CHELSEA CLASSICS: FROM RAY TO MERCHANT IVORY A ROOM WITH A VIEW (James Ivory, 1985, 117min) A Room With a View captured the attention of the world upon its release, bringing the novel by E.M. Forster to dazzling life in the Florentine countryside and in the well-appointed homes of the English Edwardian upper classes. A comedy of manners with a quick wit and impeccable comic timing, A Room With A View is also a portrait of the quiet solitude that lies beneath Forster's characters, and of the need for human connection in a world of rigid convention. The young Englishwoman Lucy Honeychurch (played by Helena Bonham Carter), arrives in Florence on a Baedecker-style grand tour with her aunt Charlotte Bartlett (Maggie Smith). Through a series of events involving English expatriates Miss Eleanor Lavish, an unflappable novelist (Judi Dench), and the Emersons, a free-thinking father and son (played by Denholm Elliot and Julian Sands), Lucy's life is changed forever under a loggia in Florence and in the Tuscan countryside. Lucy returns from her sentimental journey to her mother, brother, and their local vicar in England (played by Rosemary Leach, Rupert Graves, and Simon Callow) and attempts to resume her life as it was before her trip, consenting to an engagement with Cecil Vyse (played by Daniel Day Lewis), a bookish snob who never uses an English word when an Italian or italicized one would do. Lucy must then choose between an easy but untruthful life as Cecil's wife and one that will require a renunciation of all she has been taught at her childhood home at Windy Corner. Ivory's delicate and playful direction spirits us from an adventure in the back alleys of Florence, lost with Dench and Smith, to the lace-parasolled rigidity of English lawn parties. Shot on location in and around Florence (including unforgettable scenes in the Piazza della Signoria and at Giotto's frescoes in Santa Croce), A Room With A View made stars not only of Bonham Carter, Day Lewis and Sands, but of the Tuscan landscapes (as photographed by Tony Pierce - Roberts) and Puccini arias (as sung by Kiri Te Kanawa) featured throughout. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Oscar-lauded screenplay, to which the director contributed, continues to be regarded as one of the best literary adaptions ever written for the screen. Maggie Smith received an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Charlotte Bartlett as at once an incisive schoolmarm and a poignantly lonely woman; as did Denholm Elliot, for his childishly knowing portrait of Mr. Emerson. Awards: BEST PICTURE, BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (Daniel Day Lewis), National Board of Review. BEST SCREENPLAY (ADAPTED), ART DIRECTION, BEST COSTUME DESIGN. Academy Awards. BEST PICTURE, BESTACTRESS (Maggie Smith), BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Judi Dench), BAFTA. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Maggie Smith), Golden Globs Awards. BEST FOREIGN FILM, Independent Spirit Awards. BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY, Writers Guild of America.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: ANNIVERSARIES AMORES PERROS (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, 2000, 154min) In Spanish, the phrase amores perros refers to relationships that are cursed, impossible, and foolish. In the title of Iñárritu’s movie, perros is an adjective (meaning “stubborn” or “dogged”), but the film also reflects the word’s meaning as a noun, in its dogs, which embody both the best and worst attributes of the human characters. The animals also stand for loyalty, abandonment, betrayal, and redemption. It is difficult to be judge and jury. Someone watching Amores perros for the first time now, two decades after its release, might say that it is a film like dozens of others in Mexican cinema. But if Iñárritu’s film no longer seems unique, it is precisely because he inaugurated an entire form of storytelling. A new viewer may not be left breathless by the opening sequence today. Perhaps the saturated color comes across as clichéd; perhaps the interweaving of the story lines seems predictable—especially in our digital age. But those of us in Mexico who saw Amores perros the year it appeared knew that it was a film unlike any other made in our country. It is possible that the Cannes prize influenced that perception, as did the nomination for the Oscar for best foreign-language film and the more than sixty international prizes that the movie went on to win. Nevertheless, we would soon gain distance from that giant wave, and understand that the pull of the film was not merely the effect of publicity. Amores perros represented a quantum leap in the audiovisual grammar of Mexican cinema. - Fernanda Solórzano

CHELSEA CLASSICS: FROM RAY TO MERCHANT/IVORY APUR SANSAR (Satyajit Ray, 1959, 105min) "THE WORLD OF APU" By the time Apur Sansar was released, Satyajit Ray had directed not only the first two Apu films but also the masterpiece The Music Room, and was well on his way to becoming a legend. This extraordinary final chapter brings our protagonist’s journey full circle. Apu is now in his early twenties, out of college, and hoping to live as a writer. Alongside his professional ambitions, the film charts his romantic awakening, which occurs as the result of a most unlikely turn of events, and his eventual, fraught fatherhood. Featuring soon to be Ray regulars Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore in star-making performances, and demonstrating Ray’s ever-more-impressive skills as a crafter of pure cinematic imagery, Apur Sansar is a breathtaking conclusion to this monumental trilogy. AWARDS Best foreign film, National Board of Review, 1959 Sutherland Trophy, British Film Institute Awards, 1959

CHELSEA CLASSICS: ANNIVERSARIES BARRY LYNDON (Stanley Kubrick, 1975, 185min) Ryan O'Neal and Marisa Berenson star in director Stanley Kubrick's lavish adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's classic 18th-century novel about the rise and fall of a sensitive and dashing rogue, The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.. John Alcott’s (2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange) cinematography in Barry Lyndon is nothing short of a visual revelation—a meticulous, painterly achievement that transforms each frame into a living 18th-century oil painting. Collaborating closely with director Stanley Kubrick, Alcott used natural light and custom-modified lenses, including ultra-fast NASA-developed Zeiss lenses, to shoot scenes entirely by candlelight, capturing an authenticity and intimacy rarely seen on film. The result is a series of compositions that echo the works of Gainsborough, Watteau, and other masters of the era, with rich textures, soft diffused light, and a serene stillness that evoke the fragility of a time steeped in human vanity. More than a period piece, Barry Lyndon becomes a gallery in motion—each shot composed with such precision and grace that the screen itself feels like canvas. Stanley Kubrick was once quoted as saying filmmaking is "painting with light". Kubrick and Alcott took that mantra to the next level with this stunning effort to marry the two disciplines.