Film Noir Festival: Shadow Over the Sunshine City
The Studio@620's Second Annual Noir Festival

 

Film Noir Festival: Shadow Over the Sunshine City

 

'The Reluctant Sitter' Exhibit

 

Vintage Film Noir Posters

Vintage Film Noir Poster

Vintage Film Noir Poster

Vintage Film Noir Poster


 

Program Overview

About Noir
'Artistically, Noir was a movement that washed over Hollywood like a black tide at the end of the second world war. It paired the deeply shadowed expressionistic visions of expatriate European directors with the cynical, hard boiled school of American fiction.  The result was a new cultural mythology, a black market that provided an alternative to the gleefully optimistic knicknacks Hollywood traditionally peddled.....'
Eddie Muller

The Films
All the movies will be presented by local film critics, authors, filmmakers and other noir experts and moderate a discussion after each film.
Film Descriptions >

The Exhibit
“The Reluctant Sitter”, a fascinating collection of mugshots from the early 20th century, with contemporary DVD mugshot-like portraits. Curator Timothy Welsh is an independent photography dealer from Gulfport, who is currently teaching at the Osher Institute at Eckerd College.

Exhibit Description >

Film Noir Curators

Rich Agan

Susan Alexander is an actor, teacher and movie lover. She taught theater and film at Tampa Preparatory School and has performed in many plays in the Bay Area.  Susan is honored to be working with Richard and Bob on the festival, and thanks  her husband, Tom, for allowing her to hijack the DVD player most of the time.

Exhibit:
The Reluctant Sitter

Commercial portrait photographers are expected to make a sitter look good. This expectation can be sidelined when a fine arts photographer engages a willing subject. Julia Margaret Cameron somehow managed both simultaneously– the necessary magical elements being trust and cooperation on both sides of the lens. But no matter how sensitive the photographer, or however uneventful the portrait session , the photograph was still judged against a set of criteria- not the least of which was, does the portrait do justice to the sitter and setting?

Not so with criminal portraiture- these reluctant sitters’ opinions did not count. And yet, there was still a relationship with the camera if not necessarily with the photographer. Many of the portraits here are mugshots- booking shots, taken before proof of innocence or guilt. A ‘face’ is presented, whether the intention is to look innocent, defiant or neutral. A new kind of portrait relationship had arrived on the scene- flattery was cleared from the process and a new, clinical, “I am innocent “mask was revealed.

The contemporary DVD mugshot like portrait, Faces, 2005, by Pascal Loubet borrows heavily from this idea. A neutral facial expression is consistent throughout the almost 12 minute loop. But another element that speaks to memory (and to the criminal theme and the film-noir masking of details in darkness) is this: what do we as witnesses really remember. Try to describe the face while looking at it – your description will have to change as time passes by. Crime, memory, innocence, documentation, proof beyond photography- all as mutable as the face.

Timothy Welsh holds his BFA in Painting, with a minor in photography, from the University of Massachusetts/ Dartmouth. From 1992- 2002, he taught drawing in the in the Harvard Extension School- Harvard University’s adult education division.

Now living in Gulfport, Mr. Walsh is an independent photography dealer specializing in 19th century Scandinavian photography. He is also the former director of the Howard Yezerski Gallery in Boston. He has shown his drawings, colleges and photographs at the Kougeas Gallery, Atlantic Monthly Gallery, Boston center for the Arts, Boston Museum of Fine arts school Gallery and more recently, in the member’s exhibition at the Arts Center in St. Petersburg.

He will be teaching a basic skills drawing class for Osher Institute at Eckerd college, beginning February 2007.

 

 

 

   

Program Dates

Festival
02/09/07 - 02/16/07

See the program schedule below for specific times.

Exhibit
02/09/07 - 02/16/07
Tuesday - Saturday
12:00 - 4:00 pm

Admission

Films

7 bucks or 2 features for a 10 spot

Exhibit

Free admission. Donations appreciated.


Program Schedule

Program times may change.

Films will feature desserts, popcorn, and cash bar (donations).

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02/09/07 -
Friday

7:00 pm
Festival Gala
& Exhibit Opening

Hosted by Presenter Neil DeGroot, a St. Petersburg native and long-time resident, he now also resides in Los Angeles where he works as a filmmaker and television director.

Food and cash bar (donations).

8:00 pm
The Killing
Directed and written by Stanley Kubrick.

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02/10/07 -
Saturday

6:00 pm
Thieves’ Highway
Directed by Jules Dassin, written by A.I. Bezzerides.

7:30 pm
Sunset Boulevard
Directed by Billy Wilder, written by Wilder, Charles Bracket and M.M Marshman, Jr.

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02/11/07 -
Sunday

Neo Noir

5:30 pm
Blood Simple
Directed by Joel Coen, written by Joel and Ethan Coen.

7:30 pm
Bladerunner
Directed by Ridley Scott, based on the novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick.

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02/12/07
- Monday

7:00 pm
The Naked City
Directed by Jules Dassin, written by Albert Maltz and Malvin Wald.

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02/14/07 -
Wednesday

7:00 pm
Night and the City
Directed by Jules Dassin, written by Jo Eisinger from a novel by Gerald Kersh.

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02/15/07 -
Thursday

7:00 pm
Born To Kill
Directed by Robert Wise, written by Eve Greene, James Gunn and Richard Macaulay from the novel, “Deadlier Than the male” by James Gunn.

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02/16/07 -
Friday

7:30 pm
Laura
Directed by Otto Preminger, based on the novel by Vera Caspary.

Films Descriptions

The Killing
Shown in 16MM format, “The Killing” (1956) was directed and written by Stanley Kubrick, and stars Sterling Hayden, Vince Edwards and Marie Windsor, based on the novel “Clean Break” by Lionel White. Johnny Clay is just out of Alcatraz and he already has a brilliant and complex plan for a racetrack robbery. But everything goes wrong when a gang member’s bad wife rats on them. Relentless tension and action. A young Stanley Kubrick classic. 

Thieves’ Highway
“Thieves’ Highway” (1949) presented by co-curators, Susan Alexander and Rich Agan.  Directed by Jules Dassin, written by A.I. Bezzerides and starring Richard Conte and Barbara Lawrence. A war veteran-turned truck driver attempts to avenge the crippling and robbing of his father at the hands of an amoral produce scofflaw. The characters make the biggest impression in this Jules Dassin classic, one of his best.

Sunset Boulevard
 “Sunset Boulevard” (1950) presented by St. Petersburg Times film critic, Steve Persall.  Directed by Billy Wilder, written by Wilder, Charles Bracket and M.M Marshman, Jr., starring William Holden and Gloria Swanson. A young, unemployed screenwriter gets tangled up with a delusional, aging former silent film star. A dark, bizarre movie about the movies. One of the great American films. 

Blood Simple
“Blood Simple” (1984) presented by Michael Kilgore, VP Marketing TBPAC.  Directed by Joel Coen, written by Joel and Ethan Coen, and starring M. Emmet Walsh and Frances McDormand. A bar owner in Texas is certain that his wife is cheating on him, and hires an unscrupulous private detective to kill her.  The detective, however, has more lucrative plans of his own.  A calculating round of double and triple crosses build to a bloodcurdling and surprise-filled climax.

Bladerunner
“Bladerunner” (1982) presented by Mike Wotherspoon, Course Director of Producing at Full Sail Film School in Orlando.  Directed by Ridley Scott, based on the novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick, starring Harrison Ford and Sean Young. In this film noir inspired vision of the future, man has developed the technology to create replicants, human clones with a short lifespan used to serve in off-world colonies beyond an overpopulated Earth.  Blade Runner, a cop who specializes in tracking down and terminating replicants, is finally retired.  Or so he thinks.

The Naked City
“The Naked City” (1948) presented by Jim Wightman, author of “The Holy Kiss”.  Directed by Jules Dassin, written by Albert Maltz and Malvin Wald, starring Howard Duff and Barry Fitzgerald. When an attractive blonde model is found murdered, New York City homicide detectives go to work.  Filmed in semi-documentary style, featuring the streets of New York, it is a film noir classic.

Night and the City
“Night and the City” (1950) presented by Sterling Watson, author of 5 novels and director of the creative writing program at Eckerd College.  Directed by Jules Dassin, written by Jo Eisinger from a novel by Gerald Kersh.  Starring Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney. Harry Fabian is a loser huckster kicking around the London underworld.  He has a new scheme to make his fortune, but as he tries to con everyone around him, everything starts to fall apart.

Born To Kill
“Born To Kill” (1947) presented by Scott Deitche, author of “Cigar City Mafia: A complete History of the Tampa Underworld” and “The Silent Don: The Criminal World of Santo Trafficante Jr.”.   Directed by Robert Wise, written by Eve Greene, James Gunn and Richard Macaulay from the novel, “Deadlier Than the male” by James Gunn, starring real life bad boy Lawrence Tierney and Claire Trevor. Sam Wild kills 2 people in a fit of jealousy.  He then falls for Helen Trent, who discovers the bodies.  This swirl of intrigue forms one of the nastiest film noir movies ever made.

Laura
“Laura” (1944) presented by Bob Ross, Tampa Tribune film critic.  Directed by Otto Preminger, based on the novel by Vera Caspary, starring Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews. Detective Mark McPherson investigates the killing of Laura, found dead on her apartment floor.  He builds a mental picture of Laura from the suspects he interviews and by the striking painting of her on the wall.  Who would have wanted to kill a girl with whom every man seemed to fall in love? McPherson, too, finds himself falling under her spell.  Then one night, halfway through his investigations, something seriously bizarre happens.