BAMBI & THE LEGACY OF TYRUS WONG AT THE EGYPTIAN L.A

This Sunday at The Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, The Art Directors Guild Film Society salutes artist Tyrus Wong, beginning with the Disney classic BAMBI, whose artwork was inspired by Wong’s paintings. Followed by TYRUS, a new documentary about the celebrated Chinese-American designer. Discussion between films with TYRUS director Pamela Tom and filmmaker Ted Thomas (son of BAMBI animator Frank Thomas), moderated by production designer Thomas A. Walsh.

Sunday Jun 25th 5:30pm
Double Feature

BAMBI (1942 / 75th Anniversary)
Among the most beloved animated films of all time is this story of a young deer growing up to become the “Great Prince of the Forest” with the help of his friends, Thumper the rabbit and Flower the skunk. Though the film is family-friendly, source novel Bambi, A Life in the Woods was written for adults, and the book’s serious tone does come through in places (most famously in the off-screen death of Bambi’s mother).

TYRUS (2017)
One of the most celebrated Chinese-American artists of the 20th century, Tyrus Wong was a production designer, illustrator, painter, muralist, ceramicist and lithographer perhaps best known for his haunting landscape backgrounds in the Disney classic BAMBI. Through interviews, archival footage and never-before-seen artwork, this beautiful documentary traces Wong’s life and career from his birth in China to the studios of the Golden Age of Hollywood to the beaches of Santa Monica, where the centenarian loved to fly his colorful, handmade kites.


Both screen in DCP Format. Program notes by American Cinematheque.

1982-CENTRIC 70MM COLLECTION AT THE EGYPTIAN, L.A.

After it was discovered that films originally shot in 35mm could be blown up to 70mm to take advantage of the latter format’s superior sound and brighter imagery, numerous blockbusters were converted to the widescreen format, a process that peaked in the 1980s. Join The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood for the continuation of their two weekend collection of fantasy, horror and sci-fi as they turn the clock back 35 years with some of the most memorable movies of 1982. Although some of the prints have been noted to have faded in color, this in itself adds to the sense of experiencing a true celluloid artifact and the fragility of the medium. 

Wed Jun 21st 7:30pm
THE THING
Director John Carpenter took the 1951 sci-fi classic THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, produced by Howard Hawks, and turned it into something darker, fiercer and altogether more disturbing, pitting sombrero-wearing helicopter pilot Kurt Russell and a crew of Arctic scientists (Wilford Brimley, Donald Moffat, Richard Dysart) against a ravenous, shape-shifting alien being. From the haunting opening shots of a sled dog fleeing across the snow, to the apocalyptic, fire-and-ice ending, this ranks with Ridley Scott’s ALIEN as one of the finest (and most beautifully crafted) sci-fi films of the past 30 years. The film was terribly underrated by critics on its initial release, but its stock has constantly risen in the ensuing decades as one of the most intelligent, scary and uncompromising horror films of the 1980s. Also starring Keith David and David Clennon. Please note that color has partially faded on this print, the only known 70mm copy.

Thu Jun 22nd 7:30pm
MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR
Hockey mask-wearing Lord Humungus whips his speed freaks into a frenzy, while Road Warrior Mel Gibson tries to save the remnants of civilization in director George Miller’s lean, mean, thrill machine. Please note that color has faded on this print.

Fri Jun 23rd 7:30pm
E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)
Arguably director Steven Spielberg’s most popular film, it follows several children (including Henry Thomas and a very young Drew Barrymore) who shelter and try to help a stranded alien back home to the stars. Magical and enchanting. With Dee Wallace Stone and Peter Coyote.

Fri Jun 23rd 10:00pm
THE DARK CRYSTAL
Introduction by filmmaker Bernard Rose (whose first job in the movies was as a PA on THE DARK CRYSTAL).Legendary Muppets creator Jim Henson was inspired by a Lewis Carroll poem to create his own fairy tale about Jen, the last surviving Gelfling, who is sent by his dying master on an epic quest to fulfill his destiny to heal the fractured Dark Crystal. After three years of brainstorming with a team that included renowned fantasy artist Brian Froud and screenwriter David Odell, Henson wove the ideas into a story that was fleshed out by Odell, and the task shifted to bringing those words and images to life in this charming film which used then-state-of-the-art technology to create a groundbreaking alchemy of puppetry and electronics on a scale never before attempted.

Sat Jun 24th 7:30pm
TRON
Hacker Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is digitally abducted into the inner realm of the ENCOM computer, where he must compete in virtual gladiatorial games in order to survive. During a Light Cycle match, Flynn teams up with the brave security program Tron (Bruce Boxleitner) and together the two battle the system to try to free the Digital World. With Cindy Morgan.