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: FROM RAY TO MERCHANT IVORY BOMBAY TALKIE (James Ivory, 1970, 112min) Lucia Lane (Jennifer Kendal), an English novelist, comes to Bombay to research the Bollywood film scene for a book she is planning to write. She is introduced by a producer (none other than Ismail Merchant) to the dashing movie star Vikram (Shashi Kapoor) and the screenwriter Hari (Zia Mohyeddin). Vikram, who is married to the beautiful but barren young Mala (Aparna Sen), falls in love with Lucia and they begin an affair, evoking a fierce rivalry between Vikram and Hari, and a painful envy on the part of Vikram's wife. Lucia, seeking escape and enlightenment, flees to a guru (Pincho Kapoor) but cannot bring herself to abandon her worldly desires for a subservient life in the ashram. She returns to Vikram and the various love triangles collapse, bringing the characters to desperation and the entanglement to a startling resolution. Shot entirely on location in and around the city of its title, Bombay Talkie is one of Merchant Ivory's most distinctive films, at once a psychological drama and a parodic hommage to the Indian film scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The eclectic dramatis personae include Uptal Dutt as Bose, a corrupt producer, Nadira as Anjana Devi, Vikram's confidante, and a full complement of women who enact a musical number on a giant typewriter (one of Ivory's favorite film sets to date), as the dancers' movements type out Fate ("It's very symbolic," Lucia compliments). Subatra Mitra, the master cameraman of Satyajit Ray, provides the photography, and it is to great effect that his unassuming lens is set upon the director's shrewdly observed scenes. At one moment in the film, an elderly Indian fan of Lucia's novel Consenting Adults arrives at her hotel to ask her for an autograph: as Lucia flees and the absurd exchange is played out, the camera pulls back and patiently watches the two descend the grand staircase of the Taj Mahal Hotel. It is one of the film's many moments in which the comedy of a situation is made more acute by the lyricism of the visuals. Jennifer Kendal is magnificent as Lucia: her offhand candor and genuine sweetness make her all the more believable as a homewrecker who doesn't seem to grasp the consequences of her actions. She moves effortlessly from quiet despair, a middle-aged woman alone in a foreign hotel, to fish-out-of-water scenes at an ashram which put one in mind of Maria von Trapp in the convent, dreaming of the hills and the Captain. Shashi Kapoor brings to Vikram that star quality which attracts the legions of adoring women who seem always to surround him; and Aparna Sen paints a quietly affecting Mala. Like the goddess Devi, whose image appears on screen, Sen's Mala is part long-suffering wife, part Fury. From the opening credits sequence (probably the most original of any Merchant Ivory film) to the films within the film (the musical, the Indian western), Bombay Talkie claims a unique place in Ivory's work for its elements of meta-film -- a film about film, in which the viewer is at once involved in what is on-screen and aware of the medium. Yet there are also those familiar elements of uprooted persons and cultural difference that characterize both the earliest and the most recent films of Merchant Ivory. Lucia, late in Bombay Talkie, tries on one of Mala's saris and Vikram explains to the uninformed Englishwoman that it is his wife's wedding sari. Just then, Mala enters to see her husband's lover dressed in her own wedding clothes: as in many of Merchant and Ivory's films, cultural misunderstanding leads to human drama of the most visceral and affecting kind.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: FROM RAY TO MERCHANT IVORY CHARULATA (Satyajit, Ray, 1964, 117min) Satyajit Ray’s exquisite story of a woman’s artistic and romantic yearning takes place in late nineteenth-century, pre-independence India, in the gracious home of a liberal-minded, workaholic newspaper editor and his lonely wife, Charulata (Madhabi Mukherjee). When her husband’s poet cousin (Soumitra Chatterjee) comes to stay with them, Charulata finds herself both creatively inspired and dangerously drawn to him. Based on a novella by the great Rabindranath Tagore, Charulata is a work of subtle textures, a delicate tale of a marriage in jeopardy and a woman taking the first steps toward establishing her own voice. A natural thematic bridge between the films of Satyajit Ray and the films of Producer/Director team, Merchant/Ivory, Charulata, explores the trappings and subversions of societal expectations.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: L.A. REBELLION - 4K RESTORATIONS/RESISSUES COMPENSATION (Zeinabu Irene Davis, 1999, 95min) A landmark of independent cinema by Zeinabu irene Davis, Compensation is an ambitious portrait of the struggles of deaf African Americans and the complexities of love. In extraordinary dual performances, Michelle A. Banks and John Earl Jelks play two Chicago couples: Malindy and Arthur, living at the dawn of the twentieth century, and Malaika and Nico, living at its close. Their stories are deftly interwoven across time through the creative use of archival photography, an original score featuring ragtime and African percussion, and an editing style at once lyrical and tender. Malindy, an industrious dressmaker, falls for Arthur, an illiterate migrant from Mississippi, along the shore of Lake Michigan. On the same beach several decades later, Malaika, a resilient graphic artist, softens before Nico, a brash yet endearing children’s librarian. The two pairs face the obstacles of their respective eras, not least structural antiblackness and emerging pandemics. Still groundbreaking in its approach to inclusion and visibility, Compensation movingly bears witness to the social forces that stand in the way of human connection. Guided and approved by director Zeinabu irene Davis, this 4K digital restoration was undertaken by the Criterion Collection, the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and Wimmin with a Mission Productions—in conjunction with the Sundance Institute—from a scan of the 16 mm original camera negative. The 5.1 surround soundtrack was mastered from digital audio tapes by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. The new open captions were designed by Alison O’Daniel, in collaboration with the Compensation caption creative team.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: L.A. REBELLION DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (Julie Dash, 1991, 113min) At the dawn of the 20th century, a multi-generational family in the Gullah community on the Sea Islands off of South Carolina – former West African slaves who adopted many of their ancestors’ Yoruba traditions – struggle to maintain their cultural heritage and folklore while contemplating a migration to the mainland, even further from their roots. Cohen Media Group is proud to present the 25th anniversary restoration of director Julie Dash’s landmark film “Daughters of the Dust.” The first wide release by a black female filmmaker, “Daughters of the Dust” was met with wild critical acclaim and rapturous audience response when it initially opened in 1991. Casting a long legacy, “Daughters of the Dust” still resonates today, most recently as a major in influence on Beyonce’s video album “Lemonade.” Restored (in conjunction with UCLA) for the first time with proper color grading overseen by cinematographer AJ Jafa, audiences will finally see the film exactly as Julie Dash intended.