Author: Robert Hughes

We’re closer to nuclear destruction than ever. ‘Two Minutes to Midnight: Nuclear Cinema’ is a free cinema program that brings together a collection of nuclear-themed films to explore how filmmakers have responded to one of the greatest scientific and moral quandaries of the last century.

The program offers a collection of films that act as timely and timeless reminders of the enormous power that comes from humanity’s harnessing of nuclear energy. It opens Friday 2 March 2018 with a double feature of Barefoot Gen 1983 (6.00pm) and Shin Godzilla 2016 (7.45pm), then at 2.00pm on Saturday join author and academic Mick Broderick for an illustrated talk on the history and development of nuclear cinema followed with a screening of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb 1964 (3.30pm). The film program closes on Sunday 18 March with When the Wind Blows 1986 and The Land of Hope 2012. Visit ‘Two Minutes to Midnight: Nuclear Cinema’ for all screenings.

Interesting facts: Dr Strangelove

Barefoot Gen

Shin Godzilla

Nuclear Cinema

Shortly after the unprecedented atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Second World War, filmmakers began to play out nuclear scenarios in their works – crafting tales of survival in destroyed worlds and using the new Atomic Age to inform the language of science fiction. In America, the heightening of the Cold War gave rise to a greater number of paranoid thrillers that played out scenarios of deadly human error, cover-ups, and bumbling bureaucracy. Grim depictions of ‘what if’ scenarios emerged with increasing verisimilitude, acting as defiant rebukes to warmongering states and complicit publics by showcasing the destructive capabilities of nuclear weaponry.

The end of the Cold War appeared to lend some reprieve to such concerns, with a sharp drop off in major nuclear themed films in the 1990s, however the continuing build-up of global stockpiles, along with a slowly growing list of nuclear armed states and major catastrophes such as the 2011 Fukushima disaster, have brought the issue back to the fore.

And now, as of February 2018, the symbolic Doomsday Clock which represents the end of human civilisation has been returned to two minutes to midnight – the closest it has been to midnight since 1953. When the clock was created in 1947, it was set seven minutes to midnight.

The films in this program encompasses multiple genres and styles – from heart-wrenching anime (Barefoot Gen 1983), to uncompromising portraits of desolated cities (Threads  1984), to the strange and libidinous sci-fi of Ralph Bakshi (Wizards 1977). Both The Atomic Café 1982 and The Bomb 2016 utilise only pre-existing footage – newsreels, propaganda shorts, test footage, instructional videos – to offer incisive commentary through their mesmerising collage forms.

More locally, the Australian film Ground Zero 1987 dives into the long-hidden history of the British nuclear testing that took place in South Australia’s Maralinga, while the location shooting of On the Beach 1959 offers a glimpse of Melbourne in the late 1950s.

Several of these films will be screening from stunning new digital restorations, including Hiroshima Mon Amour 1959, Dr. Strangelove 1964, and Threads 1984. There will also be rare 35mm screenings of a number of other key titles, including imported prints of Akira Kurosawa’s I Live in Fear 1955, the classic Soviet dystopia Letters from a Dead Man 1986, and Shohei Imamura’s sobering Black Rain 1989.

talk: We’ll Meet Again – Dr. Strangelove and the Nuclear Film Genre

Robert Hughes is Curatorial Assistant, Australian Cinémathèque, QAGOMA
Feature image detail: Production still from Shin Godzilla 2016

Nearly all of the films being screened during ‘Gothic, Giallo, Gore: Masters of Italian Horror’ have arrived on 35mm prints shipped over from Italy and America. To present this collection of cult horror classics The Australian Cinémathèque, GOMA reached out to national archives, private collections, and key individuals across the globe in order to more fulsomely share these lurid thriller and gruesome gorefests with our audience.

As the last cinema in Queensland to have a permanent 35mm projector set-up, we endeavour to screen films from 35mm prints where possible to best present titles as per the filmmakers’ original intentions. Some of the films in this program are no longer available on print, with only the original camera negative surviving to provide material to create further digital copies and restorations. Others have never received proper digital conversion, so no Digital Cinema Package (DCP) can be sourced for screening.

Each of the three filmmakers highlighted in this program – Dario Argento, Mario Bava, and Lucio Fulci – ended up requiring some special manoeuvring in order to obtain the very rare materials that are available internationally.

Dario Argento

For Dario Argento, the most prized screening material sourced for the program is Argento’s personal print of his giallo masterpiece Opera 1987. This print is one of the few prints (perhaps the only copy) of the director’s cut left in the world. It required direct and personal approval from Argento himself, who gave personal permission for it to be screened at GOMA. The 20^th Century Fox archive have also been very kind and have found a rare print copy of the director’s Inferno 1980 in their archives, which they are shipping to us from California.

