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For Lieutenant Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell and his friend and co-pilot Nick ‘Goose’ Bradshaw, being accepted into an elite training school for fighter pilots is a dream come true. But a tragedy, as well as personal demons, will threaten Pete’s dreams of becoming an ace pilot.

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Two sisters move to the countryside with their father. The girls find a forest full of magic and make a friend in the form of a big bear-like spirit. Silly, sweet, and quietly profound, My Neighbor Totoro parses through the beauty of childhood simplicity alongside Miyazaki's trademark themes of spirituality and environmentalism.

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A London school girl with a penchant for martial arts goes off on a daring mission to save her artist sister from the trappings of married life.

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Following his mother's death, Beau takes a trip back home. Melding horror and comedy in an ingeniously depraved odyssey, Beau is Afraid imbues new meaning to the term "mommy issues."

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Freddie has lived her whole life in France. Born in Korean, she feels a sudden push to find her biological parents. She returns to Seoul, uncovering more than initially expected.

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Nature and technology inspire visions of a world out of balance harmoniously with the music of Philip Glass in this cinematic tone poem.

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After a comet disrupts the Earth's rain, a massive corporation seizes the water supply and the government. The one thing they can't control is a punk girl in a tank.

Pre-film Presentation: Resource Monopolies with Dr. Laura McMann

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Watched on Thursday April 6, 2023.

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• Problemista
• About Dry Grasses
• Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus
• Wicked Little Letters
• Slums of Beverly Hills
• La Chimera
• Charlotte's Web
• Common Ground
• Alien
• Civil War

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Crossing Delancey

  June 6, 2023

• Bring It On

  June 8, 2023

• mid90s

  June 13, 2023

• Next Friday

  June 15, 2023

• Footloose

  June 20, 2023

• Anhell69
• Art Talent Show
• Bad Press
• Bobi Wine: The People's President
• Broca's Aphasia
• Dogwatch
• Feet in Water, Head on Fire
• Forms of Forgetting
• The Adventures of Gigi the Law
• Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project

...plus 24 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Black Independents is an annual celebration of the history of Black filmmaking in America.

This season, we move to spotlight Anticolonial Cinema from across the African Diaspora—challenging historical colonial powers, as well as new forms that old systems of oppression take on.

Screening every Wednesday in February, Black Independents Vol III presents performances from Black creators in the community and contextualizes the legacy of the films and their filmmakers.

• Oh, Sun
• Touki Bouki
• Sambizanga
• Neptune Frost

• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• The Afterlight
• Nope
• Fire of Love
• Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
• Bodies Bodies Bodies
• TÁR
• Aftersun
• Girl Picture
• Decision to Leave

“The weather outside is frightful, But the fire is so delightful.”

The feeling of winter isn’t easy to put into language. Words like Hygge, a Scandinavian sentiment for coziness and well-being; Gemütlich, the German familiar and inviting warmth; or the Portuguese Saudade, the nostalgic melancholy that drifts in with the holidays (and often one too many eggnogs) all grasp at our longing for warmth and connection in the cold …but nothing communicates the ineffable quite like film.

Whether it’s gathering the family (Tenenbaum or otherwise), bundling up in iconic outerwear; or wielding a flamethrower—there are many ways to stay warm.

—

SEASON PASS ON SALE NOW

• The Royal Tenenbaums

  Screening on 35mm -
  Friday - Sunday, December 9 - 11

• Bridget Jones's Diary

  Screening as part of Extra Credit - Monday, December 12

• Hustlers

  Wednesday - Sunday, December 14 - 18

• The Thing

  40th Anniversary Restoration - Thursday-Friday, December 15 - 16

• Girl Picture

  Opens Friday, December 16

• Tokyo Godfathers

  Screening with both Subs/Dubs - Tuesday - Thursday, December 20 - 22

• When Harry Met Sally...

  Screening on 35mm -
  Thursday - Saturday, December 29 - 31

Its name is dystopia.

Science Fiction proposes futures born of present problems: Utopias built from today’s missteps corrected, and dystopias from staying the course. Sexism is not unique to the present—victories for suffrage, opportunity and bodily autonomy in the wide lens of history are.

"Startlingly, the idea that history always progresses,” Margaret Atwood stated, “is a fantasy.”

This season of Science on Screen, we look to Feminist Dystopias: to see critically our present world; to learn of opportunities that science has for a better one; and to be inspired by the agency that Feminist Science Fiction gives women to fight.

—

Science on Screen® pairs new, classic, and cult Sci-Fi cinema with lively presentations by notable figures from the world of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine.

Science on Screen® is an initiative of the Coolidge Corner Theatre, with major support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Additional support from Stephens College.

• Mad Max: Fury Road

  Screening on 35mm
  January 17, 2023

• Slash/Back

  February 7, 2023

• Teknolust

  March 14, 2023

• Tank Girl

  Screening on 35mm April 18, 2023

Free for members.

• Ferris Bueller's Day Off

  July 11, 2022

• School of Rock

  August 15, 2022

• Desperately Seeking Susan

  September 12, 2022 on 35mm

• Jennifer's Body

  October 10, 2022

• Addams Family Values

  November 8, 2022

• Bridget Jones's Diary

  December 12, 2022

• Junior

  January 9, 2023

• Love & Basketball

  February 13, 2023

• Wayne's World

  March 20, 2023

• Waterworld

  April 10, 2023

• The Headhunter's Daughter
• Kicking the Clouds
• Long Line of Ladies
• Maidenhood
• The Original Shareholder Experience
• What They’ve Been Taught

He observes the inner workings and rituals of spaces we often inhabit without thinking—from schools to department stores, welfare offices and museums—and by filming their infrastructure and internal logic, probes into the role they might play within society and human experience at large. He often refers to his work as ‘reality fictions’ and prefers to utilize a patient gaze and precise framing, avoiding any interference from voiceover, interviews, or title cards.

This season brings together eight titles from across Wiseman's filmmaking career, including his first credit as producer on Shirley Clarke’s docufiction The Cool World. It’s also a rare opportunity to see selections from the program on their original 35mm format.

All screenings feature introductions with University of Missouri professor and filmmaker Robert Greene.

The season is presented in partnership with the Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism.

• Titicut Follies

  Screening on 35mm September 14, 2022

• High School

  Screening on 35mm September 21, 2022

• The Cool World

  Screening on 35mm September 28, 2022

• Welfare

  October 5, 2022

• The Store

  October 12, 2022

• Blind

  October 19, 2022

• La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet

  Screening on 35mm October 26, 2022

• National Gallery

  November 2, 2022

For fear of over-intellectualizing... GET WEIRD!

• Jennifer's Body

  Extra Credit - Monday, October 10 at 6pm

• Lost Highway

  New Restoration! Screening Friday-Sunday, October 14-16

• Twilight

  Screaming on 35mm! Friday-Saturday, October 21-22

• Audition

  Date-night double feature! Friday-Saturday, October 21-22

• Medusa

  Opens Sunday, October 23

• The Craft

  Friday-Saturday, October 28-29

• Bros

  Opens Friday, September 30

• Moonage Daydream

  Opens Friday, September 30

• Welfare

  Wednesday, October 5 at 6pm

• Jennifer's Body

  Extra Credit - Monday, October 10 at 6pm. Free for Members!

• The Store

  Wednesday, October 12 at 6pm

• The African Desperate

  Opens Friday, October 14

• Lost Highway

  New Restoration! Friday-Sunday, October 14-16

• Blind

  Wednesday, October 19 at 6pm

• The Times of Harvey Milk

  SHOW ME Series with The Center Project. Thursday, October 20 at 7pm. Free!

• Twilight

  Screaming on 35mm! Friday-Saturday, October 21-22

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Ragtag Classic Movies is a thematic strand that exclusively programs classic cinema. This strand aims to foster a dedicated cinematic space for the classics that have been heralded as important for film history and moviegoing culture.

How is a strand different from a series? 
While series at Ragtag Cinema also have thematic focuses, the films programmed in those series are only connected to that particular series, such as in our Show Me Series. At Ragtag, a “strand” has a thematic focus that can either be programmed exclusively for that strand or can be applied to films in other series to signal to classic film lovers that this is a film for them to see. 

How does Ragtag Classic Movies determine what is a classic? 
Defining something as a classic is a subjective process that is supported by cultural criticism, dominant culture, and history. There are variations of classics for cinema, such as cult classics, that emphasize how audiences hold a positivist view of a film in contrast to how industry and criticism during its release had negative response to the film. For Ragtag Classic Movies, this strands sits somewhere between how audiences have assigned cultural value to older films (pre-1980) and how film criticism, academia, and industry have determined what in the long archive of cinema warrants continued viewing through home video releases, restorations, exhibitions, monographs, and more. Additionally, this strand aims to expand the scope of the “classic” by including selections from the foundations of National Cinemas outside of the white, Western world. In short, Ragtag Classic Movies determines what is a classic from our Ragtag Regulars, industry & scholarship, and my viewpoint as Ragtag’s programmer. 

It’s still unclear to me. What are some examples of classics?
Godzilla (1954), Metropolis (1927), Imitation of Life (1934), East of Eden (1955), Shaft (1971), Pather Panchali (1955), Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) and more!

How can I provide my input on the programming of Ragtag Classic Movies? 
Comment below this post with your ideas! Or submit a suggestion on our website.

What’s special about Double Indemnity? What makes it a classic?
While classic film fans might think about watching film noir for the aptly-named Noirvember in November, film noir can be watched anytime of the year and Double Indemnity celebrates its 80th anniversary in 2024. Released in 1944, nominated for seven Academy Awards, and directed by European émigré turned Hollywood screenwriter-director Billy Wilder, Double Indemnity is often regarded as one of the exemplary examples of the film noir style. Film noir refers to a period of 1940s and 1950s American filmmaking that across a range of genres–crime/gangster, romance, social issue film–focused on character with cynical outlooks and was defined by a visual look that relied on black-and-white imagery and low-key lighting that emphasized shadows and contrast. The style of film noir features many character archetypes, most notably the femme fatale, a beautiful woman who brings destruction and mayhem to anyone she becomes romantically or sexually involved with. In Double Indemnity, as soon as Barbara Stanwyck as the femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson appears on screen, it’s no wonder that poor Walter Neff cannot help but fall into her scheme. When I think about this film, I always remember how the camera films how Stanwyck as Phillyis looks at others. It is a gaze that stays with you long after you’ve seen the film. 

Double Indemnity screens at Ragtag Cinema Sunday May 19, 2024 at 1PM. You can buy tickets here. 

“Quel est votre plus grande ambition dans la vie? Devenir immortel et puis, mourir.” 

“What is your life’s ambition? To become immortal and then die.”  

                                                         -Breathless (1960), Jean-Luc Godard 

Breathless is not in the program for the upcoming Passport Series: Scenes From the French New Wave, but it is integral to the origin story of this program. The above quote from Breathless is pasted on the side of the Ragtag Box Office. When I returned to my hometown cinema as its programmer, it was one of the first things that I noticed. The quote on the Box Office is unattributed but it is recognizable for those like myself who have gone through a French New Wave phase. I thought of this quote’s placement in Ragtag as I considered the structure of a French New Wave series. 

The quote is in a scene where Patricia (Jean Seberg), an American student in Paris, asks a famous filmmaker (French director Jean-Pierre Melville) about his ambitions at a press conference. Patricia is one of the few women at the press conference. She has to ask her question twice before receiving an answer. The filmmaker (Melville) instead answers trite questions about the differences between men and women, eroticism, and music. Finally, after a jumpcut, one of the New Wave’s cinematic innovations where a continuous shot is broken into two creating a “jump” in the image, he answers the question. This scene and the entirety of the film remains as an exemplar example of the French New Wave style. It features on-location shooting, natural lighting, jump-cut editing, and references to the art and act of filmmaking. 

Breathless was Jean-Luc Godard’s first feature film and one of the films that launched what would become the French New Wave movement. Godard began his career as a critic for Cahiers du Cinéma, a French film magazine co-founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. Godard was part of the younger generation of critics at the magazine, the so-called “Young Turks,” who broke with Bazin after the publication of François Truffaut’s 1954 article that derided the “Tradition of Quality” of post-war French cinema. Truffaut argued that French cinema was languished by unimaginative and overly simplistic filmmaking that too often made adaptations of literary works. (Truffaut would later go on to direct The 400 Blows, another iconoclastic film of the French New Wave.) Godard, like Truffaut and the other young critics at the magazine, desired a new cinema, one that derived from the auteur, the author/director, who controlled all elements of the film creating a unique, unquestionable style. By the end of the 1950s, these young critics who extolled the films of Hollywood directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Ray, tired of writing and turned their attention to directing the cinema they wanted to see themselves. It is in this place that a film like Breathless emerged and that a whole movement followed. 
This is one side of the story of the French New Wave. And arguably, the story of the French New Wave that has become canonized. This series is influenced by this canonical story, but veers away from it to present other scenes that contributed to this wide-ranging, 10+ years long movement. By seeing all four programs, you will have an opportunity to see the wealth of artistic innovation that created the many scenes of the French New Wave. 

THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG: A NEW WAVE GENRE FILM

Jacques Demy revived the operatic artform and introduced the world to French film star Catherine Denueve in his tour-de-force musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Geneviève (Catherine Denueve), the teenage daughter of a widowed umbrella shop owner, and Guy (Nino Castelnuovo), a handsome mechanic, fall in love in late 1950s France. When Guy is drafted to serve for two years in the Algerian War, he and Geneviève’s relationship is drastically cut short forcing them to make an irreversible decision. Told in three parts, Demy’s vision of young love is filled with a wondrous, candy-colored palette rendering each frame bittersweet.