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: ANNIVERSARIES DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (David Lean, 1965, 197min) Boris Pasternak's only novel, Doctor Zhivago, was critical of the Bolshevik Revolution and thus was banned by the Soviet regime and labeled dangerous propaganda. David Lean's Doctor Zhivago and Warren Beatty's Reds represent two different romantic visions of the sweeping, dangerous, and passionate upheaval during the ten days that shook the world and the reverberations thereafter. Regardless of how you feel about the need for a monarchy and serfdom to be overthrown in the Twentieth Century, Doctor Zhivago is a stunning achievement in film from David Lean's team of expert artists. "This is an example of superb old-style craftsmanship at the service of a soppy romantic vision, and although its historical drama evaporates in the fresh air, watching it can be seductive.” Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1995 Told in flashbacks, David Lean’s epic version of Boris Pasternak’s 1957 novel revolves around Zhivago (Omar Sharif), a decent medical man who loves life and writing poetry. Although married with a young son, he falls for nurse Lara (Julie Christie) during the Russian Revolution, and endures many hardships as he and his family are forced to leave Moscow. Lean’s film reunites many of the team from his 1962 triumph Lawrence of Arabia – screenwriter Robert Bolt, cinematographer Freddie Young, production designer John Box, composer Maurice Jarre, and of course Omar Sharif. But despite huge crowd scenes and vast landscapes, the Russian Revolution seems at times little more than a thunderous counterpoint to the everyday heartaches of its hero.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: ANNIVERSARIES HEAT (Michael Mann, 1995, 170min) Heat isn’t just a crime thriller—it’s a cinematic collision of titans. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino ignite the screen with a magnetic tension that simmers in every glance and explodes in their legendary face-off. Directed by Michael Mann with a style as sleek as it is raw, Heat plunges you into the heart of L.A.’s underworld, where loyalty, obsession, and fate intertwine. Val Kilmer rounds out a cast that breathes fire into every frame. From the pulse-pounding downtown shootout to quiet, soul-searching moments of clarity, Heat is a masterclass in character-driven action.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: FROM RAY TO MERCHANT IVORY HEAT AND DUST (James Ivory, 1983, 130min) Adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from her Booker Prize-winning novel , Heat and Dust is the story of two English women living in India more than fifty years apart. Olivia (Greta Scacchi) shares a troubled marriage with Douglas Rivers (Christopher Cazenove), an English civil servant in the colonial India of the 1920s. Anne, Olivia's grand niece (Julie Christie), comes to the subcontinent -- thirty years after the sun has set on the British empire -- to investigate Olivia's life, which her family regarded as "something dark and terrible." Shortly after her passage to India in 1923, the beautiful young Olivia finds herself bored by English colonial social circles -- she wonders how people who lead such exciting lives could remain so dull --though she is entranced by India itself. Olivia is introduced to the Nawab of Khatm (Shashi Kapoor), a romantic and decadent minor prince who enjoys a Forsterian intimacy with his British confidant, Harry (Nickolas Grace). The willful Englishwoman begins going to Khatm to spend time with the Nawab and they fall in love, engaging in an affair that is not without wrenching consequences in her public and private lives. In the present day of the film, Anne investigates Olivia's past with Inder Lal (Zakir Hussain), her Indian landlord. Anne finds herself both in the same rooms and in the same predicament as her ancestress, as she herself becomes involved in a romantic entangelment with an Indian man. Heat and Dust cross-cuts between the lives of the two women as Anne discovers -- and then seems to repeat -- the scandal that her independent-minded ancestor caused two generations before. Anne must then re-assert her own independence, fifty years later. The supporting cast of the film includes Madhur Jaffrey as the Begum, the Nawab's manipulative mother who holds court like a lioness among the purdah ladies; Charles McCaughan as Chid, the American sanyasi and would-be holy man; Patrick Godfrey as Dr. Saunders, in the first of his many turns as an uncompromising Englishman for Merchant Ivory; and Jennifer Kendal as his childless and mirthless wife. Jhabvala writes in her novel that, to Olivia, being in India "was like being not in a different part of this world but in another world altogether, in another reality." Scacchi's radiant performance never ceases to convey her wonder at the brave new world she finds in the colonial subcontinent, even late in the film when that view is tempered by the reality of an impossible dilemma. Her on-screen chemistry with Shashi Kapoor, who gives a textured portrayal of a outlaw prince, is apparent from their first moment of eye contact . In the present day of the film, Christie brings a warmth and intelligence to Anne that is at once sensuous and true to the thoughtful voice of Jhabvala's novel. The India of Heat and Dust is a balance of visual splendor and the understated ironies that are characteristic of Ivory-Jhabvala work. Merchant spares nothing in the production values -- we move from ornate banquets in 1923 to breathtaking vistas in present-day Kashmir -- yet the film's grand exteriors provide the backdrop to closely observed interior lives. The director views India with a lens that is equally informed by his lyrical early work on the subcontinent (The Householder, Shakespeare Wallah), and by his later penetrating social scenes of Henry James and Jean Rhys (The Europeans, Quartet). Richard Robbins provides the music and the score is among his best, employing Indian master musicians in arrangements that bridge Indian classical with 1920s period songs.