‘French Connection’ headlines Buffalo Film Seminars

Updated January 18, 2016

“The French Connection,” the 1971 film featuring one of the most memorable car chase scenes in American cinema, is among the films being screened in the spring 2016 edition of the Buffalo Film Seminars.

The popular, semester-long series of film screenings and discussions is hosted by UB faculty members Diane Christian and Bruce Jackson. Each session begins at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays, beginning Jan. 26 and running through May 3, in the Amherst Theatre, 3500 Main St. in the University Plaza, directly across the street from the South Campus.

Christian, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of English, and Jackson, SUNY Distinguished Professor and James Agee Professor of American Culture in the Department of English, will introduce each film. Following a short break at the end of each film, they will lead a discussion of the film. The screenings are part of “Film Directors” (Eng 438), an undergraduate course being taught by the pair. Students enrolled in the course are admitted free; others may attend at the theater’s regular admission prices of $9.50 for adults, $7.50 for students and $7 for seniors. Season tickets are available any time at a 15 percent reduction for the cost of the remaining films.

“Goldenrod handouts” — featuring production details, anecdotes and critical comments about each week’s film — are available in the theater lobby 45 minutes before each session. The handouts also are posted online one day before the screening.

The series opens on Jan. 26 with the 1929 silent film “Pandora’s Box,” directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst. The film chronicles the rise and inevitable fall of an amoral but naive young woman, played by Louise Brooks, “whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her,” according to the IMDb online movie database.

The remainder of the schedule, with descriptions culled from IMDb:

• Feb. 2: “Rules of the Game,” 1939, directed by Jean Renoir. At the onset of World War II, the rich and their poor servants meet at a French chateau.
• Feb. 9: “Notorious,” 1946, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. A woman is asked to spy on a group of Nazi friends in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them? Stars Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains.

• Feb. 16: “Pather Panchali,” 1955, directed by Satyajit Ray. An impoverished priest, dreaming of a better life for himself and his family, leaves his rural Bengali village in search of work.
• Feb. 23: “The Producers,” 1967, directed by Mel Brooks. Producers Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom make money by producing a sure-fire flop. The first film directed by Brooks, it won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Brooks successfully remade the film as a Broadway musical, which itself was adapted as a film in 2005.
• March 1: “Once Upon a Time in the West,” 1968, directed by Sergio Leone. The epic story of a mysterious stranger with a harmonica who joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad. The “spaghetti western” stars Henry Fonda — playing the villain for once — and Charles Bronson as the mysterious good guy.
• March 8: “The French Connection,” 1971, directed by William Friedkin. A pair of tough New York City cops — “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider) — try to intercept a huge heroin shipment coming in from France.

• March 22: “Raging Bull,” 1980, directed by Martin Scorsese. The violence and temper that lead an emotionally self-destructive boxer to the top in the ring destroy his life outside of it.
• March 29: “Ran,” 1985, Akira Kurosawa. In this epic adaptation of Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” an elderly Japanese warlord retires and divides his fiefdom among his three sons. The two corrupt ones turn against him.
  
• April 5: “Malcolm X,” 1992, directed by Spike Lee. Biographical film of the controversial and influential Black Nationalist leader, from his early life and career as a small-time gangster to his ministry as a member of the Nation of Islam.
• April 12: “Beau Travail,” 1999, directed by Claire Denis. An ex-Foreign Legion officer recalls his once-glorious life leading troops in Africa.

• April 19: “Waltz with Bashir,” 2008, directed by Ari Folman. Folman interviews fellow veterans of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his service in that conflict.
• April 26: “Amour,” 2012, directed by Michael Haneke. Octogenarians Anne and George are enjoying life until Anne suffers a stroke and their lives are never the same.
• May 3: “The Fisher King,” 1991, directed by Terry Gilliam. A former radio DJ, despondent because of a terrible mistake he made, finds redemption in helping a deranged homeless man who was an unwitting victim of that mistake.

For more information, visit the BFS website.