MAY 1 SAT 7 PM
GUILD THEATRE
PROFILES IN COURAGE: JOHN PETER ALTGELD
US 1965
DIRECTOR: DANIEL PETRIE Inspired by John F. Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, the Peabody Award-winning television series PROFILES IN COURAGE examined outstanding examples of moral courage while portraying of some of the most moving episodes in American history. Among those profiled was John Peter Altgeld, who risked his career and reputation for social justice. In 1886, eight anarchists were accused of conspiracy to murder when Chicago policemen were killed during the Haymarket Riot. Four of the prisoners were hung and one committed suicide. On assuming the Illinois governorship, Altgeld (Burgess Meredith), convinced they were illegally convicted, freed the remaining prisoners despite the public outcry, heroically confronting the issues of equal justice under the law, anarchism and free speech in the face of daunting social pressure. Besides pardoning anarchists, Governor Altgeld opposed the violent suppression of strikes, favored equal pay for women, and approved several other labor laws that were very advanced for his time. The pardon ended his career. (60 mins.)
FOLLOWED BY
WINSTANLEY
U.K. 1975
DIRECTORS: KEVIN BROWNLOW, ANDREW MOLLOW April 1,1649. St. George's Hill. Surrey, England. A Reformation-era religious sect called the Diggers sets out to form a commune and till the soil on "common land," which by law permits grazing, but not settlement and cultivation. Led by Gerrard Winstanley, a Christian Socialist, theirs is a nonviolent action to reclaim land for the poor who had been dispossessed by Oliver Cromwell's recent Civil War. But the local villagers see the Diggers' "occupation" as a threat to their livelihood and, led by the Presbyterian parson, John Platt, take action to harass and burn them out. Basing their screenplay on Winstanley's writings (the same pamphlets which Marx read in the British Museum while forming his ideas on communism), their dramatic and painstaking authentic rendering of the period and events is “The most mysteriously beautiful English film since the best of Michael Powell...and the best pre-twentieth century historical film I can recall since Rossellini’s THE RISE OF LOUIS XIV.”—Jonathan Rosenbaum, FILM COMMENT. (96 mins.)

MAY 2 SUN 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM—VISITING ARTIST
AN EXCEEDINGLY DANGEROUS WOMAN:
THE RADICAL LIFE OF EMMA GOLDMAN
US 2003
DIRECTOR: MEL BUCKLIN Bucklin’s engrossing new film chronicles the life of the notorious and free-spirited Jewish revolutionary Emma Goldman (1869–1940 ), a major contributor to anarchist thought and spirit. A volatile and determined woman, Goldman fought valiantly for freedom in labor, love, sex, and motherhood and although dogged by the FBI and later forced into exile in 1919 after being imprisoned for protesting mandatory conscription, she never gave up on the possibility of change. Over two years in the making, Bucklin’s film unearths a wealth of rare photographs, recordings, film clips, and interviews— fashioning the most complete portrait yet of one of the 20th century’s legendary figures. Mel Bucklin will introduce her film. (82 mins.)
Following the screening there will be a panel discussion with Mel Bucklin, series curator Pietro Ferrua and Marianne enckell, lausanne, Switzerland, Director of the International Center for Research on Anarchism.

MAY 6 THU 7 PM
GUILD THEATRE
MONTPARNASSE REVISITED:
A LIFE IN THE DAY OF MAN RAY
FRANCE 1991
DIRECTOR: MATTHEW REINDERS From the 1890s through World War II, Paris’ Montparnasse drew artists, writers, and musicians from all over the world to its vibrant café society. One the great artists and agitators of his time, Man Ray (1890–1976) is remembered not simply for the fascinating and experimental works he left behind, but for the crucial role he played in encouraging the revolutionary in art. In an extensive interview filmed in 1961, Man Ray discusses his fellow artists (Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp) of the Dada and Surrealist movements and shares his personal vision—his fascination with man-made objects, mathematical models, the camera and the United States. (52 mins.)
WITH
MAN RAY: PROPHET OF THE AVANT-GARDE
US 1997
DIRECTOR: MEL STUART “Man Ray's intent was to shock the viewer into a new way of seeing. His anarchist connection is established early in Stuart’s film by a shot of Emma Goldman speaking in public and we see Man Ray contributing to her journal, ‘Mother Earth,’ by designing two covers of the magazine. Later on, Man Ray, together with the Belgian anarchist Adon LaCroix (who he met while taking art lessons from Robert Henry and George Bellows at the Ferrer Center in New York and would later become his companion) would launch his or her own anarchist periodical, ‘The Ridgefield Gazook.’ After befriending Adolph Wolff, Man Ray became acquainted with Stieglitz and Duchamp, joined the avant-garde, conceived Dada as a form of artistic anarchy, and forever changed the course of American art.”—Pietro Ferrua. (60 mins.)

MAY 8 SAT 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
THIEF OF PARIS
FRANCE 1967
DIRECTOR: LOUIS MALLE Lavishly re-creating the splendor and squalor of late 19th-century Paris, THE THIEF OF PARIS showcases a stellar performance by Jean-Paul Belmondo as a nihilistic young man whose hatred of society leads him to a life of crime. Raised to despise poverty, then left penniless when he is tricked out of his inheritance, his revenge is to become "the thief of Paris," targeting the bourgeois class he no longer belongs to. “No other character is closer to me . . . I have never made as autobiographical a film as this one”—Louis Malle. “A solid period thriller-cum-romance, which also contains an incisive comment on hypocrisy, injustice, anarchy and corruption”—Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide. “Malle’s best French film”—David Thompson. (120 mins.)