In contrast to other New Wave filmmakers, Jacques Demy’s film career did not begin in criticism. Demy trained as a filmmaker and had interests in animation and documentary filmmaking. By the time he made his first feature film, Lola (1961), it was clear that Demy’s cinematic obsession was the American musical and the fantasies that emerge from it. Though Lola does not contain the standard elements of a musical, it is often considered a “musical without music” as the score by Michel Legrand often created moments that feel like the actors have broken out in song. This unique approach to the musical extended to Demy’s third feature film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) where all the dialogue is sung, creating a cinematic opera. 

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg follows many New Wave conventions, such as being referential to Demy’s own previous work (the character Roland Cassard is in both Lola and Cherbourg), but it often stands out due to its lush color and highly stylized production and costume design. In contrast to a naturalistic approach that calls attention to the art of filmmaking through shooting on location, using natural light, or a hand-held camera, Cherbourg insteads lets the audience notice the art of filmmaking through its artifice. As you watch the film, you’ll find yourself color matching costumes to wallpaper, tracking the changing hairstyles of Geneviève (Catherine Denueve), and listening intently to the sung-dialogue set against Michel Legrand’s score. All of these elements point to the artifice of filmmaking but do not distract from what is an emotional and bittersweet love story. Demy’s directorial oeuvre is marked by an understanding that fantasy and artifice are the ciphers through which genuine emotionality emerges. 

CLÉO FROM 5 TO 7: WOMEN AND THE NEW WAVE

Agnès Varda’s first New Wave feature, Cléo from 5 to 7, blends documentary techniques and narrative experimentation to depict a real-time portrait of a woman set adrift in Paris. Pampered pop singer Cléo Victoire (Corinne Marchand) spends two hours considering her mortality as she awaits news of a possible cancer diagnosis. Fearful of losing her beauty, Cléo must consider what womanhood is without the adoring gazes of others. Cléo from 5 to 7 marked the start of Varda’s career-long commitment of deconstructing how the camera can come to define the image of a woman.

Agnès Varda was one of the few female filmmakers in the French New Wave. Varda studied art history and photography, and became a still photographer. She became interested in moving images and made her first film, La Pointe Courte, in 1954. La Pointe Courte is often considered to be a stylistic precursor to the French New Wave due to its mix of fiction and documentary realism. When Varda made Cléo from 5 to 7 in 1962, the French New Wave was in full swing, and Varda was a member of the Left Bank. The Left Bank represented the group of filmmakers who lived and worked on the left side of the Seine River, whereas the Cahiers du cinéma directors were on the right side of the Seine River. The two groups were not in opposition to each other. However, their origins and relationship to filmmaking differed. The Cahiers group, Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette, were critics who “trained” by obsessively watching cinema and viewed cinema as the preeminent art form. The Left Bank group, Agnès Varda, Alain Resnais, Chris Marker, and Jacques Demy (Demy is often associated with this group because he and Varda were married), trained in other art mediums and viewed cinema as one of many art forms available. Perhaps it was this less fervent commitment to the auteur (the French language masculine form) that made the Left Bank group a place where a female director was an integral member. 

The French New Wave is filled with films about women directed and written by men. Cléo from 5 to 7 stands out as a New Wave film about a woman that is also directed and written by a woman. I bring this up not for the sake of gender essentialism but to point out that even in a radical film movement, there were structural imbalances in place that made Varda’s career in part defined by her gender. Varda had a career-long interest with the relationship between womanhood and image. Cléo is rich with scenes where protagonist Cléo looks at herself constantly in mirrors and windows. This is in part due to her worry that illness will ravage her youth and beauty, but it also is a place where Cléo’s gaze is reflected back. For viewers, these scenes are important moments to ask: Why is it important to see Cléo look at herself? What does it mean for the self-image of a woman to exist in an auteuse’s film? 

A CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER: DOCUMENTARY AND THE NEW WAVE

Chronicle of a Summer changed the landscape of documentary filmmaking with its original concept of cinéma-vérité, where the presence of the camera is instrumental in revealing truth from the subject. In 1960 Paris, ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist Edgar Morin, with the aid of two young women, traverse the streets asking passersby “Are you happy?” This simple question is the start of a foray into the sociopolitical concerns of the time — the Algerian War, decolonization, legacies of the Holocaust, the rights of workers, and modernization. Rouch and Morin assemble a cast of everyday Parisians to discuss these pressing issues on camera and to watch and reflect on their individual “scenes” collectively. Chronicle of a Summer is a stand-out example of the French New Wave commitment to revealing the structures of filmmaking.

Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin were associates of the French New Wave movement who did not fit in the Right Bank or Left Bank designations. Rouch was an anthropologist and ethnographic filmmaker and Morin was a sociologist and philosopher. While their training and background differed, their interest in the art of cinema fit well into the spirit of the New Wave. Documentary was not an unusual filmmaking mode in the French New Wave and the techniques of documentary realism were used in New Wave narrative cinema. What makes Chronicle of a Summer (1961) exemplary is that it was the first film of Morin’s concept of cinéma-vérité, truth cinema. 

Cinéma-vérité is often confused for the North American documentary style of direct cinema. There is a key difference between the two documentary modes, but both share a use of lightweight, portable camera equipment with synchronized sound (this technology was also important to French New Wave filmmakers as it made on-location shooting easier, faster, and mobile) and an interest in the relationship between reality and cinema. Generally speaking, direct cinema understood that reality/truth could emerge in a documentary when the presence of the camera was not felt by the subject or the audience. The camera is a “fly on the wall” that does not intrude upon the events that unfold. In contrast, cinéma-vérité felt that the camera was a necessary tool of provocation in the unfolding of events, and that the truth that emerges is perhaps not “the truth” but a type of truth that only can occur in the process of filmmaking. 

These provocations of the camera are what makes Chronicle of a Summer a compelling film. You witness how Rouch and Morin respond to their “experiment” falling apart and how their “cast” responds to these provocations individually and collectively. This film is also a portrait of a period of French history marked by war, decolonization, and modernization. You sense in this film the roots of what will later emerge in the May ‘68 protests that brought about a radical transformation of French society. Chronicle of a Summer is a historical portrait bound in time but its cinematic achievements remain timeless. 

FRENCH NEW WAVE SHORTS: INDUSTRY AND THE NEW WAVE

This shorts program presents five films produced by visionary cinephile and producer Pierre Braunberger. Recognizing that he was not suited for directing, he provided creative and financial support to New Wave filmmakers. Some of these filmmakers would become iconoclasts of French cinema such as Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette, while others such as Melvin Van Peebles would become an iconoclast of Black American cinema. Featuring schemes, failed romantic trysts, modern life tribulations, and cameos from other New Wave filmmakers, these films provide a glimpse into the narrative and aesthetic fascinations of the French New Wave. This program is curated from Icarus Films’ 2023 home video release of New Wave short films.

How did French New Wave filmmakers fund their films if they opposed the conventions of post-war French studio cinema? One of the key financial and creative figures of the French New Wave was film producer Pierre Braunberger. Braunberger recognized that he was not suited for directing and instead turned his attention to providing creative and financial support to directors. His producing career began in the 1920s where he worked in both France and the United States. Braunberger was Jewish and was unable to produce a film during the Nazi-occupation of France in World War II. At the end of the war, he transformed a former Gestapo office into a cinema studio and soon after, he was producing the films of the emerging New Wave talents, such as Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville, Alain Resnais, and more. His funding of these films were also supported by the French government who provided subsidies for films to reestablish the French film industry. These subsidies also included funding for short films as shorts were the pathway through which a director would eventually realize a feature-length film. French cinemas also showed shorts along with feature films. Braunberger himself was champion of the short film believing that the form was suited for cinematic experimentation in a way that the feature film cannot do. The New Wave was a ripe era of short-form filmmaking and the re-emergence of these New Wave films points to the confluence of a moment of artistic innovation and the support of industry (and the government). In today’s American theatrical culture, shorts are difficult to program outside of the Academy Awards’ season, so this is a rare opportunity to see a range of short-films and emerging directors play with cinema. 

Passport: Scenes From the French New Wave begins on January 10 and runs on Wednesdays until January 31. Tickets are on sale now for each program. Come be transported to New Wave French cinema! 

SPOILERS AHEAD! This story examines the ending to Killers of the Flower Moon. If you haven't seen the film yet, and don't want the ending spoiled, stop here!

Martin Scorsese’s latest film, Killers of the Flower Moon, absolutely floored me. Approaching the movie without the context of the book, and without a deep understanding of the Reign of Terror, I found myself holding my breath as I learned this heartbreaking story. Every moment of guttural grief surrounding the Osage murders shook my soul to its core; it sent guilt, anguish, and understanding coursing through me. Essentially, the movie did exactly what it was intended to do: educate and move audiences through a dramatized narrative. 
The film takes care to inform viewers of the historical context that had been severely lost to time. There’s a scene where the character of William Hale (Robert De Niro) walks through town and we see him cross a street. Passing right by him, the Ku Klux Klan marches in a parade…white hoods and all. Right behind them, a group of women hold a sign that reads “Indian Mothers of Veterans”. A KKK member cheerily greets Hale and Hale warmly returns the sentiment. They are friends. Nothing seems wrong or out of place to either man at this moment.  White supremacy had become so severely embedded in this place and time that the KKK could still garner a friendly smile and pat on the back. A friend of mine later remarked to me how wild it was to realize that the KKK was forming at the same time as the Osage murders. “It really wasn’t all that long ago,” they said. 
Killers of the Flower Moon pulls out all the stops to convey not only the appalling manipulation and betrayal of the Osage Nation, but also the egregious acts of physical violence.  Sitting amongst a hundred other movie-goers, I remember the moment where the bomb under Rita’s house detonates and the neighborhood gathers to try and save the family. Rita’s (JaNae Collins) body is found in the wreckage, lifeless. Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio) delivers the news to Mollie (Lily Gladstone), who is inconsolable. Lily Gladstone’s performance walks off the screen. Her face crumbles as she registers the news and her jaw and eyes melt into raw grieving…it was too real, too horrible. My half-eaten bag of popcorn sat untouched in my lap after that. I wondered if popcorn had really even been an appropriate choice for this viewing. 
In the last few minutes of the film, Scorsese switches from telling the story in real time to a live recording of a radio show. The announcer reads the fate of each character, putting on different voices for each one. He tells you who went to jail and for how long, who gets married to who, and so on. There are somewhat goofy sound effects that give the listeners a more “immersive” experience. The whole scene feels like a true crime show. The camera pans to a huge audience watching, in fur shawls and pearls, each on the edge of their seats. They’re holding onto every word… like it’s a spectacle. “Like it’s entertainment,” I thought, “How horrible!” How can this room full of people sit there and not be sick to their stomach? And if they are, how quickly will they move on? Will they have a glass of wine with their friends after and remark on how awful the murders are and move on with their lives? Probably so. Then I thought to myself, “Well, what am I doing right now? Am I any better?” I’m sitting here in an audience just like them, watching a true and harrowing story be made into theatrics. I began to wonder if this movie, just like so many before it, had exploited another deeply traumatized minority for the sake of an Oscar nomination. Then, Martin Scorsese assumed the position of the radio announcer to read Mollie Burkhart’s obituary. 
I wanted to gasp out loud when I realized what he was doing —The radio show was not just a narrative device, but a genius close to a film that should have been impossible to end. The timeline of thoughts I had been having throughout the course of the film, while I worried I was distracting myself, was actually what I was meant to think. I was meant to feel guilty about the leisure of watching this story instead of the first-hand grief of experiencing  it. I was meant to feel critical of how they were sensationalizing history. I was meant to think, “How could Scorsese take this story and then right at the end…turn it into almost a parody?” And then I was meant to eat my words. 
The thing is, this story needed to be told. This story deserved justice. This story deserved the attention of a widespread audience that an esteemed and seasoned director (and white man) like Scorsese could provide. It needed the star power of DiCaprio and De Niro, it needed stunt coordinators and pyrotechnics and the gorgeous cinematography and undeniable editing. It needed to have some sensationalized fiction about it, and yes, it needed entertainment. This realization made me squirm at first — I worried about the intentions of those who worked on the film and, regardless, how it would come across by the end. The ethics of filmmaking can be tricky, especially with this sort of large scale production. After the radio show scene, my mind was set at ease. Scorsese made clear with this last scene his self awareness and commitment to  self examination through theatrical storytelling. Scorsese’s adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon reminds us that there are respectful ways to use drama and heightened aesthetics  to drive home a point. A master of his craft, Scorsese filled this film with both empathy and creativity to carry this story to the place in our guts where we can mourn it properly. It is quite certainly one of my new favorites of all time.

I first heard the plot of Carrie whispered at a slumber party. I was terrified of horror movies — I covered my ears at what my friend deemed “the scary part.” It took years and years for me to watch it. I had myself convinced the atrocities would live in the recesses of my brain forever. Although I’ll admit I didn’t find it that “scary” when I finally pressed play, in a way it did stay with me forever. I couldn’t forget the bloodbath, I couldn’t forget the way Sissy Spacek said “mama,” I couldn't forget the soft hues and screaming score. It was perfect, and I absolutely loved it.

I still don’t have a great relationship with “scary movies”: I never wanted to see the world as any more horrific than it already is. So what was different about Carrie? To say it was the “girl power” of it all feels flat, and does a disservice to just how wild and perverse the film ends up being. Perhaps it was the over-dramatized horror that is the humiliation of high school, and Carrie’s ultimate revenge? It was likely important to me at the time to feel the possibility that I had power to enact. But really, if I had to put a label on it, I think it simply came down to the blood. 

