Happy New Year to Everyone I am putting the Spring 2024 Film Club Season together and will update this site.
As you might remember we did not have a November session and if people want compensation for the missing lecture they paid for please contact me.
Thank you for your continued support.
Simon
FILM CLUB
Long Melford Village Memorial Hall
Long Melford, Sudbury CO10 9JQ, UK
Film Club takes place on the fourth Wednesday of every month at the Long Melford Village Memorial Hall. There is a large free car park.
All welcome join on the door.
Welcome to our Spring 2024 season
January 24th 10.30am
Jack Lemmon
A versatile and beloved performer, Jack Lemmon was a celebrated virtuoso in both comedy and drama.
Sometimes referred to as "America's Everyman", Lemmon's versatility as an actor helped the audience more closely identify and relate to him. He was able always to elicit a laugh or sympathy from his viewers and his charismatic presence always shined on the big screen. He often portrayed the quintessence of aspiring man and established a lasting impression on the film industry.
Jack Lemmon was born on February 8, 1925 in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. He initially acted on TV before moving to Hollywood for the big screen, cultivating a career that would span decades. An eight time Academy Award nominee, with two wins, Lemmon starred in over 60 films including Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), Irma la Douce (1963), The Odd Couple (1968), Save the Tiger (1973) and Grumpy Old Men (1993). Some of his most beloved performances stemmed from his collaborations with acclaimed director Billy Wilder and with his fellow friend and actor Walter Matthau.
The Fortune Cookie (1966) served as the start of a comedic partnership between Lemmon and Walter Matthau and the two would come together again, two years later, for The Odd Couple (1968), one of their most endearing films together. As the 1970s came around, Lemmon began to undertake more dramatic roles and won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Save the Tiger (1973). Throughout the 80s and 90s, Lemmon continued to excel in his character performances and earned a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute in 1988.
February 28th 10.30am
Gene Tierney
Gene Eliza Tierney was born on November 19, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York, to well-to-do parents, Belle Lavinia (Taylor) and Howard Sherwood Tierney. Her father was a successful insurance broker and her mother was a former teacher. Her childhood was lavish indeed. She also lived, at times, with her equally successful grandparents in Connecticut and New York. She was educated in the finest schools on the East Coast and at a finishing school in Switzerland.
With prominent cheekbones, luminous skin and the most crystalline green eyes of her day, Gene Tierney's striking good looks helped propel her to stardom. Her best known role is the enigmatic murder victim in Laura (1944). She was also Oscar-nominated for Leave Her to Heaven (1945).
After being spotted by the legendary Darryl F. Zanuck during a stage performance of the hit show The Male Animal (1940), Gene was signed to a contract with 20th Century-Fox. Her first role as Barbara Hall in Hudson's Bay (1940) would be the send-off vehicle for her career. Later that year she appeared in The Return of Frank James (1940). The next year would prove to be a very busy one for Gene, as she appeared in The Shanghai Gesture (1941), Sundown (1941), Tobacco Road (1941) and Belle Starr (1941). She tried her hand at screwball comedy in Rings on Her Fingers (1942), which was a great success. Her performances in each of these productions were masterful. In 1945 she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Ellen Brent in Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Though she didn't win, it solidified her position in Hollywood society. She followed up with another great performance as Isabel Bradley in the hit The Razor's Edge (1946).
In 1944, she played what is probably her best-known role (and, most critics agree, her most outstanding performance) in Otto Preminger's Laura (1944), in which she played murder victim named Laura Hunt. In 1947 Gene played Lucy Muir in the acclaimed The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947). By this time Gene was the hottest player around, and the 1950s saw no letup as she appeared in a number of good films, among them Night and the City (1950), The Mating Season (1951), Close to My Heart (1951), Plymouth Adventure (1952), Personal Affair (1953) and The Left Hand of God (1955).
March 27th 10.30am
Kathryn Bigelow
Kathryn Ann Bigelow (born November 27, 1951) is an American filmmaker Covering a wide range of genres, her films include Near Dark (1987), Point Break (1991), Strange Days (1995), K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), The Hurt Locker (2008), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), and Detroit (2017).
For directing The Hurt Locker (2008), Bigelow became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director, the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing and the BAFTA Award for Best Direction. She was also the first woman to win the Saturn Award for Best Director, with Strange Days.
Her first full-length feature was The Loveless (1981). Bigelow's subsequent films, Blue Steel, Point Break, and Strange Days, "merged her philosophically minded manipulation of pace with the market demands of mainstream film-making"
Bigelow's film Zero Dark Thirty, a dramatization of American efforts to find Osama bin Laden was acclaimed by film critics] but also attracted controversy and strong criticism for its allegedly pro-torture stance.
While her films are often categorized in the action genre, she describes her style as an exploration of "film's potential to be kinetic. Her frequent action sequences are unique because of her use of "purpose-built" camera equipment to create mobile shots that are distinctive and indicative of the physicality of her work. In many of her films, such as The Hurt Locker, Point Break, and Strange Days, she has used mobile and hand-held cameras.
April 24th 10.30am
Italian Cinema from the late 1970's Until Now.
May 22nd 10.30am
Matt Damon
It has been my intention for sometime to look at modern Cinema in the context of its growth from Italy’s most famous period in cinematic history, the neo-realist movement which began with the end of World War Two. So we will look at Fellini’s later films such as And the Ship sails On(1983) and Ginger and Fred (1986). The work of director Ermanno Olmi known forThe Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978),The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1988)etc. The writer and director Paolo Virzì known forThe First Beautiful Thing (2010),Tutta la vita davanti (2008)andHuman Capital (2013).
In recent years, Italy has been producing some of the most exciting directors working in the film industry, filmmakers whose work seeks to capture Italy as it is today, not what it was in the post-war decades. This new wave of directors has arrived alongside a number of changes in the way the Italian film industry works, including an end to censorship on moral and religious grounds and the reopening of Rome’s Cinicitta studios.
We will consider the work of: Paolo Sorrentino, Luca Guadagnino, Alice Rohrwacher, Matteo Garrone and Laura Bispuri amongst others.
Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon (born October 8, 1970) is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting (1997) from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck. The pair won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and a Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay for their work. Damon alone received multiple Best Actor nominations, including an Academy Award nomination for his lead performance in the film. Damon has since starred in commercially successful films such as Saving Private Ryan (1998), the Ocean's trilogy, and the first three films in the Bourne series, while also gaining critical acclaim for his performances in dramas such as Syriana (2005), The Good Shepherd (2006), and The Departed (2006). He garnered a Golden Globe nomination for portraying the title character in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Invictus (2009). He is one of the top 40 highest grossing actors of all time. In 2007, Damon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine. Damon has been actively involved in charitable work, including the ONE Campaign, H2O Africa Foundation, and Water.org.