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: FROM RAY TO MERCHANT IVORY HOWARDS END (James Ivory, 1992, 142min) Based on the 1910 novel, Howards End is a tour-de-force portrayal of E.M. Forster's masterpiece about a society in transition. The film was named Best Picture of 1992 by the National Board of Review, received nine Academy Award nominations, including that of Best Picture, and was one of the most critically acclaimed pictures of the 90s. The free-spirited, free-thinking Schlegel sisters, Margaret (played by Emma Thompson, who received an Academy Award for her performance) and Helen (played by Helena Bonham Carter), are swept into a relationship with the Wilcoxes, a wealthy conservative English trading family; and the Basts, a couple near the lowest tier of the Edwardian class system. In an ever deepening palimpsest of relationships and obligations, Margaret must reconcile her irrepressible, independent spirit with her desire for companionship, and Helen must come to terms with her sister's choices and her unexpected passion for a match that, seemingly, should never be. In a luminous, Oscar-nominated performance, Vanessa Redgrave is Mrs. Wilcox, a matriarch holding fast to a vanishing, remembered England of her childhood at the country house, Howards End. Her husband, Henry Wilcox (played by Anthony Hopkins), is an unyielding traditionalist who must face his own past and the changing world around him. Samuel West brings an assured sensitivity to Leonard Bast, whose aspirations above his class are inspired, and ultimately, rebuked. Shot on location in England -- from the Hertfordshire countryside to the tenements of London's East End - Howards End won an Art Direction Academy Award for Luciana Arrighi's re-creation of the world known to Forster and his contemporaries. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala received her second Academy Award for her screenplay adaptation, which captures both the quick wit of Bloomsbury parlors and the quiet interiority of Forster's novel. Ivory's unforgettable translation of Forster's themes into striking images (Mrs. Wilcox's lyrical walk around the house of her childhood; Leonard Bast's sun-drenched fantasies at his insurance clerk's desk), and the performances of an impeccable English cast make Howards End one of the Merchant Ivory team's most moving and perfectly realized films.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: L.A. REBELLION - 4K RESTORATIONS/RESISSUES KILLER OF SHEEP (Charles Burnett, 1978, 80min) Charles Burnett's cinematic masterpiece Killer of Sheep, magnificently restored in 4K with sparkling picture and sound, is one of the crown jewels of the Black indie filmmaking movement known as the L.A. Rebellion. The film evokes the everyday trials, fragile pleasures, and tenacious humor of blue-collar African Americans living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles in the 1970s. Burnett made it on a minuscule budget with a mostly nonprofessional cast, combining keen on-the-street observation with a carefully crafted script. The story centers on Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders), a slaughterhouse worker battling exhaustion and disconnected from his wife, his children, and himself. Stan and his neighbors struggle just to get by, let alone get ahead. Only the kids, leaping from roof to roof, seem to achieve a mobility that eludes their elders. Burnett’s film focuses on everyday life in Black communities in a manner rarely seen in American cinema – combining lyrical elements with a starkly neorealist, documentary-style approach that combines deep nuance with riveting simplicity. Burnett once said of the film, “[Stan’s] real problems lie within the family, trying to make that work and be a human being. You don’t necessarily win battles; you survive." Killer of Sheep has been digitally restored to 4K and remastered by UCLA Film & Television Archive, Milestone Films, and the Criterion Collection. Picture Restoration: Illuminate Hollywood. Photochemical Film Preservation: Film Technology Company. Sound Mix and Restoration: John Polito of Audio Mechanics and Larry Blake. Audio Transfers: DJ Audio, Endpoint Audio Labs. Music Rights: Chris Robertson, Global ImageWorks and Milestone Films. Restoration supervised by Ross Lipman and Jillian Borders in consultation with Charles Burnett.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: TRILOGY OF INCOMMUNICABILITY LA NOTTE (Michaelangelo Antonioni, 1961, 122min) This psychologically acute, visually striking modernist work was director Michelangelo Antonioni’s follow-up to the epochal L’avventura. Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau star as a novelist and his frustrated wife, who, over the course of one night, confront their alienation from each other and the achingly empty bourgeois Milan circles in which they travel. Antonioni’s muse Monica Vitti smolders as an industrialist’s tempting daughter. Moodily sensual cinematography and subtly expressive performances make La notte an indelible illustration of romantic and social deterioration.

CHELSEA LATE NIGHTS: CLASSICS EDITION Staff Pick: Veda LADY SNOWBLOOD (Toshiya Fujita, 1973, 97min) Gory revenge is raised to the level of visual poetry in Toshiya Fujita’s stunning Lady Snowblood. A major inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill saga, this endlessly inventive film, set in late nineteenth-century Japan, charts the single-minded path of vengeance taken by a young woman (Meiko Kaji) whose parents were the unfortunate victims of a gang of brutal criminals. Fujita creates a wildly entertaining action film of remarkable craft, an effortless balancing act between beauty and violence.

CHELSEA LATE NIGHTS: CLASSICS EDITION Staff Pick: Veda LADY SNOWBLOOD 2: LOVESONG OF VENGEANCE (Toshiya Fujita, 1974, 89min) Meiko Kaji returns in Toshiya Fujita’s invigorating sequel to his own cult hit Lady Snowblood. Our furious heroine is captured by the authorities and sentenced to death for the various killings she has committed; however, she is offered a chance of escape—if she carries out dangerous orders for the government. More politically minded than the original, Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance is full of exciting plot turns and ingenious action sequences.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: TRILOGY OF INCOMMUNICABILITY L'AVVENTURA (Michaelangelo Antonioni, 1960, 144min) A girl mysteriously disappears on a yachting trip. While her lover and her best friend search for her across Italy, they begin an affair. Antonioni’s penetrating study of the idle upper class offers stinging observations on spiritual isolation, modern ennui, and the many meanings of love. Initially greeted with jeers and confusion, L’avventura was then awarded a Cannes Special Jury Prize “for the beauty of its images, and for seeking to create a new film language.” Michelangelo Antonioni had indeed invented a new film grammar with this masterwork. An iconic piece of challenging 1960s cinema and a gripping narrative on its own terms, L'avventura is now established as a landmark work of modern cinema and has become one of the most influential films ever made.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: TRILOGY OF INCOMMUNICABILITY L'ECLISSE (Michaelangelo Antonioni, 1962, 126min) The concluding chapter of Michelangelo Antonioni’s informal trilogy on contemporary malaise (following L’avventura and La notte), L’eclisse tells the story of a young woman (Monica Vitti) who leaves one lover (Francisco Rabal) and drifts into a relationship with another (Alain Delon). Using the architecture of Rome as a backdrop for the doomed affair, Antonioni achieves the apotheosis of his style in this return to the theme that preoccupied him the most: the difficulty of connection in an alienating modern world.