The first time we see blood in Carrie, it’s an eroticized shower scene starring a girl’s gym locker room and a sudsy, blue bar of soap. Soft light, trilling score. Ah, to watch someone in a reverie of pleasure. The camera slides and we see blood begin to slip down her leg after that hard-working bar of soap hits the floor. Just for a moment, we, like Carrie, assume she’s hurt. She isn’t used to the blood, she isn’t used to the body horror yet. She collects the blood in her hands. She rushes forward, crying for help from any of her classmates, and they are shocked. She’s wiped blood all over their clothes (pristine, white gym shorts, of course), but none of them are horrified by the blood, they’re horrified by Carrie’s hysteria. From there unfolds the famous “plug it up!” scene that ends with a sobbing Carrie being consoled by the gym coach. After she’s cleaned up and hauled to the office, we see the gym teacher talking to the principal as he glances at her blood-stained gym shorts with a pale horror. She paces slowly behind him smoking a cigarette, hand akimbo, ranting about how something like this could happen. Even after being corrected, the principal can’t remember her name. Her humiliation continues.

After Chris, the school’s apparent Queen Bee, is banned from prom for pelting Carrie with tampons and pads, a plan is hatched and Carrie’s fate is sealed. The prom scene is a dazzling wonderland. Carrie is dressed in pale pink, her long strawberry-blonde hair falling around her face. The lights are soft and gauzy, and we’re left in rapture. Carrie is convinced to slow-dance with her date, Billy, and while we’re still wary that it’s simply another laugh at Carrie’s expense, this moment feels so tender. The camera spins around them as they dance, not stopping on either of their faces for even a moment. It’s disorienting, and almost dizzying. When Carrie’s name is announced for prom queen, we’re pulled from their tentative, trying kiss to hurtle her on stage. The bucket swings, the moment catches, and suddenly, there’s blood again. A thick wash of syrupy red dons Carrie in a new color. It drips from her hand in the same movement as the blood she lifted from her own body earlier. It settles on her formerly pink dress forcing it to cling to her frame. Her hair is matted and rigid, and her mouth is agape in shock. She hallucinates the room of students and teachers laughing and she loses all control. Finally, Carrie’s suppressed desire is front and center: she locks the doors, she crashes the lights, she sets the gymnasium ablaze. 

Humiliation lies at the core of high school’s humanity. What are we to do with girls who desire? Make them feel shame. At school, Carrie is tortured by a hierarchy of girls who find her demeanor and prudishness off putting, and at home she’s emotionally and physically abused by her religious zealot mother who believes sex is the ultimate sin. Her power (telekinetic & sexual) is feared and reviled by all. 

The lore goes that Stephen King detested the novel. He started it because his friend told him to write “a story about a female character” (how novel!). After he penned that opening shower scene, he threw the manuscript away and only revisited it once his wife, Tabitha, fished it from the garbage. Even when he did finish it, he deemed it a waste of time and was sure it wouldn't be marketable to any audience, within any genre… perhaps he too was afraid of the blood. 

So, we owe a great deal to Brian De Palma. The novel’s success boomed after the film adaptation came out. It became a New York Times Bestseller in December 1976 and stayed there for 14 weeks. As for the movie, it seemed to find a home as a horror classic. De Palma employs endless horror tropes: bloodbaths, flying knives, the sharp strings from Psycho. All things I never cared about. But in Carrie, it doesn’t feel rote…. It feels exalted. The blood isn’t just gore, it’s menstruation; it’s a sadistic prank born from the mind of a jilted popular girl. The flying knives are a power struggle between mother and daughter that ends in a crucified abuser. The strings that are used so sharply to incite fear are then slowed down and drawn out for a dreamy prom dance. The viewer feels each of these tensions, every shift in tone — just when we think we understand, we realize we don’t. What could better encapsulate the feeling of being a girl in high school?

Stop Making Sense will be lauded in a hundred ways in the coming weeks, but the best summary I can give is to quote American composer-writer Ned Rorem, who, praising the music of the Beatles in 1968, wrote: "genius doesn't lie in not being derivative, but in making right choices instead of wrong ones." 

For no concert film, and for few films of any type, is this assertion more fitting. From start to finish, the 1984 Jonathan Demme-directed Talking Heads concert film is utterly absorbing. It creates a novel and engaging arc by having the musicians come out one at a time. It directs and holds the viewer's attention exactly where it wants. Sets, backdrops, and choreography are always simple and effective. Frontman David Byrne is a singular presence throughout. The entire band is never less than fantastic; the career-spanning setlist is the embodiment of the phrase all killer no filler. 

The film begins solo with lead singer David Byrne, whose persona in Sense has been described in consistently rapturous ways over the years. This may be because, despite communicating alienation, paranoia, and absurdity, Byrne is also somehow a disarmingly engaging frontperson who displays great joy in performance and movement onstage. To the viewer, Byrne is both himself—the lead singer of the band, doing this curious performing onstage—and a character being performed, changing from song to song. No matter which way you choose to view him, he's funny and feels essentially harmless, and refreshingly lacking in performance-ego. He is, in fact, working hard, growing increasingly disheveled to the point where after "Take Me To The River," he actually looks like he was dunked in a river. 

As a director, Jonathan Demme occupies an unusual position: unmistakably an auteur, but in terms of style, he's not flashy or always easy to articulate. Sense highlights what makes his work stand out—generosity and openness, a sense of solidity and shape, a fluidity of technique. Until the closing minutes of the movie, the band is the sole focus. Coverage is revealing and engaging. Both Demme and Byrne present a sort of Zenlike empty mirror in the film; everything is just as it appears to be, and yet is ineffably strange at the same moment, making for a singular presentation. 

The best illustration of this notion is probably the Big Suit, which perfectly distills the strange-ordinary tension, the deceptive simplicity, and the latent humor present throughout the film. The Big Suit also reflects the film's sensible restraint, as it appears for a relatively brief time, actually making little more of a cameo. As with the musicians entering one by one and having the full band onstage for only around half the film, it's a surprising choice but strikingly novel and correct. 

In the above-quoted essay, Ned Rorem writes also about the pleasure of listening to the Beatles, and pleasure is abundant throughout Stop Making Sense. Talking Heads songs are dancy and quirky, sure, but their studio albums, including Speaking in Tongues, the album they were touring on when filmed for Sense, can sound thin and jumbled to my ears. By contrast, in Sense, the band simply thumps. Arrangements are focused and streamlined. Every person plays an essential musical role, and everyone onstage conveys a personality. Despite Byrne being the undisputed frontman (for all but one song), the band's presence feels inclusive in the most authentic sense of the word. They are having fun playing music together and it is fun to watch. It is fun! Such a simple sentence, and yet how rare it is to truly experience such feelings of joy, wonder, and delight as are in this film. 

Sense has followed me unlike any other film throughout my adult life. As a freshly minted adult, it introduced me to playful absurdity that I sorely needed. My time living in New Orleans coincided with the 30th anniversary of Sense, for which I experienced wonderful film festival screenings on a 35mm print. Just after this, I decided with a co-founder to start a cinema in our adopted city, and we got to work. Several months later, we showed Sense in a Mardi Gras float warehouse, which was our first big show: sweaty, oversold, pockets full of crumpled cash, running out of alcohol, with custom letterpress-printed posters and lights shining across the floating dragons and creatures hanging from chains in the towering rafters. Most importantly, there were no chairs, so you could only dance. We subsequently showed Sense about every two years in a variety of warehouses and breweries. We were always trying to recapture that same wild, chaotic potential that seemed to be brought in line by the greatness of seeing this movie together. Sense became for us a symbol of the power of the nontraditional, the hybrid, the urgently necessary: a symbol of the work and the reward of shared experience. But we never did have a movie theater, so we never needed to deal with bothersome chairs as poor traditional cinemas did. The cinema dream ended; my life in New Orleans ended; the float warehouse closed; the 35mm print and Blu-ray and DCP shepherded by Palm Pictures were removed from circulation. 

Now, A24 has acquired and restored Sense, rereleasing the film in time for its 40th anniversary. It is only their second repertory title (after Pi) and surely reflects the covetous affection for and long-building reputation of this film, which has in a sense now arrived in the big leagues. Will its new life allow for worn but reliable 35mm prints, will it allow for chaos and sweat, for upstarts and warehouse screenings, for the absence of chairs, for dancing and the sudden welling of tears, for distorting speakers and whoops of joy at Tina Weymouth's crab dance, for group mimicking of David Byrne's gunshot staggering and running laps and marching in place, for bringing one's own lamp to slow dance with, for Big Suit contests, for loud cheers at the screen as the band leaves the stage, for ecstatic post-film milling with sticky, drunken hugs, first dates that turn into marriages, endless nights out, endless ideas and analyses and recollections and reflections? Will its new life allow for true actual wrong-choiced harmonious youth? 

It must. And will, if it is allowed to. 

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Travis Bird is the Technical Director at Ragtag Film Society working across Ragtag Cinema and True/False Film Fest. He is also the Co-Founder of Shotgun Cinema.

I. Sound

I can't assume that young moviegoers already know this, so here's a public service announcement to pass on to them if needed: for the first part of their existence, films had no sound—no dialogue, no effects. It was only later on that people figured out how to put soundtracks onto film, and "talking" pictures replaced silent films. 

Ragtag's third Screentime event, in conjunction with Silent Movie Day, features a double bill of classic silent films starring the singular Buster Keaton: Sherlock Jr. and Cops. But if you think the theater will actually be quiet, think again. Because in the silent film era, film screenings were not silent. Rarely in any period anywhere was a movie shown in a cinema without some kind of musical or sound accompaniment. 

The Silent Era of cinema lasted roughly 30 years, from when movies were first shown in public in the late 1890s to the introduction of film sound that began in 1928. The era had multiple distinct periods. In the beginning—then as now—film exhibitors tried many approaches to entice people to come to the cinema. Live music was one of the main attractions, but it took on a wide variety of forms based on previously existing performance modes such as vaudeville, the theatrical entertainment genre of the time. As cinema had only just been invented, there was no blueprint to draw from for sound—or picture, for that matter—so people used what and who they had. This varied widely according to where you were in the U.S. or the world. There were usually no musical instructions accompanying a film print arriving at a cinema; they would simply put it onscreen. 

Some silent films had their own scores that were meant to be performed by live musicians along with the film. But there remained a lot of variation in to what degree a score could be executed. Smaller locales had fewer skilled musicians. Accompanists couldn't always read music, or preferred to improvise. As a film print traveled from place to place, sheet music often became separated from the print, marked up, spilled on, crumpled up, or otherwise destroyed. But in whatever form, music was virtually always present. 

There were other forms of accompaniment beyond music. For example, in Japan, where the silent era lasted a decade longer than in the U.S., there was a special and esteemed performer, the benshi, who stood onstage and acted as a sort of interpreter of the film, explaining it to the audience. (This excellent piece describes the benshi's fascinating role in Japanese film culture.) 

Finally, there would have been plenty of other sound in the cinema. Social mores about talking in theaters were less strict than they are now. Patrons read intertitles out loud to each other if needed. There was plenty of laughter as well, which there will undoubtedly be at Ragtag. (A note on sound: both films will screen with prerecorded orchestral accompaniment.) 

II. Echoes

Since being displaced or rendered "obsolete" by talkies over 90 years ago, silent cinema has had a lively existence. Film scholars have consistently researched the early era's films and practices—to the point that many significant cinematic events around the world have been documented with impressive precision. Although it has been estimated that 90% of silent films are lost forever, materials are still always being discovered, researched, restored, and conserved at archives around the world. 

In the 1950s, Henri Langlois, eccentric pioneer of film archiving and co-founder of the French Cinemathèque, showed foreign-language prints that were not subtitled without sound, inspiring the young French New Wave filmmakers in the audience. Silent Era stars achieved new recognition by becoming venerated elders, and subsequently through VHS and by being shown on television. (This is how I learned about Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin as a kid.) 

Currently, Silent Movie Day is just one of the activities in silent cinema's ongoing afterlife. Experimental filmmakers from Andy Warhol up to the present make powerful silent film work. Silent film soundtracks are continually created and performed. The renowned Pordenone Silent Film Festival will hold its 42nd edition this October in northern Italy. Theater organs are renovated and maintained along with historic cinemas, and young musicians like Nathan Avakian of the International Youth Silent Film Festival engage patrons with the unique attributes of organ accompaniment and the techniques of silent filmmaking. Artists of all kinds continue to take inspiration from silent film in all kinds of ways. Cultural custodians consider demanding questions raised by early film materials about archiving and time itself. 

Cinema by nature is a record of the past. And yet, time passes. 

Often, it is the task of older individuals to introduce young people to art of the past. The generations of the Silent Era did so. Those who knew such people as living relatives, those who experienced silent cinema through primary sources, are now becoming elders. Those who discovered silent film through VHS tapes and grainy public television, who had dial tones and drove vehicles with carburetors, are getting older. With each generation the link fades. Almost a quarter of the way into the 21st century, we continue to engage with early works of the art form that defined the 20th century. This can only be because of the fascination, delight, and power that we continue to experience when we see these films, especially when we go to the cinema and see them in a group. 

For those who perhaps haven't seen a silent film, and even for those who see them infrequently, the experience can be an odd one. Motion looks different, jokes and narrative elements don't always feel familiar or clear, and sound—usually in the form of musical accompaniment—is quite a different experience. Particularly with films like these, though, if you continue to watch and listen, you'll find them fully engaging over a century later. 

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Travis Bird is the Technical Director at Ragtag Film Society working across Ragtag Cinema and True/False Film Fest. He is also the Co-Founder of Shotgun Cinema.

Ragtag is an independent cinema running 35mm film whenever possible, but it sometimes seems like we don't get to talk much about why we continue showing on film (I use film throughout to refer specifically to analog film: 70mm, 35mm, and the like.) Why do we contend with faded or worn prints, the difficulty of locating prints, increased shipping and equipment costs, and the need for specialized labor from within our projection corps? 

We often encounter two extremes: audiences who don't comprehend or are indifferent to film, and ones who are already fully on board and need no convincing. Many young people in particular are extremely stoked on film: fascinated by its physicality and the anything-may-happen truth of a projection performance, and moved by the increasingly rare experience of seeing one specific film print instead of an infinitely reproducible digital projection. There aren't always many in between. 

In 2015, Quentin Tarantino's western The Hateful Eight was released as a 70mm roadshow presentation in addition to digital. The roadshow had been a massive undertaking, as technicians spent many months acquiring, modifying, rebuilding, and deploying over 100 70mm projection systems into various (mostly multiplex) projection booths around the U.S. The film opened on Christmas Eve of that year, and for many film technicians and projectionists, it was a once-in-a-lifetime project to bring off. In 2017, though, many of those same 70mm setups were used in the release of Nolan's war epic Dunkirk. And then they sat until this summer, when Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer garnered the widest analog film release in recent memory, with 128 70mm prints, 31 IMAX 70mm prints, and 98 35mm prints hitting screens around the world. And one of those 35mm prints is coming to Ragtag for screenings throughout the next week. 

So: why does this matter? 

Throughout almost 20 years of digital cinema projection, "film people" have had to consider exactly how to argue that film is worth saving. It's never been enough to just say Film is cool, which ignores the financial reality of cinema, or Film is better, which is an alienating thing to say and isn't always true. I've settled on two-ish reasons, both of which Oppenheimer illustrates emphatically. 

Firstly, we show on film to honor the intentions of the filmmaker, the artist. Christopher Nolan is perhaps the most visible contemporary director who is extremely vocal about the importance of working and finishing his movies on film. It's essential to his conception of the work, his production and execution of the story that he wants to tell. A trickier example: any film made before digital technology, which was presumably optimized in every way for film only. Can a digital restoration, however high quality, actually be what the filmmaker intended without their explicit consent?  Film works both for and against us here, as prints—copies made in a lab, usually without each individual one being signed off on by the filmmaker—represent the original format of the work. We have a responsibility to get as close to the filmmaker's intention as possible, and so maintaining film projection is as essential as digital. 

Secondly, we show on film to educate viewers in media and visual literacy. A watercolor and an oil painting: you can usually tell the difference between them and consider why a painter used one or the other. Similarly, film and digital are different media that both happen to capture and play back moving images. The notion that digital replaced film is an economic idea, not an artistic one. Instead, we can understand that one medium better serves certain types of stories; the other better serves other types. I don't mean only that Oppenheimer is set in pre-digital times. It's also that Nolan's story centers on physicality, tactility, and energy, and shooting on large-format film and projecting on film captures those subtleties exceptionally well. 

Or: it does when the projection is good. 

Everyone from the pre-digital days has a projectionist-screwup story, a ruined-show story. These tiresome anecdotes ignore the false promise offered by digital (in the cinema and elsewhere). In fact, every digital projection is not identical, and digital perfection is just as rare as analog. Multiplexes running Oppenheimer on 70mm also showed the film on digital screens, and on many of those screens digital projections are out of focus, have unbalanced color, and aren't bright enough. With digital projector service severely hampered by corporate bureaucracy, these machines fall radically short of recognized standards and risk leaving audiences underwhelmed at best. Care for the machines goes hand in hand with care for the audience, even though digital entices us with the possibility of not caring and the assumption of set-and-forget. 

This ambiguity and vulnerability are the shadow reasons why film matters, why small and independent arts organizations matter, and why community organizations matter. 

But for some heavy lobbying, film might have just vanished around ten years ago, making it impossible to shoot on film or make new prints. Since then there has been a resurgence, with projects of all sizes continuing to be shot on film, and a modest but steady supply of new 35mm prints hitting screens. The essential equipment and skill sets necessary to make film happen are being actively developed, documented, and spread. Audiences respond to the display of these skills at all levels, as they always did, even if we have many tools and encouragement to forget it.

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Travis Bird is the Technical Director at Ragtag Film Society working across Ragtag Cinema and True/False Film Fest. He is also the Co-Founder of Shotgun Cinema.

Before the development of Ragtag's Screentime series came about, parents regularly suggested that it should exist, and Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) was usually the newest title suggested among a long slate of beloved classics. Even as they mentioned the film, people became more and more excited as they recalled it, amplifying their suggestion from "What about" into "You absolutely must." Wes Anderson's exuberant animated film is packed with life, including a sprawling cast of animal and human characters, careening action sequences, and minutely detailed sets crammed into every frame. It's a blissfully rollicking ride with a filmmaker at his peak using all his powers for fun and enjoyment. 

Like its vulpine protagonist, the film world of Fantastic Mr. Fox is charmingly delighted with its own existence, and only casually acknowledges the general sense of relief when things work out. The mixed response to Anderson's preceding film The Darjeeling Limited (2007) included grumbling about the increasingly apparent constraints of his trademark storytelling and filmmaking style. It was noted that he seemed to be repeating themes and methods. But the painstaking process of animation offers a blank slate to build a world on, and few filmmakers have been able to embrace it with the verve of Anderson in his first animated feature. 

Most writing about Anderson's film adaptation treats the original 1970 Roald Dahl novel with indifference, noting mainly only that the events of the book are encompassed in the film. And indeed, from an author whose must-reads include fantastical stories like James and the Giant Peach, The BFG, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox is arguably not a first-tier classic. Aside from the talking animals, the world of Mr. Fox is not really fantastical. It's gritty and stubborn and rural, finding wonder in courage and determination, and in the very existence of plentitude: enormous storehouses, a large feast, and group cooperation. 

The movie's hyperdetailed world nourishes the small seeds of the Dahl novel, growing them into a dense forest of places and things, backstories, and relationships, in which the smallest exchange or closeup can convey a lifetime of very specific emotion. Characters are added (Kristofferson), fleshed out (Badger and Rat), and consolidated (the four Small Foxes become a single Ash), reflecting off each other in environments that feel enclosed and intimate in a far more urban, bustling way than the book. The intricacy built throughout the film is a powerful blend of story and technique. 

Roger Ebert famously called movies machines for generating empathy. In the film, empathy arises for these specific individuals, enlivened by their complex (and cinematically familiar) backstories. Anderson's films are often compared to timepieces in their precision, thoroughly engineered with every advantage of the Hollywood system. British critics reviewing the film noted its Americanization in embracing familiar cinematic tropes of individualism and redemption. This could also be argued as the industrialization of the story, enabling Anderson's lavish marshaling of resources and talent to engineer a work of art for maximal appeal, the book's picaresque neighborly skirmish erupting into the movie's playfully showstopping war. 

The empathy in Dahl's book, by contrast, is queasy and tough. When the weakened Small Foxes whimper that they're very hungry, he draws out the cruelty of starvation and physicality of privation. Mr. Fox's ingenuity is born of indignant necessity that is immediately relatable. The Foxes become all foxes, all the animals, all the hungry, all underdogs. The deranged farmers become every menace, every bully, every hoarder and exploiter of resources. Like comparing Dahl's leather World War II flying helmet with the eye-watering tech of current pilot headgear, the expectations of the world in which they exist are perhaps fundamentally different. 

A gentler comparison might be between Bob Dylan's austere "All Along the Watchtower" and Jimi Hendrix's kaleidoscopic cover version. Dylan has long acknowledged Hendrix's dazzling cover as definitive, commenting that Hendrix unlocked elements of the famously enigmatic song that only he could. The same can be said of Anderson's film, which enormously expands the world of Dahl's book while sharpening the visceral experience of the original.
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Travis Bird is the Technical Director at Ragtag Film Society working across Ragtag Cinema and True/False Film Fest. He is also the Co-Founder of Shotgun Cinema.

The term experimental film still attracts annoyance, but I wonder if this is actually an expression of frustration. People annoyed by experimental may be saying that while they assume an insider knows what it means, they don’t, because it’s an inadequate descriptor. There are other words used for this kind of work, including artist film and personal film. But while experimental is inaccurate and vague, the other terms are uncomfortably specific. They point directly at one individual maker, often working in a noncommercial, intimate environment. The actual content varies widely – people joke that, like pornography, we know it when we see it – but if it expresses one person’s mind, it can be off-putting or disconcerting, so we use the softer term.

For some years I participated in a film festival screening committee for “experimental shorts,” which I put in quotes because of its extremely broad interpretation. Amid quasi-commercials, misguided dance films, and plodding voiceovers, every year without fail, there would be a film by Those Two Guys. Some of the group came to dread them, but year by year the rest of us anticipated them with increasing enthusiasm bordering on glee.

The two guys were both middle-aged white men, a Laurel-and-Hardy-esque duo with comically thespian seriousness. In their films, they stood together in a sort of picture-in-picture. Dressed casually, as for an early-period stage rehearsal, they were always talking: not really to one another, certainly not aggressively at one another, but still somehow with one another. They spoke in visions, pronouncements, from absurdity to despair, one picking up the baton where the other left it, back and forth as they riffed on ideas and images that suggested a rich, baffling shared inner world. 

Visually, the films were an arcade of the uncanny: Web 1.0, Clip Art, and other early digitalia inspired a retrograde 3D modeled world of purposefully generic elements. They drifted constantly along potent psychic and geographic terrain, expounding on the visions expressed in the duo’s commentary. Resembling non-aesthetic productions of corporate training or educational videos, they drew from elements that it didn’t seem possible to reuse. I was primed for a jaded and ironic gaze, but instead I found their films hilarious and delightful, but also philosophically thought-provoking and surprisingly moving. Bizarrely given their hyperreal aesthetic, they felt real. Compared to the extreme self-consciousness of most of the work that came across our screens, it’s not too much to say that they gave me hope.

My screening committee duties lapsed, years passed. Then I opened an email, clicked on a trailer, and gasped aloud: it’s those guys, they have a feature. And now, we are thrilled to welcome in person David Finkelstein: director of Spontaneous Artifacts, Guggenheim fellow in video, and indeed half of this indelible screen duo.

Finkelstein’s filmmaking process is distinct. Actors (in this case himself and Ian W. Hill) are filmed improvising a dialogue based on the method of improvisation for stage and film that Finkelstein has been teaching for some two decades. The performance is edited into a script of sorts, which becomes the basis for his intricate animation and sound design. If they’re fortunate, filmmakers and other artists develop choices that become “theirs,” and Finkelstein’s unique raw material (the improvisations) intersects with several signature moves. Recurring images in his precisely rendered 3D animation – itself a stylistic trademark – include flying pizzas and parking garages; transcriptions of dialogues scroll across the screen in Papyrus or Chicago font; the superimposed actors are constantly present; dreamlike meandering follows the end of a thread of dialogue. Finkelstein’s short films, although relatively long (often in the 25- to 40-minute range), tended to keep up the spell with quick pacing, but his feature stretches out in languid, contemplative pauses, allowing the viewer to sink deeper into their own mind.

Finkelstein says his work is often called psychedelic, a term casually misused even more often than experimental. However, his improvisational method does share roots with psychedelic experience, during which a person’s awareness of self as distinct from other is suppressed, ignored, or bypassed, leading to the feelings of oneness with the external world that make such experiences valuable. Finkelstein’s method casts off inhibition to access the subconscious; with training, actors are able to visualize, articulate, and share an inner landscape. Radically open and collaborative, it uses actual experimentation with shared ecstatic states as the basis for precise artistic expression.

Spontaneous Artifacts is concerned with universal touchstones of human culture and thought. But its tension between specific and generic, absurdity and seriousness, and stimulus and contemplation prevents the viewer from settling in one place, forcing the mind to remain open and receptive as it receives Finkelstein’s unique vision of cultural onslaught.

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Travis Bird is the Technical Director at Ragtag Film Society working across Ragtag Cinema and True/False Film Fest. He is also the Co-Founder of Shotgun Cinema.

Ragtag isn’t the only, nor the first organization in Columbia to hold an annual local-celebrity-related fundraiser. Being in COMO Magazine’s current class of 20 under 40 myself, and married to one of this year’s stars in the Mareck Center’s Dancing with the Missouri Stars, it might even seem Columbia is saturated with this kind of thing. But I can see why. We aren’t in a huge city where one can take an endless selection of cultural offerings for granted. When people live their passions here, it makes a direct impact. We’re exceedingly proud of and feel inspired to recognize the tangible—and intangible—contributions people make to our community.

When rewriting Ragtag Film Society’s (RFS) organizational mission statement* in 2019, the use of the word “communities” (plural) was intentional. Ragtag and True/False are not meant for one audience or one type of film viewer, and it’s essential that we not be—that we reach different folks, share in art and dialogue, and through our mission, see how we can serve each other. Sometimes that’s with free community events, like our Show Me Series, and sometimes it’s by fundraising. Our annual CoMo Famous fundraiser is one way we aim to engage new, diverse audiences, through collaboration with our contestants—all of whom are invested in Columbia and the things that make it special.

I am tickled and humbled thinking back on the folks we’ve gotten to participate in CoMo Famous over the last five years (and I am still wildly impressed with Adonica Coleman’s snowy outdoor screening in late October of 2020 - if you were there, you deserve a CoMo merit badge). The contestants have been both hilariously competitive and adorably supportive of each other. They have all been exceedingly generous with their time and resources, embraced an ambitious challenge, and I think, had a helluva a good time doing it.

This month brings more of the same to Ragtag—in the best way possible—with a new CoMo Famous lineup. Amanda Rainey is joyfully celebrating Jewish culture through baking for and feeding her community. In addition to a bad-ass day job in human resources, Diamond Scott is a dedicated champion for her entrepreneurial sister’s goals of expanding her healthy hair care line into a brick-and-mortar business. Cody Finley is an artist whose work happens one-on-one, creating unique, individualized body art. Matt Warren is paving the way for gender neutral clothing with a brand that celebrates Columbia as an oasis of culture. And Lisa Driskel Hawxby’s craft distillery is a community watering hole offering local ingredients and a good time.

RFS’ spin on the local-celebrity fundraiser is that the contestants pick their own films to screen, and then eventize them. Since this event’s inception, I’ve noticed the film selections and the evening’s offerings are usually a reflection of the contestants themselves: what they value, enjoy, or hold dear. And seeing them in the context of a series, with a variety of tastes, eras, styles, and vibes makes all of these films (Crossing Delancey, Bring it On, mid90s, Next Friday, and Footloose) so worth revisiting. Getting to know someone through the film they choose to share is such a treat—and, I believe, a gateway to building new communities.

Arin Liberman, RFS Executive Director

*With cinema as a focal point, Ragtag Film Society exists to captivate and engage communities in immersive arts experiences that explore assumptions and elicit shared joy, wonder, and introspection.

1974’s Space is the Place is a hallmark of the Afrofuturist project and a groundbreaking piece of Black representation. 

Yet, if you Google its director, John Coney, you won’t find much: an IMDb page with no headshot, a spotlight on Mubi with no biography, and the Wikipedia pages for two different John Coney’s (an engraver and a silversmith respectively). This man purportedly exists. His name is listed in the credits for at least three films. Yet there’s little to be said about his career in the film industry.

For this story, John Coney is of minimal importance. Instead, we turn to the man who goes by God—Sun Ra.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama as Herman Poole Blount, Sun Ra demonstrated early signs of musical talent and idiosyncratic thinking. Following a traumatic service in a segregated Army during World War II, he renounced his birth name in the 1940’s and adopted the persona of Le Sony’r Ra, after the Egyptian God of the Sun. Later shortened to Sun Ra, he revolutionized jazz and poetry, imbuing his art with a unique cosmic philosophy. In the 1950’s, he mobilized his Arkestra—a musical collective marked by their ornate Egyptian-inspired costuming and Space Age sounds. By 1971, Sun Ra and his Arkestra had made it to California. There, Sun Ra taught a course at Berkeley entitled “The Black Man in the Cosmos,” where the story of Space is the Place began to take off. 

In 1972, during his time at Berkeley, Sun Ra met jazz musician, art curator, and eventual producer of the film Jim Newman. Trained as a saxophonist, Newman had opened a series of jazz clubs and funded an “experimental art series” dubbed Dilexi—a project which would later morph into Space is the Place. Newman was captivated by Sun Ra’s distinct aesthetic and even more distinct space funk fusion. Initially conceived as a documentary on Sun Ra himself, the film gradually shifted its style and narrative as Ra was given greater creative control. 

Writer Joshua Smith—who coincidentally also doesn’t have a Wikipedia page—was hired to co-write the feature with Sun Ra. Smith was preoccupied with Blaxploitation’s tropes of drugs, sex, and violence. This clashed with Sun Ra’s notably purist sensibilities; he famously asked his band members to abstain from drugs and sex throughout their tours. His primary focus was telling a story of the mass relocation of Black people to a far off planet. Smith mostly just wanted there to be a pimp. Ultimately, they both got their way. 

Humorist and cultural critic David Rees likes to say “all movies are either puzzles or dreams.” Space is the Place exists in a hypnagogic in-between. Frenetic as fuck, the film manically occupies a reality tethered to contemporary race relations while soaring towards something quite otherwordly. “I’m not real, I’m just like you,” Sun Ra says early on in the film to a group of prospective followers. “I do not come to you as a reality, I come to you as the myth because that is what Black people are: myths.” 

“I hate your reality,” Sun Ra states. Thankfully, he gets to create his own.   

Modern audiences gravitate towards a philosophy known as auteur theory—the practice of assigning sole “authorship” to the director of a film. And while there are plenty of directors with name recognition whose cred gives weight to this thinking, films like Space is the Place upend it entirely. Film critic Pauline Kael argued against auteur theory, noting the inherent collaborative nature of film. Sun Ra himself echoes this sentiment in the film: “Everyone’s supposed to be playing their part in this vast orchestra of the cosmos.” Jim Newman, a cis white man, ultimately pulled enough weight to get the film made. Sun Ra was prolific, but widely unheard of outside of California and the jazz community. An undeniable talent since birth, his ability and perspective was never questioned. Alas, in a white film industry, he needed an ally. 

Who do movies belong to? Who is allowed to tell certain stories? The painful reality of making movies in 1972 is that you often needed a white male face to convince anyone to give you money. Even the term Afrofuturism itself was coined by a white man, but make no mistake—this is not a story about doling out overblown praise to white men chill enough to become “allies.”

At the end of the day, history remembers Space is the Place as Sun Ra’s movie. History remembers the Black voices, the Black faces, and the Black vision of the cosmos Sun Ra pioneered. This is no accident. People like Jim Newman, Joshua Smith, and John Conley, although largely forgotten, knew not to tell someone else’s story—rather, they supported it.

Tia Sarkar is the Cinema Operations Coordinator at Ragtag Cinema. She is on Letterboxd.

As the day gets longer, the air gets warmer, and the Earth gets greener, I return to a formative place—the creek down the street from my childhood home. We were classic creek kids. In a neighborhood filled with old houses and retirees, being a kid in the Spring Ridge subdivision felt like being a member of the most exclusive club. Set loose to explore the surrounding wilderness, we’d come back home at dusk, drenched in the smell of wild grass and pond water. Caked in mud with the occasional scraped knee, we were a scrappy band of modern day Magellans. 

Like Proust and his madeleine cookie, My Neighbor Totoro carries me back to these old memories.

Hayoa Miyazaki’s beloved film has a plot— technically, anyway. Sisters Satsuki and Mei move to the countryside with their father following their mother’s hospitalization. The girls explore their new home and its neighboring woods. Nestled in a camphor tree deep within the forest, they befriend a big bear-like spirit by the name of Totoro.

Miyazaki aimed to make a “delightful, wonderful film”  designed to “entertain and touch its viewers, but stay with them long after they have left the theaters.” The famously outspoken Miyazaki had already incorporated politics into his first few films—particularly regarding the environment. His pre-Ghibli breakout film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, detailed the post-apocalyptic ecological fallout of a war torn planet. My Neighbor Totoro, while decidedly less severe, remained committed to environmental storytelling. 

Alongside My Neighbor Totoro’s delicately rendered mosaics of the Japanese countryside, Miyazaki harkened to a longstanding indigenous Japanese faith: Shintoism. Often classified as a nature religion, Shintoism revolves around the presence of “kami” or spirits innate to all things —especially natural forces and landscapes. During the story’s inception, Miyazaki envisioned Totoros as “serene, carefree creatures” akin to a “forest keeper.” 

This context surrounding My Neighbor Totoro can feel heady. This hasn’t deterred a seismic global following yielding multi-volume books, sequels, a Royal Shakespeare Company stage adaptation, and millions of plush dolls. The film’s ubiquity cannot be understated. Look at the Studio Ghibli logo; you’ll find Totoro. 

My Neighbor Totoro’s success is multifaceted. It’s sweet, it’s simple, it’s quietly profound, yet the film excels largely due to Miyazaki's unmistakable respect for children and childhood exploration. Afterall, Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki, and Isao Takahata founded Studio Ghibli to counter a media landscape that clearly thought less of young audiences.

We still condescend to our younger selves. Films, books, and television geared towards children are stigmatized as dumb, overstimulating trash—and in fairness, some of it is. The culture tends to treat children like impatient germ-traps for whom movies only serve as a pacifier. As adults, liking movies “for kids” comes with defensiveness. God forbid a grown-up likes a cartoon. We need qualifiers—of importance or exception—to warrant our attention towards something society sees as a hollow waste of time. Famed Pixar-director Brad Bird often gripes over the disrespect the public tends to throw at animation: “It’s not a genre,” Bird retorts. “It’s a storytelling medium which anyone can enjoy.” 

But at no point in life have you ever learned more than when you were a kid. You were experiencing everything for the first time in all its horror and mysticism. You were learning how to speak, how to read, how to wander. Of course creeks felt magical. Hayao Miyazaki reveres childhood curiosity and strives to nurture it in children and adults alike. Not much happens in My Neighbor Totoro; that’s the beauty of it. Plotlessness leaves room for reflection. Nothing is passive, everything is meditative. To a child, quiet scenes of nature hide spirits and secrets, while offering respite for everyone else. 

My Neighbor Totoro lives on not as a children’s film or a niche intellectual exercise adults are allowed to like—it’s for everyone. More than anything else, My Neighbor Totoro reminds me I never lost my inner-creek kid. She just wandered off someplace else.

Tia Sarkar is the Cinema Operations Coordinator at Ragtag Cinema. She is on Letterboxd.

Cinema can reconstruct a memory, or even better, turn it into something greater. If you allow it, chance will collide with the truth in every frame. An image can strike such moments of tenderness amidst rage and defiance: A girl, a flower, a piece of bread, the sunlight.

A Moment of Innocence, a 1996 Iranian film by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, does exactly that. With humor and sensibility, Makhmalbaf deconstructs the process a filmmaker goes through to make a film about a true event: from casting, picking wardrobe, to actors embodying ideas, sentiments and postures from the real person they’re depicting. Even though it is often accounted as an autobiographical film, Makhmalbaf has always been drawn to depict both sides of a story. In fact, he is more interested in what the other has to say rather than his own version: others are often mirrors of oneself.

Watching it at True/False in a packed theatre in 35mm for the first time in my life was an illuminating experience. The imperfections in the print, the analog sound makes you feel as if you’re right there with them. This film is so contagious and inspiring. I hope you can enjoy it as much as I do.

—
Victoria Linares Villegas is the director of Ramona, It Runs in the Family, and recipient of the 2023 True Vision award at the True/False Film Fest.

A Moment of Innocence screens on 35mm at Ragtag Cinema on Thursday, April 6.

A few weeks back, my friends and I devised a thought experiment: There are only four types of movies: boy movies, girl movies, and gay movies. Michael Mann’s Heat? Boy movie. Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird? Girl movie. My Fair Lady? Gay movie.

When nothing else seems right, turn to the fourth category—Freak movies. 1997's Batman & Robin, Under the Skin, David Cronenberg’s entire filmography? All movies for freaks. 

Freak-ness is not simply weird or countercultural. While strange to some, freaks represent the familiar. To quote People Magazine, they’re just like us. Using everything from sex and violence to hallucinations and dreams, films for freaks speak to the recognizable wrong lurking inside all of us. 

On April Fool’s Day 2023 one such freak by the name of Ari Aster had a surprise early screening of his third feature film, Beau is Afraid. Early reactions described it as  “Freudian” and “phantasmagoric.” Writer Emma Stefanksy referred to it as “an acid trip slathered in meth.” Actress Emma Stone pronounced Aster as “sick in the head.” “He’s not well,” she quipped. Everybody had a good time. 

Loving movies leads you to some seriously fucked up shit. Even stranger, loving movies means finding joy in that seriously fucked up shit. 

The details of Beau is Afraid have been kept vague; we know Joaquin Phoenix stars as the titular Beau who, following his mother’s death, goes on an epic odyssey which forces him to confront his darkest fears. Aster’s two previous features—2018’s Hereditary and 2019’s Midsommar—immediately struck a nerve with audiences. Horror fandom maintains a paradoxically niche and ubiquitous place in moviegoing, but Aster broke through genre trappings, fighting reductive terms like “elevated horror” along the way. His films are horrific and deeply cathartic. They succeed by appealing to the dark and wounded experiences we bury deep within our psyches. They’re also quite funny. In other words, Aster knows everyone can be a bit of a freak sometimes. 

While Marvel and Disney films have dominated the box office throughout the last decade, we are seeing a resurgence of Hollywood’s freaky side. Scream queens like Mia Goth are headlining movies, building a rabid fan base along the way. Yes, she’s beautiful but shave off her eyebrows and give her a pickaxe or a gun and you’ve got yourself a freak. 

Star vehicles are starting to look more like clown cars. 

But cinema has a history of loving the freak. David Cronenberg’s films were heavily scrutinized, facing condemnation and moral outrage—all the while making millions. Some swaths of white bread America are like homophobic Senators; turns out, they were gay the whole time. Film theorist Siegfried Kracauer believed that, by nature of being collaborative, film mirrored existing social and political realities while also propelling new ideas forward—like a feedback loop on wheels. Many have attributed much of Marvel’s success to the political climate of the 2010s. Watching superheroes beat the bad guy shelters us from our fears. But with Marvel’s recent box office bombs and horror and genre film’s renewed popularity, maybe audiences don’t want to hide from reality anymore.

Covid obviously changed us. Society’s levees broke and it became near-impossible to ignore the floods. Escape has proved increasingly less viable. But the freak presents us with an alternative: Facing the darkness isn’t all dour. It’s often funny. When the world is too absurd for mainstream escapism, maybe it’s time to go to the movies and learn to love your inner little freak. 
—
Tia Sarkar is the Cinema Operations Coordinator at Ragtag Cinema. She is on Letterboxd.

