Friday , September 20 at 7pm FULL EXPOSURE Leviathan dir . Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel , US , 2013 , HD , 87 min .
One of the most critically-acclaimed documentaries in recent years , Leviathan is a groundbreaking , immersive portrait of the contemporary commercial fishing industry . Filmed off the coast of New Bedford , Massachusetts – at one time the whaling capital of the world as well as Melville ’ s inspiration for Moby Dick ; it is today the country ’ s largest fishing port with over 500 ships sailing from its harbor every month .
Leviathan follows one such vessel , a hulking groundfish trawler , into the surrounding murky black waters on a weeks-long fishing expedition . But instead of romanticizing the labor or partaking in the longstanding tradition of turning fisher-folk into images , filmmakers Lucien Castaing-Taylor ( Sweetgrass ) and Verena Paravel ( Foreign Parts ) present a vivid , almost-kaleidoscopic representation of the work , the sea , the machinery and the players , both human and marine .
Employing an arsenal of cameras that passed freely from film crew to ship crew ; that swoop from below sea level to astonishing bird ’ s-eye views in the sky , the film that emerges is unlike anything that has been seen before . Entirely dialogue-free , but mesmerizing and gripping throughout , it breaks new ground in both cinema and anthropology , while presenting a cosmic portrait of one of mankind ’ s oldest endeavors .
Saturday , September 21 at 2pm MOTION PICTURES : KEY CONCEPTS - MISE-EN-SCENE The Rules of the Game dir . Jean Renoir , France , 1939 , 35mm , French with English subtitles , 106 min .
Introduced by Leonard Guercio , Temple University
The cinematic image , regardless of aspect ratio , is always a frame or perspective through which filmmakers present the visual information they want us to see and know . In a brief introduction to the film , Philadelphia filmmaker and Temple University Film Tech Specialist Len Guercio will present a point-of-view on the notion and use of mise-en-scène in Jean Renoir ’ s 1939 classic film The Rules of the Game .
Considered one of the greatest films ever made , Jean Renoir ’ s The Rules of the Game ( La règle du jeu ) is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners in which a weekend at a marquis ’ country château lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haut bourgeois acquaintances . The film has had a tumultuous history : it was subjected to cuts after the violent response of the premiere audience in 1939 , and the original negative was destroyed during World War II ; it wasn ’ t reconstructed until 1959 . That version , which has stunned viewers for decades , is presented here . ihousephilly . org