A matchmaker's lucrative business is complicated when she falls into a toxic love triangle that threatens her clients. A decade ago, when Celine Song (PAST LIVES) was still a struggling play-wright, she was stuck in the defining experience of every New York City artist: finding a day job. It was harder than one would think, and she soon found herself somewhere entirely unexpected. Song couldn’t get hired making coffee as a barista, or scanning items in retail, but, getting a tip at a party, she instead found herself as a liaison of people’s most intimate desires and ideals. She began working as a matchmaker. Song’s sophomore film — clear-eyed and sensitive, and above all a piercingly honest examination of the contradictions of modern love and dating — was partly inspired by her revealing and often entirely confounding experience helping people find their ideal partner. Lucy (Dakota Johnson), the protagonist of Materialists, works at a high-end matchmaking company, like Song once did, meeting with private equity managers and moneyed professionals and trying to pair them up with the other elite bachelors and bachelorettes of the city. What they’re looking for provides a jarring window into the darker truths about how we imagine our love lives.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: MAY DAYS: LABOR ON THE MOVE! MATEWAN (John Sayles, 1987, 135min) "Matewan" is a minecart to the heart of the Appalachian coal country in the 1920s, where tensions between miners and the coal company reach a boiling point. Directed by the masterful storyteller John Sayles, and executed by a crew of entirely women artists/activists, this gripping film weaves together the threads of labor strife, racial tensions, and the struggle for justice in a landscape fraught with danger and uncertainty. Against the backdrop of a small West Virginia town, "Matewan" unfolds as a riveting tale of courage and solidarity, drawing audiences into a world where ordinary people defy extraordinary odds to fight for their rights. At the center of "Matewan" lies a cast of richly drawn characters whose lives intertwine in unexpected ways. From the charismatic union organizer Joe Kenehan, played expertly by Chris Cooper in his screen debut, to the resilient coal miners (James Earl Jones among them) and the formidable company thugs, each character is brought to life with depth and nuance by Sayles' direction. “Matewan” is a brilliant lesson about many issues within the labor movement. It illustrates how the act of workers organizing together can work through deep racial hatred to form bonds of solidarity and kinship. It also focuses on the relationship between local police and striking miners. Sid Hatfield, the sheriff of the town, played to perfection by David Strathairn, is a local man paradoxically attempting to have morals and humanity while wearing a police uniform. The film brilliantly illustrates the true nature of policing in the world; to protect and uphold the property, interests, and will of the capitalist class, by showing what happens when workers truly get out of line. The capitalists hire mercenary militias and detective agencies who come from afar to squash anyone in their way. "Matewan" is more than just a historical drama—it's a powerful meditation on the timeless struggle for worker dignity and justice in the face of oppression. As the tensions escalate and the stakes rise ever higher, "Matewan" builds to a breathtaking climax that will leave audiences on the edge of their seats, reminding us of the enduring power of solidarity and the human spirit in the face of adversity.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: FROM RAY TO MERCHANT IVORY MAURICE (James Ivory, 1987, 140min) The traditional bildungsroman, or novel of education, ends with a marriage. E.M. Forster's Maurice(1914), the second of his novels to be adapted by Merchant Ivory, takes on a subject that no major novel in the genre had ever addressed: the problem of coming of age as a homosexual in a restrictive society. First published in 1971, after Forster's death, and long neglected by critics, it is only recently (and largely since the release of the film adaptation) that critics have come to set Mauricein its unique place among "Reader, I married him" narratives.Starring James Wilby (Maurice) and Hugh Grant (Clive) as two Cambridge undergraduates who fall in love, the film is set amidst the hypocritical homoerotic subculture of the English university in Forster's time. In an environment in which any reference to " the unspeakable vice of the Greeks" is omitted, and any overture toward a physical relationship between men might be punishable by law, Maurice and Clive struggle to come to terms with their own feelings toward each other and toward a repressive society. Maurice was shot on location largely in the halls and quadrangles of King's College, Cambridge (including stunning interiors in the college's world famous Gothic chapel), where Forster was educated and later returned as a Fellow. The other interiors were primarily shot at Wilbury Park, an early Palladian house in Wilshire. Called Pendersleigh in the film, this setting is where Maurice visits his friend Clive; here he later meets the under-gamekeeper Alec Scudder (Rupert Graves), who climbs in his window one night in order to "share" with Maurice, as the genteel Edwardians put it. Wilbury Park was a warm-up for Ivory for the grand country house scenes in The Remains of the Day, shot six years later. Wilby, under Ivory's direction, infuses the title character with a quiet sensitivity and an underlying sense of desperation to create a character who, as Forster wrote, has "an ingredient that puzzles him, wakes him up, torments him and finally saves him." Grant plays Clive with a blend of dead-on English public school arrogance and intimate vulnerability that attracts, and then nearly destroys, Maurice. Mark Tandy is the confident Cantabridgian Lord Risley, whose later conviction as a criminal "of the Oscar Wilde sort" changes the course of the film. Denholm Elliot, Simon Callow, and Ben Kingsley turn in strong performances as alternately well meaning and judgmental men who try and guide Maurice into a conventional married life. The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 1987, where Ivory was awarded a Silver Lion as Best Director, sharing the prize with Ermanno Olmi. James Wilby and Hugh Grant were jointly awarded Best Actor, and Richard Robbins received the prize for his music -- a subtle and richly atmospheric score that is one the most memorable features of Maurice.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: ANNIVERSARIES NASHVILLE (Robert Altman, 1975, 160min) This cornerstone of 1970s American moviemaking from Robert Altman is a panoramic view of the country’s political and cultural landscapes, set in the nation’s music capital. Nashville weaves the stories of twenty-four characters—from country star to wannabe to reporter to waitress—into a cinematic tapestry that is equal parts comedy, tragedy, and musical. Many members of the astonishing cast wrote their own songs and performed them live on location, which lends another layer to the film’s quirky authenticity. Altman’s ability to get to the heart of American life via its eccentric byways was never put to better use than in this grand, rollicking triumph, which barrels forward to an unforgettable conclusion.

CHELSEA LATE NIGHTS: CLASSICS EDITION Staff Pick: Sam NEON GENESIS EVANGELION: END OF EVANGELION (Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki, 1997, 87min) One of the last films to use VistaVision film stock as its main stock before VistaVision's resurgence with The Brutalist and Paul Thomas Anderson's upcoming One Battle After Another, End of Evangelion delivers a bold and uncompromising conclusion to Hideaki Anno’s seminal and much beloved anime series, Neon Genesis Evangelion. After the defeat of the final Angel, Shinji Ikari falls into a deep depression. When SEELE orders the JSSDF to make a surprise attack on NERV's headquarters, Gendo Ikari retreats down into Terminal Dogma along with Rei Ayanami, where he begins to advance his own plans for the Human Instrumentality Project. Eventually, Shinji is pushed to the limits of his sanity as he is forced to decide the fate of humanity.

CHELSEA LATE NIGHTS: CLASSICS EDITION Staff Pick: Matt NIGHT MOVES (Arthur Penn, 1975, 100min) - Gene Hackman Honoring the Late, Great Gene Hackman (1930 - 2025) Arthur Penn’s haunting neonoir reimagines the hard-boiled detective film for the disillusioned, paranoid 1970s. In one of his greatest performances, Gene Hackman oozes world-weary cynicism as a private investigator whose search for an actress’s missing daughter (Melanie Griffith) leads him from the Hollywood Hills to the Florida Keys, where he is pulled into a sordid family drama and a sinister conspiracy he can hardly grasp. Bolstered by Alan Sharp’s genre-scrambling script and Dede Allen’s elliptical editing, the daringly labyrinthine Night Moves is a defining work of post-Watergate cinema—a silent scream of existential dread and moral decay whose legend has only grown with time.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: MAY DAYS: LABOR ON THE MOVE! NORMA RAE (Martin Ritt, 1979, 114min) On the list of great U.S. labor films, Norma Rae is certainly near the top. The 1979 film, starring Sally Field, for which she won the Oscar Best Actress award, is based on a real 17-year campaign to organize the J.P. Stevens textile mill in Roanoke Rapids, NC. The main character, Norma Rae Wilson, is based on a real mill worker, Crystal Lee Sutton, who had experiences similar to the ones depicted in the film. For most of that time, the union involved was the Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA), the union shown in the film. In 1976, TWUA merged with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, so that the union which negotiated the contract at Stevens was the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU). At the Chelsea Theater, we've wanted to play this film for quite some time, and we're finally able to show it. Don't miss this excellent labor film!

An examination of the iconic 90s indie band, “Pavements” appears to be just another music documentary, until it doesn't. A prismatic, narrative, scripted, documentary, musical, metatextual hybrid, the film intimately shows the band preparing for their sold-out 2022 reunion tour while simultaneously tracking the preparations for a musical based on their songs, a museum devoted to their history and a big-budget Hollywood biopic inspired by their saga as the most important band of a generation. Director’s Statement The music documentary has run out of gas. The musician biopic seems doomed to be a part of our lives forever, the lowest form of highbrow storytelling. But I also, against my better judgement, love all of these movies that are never very good, and rarely qualify as cinema. I love-to-hate cliche storytelling in phoney baloney biopics. I will watch any archival documentary that invites me to revel in the aesthetics of a bygone era that I miss dearly. I love musicals, but I'm skeptical and curious about the ongoing cultural project of repurposing bands we love and their catalogues for parallel mediums. With Pavements, I wanted to explore my dubious passion for all of this, and make a movie in a style of directing that was devoid of the pressure of "the shot" or "the take." My goal was to not direct scenes or shots, but entire experiences and allow them to be documented naturally - the opening of a museum, opening night of a musical - as a means of creating storytelling that plays out in public, but is all being done for a movie. Only the nonsense biopic scenes would be filmed "normally" but true to that genre of film, the images would be unremarkable, and the coverage would be endlessly traditional. Pavements is 4 or 5 films rolled into one, because I wish that all musical biopics and standard-issue documentaries were 30 minutes long. I'd watch more of them that way. There has never been a band like Pavement, and I hope there has never been a film like Pavements. It both is, and is not. It presupposes that an iconic band are deserving of all the cultural victories typically afforded much more financially successful artists. But what I learned making the museum and the musical, and thus the film, is that Pavement are deserving of these tributes. It is time to ask questions about the way stories about musicians are told and sold, and for us as the audience to demand more innovation in our biographical portraits.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: ANNIVERSARIES - 4K RESTORATIONS/REISSUES RAGING BULL - 4K Restoration (Martin Scorsese, 1980, 129min) A lacerating biopic of Jake LaMotta, the middleweight boxing champion who was known as “The Bronx Bull” and “The Raging Bull” during his brief reign. LaMotta had early lessons in life: to steal and to fight. He channelled his tough childhood into the ring, where his aggression became a way of combating deep-seated anxieties and emotional fears. This determination and rage turned him from a young hoodlum into a champion. But his drive for the title, his brutality outside of the ring and his almost-psychotic sexual jealousy will destroy his marriage, his deepest friendships and the career he fought to build.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: MAY DAYS: LABOR ON THE MOVE! REDS (Warren Beatty, 1981, 195min) Warren Beatty's award winning epic mixes drama and interviews with major social radicals of the period. "Reds" tells the story of the love affair between activists Louise Bryant and John Reed. Set against the backdrop of the tumultuous start of the twentieth century, the two journalists' on-again off-again romance is punctuated by the outbreak of WWI and the Bolshevik Revolution. Louise's assignment in France at the outbreak of the war puts an end to their affair. John Reed's subsequent trip to Russia, and his involvement with the Communist party, rekindles their relationship. When Louise arrives in Petrograd, she finds herself swept up in the euphoria of the Revolution. Reed, however, eventually becomes disillusioned with Communism when he sees his words and intentions augmented and controlled by the growing Soviet propaganda machine.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: FROM RAY TO MERCHANT IVORY SHAKESPEARE-WALLAH (James Ivory, 1965, 120min) The story of a family troupe of English actors in India. They travel around the towns and villages giving performances of Shakespearean plays. Through their travels we see the changing face of India as the old is replaced by the new, Maharajas become hotel owners, sports become more important than culture and the theater is replaced by Bollywood movies. Based on the travels of Geoffrey Kendal with his daughter Felicity Kendal. Elegiac and atmospheric, Shakespeare Wallah was the feature film that really put Merchant Ivory Productions on the international movie map, winning them great critical acclaim and now recognized as a classic. Starring Shashi Kapoor, Madhur Jaffrey, and a young Felicity Kendal, the film's inspiration lies in the real-life adventures of Ms. Kendal's family as a traveling theater group in India during the final days of English colonial rule. The Buckingham Players try to uphold British tradition by staging Shakespeare plays for the general public, boarding schools, and local royalty, but are unable to compete with the wildly popular Bollywood film industry. The film also traces the developing relationship between the acting troupe's young ingénue, Lizzie (Kendal), and Sanju (Kapoor), a wealthy Indian playboy. But their romance is beset by hindrances, not the least being the machinations of Manjula (Jaffrey), a fiery Indian film star who is also in love with Sanju.

CHELSEA LATE NIGHTS: CLASSICS EDITION Staff Pick: Oliver S. TAMPOPO (Jûzô Itami, 1985, 114min) Juzo Itami’s rapturous “ramen western” returns to U.S. screens for the first time in decades, in a new 4K restoration. The tale of an enigmatic band of ramen ronin who guide the widow of a noodle shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe, Tampopo serves up a savory broth of culinary adventure seasoned with offbeat comedy sketches and the erotic exploits of a gastronome gangster. Sweet, sexy, surreal, and mouthwatering, Tampopo remains one of the most delectable examples of food on film.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: ANNIVERSARIES THE CONFORMIST, “IL CONFORMISTA” (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970, 113min) The first film of three we're playing this Summer during Chelsea Classics to feature the cinematography of Vittorio Storaro, The Conformist remains one of the most influential films in cinema history. Two Italian-American sons, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese directly cite The Conformist's cinematography with opening their eyes and refining their visual palettes. Francis Ford Coppola saw The Conformist and brought its visual style to his work on The Godfather, literally telling legendary cinematographer Gordon Willis that he wanted The Godfather films to look like The Conformist. He then hired Vittorio Storaro to shoot his most massive undertaking, the second Vittorio Storaro film we're playing this Summer, Apocalypse Now. Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography is central to the film’s enduring legacy. The use of color and light—blue and gold filters for the past, with hues that evoke both nostalgia and unease—creates an atmosphere that is simultaneously dreamlike and unsettling. Storaro’s exaggerated compositions, with corridors and spaces that dwarf Marcello, evoke a sense of alienation and existential dread, influencing the look of cinema for decades to follow. Unfortunately, the subject matter of this film has enduring relevance as well. In a society disappearing political opponents in the form of its citizens exercising their right to speak truth to power, this film is closer to home than we'd care to admit. The disappointment and alienation that comes with "living your best life" in a fascist society like Italy in the 1930s, may very well feel like life in our society today where human values stand in opposition to the status quo. That eery sense of something broken is on full display in The Conformist. Under fascism, everyone is an enemy, including "friends" of the regime. Marcello, is stuck in a society that birthed him into trauma and kept him subservient with the slow drip of fear. All Marcello wants is to be "normal" and to be "the best version of himself" as his society would have him, but that means working against his own humanity at every turn. Sound familiar?

CHELSEA CLASSICS: ANNIVERSARIES THE GLEANERS AND I (Agnes Varda, 2000, 82min) Agnès Varda’s extraordinary late-career renaissance began with this wonderfully idiosyncratic, self-reflexive documentary in which the ever-curious French cinema icon explores the little-known world of modern-day gleaners: those living on the margins who survive by foraging for that which society throws away. Embracing the intimacy and freedom of digital filmmaking, Varda posits herself as a kind of gleaner of images and ideas, one whose generous, expansive vision makes room for ruminations on everything from aging to the birth of cinema to the beauty of heart-shaped potatoes. By turns playful, philosophical, and subtly political, The Gleaners and I is a warmly human reflection on the contradictions of our consumerist world from an artist who, like her subjects, finds unexpected richness where few think to look.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: ANNIVERSARIES THE GRAPES OF WRATH (John Ford, 1940, 129min) John Ford’s 1940 adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath stands as a cornerstone of American cinema, blending raw social realism with poetic visual storytelling. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the film follows the Joad family’s harrowing journey from the dust-choked fields of Oklahoma to the uncertain promise of California, capturing both the desperation and resilience of migrant workers. Ford’s direction, which earned him an Academy Award, is masterful in its evocative use of landscape and focus on the importance of family and community, while Gregg Toland’s stark cinematography imbues each frame with a haunting authenticity. Henry Fonda’s portrayal of Tom Joad is both empathetic and iconic, and Jane Darwell’s performance as Ma Joad won her an Oscar for its quiet strength. What makes The Grapes of Wrath essential to film history is its courageous engagement with the social issues of its time—depicting the failures of capitalism and the struggles of the working poor with a sincerity rare for Hollywood’s Golden Age. The film’s influence endures, not just for its artistry and craftsmanship, but for its unflinching look at hardship and hope, making it a timeless testament to the human spirit in the face of adversity.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: ANNIVERSARIES THE GREAT DICTATOR (Charles Chaplin, 1940, 125min) In his controversial masterpiece The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin offers both a cutting caricature of Adolf Hitler and a sly tweaking of his own comic persona. Chaplin, in his first pure talkie, brings his sublime physicality to two roles: the cruel yet clownish “Tomainian” dictator and the kindly Jewish barber who is mistaken for him. Featuring Jack Oakie and Paulette Goddard in stellar supporting turns, The Great Dictator, boldly going after the fascist leader before the U.S.’s official entry into World War II, is an audacious amalgam of politics and slapstick that culminates in Chaplin’s famously impassioned speech.

From the hearts and minds of Stephen King and Mike Flanagan comes THE LIFE OF CHUCK, the extraordinary story of an ordinary man. This unforgettable, genre-bending tale celebrates the life of Charles 'Chuck' Krantz as he experiences the wonder of love, the heartbreak of loss, and the multitudes contained in all of us.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: ANNIVERSARIES THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (Charles Laughton, 1955, 92min) The Night of the Hunter—incredibly, the only film the great actor Charles Laughton ever directed—is truly a stand-alone masterwork. A horror movie with qualities of a Grimm fairy tale, it stars a sublimely sinister Robert Mitchum as a traveling preacher named Harry Powell (he of the tattooed knuckles), whose nefarious motives for marrying a fragile widow, played by Shelley Winters, are uncovered by her terrified young children. Graced by images of eerie beauty and a sneaky sense of humor, this ethereal, expressionistic American classic—also featuring the contributions of actress Lillian Gish and writer James Agee—is cinema’s most eccentric rendering of the battle between good and evil.

The story of a family and a family business. Starring: Benicio del Toro as Zsa-zsa Korda, one of the richest men in Europe; Mia Threapleton as Liesl, his daughter/a nun; Michael Cera as Bjorn, their tutor. With: Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: FROM RAY TO MERCHANT IVORY THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (James Ivory, 1993, 134min) In the entracte between world wars, Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) is the perfect English butler at the estate of the politically-inclined Lord Darlington (James Fox). Stevens's obsessively dutiful, thoroughly unsentimental way of life is challenged with the arrival of the new housekeeper Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson), who is as spirited as she is capable. Stevens's myopic worldview, his unequivocal loyalty to his master, comes to blows with Miss Kenton's sense of moral outrage as Lord Darlington is made an unwitting Nazi pawn. While England wavers between "peace in our time" appeasement and war against Hitler, Darlington Hall becomes the fulcrum upon which the fate of the continent rests and Stevens, who has spent his adult life more concerned with attending to his master than with attending to his own personal happiness, begins to awaken to the possibility of a relationship with Miss Kenton. Based on the 1989 Booker Prize winning novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. The Remains of the Day is told in a series of flashbacks as Stevens, near the end of his life, makes a trip across the English countryside for a meeting that he hopes might reconcile his past mistakes. Hopkins received an Academy Award nomination for his subtle and penetrating portrayal of Stevens: in his tight shoulders and breathy hesitations, Hopkins discovers a deep humanity in a man who would leave his father's deathbed to wait on his master at a dinner gathering. His rapport with Thompson, who also received an Oscar nomination, creates some of the most iconic and psychologically charged romantic tension in recent film history. The supporting cast includes Hugh Grant as Lord Darlington's nephew, the enterprising journalist Cardinal; and Christopher Reeve as the American politician who tries to open the eyes of the English aristocracy to the imminent Nazi threat. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala received an Oscar nomination for her transformation of Ishiguro's first-person narrative into a drama that preserves the ironies of Stevens's interior landscape while expanding the socio-political world he inhabits. Impeccably photographed by Tony Pierce-Roberts on location in four great English houses (principally at Badminton House in Avon and Powderham Castle in Devon), the film's lavash interiors are not only a visual flourish but a dramatic element: as the fate of the world is decided in its rooms, Darlington Hall becomes a catalogue of all European civilization, which hangs in the balance of the Nazi threat. The senior reviewer of The New York Times called The Remains of the Day the "deepest, most heartbreakingly real of the many extraordinary films directed by James Ivory." Ivory won Director's Guild of America, Golden Globe, and Oscar nominations for his work. The film is pervaded with the air of something lost, both in the England of Stevens's road trip -- in pub chatter, in bedside photographs of the war dead -- and in the butler's missed opportunities. In an often--quoted scene, Stevens refuses to reveal to Miss Kenton the title of the book he is reading; persistent, she eventually peels his fingers away to find a sentimental love story. Stevens can only bring himself to say that he is reading it to increase his vocabulary. It is one of the cinema's most affecting portraits of solitude, regret, and the tragedy of what might have been.

CHELSEA CLASSICS: REPertory PREPeration THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE (Sylvain Chomet, 2003, 80min) With Sylvain Chomet's A Magnificent Life, his first major animated work since 2010's The Illusionist, coming to the Chelsea later this year, it felt right to remind ourselves of his unique visual style and sensibility. This instant classic is a wild ride! Hop on and strap in! Adopted by his grandmother, Madame Souza, Champion is a lonely little boy. Noticing that the lad is never happier than on a bicycle, Madame Souza puts him through a rigorous training process. Years go by and Champion becomes worthy of his name. Now he is ready to enter the world-famous cycling race, the Tour de France. However during this cycling contest two mysterious men in black kidnap Champion. Madame Souza and her faithful dog Bruno set out to rescue him. Their quest takes them across the ocean to a giant megalopolis called Belleville where they encounter the renowned "Triplets of Belleville," three eccentric female music-hall stars from the ‘30s who decide to take Madame Souza and Bruno under their wing. Thanks to Bruno's brilliant sense of smell, the brave duo are soon on to Champion's trail. But will they succeed in beating the devilish plans of the evil French mafia?

CHELSEA CLASSICS: ANNIVERSARIES WOODSTOCK (Michael Wadleigh, 1970, 184min) An intimate look at the Woodstock Music & Art Festival held in Bethel, NY in 1969, from preparation through cleanup, with historic access to insiders, blistering concert footage, and portraits of the concertgoers; negative and positive aspects are shown, from drug use by performers to naked fans sliding in the mud, from the collapse of the fences by the unexpected hordes to the surreal arrival of National Guard helicopters with food and medical assistance for the impromptu city of 500,000.