Growing up, my family always watched the Oscars. We’d order Chinese food, and I’d get to stay up late (even on a school night). With each passing year, I’d grow a little older and see a few more of the films nominated. We weren’t sports people so this was our Super Bowl—an event not to be missed and talked about incessantly the days after. To a child with a burgeoning interest in cinema, a metric of quality like the Academy Awards carried a lot of weight. Watching Martin Scorsese win for Best Director for The Departed at 12 years-old gave me context for who he was. “Huh,” thought my pre-teen self, “I should watch his movies now.”

I started posting on the IMDb Oscar Buzz message board (RIP) where people obsessively predicted the winners, tracked precursor awards, and created their own personal Oscar line-ups. I made internet friends—many of whom I still keep in touch with and who now professionally write about both film and the Oscars. Said internet friends introduced me to films and filmmakers both accepted and shunned by Oscar sensibilities. Soon, I too was meticulously cataloging the films I watched and compiling breakdowns of my own personal nominees. For years, these patterns of thought consumed me. Like the stars and planets, my life revolved around movies, and the Oscars were the Sun. 

But I grew up, and slowly the Oscars’ light began to dim. My perspective morphed into something knowing and cynical. Systemic failures like the brutal lack of diversity and rampant misogyny felt suffocating. Not to mention the Oscars’ notorious tendency to get it wrong.

This thing I loved hated people like me; an awakening akin to breaking up with your first love.

The lists went away. I stopped posting on the message boards. No more staying up late on Oscar Sunday eating Chinese food. I had outgrown them. I knew better. 

My old obsession gave way to a sense of superiority surrounding film and awards culture. I never hesitated to remind others how little the Academy Awards mattered and how silly people were for investing themselves so fully in such a corrupt, politically skewed organization. My encyclopedic knowledge of past winners and nominees still came in handy, though, and I took delight in rattling off prolific filmmakers who never got their Oscar due or who won for sub-par work given their stellar filmography. Martin Scorsese may have won Best Director for The Departed, but I liked After Hours more, and I’ll have you know it didn’t receive a single nomination. 

I was really fun at parties. 

The Oscars were still a source of entertainment albeit one with minimal significance. Glimmers of excitement occasionally shone through. Watching live when La La Land was mistakenly announced as the Best Picture winner over Moonlight was electric, as was Olivia Coleman’s surprise win for Best Actress. Alas, these moments were bookended by bad wins which only vindicated my sour outlook. 

But in February 2020, I went to an Oscar watch party in Kansas City at the Screenland Armour. The nominees had sparked controversy given the wealth of diversity in 2019’s films which were largely shut out; classic Academy move. A drunk woman sitting a few rows in front of me made a point of standing up and screaming “F*** you!’ every time Joker won something. 

Then Parasite won an Oscar and people lost their minds. Everyone cheered. Some dude ran a lap around the theater and waved a flag. People took shots. With each ensuing win, the audience’s zeal never waned. Then it won Best Picture, and I will never forget the energy in that room. Was I back at my Super Bowl? 

As I’m writing this, it’s February 12th. I’m in New Orleans, and it’s Sunday—Super Bowl Sunday to be precise. I’ve never paid much attention to sports; watching the Super Bowl has often been a passive year-to-year experience. But this year, one of my dear friends texted me, “I know this is corny, but when you visit, can we watch the Super Bowl?” She grew up in Kansas City and has been feeling nostalgic lately. She and I met in Kansas City too. So today, I care about the Super Bowl. I’ve got a reason to root for someone. 

Humans are creatures of overcorrection. From one extreme to the next, the pendulum swings with each new piece of information. But there’s this concept called negative capability; the ability to hold up two contradictory ideas as both true. The Oscars don’t matter, but somewhere there’s a 12-year-old girl in the Midwest who’s learning about Martin Scorsese because he just won Best Director. The Oscars don’t matter, but diversity matters, and awarding a film made by Black or Asian creators impacts the industry. When Parasite, a film dissecting class inequity, wins Best Picture, everyone suddenly cares about wealth disparity. Just take a look at all the films about rich people being bad released since. 

The Oscars don’t matter, but isn’t it nice when the thing you care about gets recognized on a global stage?

On March 12 at 7pm, the Oscars will be presented at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Ragtag Cinema may or may not be hosting a watch party. Given this year’s slate of nominees, I’ve got someone to root for. It’s corny, but I’ll be there—sans Chinese food.

—

Tia Sarkar is the Cinema Operations Coordinator at Ragtag Cinema. She is on Letterboxd. Two of her fellow IMDB Oscar Buzz alums, Jack Moulton and Mitchell Beaupre, are staff at Letterboxd.

I’ve always talked a lot. I’ve routinely heard how most women do—much more than men at least. There’s a shame people project on talkative women; so much so that research suggests women speak less in public spaces because they don’t want to be perceived as talking too much. 

But more often than not—it’s okay to talk. In fact, it’s necessary. 

Sarah Polley’s Women Talking embodies this necessity. The film takes us into an ultra-conservative religious colony reckoning with a disturbing discovery: for years, the colony’s men have been drugging and raping its women and girls. The colony’s women come together and hold a vote: do nothing, stay and fight, or leave. When the vote is tied-up, they hold a forum—kept illiterate though, they require a man to take notes. The ensemble cast—including Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Ben Whishaw, and Frances McDormand—navigate the crisis almost entirely through dialogue in a stage-like approach. There is minimal violence, sparse sexual content, and just a spattering of foul language. Even sans explicit content, the film presents a stomach-churning experience. 

Reducing Women Talking to a film simply about healing or trauma would be incomplete. From Disney to Marvel, these narratives already saturate the current film market. Women Talking instead takes a Socratic approach to the horrors of sexual assault with each character representing a different survivor archetype. Rooney Mara’s Ona is soft yet strong, maintaining a facade of level-headedness and cautious optimism for the future. Claire Foy’s Salome embodies pure rage and serves as the loudest proponent of staying and fighting. Jessie Buckley’s Mariche upholds the conservative patriarchal values pervading the commune, yet nonetheless harbors deep guilt and resentment. Frances McDormand’s aptly named Scarface Janz maintains they should stay and forgive the men. Parsing through their differences, Sarah Polley’s writing and urgent direction makes one thing clear: the end goal is moving forward. 

Whether forgiveness, departure, violence, or silence, these women all have different versions of moving forward. The implications of each option, though, blur the lines between them. Around the story’s midpoint, Judith Ivy’s Agata acknowledges a difficult truth: forgiveness can be confused with permission. What’s the meaningful difference between leaving and fleeing, between surviving and thriving, between letting go and forgetting? When cooperation is essential to survival, the answers to these questions carry far greater weight. 

Women Talking, the film, as well as the novel it’s adapted from, introduces itself as “an act of female imagination”—a seemingly strange choice given its roots in reality. The novel’s author, Miriam Toews, herself raised in a Mennonite community in Canada, based her writing on real accounts from a scandal within a Bolivian colony. What distinguishes Women Talking as a product of imagination versus reality is its relationship with closure. Sarah Polley’s film presents women with a choice; those Bolivian women never got to make a decision for themselves. Until recently, most survivors sat with their pain, completely unheard. Even in the wake of #MeToo, many survivors, without receiving justice, do the work of finding closure in silence. Unlike the women of the Bolivian colony, these women are given the space to say their piece, to talk, and be heard.

Something beautiful about women that science can corroborate is, yes, in fact, we do talk more than men—in private and amongst each other. And with these conversations comes clarity and connection: stones paving a path forward. 

Inside all survivors is a void. And there are plenty of cliches with which to fill it: denial, aggression, or substance abuse. But if moving forward is the goal, maybe filling the void isn’t the solution—it’s building a bridge. We cannot fill the void, but maybe we can traverse it. Despite our most honest efforts, some pains are and always will be. But Sarah Polley reminds us that we can still move forward together—and it starts with women talking.

—
Women Talking is currently playing at Ragtag Cinema. Tickets are on sale now.
Tia Sarkar is the Cinema Operations Coordinator at Ragtag Cinema. She is on Letterboxd.

In 1998, director George Miller took a walk through LA. With three Mad Max films behind him, he envisioned a film that was an “almost continuous chase,” but was stuck on one essential component—the plot. Previous Mad Max entries unpacked the unstable social and political systems which inevitably led humans to ruin. Somewhere between that walk and a flight to Australia, Miller conceived of a story in which “violent marauders were fighting, not for oil or for material goods,” but for something else. In an post-apocalyptic race for resources, what if human beings were those resources?

17 years later, there was Mad Max: Fury Road—a distinctly modern and thoroughly energized vision of a dead world marked by ecological collapse and patriarchal exploitation run amok. Set in a barren desert, the film opens with the titular Max being captured and repurposed as a “blood bag” for the soldiers of a warlord dubbed Immorten Joe. Concurrently, Imperator Furiosa, a female lieutenant, is sent out to trade produce for petrol and bullets. Upon realizing Furiosa has smuggled out five of his imprisoned wives in the process, Immortan Joe recruits his entire army—including a “War Boy” and his blood bag Max—to chase them down.

What followed was both a high octane action spectacle and a thoughtful dissection of feminism, environmentalism, and the politics of exploitation and survival. 

In a world with minimal access to water, food, and shelter, the characters of Mad Max: Fury Road are reduced to their utility. Max is not a man but a blood bag. War Boys are weapons. The wives are breeders. Announcing their escape, Immortan Joe’s five wives—Toast the Knowing, Capable, The Dag, Cheedo the Fragile, and The Splendid Angharad—leave a message in bold red on the walls of their prison: WE ARE NOT THINGS. Oppressive regimes, by definition, operate on intensely authoritarian rules, of which women bear the brunt of. If a woman is only a womb, escaping means absolution from your role as a resource. 

Through a brief audio montage at the start of the film, the audience learns how overconsumption and capitalist gain led to the downfall of society. Humans took and took until nothing was left. In due course, this scarcity helped prop up those with money and power, as they became the only ones with access to natural resources. In Mad Max: Fury Road, the scorched landscape is both a literal and symbolic representation of exploitation. Immortan Joe comes to power because he controls what’s left of the environment. The people under him have little ability nor opportunity to overrule him. After all, they need to eat. 

The appeal of dystopian narratives lies in their tether to the present. Desolate wastelands, dried up reservoirs, and crumbling infrastructure feel relevant when most Americans are only a paycheck away from homelessness. After the repeal of Roe v. Wade, it's become a cliche to refer to oneself as an incubator. 

Creating an action film for the ages means recognizing the age we live in—that doom is on the horizon, and is only intensifying with the effects of climate change. Mad Max: Fury Road appeals to our fear—of not only what we are headed towards—but that we are already being exploited by destructive systems far greater than we can imagine. The future is now here. 

—

Mad Max: Fury Road plays on 35mm January 17 at Ragtag Cinema as part of Science on Screen: Feminist Dystopias. Tickets are on sale now.
Tia Sarkar is the Cinema Operations Coordinator at Ragtag Cinema. She is on Letterboxd.

“The weather outside is frightful, But the fire is so delightful.” 

The first frost is well behind us, and with December atop our calendars, winter is here. For most, the season brings a complicated mix of emotions not easily to put into language.
Words like Hygge, a Scandinavian sentiment for coziness and well-being; Gemütlich, the German familiar and inviting warmth; or the Portuguese Saudade, the nostalgic melancholy that drifts in with the holidays (and often one too many eggnogs) all grasp at our longing for warmth and connection in the cold …but nothing communicates the ineffable quite like film.
All through December, our new series, Ways to Stay Warm presents a slate of cold-weather cinema across genre and language. Not-quite-Christmas flicks, frosty locales, holiday party gauntlets, great coats, laughter, heartbreak, and more than one kind of family are all thrown into the soft glow of pale winter light.

Whether it’s gathering the family (Tenenbaum or otherwise), sharing a drink, falling in love, wielding a flamethrower, or just bundling up in a great coat…
…there are many ways to stay warm.

—

SEASON PASS ON SALE NOW

THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (on 35mm)

Friday - Sunday, December 9 - 11
Two decades of betrayal, failure, and disaster estrange a once-extraordinary family, reducing three child prodigies to three washed up adults. One winter, a lie from their persona-non-grata patriarch sparks a reunion. Canonizing the Wes Anderson aesthetic for the new millennium, The Royal Tenenbaums struck a chord with artists, cynics, and former gifted-kids everywhere.
BUY TICKETS

BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY (Screening as part of Extra Credit)

Monday, December 12
With the passing of another New Year’s, imperfect 32-year-old Bridget Jones commits to change, keeps a diary, and naturally finds herself embroiled in a dicey love triangle. Reinterpreting Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, Bridget Jones's Diary solidified Renée Zellweger's stardom and served as a touchstone for cozy turn-of-the-century rom-com pastiche. BUY TICKETS

HUSTLERS

Wednesday - Sunday, December 14 - 18
In the wake of the Great Recession, a clique of former strip club employees find themselves disenfranchised by the American dream. Everything changes one frosty evening when group matriarch Ramona (Jennifer Lopez) invites newcomer Destiny (Constance Wu) to climb into her fur coat and fight a common enemy—Wall Street bankers. Hustlers optimizes the female gaze and dissects the capitalist mythos along the way. BUY TICKETS

THE THING (40th Anniversary Restoration)

Thursday-Friday, December 15 - 16
In the remote reaches of Antarctica, a cohort of scientists and a grizzled helicopter pilot uncover the find of a thousand centuries… if only they could put it back. John Carpenter’s snow-swept Sci-Fi captures the unease of winter, iced-in cabin-fever, and the unknowable that lurks beyond the lantern glow. BUY TICKETS

GIRL PICTURE

Opens Friday, December 16
Over three consecutive Fridays, three young girls exiting adolescence rebuff sexual frustration and chase adulthood down the frigid streets of Helsinki, Finland. Exuberant, queer, and achingly bittersweet, the 2022 Sundance International Audience Award-winner presents the spectrum of female friendship and desire without the threat of trauma or danger. BUY TICKETS

TOKYO GODFATHERS

Tuesday - Thursday, December 20 - 22
On Christmas Eve, a middle-aged alcoholic, a transgender woman, and a runaway tween find an abandoned baby in a Tokyo dumpster. Swaying between the disastrous and the miraculous, anime auteur Satoshi Kon imbues his trademark surrealism with the happy-sad neo-realism and beloved magic of Chaplin-style slapstick. BUY TICKETS

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY... (on 35mm)

Thursday - Saturday, December 29 - 31
Harry and Sally meet after college graduation. They meet again and again as their friendship traverses museums, restaurants, and New Year’s Eve parties. But can they just be friends? A true labor of love, When Harry Met Sally cemented Nora Ephron’s place in the zeitgeist and set the modern rom-com in her mold. BUY TICKETS

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SEASON PASS ON SALE NOW
7 tickets for $60. Use them however you wish—see all seven films yourself, introduce the whole family to your favorite, or gift them indiscriminately to your neighbor, your barista, your bartender, or your therapist!

In 1981, film director Rob Reiner got divorced. Overwhelmed with the prospect of dating as a thirty-something divorcé, he opted for movie making over therapy; ultimately, a good decision for the culture. The ensuing film, When Harry Met Sally…, topped “best-of” lists, changed everyday language, and forever altered the DNA of the rom-com itself. While innumerable copycats attempt to replicate this success, the creatives behind When Harry Met Sally… set the standard by rooting their process in a simple, honest approach: drawing from real life and working together as friends. 

It began with a lunch. Knowing he wanted to direct a film about modern relationships, Rob Reiner sought out a female writer to balance the film’s perspective. Famed writer Nora Ephron— herself coming off an incredibly high profile 1980 divorce from Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein —was a natural fit. Reiner pitched her several initial ideas over a meal at the Russian Tea Room. Ephron emphatically shut Reiner down—though one idea stuck.

What if two people became friends, had sex, and their friendship was ruined?

Ephron’s professional philosophy came from a mantra passed down by her journalist mother: “everything is copy.” Life itself, for Ephron, provided the greatest source material. Subsequently, she chose to interview both Reiner and his producer Andrew Scheinman about their lives as single men for dialogue inspiration. After hours of relaying stories, the two insisted Ephron share something men don’t know about women. Feeling dared, Ephron dropped a bombshell. “Women fake orgasms,” she asserted. Without missing a beat, Reiner retorted, “Not with me.” Ephron spent the rest of the interview convincing him otherwise. 

Leaving these interviews “absolutely horrified,” she got to work, carrying with her a collaborative methodology which would color the film’s entire production. 

With a bare bones plot locked down, casting was the next hurdle. Comedian Billy Crystal had befriended Rob Reiner on the set of 70’s sitcom classic All in the Family. Crystal lobbied heavily for the role against Reiner’s skepticism (ironically, Reiner worried working together would ruin their friendship). After a plethora of push and pull, Reiner caved, and Ephron would pull a treasure trove of personal experiences from Crystal (validating her “everything is copy” method). Shortly after, the female lead was cast—a then unknown Meg Ryan—securing her spot as a creative partner on the project. 

On set, Ephron observed the person-to-person dynamics between the cast and crew carefully—particularly the relationship between Reiner and Crystal. The two had fallen into the sweet habitual trappings of friendship. Hearing of their nightly ritual of calling one another while watching the same movie on cable, Ephron wrote up a scene in which Harry and Sally do the same. All said, the observations were not limited to Ephron. Watching her order dinner, Reiner exclaimed, “My God, this has to be in the movie.” Over time, Harry’s character became a reflection of Reiner and Sally’s of Ephron.

Contributing to the smörgåsbord of source material were Crystal and Ryan. Crystal contributed rejected SNL pitches, while Ryan pitched arguably the film’s most enduring moment: faking it in Katz’s Deli—a scene that served as the apotheosis of the entire creative process. After hearing of Ephron’s early interviews on the matter, Ryan suggested Sally fake an orgasm. Reiner placed the scene in public, Crystal wrote the line, “I’ll have what she’s having,” and Rob Reiner’s mother, Estelle delivered it. 

The production of When Harry Met Sally… feels like a compendium of anecdotes: a crew member came up with the title (and won a case of champagne), the couples vignettes scattered throughout are all true (albeit dramatized by actors), Harry and Sally did not originally end up together—until Rob Reiner met his second wife on set and changed the ending (they’re still married today). These details can seem minor in light of the entire process. Together, they reinforce how palpable the friendship and collaboration was throughout the film’s creation. When Harry Met Sally… is fiction—fully based in real connection. 

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When Harry Met Sally… plays on 35mm December 29-31 at Ragtag Cinema as part of Ways to Stay Warm. Tickets are on sale now.
Tia Sarkar is the Cinema Operations Coordinator at Ragtag Cinema. She is on Letterboxd.

As a child, I spent a lot of time pretending to be an adult. We played doctors, homemakers, and explorers. Plastic stethoscopes, plush teddy bears, and tiny toy cars were the vessels through which we lived out a fantasy. We romanticized adulthood—infinite potential and opportunity projected onto a far off, seemingly unattainable time and place. As childhood wanes, these inconsequential props and play periods become wistful memories reflecting the ultimate tragedy of adulthood: It is often not what we expected.

Wes Anderson seems to understand the crippling disappointments of maturation better than any contemporary filmmaker. That these disappointments can all be tied to the stuff of our childhood is deceptively demonstrated by his trademark aesthetic. For Anderson, style is substance. His third feature film, The Royal Tenenbaums illustrates this best.

The Royal Tenenbaums has the trappings of a grossly trite story: absent father; divorce; lies; wasted potential; estrangement. The film’s storybook narrator, Alec Baldwin, introduces the once-extraordinary Tenenbaum family and how 22 years of betrayal reduces three child prodigies to three unfulfilled and disappointed adults. One winter, a lie from the family patriarch - the titular Royal - brings them all back home. 

While the bones might resemble clichés, the devil is in the details. Anderson infuses his film with an unmistakable look: saturating the screen with exaggerated sepia toned set dressing. His distinct style prompts descriptors like twee, whimsical, or idiosyncratic, even eliciting ire from some. To the contrary, these purportedly overwrought aesthetics belie The Royal Tenenbaums with a brutal emotional interiority. 

Anderson’s accoutrements all find their roots in the past. He loves typewriters, monogrammed luggage, and great coats. By extension, his characters project the deepest parts of their identity onto their old stuff. The most overt example of this can be seen in the Tenenbaum children’s costuming. Richie and Margot Tenenbaum wear the exact same outfits they wore as children, literalizing their stuntedness. Even the most minute details Anderson’s detractors often dismiss as shallow reveal something deeper about the past. Margot Tenenbaum has a secret smoking habit which she started as a child in the 1970’s. Accentuating her attachment to that time, Anderson makes the conscious choice to have Margot exclusively smoke a discontinued 1970’s Irish brand of cigarettes—a choice he felt made her secret that much stronger and stranger. 

Even the attachment his characters have to their present day materials stem from past wrongs. Ben Stiller’s character, Chas Tenenbaum, loses his wife to a plane crash prior to the film’s start. Chas’s arc centers heavily around his avoidance of the grief surrounding this loss, subsequently manifesting as a deep need to over-prepare for the worst. Anderson costumes the adult Chas and his two children in red tracksuits; so they could be prepared to run away at any given point—especially from their emotions. 

More than his characters, Wes Anderson himself cannot let the past go. In some cases, he brings his baggage to set, literally. Like Anderson’s own mother, Tenenbaum matriarch Etheline, played by Anjelica Huston, is an archaeologist; Anderson passed on several photographs of his mother in aviator jackets or on archaeological digs to Houston throughout production. In an interview, she recalled Anderson’s insistence that she wear a locket which once belonged to his mother. She finally asked, “Wes, am I playing your mother?” Anderson insisted this was not the case. 

Royal reunites the Tenenbaums in hopes of moving on from the past, but material remnants of their once promising potential litter the halls of the family house on Archer avenue. From trinkets and toys to paintings and dioramas rendered decades ago, this family’s stuff is more than just stuff. It’s a tangible reminder that childhood is long gone and adulthood is far from what it was cracked up to be. 

Looking beyond the preciousness of Anderson’s artifice, audiences are routinely rewarded. A title card early on in the film introduces the cast of characters. It features a drawing of a hawk, a note reading “22 years later,” and at the very bottom of the frame in lowercase italics a dedication: “to my family.”  

Wes Anderson envelops The Royal Tenenbaums in what could have been from what once was—establishing a career-long affinity for nostalgia. Nostalgia, it turns out, is a compound word from the Greek nostos meaning homecoming and algos for pain—an apt distillation of the film’s plot. Anderson’s intentions with props and production design are far more than twee quirks. They are why he makes movies.

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The Royal Tenenbaums plays on 35mm December 9-11 at Ragtag Cinema as part of Ways to Stay Warm. Tickets are on sale now.
Tia Sarkar is the Cinema Operations Coordinator at Ragtag Cinema. She is on Letterboxd.

We at Ragtag Cinema hold these truths to be self-evident: that not all films are created equal, that our community is endowed by their Cinema with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Inclusivity, Media Literacy, and the pursuit of Audience Development through community conversations around film—that to secure these rights, local arthouse cinemas are instituted among All, deriving their welcoming space from the consent of the very community that allows our very existence. 

It is in this spirit that we started a program called the Show Me Series just over a year ago. In partnership with 5 Community Organizations (Rock the Community, The Center Project, Four Directions at the University of Missouri, the Asian Affairs Center at the University of Missouri, and Boone County Community Against Violence) we co-curate free and monthly film screenings that are intended to prompt discourse around how what we watch on screen relates in/directly to our experiences as a diverse group of human beings that hold at least two things in common: 

1) we are all members of this community, and 2) we have all—in this very moment—experienced the same powerful story together. 

As we approach our third co-curated screening with Four Directions this month (of the 2022 Sundance Indigenous Shorts), I find myself reflecting on what I have bore witness to each month that we have hosted the Show Me Series. The process of co-curation with our Community Partners has been one defined by intention on both sides. Intention to use these films as a pathway to a space for inquiry and commentary. Intention to select a film not based solely upon its quality but rather its potential to inspire community dialogue. Intention has also been reflected within our audience, who have—whether it comes naturally or takes some effort—made a decision to first show up, and second, to be honest, to be comfortable in the discomfort, to share what they have experienced and express what they believe without fear of judgment or possible disagreement.

Finally, I reflect on what I have observed about myself. Initially, I assumed my position behind the scenes, one of the employees of Ragtag that runs this event. However, I have found myself instead existing in a liminal space in which I am both an employee and a member of the community reacting to these films, also taking part in this dialogue, also learning from our Community Partners and the perspective that they bring to the space. It is in this position, alongside the cinema staff who help to make this series happen month after month, that I have gotten to watch the series evolve from just an idea to a tangible force steadily marking our cinema as a hub for Columbia’s diverse communities.

Faramola Shonekan
Director of Community Partnerships & Education, Ragtag Film Society

The red carpets of Cannes, Venice, Telluride, Toronto, and New York are all rolled up, and festival prestige has taken up residence on the Ragtag’s marquee—awards season is upon us. From Palme d’Or winners and International Picture hopefuls, to career-best accomplishments, some of the most anticipated films of the year will make their way to our humble cinema, all in anticipation of the 95th Academy Awards.

Two such films have already landed in October. Triangle of Sadness, the 2022 Palme d’Or winner and latest provocation from Swedish enfant terrible Ruben Östlund (The Square, Force Majeure), is an acidic satire taking dead-aim at the absurdity of the idle rich before, during, and after a gleefully disastrous luxury cruise. Meanwhile, Todd Field (In the Bedroom, Little Children) returns to filmmaking after a 16 year hiatus with TÁR—the massive and surgically precise story of the unraveling of a fictional classical music titan, Lydia Tár. The film is fully a collaboration between filmmaker and performer, as Cate Blanchet delivers an athletic, at times monstrous, and all together awe-inspiring depiction of ruthless perfection.

“I feel shifted off my axis by the experience of making this film,” Blanchet offered in an interview. “And, I hope, for the better.”

The path towards the Oscars continues through November and December with even more festival standouts. Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin (opening November 4) pits Brendan Gleeson against Colin Farrell in a pitch-black bit of Irish farce, in which, on a quant island a sea away from the Irish Civil War of 1922, Colm doesn't want to be Pádraic's friend anymore. The comically petty grievances that incite this small tale escalate to imperil their even smaller village—which, from the vantage point of the film’s tragicomic cast of characters, might as well be the whole world.

Following the electricity at international scale of 2019’s Parasite, this year’s Academy Awards official entry for Korea, Decision to Leave (opening November 11), has already taken the Best Director prize at Cannes. The dizzying genre-bender from Oldboy and The Handmaiden-auteur Park Chan-wook, tracks a slick Korean detective and an enigmatic Chinese femme fatale as they fall into one another’s orbit. An infinitely inventive game of cat and mouse (and mouse and cat), the film’s form ping-pongs between hard-boiled crime familiarity and Hitchcockian romantic obsession—with parallel leads Park Hae-il and Tang Wei pivoting positions between that of Vertigo’s Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak.

The surprise (but not unanticipated) standout—across category and scale—from this year’s Toronto International Film Festival is The Fabelmans (coming soon). Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical epic, with no exaggeration, is an all-timer. The divorce between Spielberg’s parents (and its quiet influence at the heart of some of his blockbusters like ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind) here is the big picture—if second only to how a young boy might fall in love with moviemaking. Also baked into the film is Spielberg’s Judaism, from generational customs to daily specificities, and, in post-World War II America, the constant message that he was different for it. This raw honesty is countered by its nostalgia, carrying an Amarcord-flavor of the fantastic—but would we expect any less grandeur from the person who gave America so much of its cinematic language?

A closing thought: Just as the most passionate footballers are often the most acutely aware of the worst aspects of the World Cup, cinephiles make for some of the Oscars harshest critics… and ought to be for our love of the form. With or without a drop of cynicism though, we know that beyond the pomp and circumstance, the Awards carry serious implications for what films get made, who gets to make them, and—in a treacherous time for theaters—how we get to see them.

Outside of the heady scenes at festivals and cinemas like ours, ars gratia artis (art for art’s sake) isn’t a terribly motivating factor for Hollywood.

But lest our beloved theatrical spaces fall further under the shadow of the monocultural Superhero Industrial Complex—ephemeral awards prestige, thankfully, still summons crowds at the box office …which is more than just ars gratia artis.

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Ted Rogers is the Cinema Programmer at Ragtag Cinema. He is on Letterboxd.

One of my oldest memories is Julia Roberts winning the Oscar for Best Actress for Erin Brockovich. The details still linger with me: her signature smile, her Valentino dress, how she beamed with her arms outstretched and Oscar in hand. “I love it up here,” she cackled. At six-years-old, it would be years before I gained an understanding of the cultural cachet Julia Roberts occupied. Though at that moment, it didn’t matter. Something about the public glorification of this 90’s screen darling tapped into a part of my childhood psyche.

“Wow,” I thought to myself, “good for her.” 

The feelings associated with this memory turned out to exist outside of a vacuum. As film morphed from a passing interest into a daily fixation, I learned of the fervor cinephiles have for the leading lady. Coming of age with the internet meant bearing witness as various camps emerged on film forums, blogs, and Tumblrs, all decrying their undying love for iconic actresses old and new. We see this same energy now on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Look to all the Gen Z love for Florence Pugh and Zendaya as recent examples. There is a powerful love and intense devotion the moviegoing public has for the captivating woman on screen.  Film writer and The Film Experience founder Nathaniel Rogers even coined a term for this brand of film fanatic - the Actressexual.

The Best Actress Oscar race by extension yields a zeal like no other. But despite the wealth of talent found among the nominees, the category highlights a distressing film industry trend. 

Actress-oriented films typically receive minimal audience and critical attention outside of the central performance. Films nominated in the Best Actress category are often shut out of nearly every other major category. This may feel innocuous - especially for those who rightfully dismiss Oscar sensibilities - but the insidious truth is that these omissions often impact broader industry decisions. The films showcasing these actresses seldom elicit acclaim proportional to the central performance. Frankly, the actresses adored by the culture deserve films which match their talent. 

That said, a glimmer of hope flickers on the horizon as the 2022 Awards Season kicks off. 

Tár is an upcoming film starring Actressexual favorite Cate Blanchett. Directed by Todd Field (In the Bedroom, Little Children), Tár experienced a successful festival run and will be coming to Columbia’s own Ragtag Cinema on October 28th. What distinguishes Tár from traditional Best Actress fodder is simple: it is a masterful piece of filmmaking. Contrary to trends of female driven films, Tár’s craft extends beyond the brilliance of Blanchett. In the film, Blanchett plays Lydia Tár - a famed composer on the precipice of a great career breakthrough. Blanchett’s performance anchors Tár while the visuals, score, direction, writing, and supporting performances all work together in absolute harmony. Ultimately, Tár presents a palpable shift in films geared for Best Actress Oscar success. While the success of one film does not ensure overnight industry reform, it’s a notable step in the right direction. Success of this caliber helps usher in reform.  

Like many film fans, my relationship with the Oscars is a complicated one. Against my better judgment, I hold on to the feelings I had at age six when I saw Julia Roberts with her Oscar. To a child, this is a shiny, happy moment for a shiny, happy lady. Unlike before, I see the politics and the money which pollute the Academy’s metric of (e)quality. More often than not, they get it wrong. Moreover, the Best Actress category historically shuts out LGBTQ+ performers and women of color. Upon winning Best Actress in 2002 for Monster’s Ball, Halle Berry famously wept and announced that a door had been opened. She is still the only woman of color to win Best Actress. 

Filmmakers face radical changes in 2022. Between pandemic recovery, streaming competition, and a turbulent political climate, creatives have their work cut out for them. Nonetheless, Actressexual devotion has yet to waiver.  Combatting industry ills starts with supporting films like Tár which respect the actress enough to give her a film which properly honors her talent. As an adult, it is not simply a smile nor a dress nor an exclamation of gratitude which fills me with awe. It is the collective joy and respect filmmakers and audiences extend to the actresses we love which leaves me in awe. “Wow,” I think to myself, “good for her.” 

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TÁR is now playing at Ragtag Cinema. GET TICKETS

Originally published on November 1, 2022 in the Columbia Missourian.
Tia Sarkar is the Cinema Operations Coordinator at Ragtag Cinema. She is on Letterboxd.

Our annual Ragtag of Terrors returns for 2022 with a focus on the millennium and the styles, waves, and generations it shaped… as well as the films that new generations have reshaped and reclaimed. New cult classics are coined, and misunderstood cast- offs reemerge as rebellious and empowering. 
For fear of over-intellectualizing... GET WEIRD!
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JENNIFER'S BODY (Part of Extra Credit)
Monday, October 10 at 6pm
Oil and water childhood bestfriends struggle to navigate high school after one develops a taste for male human flesh. What follows is a subversion of coming-of-age tropes tackling girl-on-girl hatred, #MeToo politics (years before the term was coined), and a meta-examination of the Megan Fox mythos. Mis-marketed at its initial release as Twilight for boys, Jennifer’s Body tells the story of a queer-coded succubus cheerleader who isn’t just high school evil. 

LOST HIGHWAY
Friday-Sunday, October 14-16
The line between two realities rupture as a jazz musician in prison experiences a world altering transformation and dives into a nocturnal odyssey populated by doppelgängers and industrial metal. Extra-strength terrifying and utterly baffling, the nightmare turns 25 with a new restoration supervised by David Lynch.

TWILIGHT (on 35mm)
Friday-Saturday, October 21-22
Misanthropic and misunderstood, seventeen-year-old Bella Swan finds herself drowning in the malaise of her dreary life in Forks, Washington. That is until a class assignment serendipitously pairs her with an enigmatic and suspiciously pale hottie with a penchant for piano, hair care products, and drinking blood. Emblematic of Tumblr era romanticism, Twilight jump started the careers of two of the 21st century’s biggest stars and left audiences equally baffled and dazzled. 

AUDITION
Friday-Saturday, October 21-22
One of the most infamous and gut-wrenching Japanese horror films ever made returns to the big screen! A movie producer and widower looks for a new wife by holding “auditions” for a film that doesn’t exist. Quickly, he becomes enchanted with a spooky twenty-something who is responsive to his charms... but things are not what they seem, and all bets are off. 

MEDUSA
Sunday-Thursday, October 23-27
By day, they broadcast catchy devotionals in pastel pinks across Brazil. 
By night, they’re a vigilante girl gang prowling the streets, terrorizing those they’ve deemed to be off the righteous path.

THE CRAFT
Friday-Saturday, October 28-29
High school is Hell—A telekinetic new-girl falls in with a clique of outcasts studying witchcraft. As these women find themselves and their powers, they take on the bullying, belittling, gaslighting, and assault that plagues them. The Craft emerges as a defining cult classic of teenage female rage—and an ode to freaks, weirdos, and mall goths everywhere. 

A tireless filmmaker with a career spanning seven decades, Frederick Wiseman has made forty-five feature films and often wears multiple hats as director, sound engineer, editor, and producer. Working with a skeleton crew, Wiseman immerses himself inside the institutions that he documents for stretches of time before heading to the cutting room and building a cinematic portrait of the place.
He observes the inner workings and rituals of spaces we often inhabit without thinking—from schools to department stores, welfare offices and museums—and by filming their infrastructure and internal logic, probes into the role they might play within society and human experience at large. He often refers to his work as ‘reality fictions’ and prefers to utilize a patient gaze and precise framing, avoiding any interference from voiceover, interviews, or title cards.
This season brings together eight titles from across Wiseman's filmmaking career, including his first credit as producer on Shirley Clarke’s docufiction The Cool World. It’s also a rare opportunity to see selections from the program on their original 35mm format.

All screenings feature introductions with University of Missouri professor and filmmaker Robert Greene.

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Titicut Follies (on 35mm)
Wednesday, September 14 at 6pm
Wiseman’s first film is a powerful and stark portrayal of the conditions inside the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts, focused on the treatment of inmates by the guards, social workers and psychiatrists. 1967. 84 min.

High School (on 35mm)
Wednesday, September 21 at 6pm
Filming inside a large Philadelphia high school, Wiseman observes the education system through a series of encounters between teachers, students, parents, and administrators. 
1968. 75 min.

The Cool World (on 35mm)
Wednesday, September 26 at 6pm
Directed by Shirley Clarke and produced by Wiseman, 
The Cool World is a compelling, vérité-style collaboration with non-actors to craft a story of gang culture in 1960’s Harlem. 1963. 105 min.

Welfare
Wednesday, October 5 at 6pm
Workers navigate the complexity of the welfare system in an uphill struggle to interpret the laws and regulations to support clients with issues with housing, unemployment, divorce, and medical and psychiatric problems. 
1975. 167 min.

Frederick Wiseman: Masterclass
Sunday, October 9 at 12pm
Wiseman joins us in-theater via Zoom for a masterclass conversation moderated by the Murray Center's Filmmaker-in-Chief Robert Greene to discuss his approach to capturing nonfiction stories and building immersive institutional portraits over seven decades.

The Store
Wednesday, October 12 at 6pm
From corporate marketing meetings to selling luxury products on the shop floor, The Store is an insightful look at the minutiae of the daily reality of department store Neiman-Marcus. 
1983. 118 min.

Blind
Wednesday, October 19 at 6pm
Turning his camera on students at The Alabama School for the Blind, the film captures the school’s efforts to educate blind and visually impaired students to take charge of their own lives. 1986. 132 min.

La Danse (on 35mm)
Wednesday, October 26 at 6pm
The film goes behind the scenes at the Paris Opera Ballet revealing the collaborative work of rehearsals and performances for seven ballets by one of the world’s great ballet companies. 2009. 159 min.

National Gallery
Wednesday, November 2 at 6pm
Immersed in the internal workings of London’s National Gallery, Wiseman burrows into the institution that is home to masterpieces of Western art from the Middle Ages to the 19th Century. 
2014. 180 mins.

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Presented by the Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism at the University of Missouri

Twenty-two years ago, a quietly revolutionary film premiered at Sundance Film Festival. It told the story of a group of queer Black friends and their romantic escapades. No one in the film got AIDS, no one died, and everyone had a good time.
That film was Punks.

After nearly 20 years, after scattered festival runs, sparse private events, and twin New York and LA revivals this spring, it screens in Columbia, Missouri at Ragtag Cinema (on a 35mm print straight from director Patrik-Ian Polk).

Full disclosure: I work at Ragtag Cinema. Last week, someone came in and asked me and some of my coworkers why we love movies — not an unfamiliar question working in an arts nonprofit. Each of us took turns rattling off different reasons why cinema speaks to us; opportunities for education, connectivity, catharsis, transformation and aesthetic enjoyment were just a few of our shared answers. After a few minutes of this, they asked a follow-up:

“And movies are fun, right? Going to the movies is a fun thing to do?”

We all took a pause. Of course, we agreed. Film is fun. If we didn’t find enjoyment in film, none of us would be where we are. How is it we could be asked such a straightforward question and completely overlook the simplest answer? What began as an innocuous question-and-answer session quickly morphed into something unexpectedly introspective.

I am incredibly proud of the work I do. I have boundless pride and affection for the people I work with and for the films that we, as an organization, choose to showcase. That said, showcasing meaningful representation on film presents recurring challenges. Some of this is simple inside-baseball film industry politics. It is no secret that the vast majority of films are made by and for CIS, straight, white men. Moreover, wading through films that depict the merciless struggles faced by historically underrepresented communities can be taxing.
Part of eliciting empathy in a majority white, Midwestern film-going audience involves presenting challenging material. At best, these at-times harrowing films reinforce why we love movies. At worst, these films feel like bland eat-your-vegetables cinema or just another homework assignment.
As audiences look to cinema for a greater understanding of social justice, some filmmakers have chosen to exploit the horrors of historical oppression for cheap content. Underneath shallow façades of inclusivity and importance lies little but disingenuousness. As a biracial woman and the child of an immigrant, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this.

The beauty of Punks? It is neither punishing nor dull. It is neither phony nor insincere. Instead, it has the audacity to be a romantic comedy.

Films that push audiences out of their comfort zones hold a permanent and necessary place in the zeitgeist. All the same, not all stories of the underrepresented and unseen need to be dour, nor does education and empathy need to be overly studied. Radically occupying a space few films do, Punks opts for joy over sorrow, for love over death, and frivolity over self-seriousness. Most importantly, it serves as a celebratory reminder that going to the movies is fun.
On Friday, I have the unique opportunity to rectify my ignorance and see this film. I implore you to do the same and revel in the pure, unadulterated queer Black joy beaming on screen. A film like Punks is easy to sleep on. Until recently, I was one of the people doing just that.

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Originally published on September 22, 2022 in the Columbia Missourian. Reprinted to coincide with the opening of Bros.
Tia Sarkar is the Cinema Operations Coordinator at Ragtag Cinema. She is on Letterboxd.