Program notes by American Cinematheque

ORSON WELLES

The Egyptian Theatre presents a tribute to one of the great auteurs off cinema, Orson Welles. A master of noir, his career was plentiful whether acting or directing. Remarkably he shot his masterpiece CITIZEN KANE when he was only twenty five. Ensure to visit the grand Egyptian Theatre this week in Hollywood for the chance to experience some of Welles' best, and a few of his rarest, work on the big screen;

Orson Welles' talent and imagination were so prodigious that he spanned radio, film, television, books and theater and excelled in them all. His very first film, CITIZEN KANE, is generally considered one of the greatest movies ever made. Loosely inspired by the life of William Randolph Hearst, the film is a brilliant display of unusual lighting and camera angles, innovative use of sound and extended takes - as are such later features as Welles’ film noir masterpieces THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI and TOUCH OF EVIL.

Unfortunately, 1958’s TOUCH OF EVIL was the last time Welles had a major studio in his corner. But that never stopped him from making movies; with the drive and resourcefulness of an independent filmmaker, he continued to create such fascinating work as THE TRIAL, an adaptation of the nightmarish Franz Kafka novel, made inexpensively in Europe. Welles knew how to get the most out of every dollar on a film shoot, and during the last 20 years of his life would often funnel money he’d made as an actor into his cinematic pursuits.

Few men are better acquainted with this period of the director’s career than Stefan Dröessler of the Munich Film Museum, who has restored numerous self-financed Welles projects. Some of these are rather fragmentary, such as scenes shot for uncompleted films like the director’s adaptations of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE or THE DEEP. Much like Welles’ pseudo-documentary F FOR FAKE, these rarities offer a kaleidoscopic look into one of the most brilliant minds in cinema history.


SCREENING SCHEDULE

Thu, May 4th 7:30pm
THE TRIAL (1962 / DCP)
L.A Premiere of the new DCP Restoration

Franz Kafka’s classic novel of paranoia and conspiracy seems tailor-made for director Orson Welles. This labyrinthine, deliciously satiric, nightmare vision of a man (Anthony Perkins) accused of an unspecified crime emerges as a subtle allegory of Welles’ own Catch-22 tribulations working in the film industry. With a dream cast that includes Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, Akim Tamiroff and Welles himself.
 

Fri, May 5th 7:30pm
Double Feature
TOUCH OF EVIL (1958 / DCP)
Orson Welles’ hallucinatory, off-kilter masterwork stars Charlton Heston in one of his finest performances as a Mexican policeman trapped on the wrong side of the border, where a corpulent, corrupt cop (Welles) tries to stop him from digging into the past. Janet Leigh co-stars as Heston’s new wife, menaced by leather-clad Mercedes McCambridge and her gang of juvenile delinquents. Co-starring Akim Tamiroff, Marlene Dietrich, Joseph Calleia.

THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1948 / DCP)
The camera is the star in one of director Orson Welles’ most phantasmagorical films, a dazzling noir thriller about a seaman, a crippled lawyer and his homicidal wife pursuing one another through a "bright, guilty world" of infidelity, deception and murder. The hall-of-mirrors climax is riveting. With Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth and Everett Sloane.

Sat, May 6th 7:30pm
ORSON WELLES RARITIES SPECIAL
Presented by the American Cinematheque, the Munich Film Museum and SEEfest

“Orson Welles, Shylock and King Lear,” 100 min. All his life, Orson Welles was fascinated by Shakespeare and tried to bring his plays to a broad audience. This illustrated lecture by Stefan Dröessler of the Munich Film Museum shows different approaches in different media (book, stage, radio, phonograph records, film, TV, video) used by Welles to create “Everybody’s Shakespeare.” It focuses on the plays “The Merchant of Venice” and “King Lear,” which Welles tried to adapt throughout his career. Along with unknown clips, pictures and documents, the 2015 reconstruction of the legendary fragment THE MERCHANT OF VENICE will be shown.

Followed by:

“Orson Welles Rarities,” 100 min. Join us for additional restored films and reconstructed fragments from the Munich Film Museum’s Orson Welles collection. The trailer of the unfinished thriller THE DEEP was digitally restored from the work print recently found in the vaults of Richard L. Bare. Portions of the TV film LONDON have been improved after the discovery of the original script in the Oja Kodar papers held at the University of Michigan. The beautiful screen tests for THE DREAMERS are “the most effective and convincing” of the first Orson Welles restorations done in Munich.

 

Sun, May 7th 7:30pm
Double Feature
CITIZEN KANE (1941 / DCP)
Orson Welles was only 25 when he directed this masterpiece, and it remains one of the most phenomenal motion pictures ever made. Welles, of course, also stars as Charles Foster Kane, a ruthless man who built a newspaper publishing empire and a character supposedly modeled after the real-life William Randolph Hearst. Trailblazing in so many respects, from Gregg Toland’s complex camera and lighting to Bernard Herrmann’s score to one of the finest ensemble casts (including Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane and Agnes Moorehead) ever assembled. With an Academy Award-winning script by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz.

F FOR FAKE (1974 / 35mm)
Orson Welles appears as "himself" (but which self? Master director? Magician? Media manipulator?) in this delightful essay on the nature of illusion, focusing on all types of fakery and fakers, including notorious art forger Elmyr de Hory and fraudulent Howard Hughes biographet forger Elmyr de Hory and fraudulent Howard Hughes biographer Clifford Irving. With Oja Kodar and Peter Bogdanovich.

Program notes by American Cinematheque. Visit them online HERE.