Mario Bava

For the films of Mario Bava, we worked directly with Mario Bava’s long-time producer Alfredo Leone to supply beautiful Italian Technicolor prints of six of the seven Bava titles included in the program. The final Bava film, Blood and Black Lace 1964, is extremely hard to find on 35mm and is coming from a private collection in America. The print actually no longer has the last few seconds of the film still attached to the reels, so we will be screening the missing footage from a digital copy once the print runs out of frames to make sure this key classic is seen in its entirety.

Lucio Fulci

And finally, for Lucio Fulci, we have managed to secure an uncompressed digital version of the luscious restoration of Fulci’s psychedelic giallo masterwork A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin 1971. This digital restoration was sourced by the generous work of the rights holder First Line Films and the producer of the BluRay release of the film Mondo Macabro. It is an extremely rare presentation of the film and we are very excited to be able to share it. A copy of Fulci’s Don’t Torture a Duckling 1972 has arrived from La Cineteca Nazionale in Rome without subtitles, so we will be live-subtitling that screening with the help of our wonderful Italian translator.

Robert Hughes is Curatorial Assistant, Australian Cinémathèque, QAGOMA

Dip into our Cinema blogs / View the ongoing Australian Cinémathèque program

QAGOMA’s Australian Cinémathèque presents curated programs, genre showcases and director retrospectives covering the world of film from crowd-pleasing fan favourites and cult classics to hard-to-find international cinema, rare 35mm prints and silent films with live musical accompaniment on the Gallery’s Wurlitzer organ originally installed in Brisbane’s Regent Theatre in November 1929.

Featured image detail: Production still from Inferno 1980

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Ingmar Bergman is one of the true luminaries of post-war European cinema. In a career lasting more than half a century, he crafted films with a passion and potency matched by few other directors. His films are known for their explication of deep religious concerns, their heartfelt understanding of the intricacies of human relationships, and for their arrestingly beautiful imagery.

‘Through a Glass, Darkly: The Films of Ingmar Bergman’ is a free cinema program running from Wednesday 1 March to Sunday 19 March 2017. It explores a selection of Bergman’s key directorial works, illustrating the development and breadth of his oeuvre. These films are presented alongside a special, ticketed screening of Victor Sjöström’s The Phantom Carriage 1921, the single greatest influence on Bergman’s cinematic output, on Friday 3 March at 8.00pm.

Outside of Bergman’s work, the program also includes a screening of Trespassing Bergman 2013 on Wednesday 1 March at 6.00pm, a terrifically entertaining documentary which features a veritable galaxy of stars discussing the enduring legacy of Bergman’s films, while documenting their visits to his home on the Swedish island of Fårö. Also featured is a rare presentation of Bille August’s The Best Intentions 1992 on Sunday 12 March at 1.30pm. The Palme d’Or winning film was written by Bergman himself and acts as a study of the early years in the relationship between his parents. The Best Intentions was filmed by August after Bergman had announced his retirement (from which he would later return for Saraband 2003, screening on Saturday 18 March at 3.00pm), but is no mere imitation of the great director – it exists as its own exemplary achievement of grand familial drama.

After an initially inauspicious start in the Swedish film industry, Bergman found critical acclaim and burgeoning attention from audiences with films such as the erotically charged Summer with Monika 1953 (Saturday 4 March 1.00pm). Subsequently, the grand triumph of Smiles of a Summer Night 1955 (Saturday 4 March 3.00pm) further cemented his international reputation as a director of note. He followed up this success with the release of two films, The Seventh Seal 1957 (Friday 3 March 6.00pm and Wednesday 15 March 7.45pm) and Wild Strawberries 1957 (Wednesday 15 March 6.00pm and Sunday 19 March 11.00am), that would establish the thematic path he would follow for much of the rest of his career.

From this point onwards, Bergman focused intently on writing and directing films that dealt honestly (sometimes painfully so) with the ideas that so preoccupied his thoughts: God and faith, aging and mortality, the relationships between men and women, filial love, and the wandering escape of childhood.

However, Bergman was not a mere pedagogue and his cinematic talents were great. He could mix the harshness of realism with the logic of dreams; he could enrich surrealism with brutal sincerity. Along with his cinematographers (in particular his long-term collaborator Sven Nykvist), he produced some of the iconic images of cinema: from the two faces blending together in Persona 1966 to the knight and Death playing chess on the beach in The Seventh Seal.

His recurring repertory of actors – including Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Thulin, among others – gave life to his words with consistently powerful and moving performances. They inhabited Bergman’s characters, understanding the critical subtleties needed to render complex portraits of life. Their success was rewarded with accolades from around the world, along with four Academy Awards for Bergman as director.

This program will draw out the themes that recurred over the course of his career and explore the cinematic sphere of the great filmmaker – his work, his influences, and his continuing legacy.

LIVE MUSIC & FILM: THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE
8.00pm Fri 3 March 2017 | GOMA Cinema A

Join us on Friday 3 March 2017 for a screening of Victor Sjöström’s The Phantom Carriage 1921, featuring live musical accompaniment from Brisbane band Blank Realm. The film will be screened from an archival 35mm film print, courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra.