North Carolina Museum of Art

EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES

Every Friday, 5:30–8 p.m.

Unwind after work or meet friends before a night on the town. Join us for live music, a selection of fine wine and microbrews, guided tours, and classic film screenings beginning Friday , September 19.

Museum galleries are open until 9 p.m.

We'll be mixing it up with special themes, curator's choice tours, and family nights—learn more.

Drinks are available for purchase. Cash and major credit cards are accepted.

FILMS

2008 Fall Film Series: Homage to Film Noir
Night. Rain-slicked city streets, claustrophobic apartments, high-contrast lighting, oddly angled camera shots, femmes fatales pitted against morally weak men, crimes of greed or passion; the film noir look is easy to recognize. Visual poetry heaped with cynical attitude marks a cinema genre scarred with what you might call Greatest Generation PTSD. The tough guys and gals who made it through WWII brought a newly fatalistic world-view to the screen, and while the movies may be in black-and-white, the emotions of lust and corruption are in living color. We focus our fall series on a selection of these films, shown, as always, in the best 35mm prints available.

Although most movies predate the ratings system, older children and teens will find the titles in the series enriching and challenging.

All films are screened in the Museum Auditorium on Fridays at 8 p.m.

Tickets
Admission: $5 general public; $3.50 students, Museum members, Cinema Inc. and Galaxy Cinema members
Series Pass—valid for 10 screenings: $35 general public; $25 students, Museum members, Cinema Inc. and Galaxy Cinema members
Tickets are available through the Museum Box Office at (919) 715-5923 or on-line.

Laura Friday, September 19 (1944) Directed by Otto Preminger. Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price. 88 min. A hard-bitten police detective succumbs to love—unfortunately, the exquisite Laura is already dead. Her portrait, gowns, perfume, diary, and a haunting melody envelop him as he tracks a more murderous obsessive. Laura “still remains the cult noir par excellence.”—Rough Guide to Film Noir
Nightmare Alley Friday, September 26 (1947) Directed by Edmund Goulding. Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker. 110 min. A conniving drifter covets a job as a carnival mentalist. He purveys his mind-reading deceptions into a fortune when he links up with an unscrupulous lady shrink in this lurid tale. Power is brilliant as the seedy hero. “Spectacularly sordid.” —Dave Kehr, New York Times
It Always Rains on Sunday Friday, October 3 (1947) Directed by Robert Hamer. Googie Withers, John McCallum. 92 min. Under relentless sheets of cold rain, a former barmaid offers sanctuary to her fugitive ex-lover, and the intertwined destinies of London’s lower-class Jewish East Enders collide. A recently rediscovered classic of British cinema. “Sunday delivers an existential wallop for the ages.”—New York Sun
Classe tous risques Friday, October 10 (1960) Directed by Claude Sautet. Lino Ventura, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Sandra Milo. In Italian and French with English subtitles. 103 min. A daring daylight robbery goes awry, and macho bravado intersects with tender emotions. Ventura is a hardened hood on the lam, aided by the youthful, charismatic Belmondo, who shot Classe back to back with Breathless. “A doozy of a French gangster pic . . . a neorealist, neo-noir, black-and-white masterpiece.” —Entertainment Weekly
Stray Dog Friday, October 17 (1949) Written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura. In Japanese with English subtitles. 122 min. On a sweltering hot Tokyo day, Detective Murakami has his gun picked from his pocket on a jammed streetcar. To his shame and horror, he realizes the gun is being used in a series of crimes, triggering a gripping pursuit through the back alleys of Occupied Japan.
Mulholland Dr. Friday, October 24 (2001) Written and directed by David Lynch. Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Ann Miller. Rated R. 145 min. A dreamlike excursion through the quintessential city of dreams, Mulholland Dr. is creepy and surreal. A blonde, a brunette, a car wreck, amnesia: “This is a movie to surrender yourself to. If you require logic, see something else. ”—Roger Ebert. Introduced by Independent Weekly Arts Editor David Fellerath.
The Harder They Fall Friday, October 31 (1956) Directed by Mark Robson. Humphrey Bogart, Rod Steiger, Jan Sterling. 109 min. In his last film Bogart plays an honest sportswriter confronting the corrupt brutality of professional boxing. This hard-hitting muckraker was based on the career of fighter Primo Carnera. “The same fast pace and crisp, memorable dialogue as The Maltese Falcon or Casablanca.” —Jeffrey Meyers, Bogart: A Life in Hollywood Introduced by N.C. State Film Studies Professor Devin Orgeron.
Kiss of Death Friday, November 7 (1947) Directed by Henry Hathaway. Victor Mature, Coleen Gray, Richard Widmark. 98 min. A con turns squealer to save his family. The semidocumentary style of this true crime story splinters every time Widmark appears as giggly psychopath Tommy Udo; pouring on a double espresso jolt of menace. Introduced by N.C. State Film Studies Professor Marsha Orgeron.
The Big Heat Friday, November 14 (1953) Directed by Fritz Lang. Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Lee Marvin. 89 min. Police detective Dave Bannion seeks justice—or is it revenge?—against the mob after a personal tragedy. Smoking-hot bad girl Grahame joins his crusade against feral mobster Vince Stone, unforgettable Lee Marvin.
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid Friday, November 21 (1982) Written and directed by Carl Reiner. Steve Martin, Rachel Ward, and a cast of noir icons. Rated PG. 88 min. A tribute to the noir style ends our series, with jigsawed clips from This Gun for Hire, Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, Notorious, and many other classics, framing a mystery for Steve Martin’s suave (sort of) detective. Scored by veteran Miklós Rózsa and dressed by Edith Head (her last film), Dead Men is a loving spoof of everybody’s favorite movies.