The current pandemic has curtailed many plans for films to be screened in our theatres. Cinema Reborn has been pondering just how it might present restored cinema classics during these times. Streaming films online largely because the whole impetus is to show restorations on theatre screens.
An initial solution to the problem is to work with the management of the Randwick Ritz to present a series of six digitally restored films by the French master Jean-Pierre Melville (pictured above). Melville’s work is well-known to cinephiles everywhere but in recent years a number of his greatest films have all been restored to the highest visual and audio standard via funding from the French CNC, the government authority charged with managing all elements of the film industry.
The series starts on Sunday October 4. All screenings commence at 4.00 pm. The schedule of screenings is as follows:
Sunday October 4 - Red Circle (1970)
Sunday October 11 - Bob Le Flambeur (1956)
Sunday October 18 - Le Doulos (1962)
Sunday October 25 - Leon Morin, Priest (1961)
Sunday November 1 - Army of Shadows (1969)
Sunday November 8 - Un Flic (1972)
More details on the films, some links to website essays and the names of the critics and film-makers who will be introducing each of the films will shortly be released.
In the meantime here is a little background about Melville and the remarkable cinema he created during his too short life.
Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-73) made a total of 13 features during his 25-year career. His “sensibility” can be traced through such formative influences as existentialism, surrealism, classic American gangster films, poetic realism and the America author Herman Melville (from whom he took his name).
In recent years a number of Melville’s greatest films have been digitally remastered and re-presented in the Classic Restorations sections of the major European and American film festivals. This work has recently been crowned by the magnificent restoration of one of his greatest films Red Circle (Le Cercle Rouge) which screened this month at the Venice Film Festival.
The Ritz’selection of six stunning restorations of Jean-Pierre Melville’s intensely unique cinema covers early work that influenced the French New Wave, two films which recall Melville’s own brave role as a combatant in the French Resistance during WW2 and key late career works devoted to the crime genre with French icons Alain Delon, Lino Ventura and Catherine Deneuve - films which influenced future generations of filmgoers including Quentin Tarantino, John Woo and Michael Mann.
For bookings you can head straight to the Ritz website If You Click Here
Allocated seating will apply and may be limited.
The Ritz’s Covid-19 protocols are set out on its website and provide for spaced seating (family members may sit together) and payment by card only. Concession parking is available next to the cinema. For full details of the Ritz Covid-Safe protocols Click Here
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