MAY 9 SUN 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
REDS
US 1981
DIRECTOR: WARREN BEATTY Warren Beatty’s sweeping epic on the last years of journalist John Reed’s life (1887–1920) is a passionate love story set against the background of bohemian living and revolutionary fervor. Reed’s fame rests largely on his classic work of committed journalism, “Ten Days That Shook The World,” a first-hand account of the early days of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, but the film is as much about the position of left-wing radicals in the United States at that time as about the Russian revolution. Incorporating interviews with Reed’s real-life contemporaries (Rebecca West, Henry Miller, George Seldes, Will Durant and others) as punctuation, REDS explores the internal dynamics of the socialist struggle in America with inspired performances by Beatty as Reed, Diane Keaton as journalist Louise Bryant, Reed’s independent-minded lover (both of them Portlanders before moving to New York), Jack Nicholson as playwright Eugene O’Neill, novelist Jerzy Kosinski as Soviet leader Zonovie and Maureen Stapleton as anarchist Emma Goldman. (196 mins.)

MAY 12 WED 7 PM
GUILD THEATRE
ANARCHY TV
US 1997
DIRECTOR: JONATHAN BLACK Sometimes anarchists just wanna have fun. Five young radicals run a satirical Cable Access TV show, “Anarchy TV.” Their uncensored on-air skits and game shows lead to the station’s eviction from the airwaves by a Christian television network, headed by the Reverend Wright (Alan Thicke). When protest fails, the anarchists storm the station, barricading themselves in and staging a live television revolution— the only problem is that it is Cable Access and nobody is watching! So, sometimes in order to stage a revolution you need to show some skin. Along the way, Jonathan Black’s (SEX, DRUGS & DEMOCRACY) naked revolution draws attention to a variety of issues—media ownership, censorship, health care, AIDS, youth culture and social activism—in entertaining fashion. Added to the fun: four Zappas —Dweezil, Moon, Ahmet and Diva— are in the cast and the soundtrack features Soundgarden, White Zombie, Iggy Pop, Wild Colonials, Frank Black, Psychotica, Dweezil & Ahmet Zappa, Handsome, Pusherman and many others. (90 mins.)

MAY 14 FRI 7 PM
GUILD THEATRE
VIVA LA MUERTE
SPAIN 1971
DIRECTOR: FERNANDO ARRABAL “An astounding first film by the avant-garde playwright Fernando Arrabal, VIVA LA MUERTE brought his "theatre of cruelty" spectacle to the screen. Shot in Tunis in 1971, it is part allegory, part autobiography about Spain, uniting Freudian and political themes in the story of a boy whose mother betrays his father to the Fascists during the Civil War. "It is the realm of [the boy] Fando's imagination that stuns the spectator, with its visions of...tortures, violence and death. A primitive, sadistic flow of episodes become expressions of the boy's subconscious fears and desires, and one discerns behind these almost dementedly Goyasque images, the unspeakable mysteries of adulthood, the temptations of sex and its Catholic associations with sin, and the implacable terrors of a hostile government. Fando's hallucinations backgrounded by the lilts of a children's song, become blasphemous metaphors of innocence tarnished by corruption.”—Albert Johnson, Pacific Film Archive. (90 mins.)

MAY 15 SAT 7 PM
GUILD THEATRE
PARADISE NOW
US 1970
DIRECTOR: SHELDON ROCHLIN “I call for a theater in which the actors are like victims burning at the stake, signaling through the flames”—Antonin Artaud. The Living Theatre reached the peak of influence during the ‘60's with their most controversial production, PARADISE NOW. Structured as a series of sketches designed to elicit audience participation it was intended to inaugurate a non-violent anarchist revolution by freeing the individual to imagine and create an ideal society. Shot before 7,000 spectators in Berlin on portable video and expressionistically colored, the film emerges as a hypnotic transmutation of a theatrical event into poetic cinema, capturing the ambiance and frenzy of the original. “Mind-blowing, innovative theater... blurred the line between political action, psychotherapy, tribal ritual and experimental theater. A tale of social and ecstatic breakthrough.”—San Francisco Chronicle. (105 min.)

MAY 16 SUN 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
BEHOLD A PALE HORSE
US 1964
DIRECTOR: FRED ZINNEMAN Based on E. Pressberger’s novel”Killing a Mouse on Sunday,” BEHOLD A PALE HORSE is set at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Artiguez goes into exile in France, but continues to carry out guerrilla forays into Spain. Twenty years later a young boy, Paco, tries to persuade a now apathetic Manuel to kill a vicious Spanish police chief Viñolas. Manuel is tricked into coming back to Spain to see his dying mother, with Viñolas using the priest Father Francisco to lure him. The priest tells Manuel of the trap, but he goes anyway. He kills Carlos, a smuggler who betrays him, but is shot down by Viñolas’ men. (113 mins.)