 general admission; $1 seniors 62+

Passage to Marseille
Tuesday, April 20 | 1 pm
Devil's Island escapees join up with the Allies during World War II.
1944/b&w/110 min. | Scr: Casey Robinson, Jack Moffitt; dir: Michael
Curtiz; w/ Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Michèle Morgan, Philip
Dorn, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre.
Bing Theater | $2 general admission; $1 seniors 62+

A Patch of Blue
Tuesday, April 27 | 1 pm
A blind white girl falls in love with a black man.
1965/color/105 min./Panavision | Scr/dir: Guy Green; w/ Sidney
Poitier, Shelley Winters, Elizabeth Hartman.
Bing Theater | $2 general admission; $1 seniors 62+

FAMILY PROGRAMS
Andell Family Sundays
12:30–3:30 pm | Free
Join us on Sundays for programs designed especially for families.
Make art, explore the museum, or join a bilingual gallery tour. Most
of all—have fun!

Family Stories
April 11, 18 and 25
Sometimes art reveals a story! Look at art in LACMA's collection
that tell unique family stories and tell your own family story in
art workshops with Ismael DeAnda, Patricia Yossen, and Quan Yen
Trang.
Teens: Come to Andell Family Sundays in April for tours and
art activities designed by LACMA's High School Interns just for you!

MULTIMEDIA TOUR
Pathways to Art
LACMA has created a dynamic multimedia visitor tour offering a
wealth of audio, video, still images, and text to enrich your
knowledge of artworks from the museum's collection. Pathways to
Art is available now via personal digital assistants (PDAs)—with
full-color screens and simple controls—that can be checked out free
of charge from the museum's welcome centers.
Available for checkout at the BP Grand Entrance Welcome Centers with
valid ID | Free | Available in English, Spanish, and Korean

Education programs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art are supported in part by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and the William Randolph Hearst Endowment Fund for Arts Education.

Arts for NexGen is supported in part by the Employees Community Fund of Boeing California. Additional support is provided by Shirley & Burt Harris Family Foundation and the Louis and Harold Price Foundation.

Andell Family Sundays is supported by Andrew and Ellen Hauptman and the
Hauptman Family Foundation. Outreach and transportation for Andell Family
Sundays are supported by Tally and Bill Mingst.

The 2009–2010 film program is made possible by the generosity of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Time Warner Cable in partnership with Ovation TV.

About LACMA
Since its inception in 1965, LACMA has been devoted to collecting works of art
that span both history and geography—and represent Los Angeles’ uniquely
diverse population. Today, the museum features particularly strong collections of Asian, Latin American, European, and American art, as well as a new contemporary museum on its campus, BCAM. With this expanded space for contemporary art, innovative collaborations with artists, and an ongoing
transformation project, LACMA is creating a truly modern lens through which to view its rich encyclopedic collection.

General Information: LACMA is located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90036. For more information about LACMA and its programming, call 323 857-
6000 or visit lacma.org.

Museum Hours and Admission: Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, 12–8 pm; Friday, 12–
9 pm; Saturday and Sunday, 11 am–8 pm; closed Wednesday. Adults $12; students
18+ with ID and senior citizens 62+ $8; children 17 and under are admitted
free. Admission (except to specially ticketed exhibitions) is free the second
Tuesday of every month and on Target Free Holiday Mondays. Every evening after 5 pm, “Pay What You Wish.”

All information contained herein provided by LACMA.