As winter arrives and the desire to retreat to a warm, cozy space grows, movie theaters beckon. A dark room with flickering lights and an immersive story is the perfect spot for an escape. While current studios will tempt you to revisit loud and overwhelming big tent spectacles like “Wicked” and “Mufasa,” the Speed Cinema (2035 S. 3rd St.) is bringing two beautifully restored classics to town.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg)
December 21 & 22
Speed Cinema
A classic of 1960s French cinema, “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” is one of the most beautiful movies ever made. Saturated with color and filled to the brim with simple, yet moving music, Jacques Demy’s film follows the angelically beautiful shopgirl Catherine Deneuve and her mechanic beau Nino Castelnuovo through a whirlwind romance to the aftermath of the decisions they must make under the pressure of societal pressures. Officially an opera with a continuous score, this is a musical that even folks who claim to not like musicals can dig. But the bigger selling point than the music, or the undeniably mesmerizing faces of the two leads, or the charming recreation of the French shops and streets, is the luscious, inescapable color of this film. For years the only prints available featured muted colors as the film stock wore down, but Demy prepared for this inevitable deterioration by preparing yellow, cyan and magenta color separation masters on black-and-white negative films, which do not fade. Demy’s wife, the incredible director Agnes Varda (who, ahem, needs a retrospective of her own), led a restoration in the 1990s. The version of “Umbrellas” screening at the Speed Cinema is a glorious 4K restoration that premiered at Cannes this year.
I once had the pleasure of watching a matinee of “Umbrellas” at Chicago’s revered Music Box Theatre all by myself in the middle of a harsh winter day. It was a magical experience, a total immersion into an alternate universe where colors were brighter and love moved from dreamy passion through to bittersweet reality, all reflected in the expressive faces of impossibly beautiful people in the space of 90 minutes. Remembering the last scenes of the film, featuring soft falling snow against a darkening night, I can think of no better film to watch to settle into a wintry hibernation mindset.
Paris, Texas
December 20 & 21
Speed Cinema
As a double feature, “Paris, Texas” and “Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” are a study in opposites. Shot 20 years later in 1984, Wim Wenders’s iconic film is a trip across America featuring the worn face of Kentucky son Harry Dean Staton as a laconic and lost hero of sorts in search of his doomed love Nastassja Kinski. “Paris, Texas” is one of only two films in a long career to feature Staton as the leading man, telling his story above all else, set against a vision of the U.S. as a vast expanse to be crossed. Compare the ethereal beauty of Catherine Deneuve to the rugged landscape of Staton’s face, or the staged French streets to the empty roads of the American West. These films may be on opposite sides of an aesthetic spectrum, but they are united by a love of color and music, and a cinematography that centers place as the storyteller. While calling “Paris, Texas” cozy is a bit of a stretch, watching this film is indeed immersive and feels like traveling outside of time to a place where journeys end in whiskey-soaked peep show rooms. You’re left nursing your sense of melancholy, which lives on a spectrum with cozy.
Early Notice:
As 2024 turns to 2025, the Speed Cinema is bringing a variety of short film showcases to the screen. Close out the year with 23rd Animation Show of Shows (December 27, 28, & 29), an annual service provided by animator and curator Ron Diamond, who searches the globe for the most compelling animated films that showcase different approaches to the medium. This year’s lineup features films from Canada, Croatia, Germany, Mexico, Netherlands, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S., with techniques varying from computer-enhanced to hand-painted to stop motion. One eye-catching title: “Santa, the Fascist Years” from Bill Plympton.
Filmmaker Roger Beebe returns to Louisville after a 15 years absence with his new 16mm multi-projector performance Expanded Cinema (January 2). This screening will feature his newest work alongside past favorites, and include a sampling of recent essayistic videos, presented as live-narrated documentaries that explore the world of found images and the “found” landscapes of late capitalism. Watching Beebe’s work is an enhanced experience because he makes the technology of projection itself central, and the overall project is a celebration of 16mm film.
Speaking of 16mm film, mark your calendar now for a special, free Jan. 12, Sunday Showcase featuring the work of the late, great Maya Deren, with most of the shorts to be shown on 16mm. Deren was a daring auteur who died much too young, leaving behind a rich, haunting, and highly influential body of dreamlike works, and unique documentaries. This survey of her major works completed during her lifetime covers 1943-1948, including the mesmerizing “Meshes of the Afternoon.” Don’t miss it.
This article appears in Dec 4-17, 2024.