Movie critic Roger Ebert as soon as stated that no good film is actually miserable, a perception that the programmers on the American Cinematheque have taken to coronary heart with “Bleak Week,” an annual celebration of downbeat films. Since its inception in 2022, the sequence has grow to be one in all Los Angeles’ most eagerly anticipated repertory occasions with screenings unfold throughout the Cinematheque’s three venues (the Egyptian, Aero, and Los Feliz 3 theaters), and final 12 months the Paris Theater in New York joined the enjoyable with its personal Bleak Week programming that featured in particular person appearances by Ari Aster, Isabella Rossellini and Paul Schrader.
Now in its fourth 12 months, Bleak Week is increasing throughout the nation — and, through the Prince Charles Cinema, throughout the pond to London — to carry screenings at 11 venues in eight cities. The pageant kicks off in Los Angeles and Chicago (on the Music Field Theatre) June 1 to 7, continues in Portland (Hollywood Theatre) and Minneapolis (Trylon Cinema) June 6 to 12, then heads to New York, Boston (Coolidge Nook Theatre) and Dallas (Texas Theater) June 8 to 14, earlier than concluding in London June 15 to 21.
“These are all nice specialty theaters that may present 35mm, and in some instances 70mm,” Cinematheque Creative Director Grant Moninger instructed IndieWire. “Mixed we’re doing over 120 movies with over 25 company.” Moninger says that the choice to develop grew out of his remark that younger audiences popping out of the pandemic appeared hungry for substantive films. “They have been discovering difficult movies and so they have been hungry for them. And we don’t consider that’s simply in Los Angeles and New York — we consider it’s throughout the nation.”
Bleak Week was born when the Cinematheque reopened its doorways after the pandemic and Moninger and Cinematheque Senior Movie Programmer Chris LeMaire tried to determine one of the best ways to serve their viewers. “Everybody was saying, ‘You must do comedies,’” Moninger stated. “Then we thought, what in the event you did the precise reverse? We’re not on this to dangle keys at a child. I at all times wished to do the artwork home ‘Shark Week,’ and at some point ‘Bleak Week’ simply hit me.”
LeMaire got here up with the concept of programming the movies throughout all three of the Cinematheque’s venues, one thing they’d by no means carried out earlier than. Movies ranged from classics of miserable cinema like Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom” and Ingmar Bergman’s “Winter Mild” to extra offbeat decisions like Arthur Penn’s comedy “Penn & Teller Get Killed.” “That’s a comedy, however with a really bleak ending,” LeMaire stated, noting that the picks for Bleak Week are much less guided by style or aesthetics than an total feeling. “A movie is bleak in the event you’re leaving it emotionally drained in any method.”
To that finish, the brand new incarnation of Bleak Week has some sudden titles like “Moneyball,” a sports activities film stuffed with laughs that Moninger nonetheless defines as bleak cinema. “It’s a hilarious movie, however it’s bleak as a result of it’s about lowering the magic of one thing thrilling right down to numbers and algorithms,” he stated.
Whereas “Moneyball” is a comparatively latest launch, Moninger is fast to level out that bleak movies have at all times been with us, and that the heritage of bleakness shall be represented at this 12 months’s pageant. “We’re doing silent bleaks with ‘Behind the Door,’ which is from 1919,” Moninger stated. “We’re celebrating over 100 years of bleakness.”
LeMaire added that there are movies as latest as 2025 within the case of a program from experimental filmmaker Paul McCarthy. McCarthy shall be in attendance in Los Angeles, as will filmmakers as various as Claire Denis (who belongs on Bleak Week’s “Mount Rushmore” in accordance with Moninger), Gus Van Sant, Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold, and Costa-Gavras, amongst others. Company in different cities will embody Todd Solondz on the Paris and Robert Eggers on the Prince Charles.
Though most of the movies within the sequence are miserable, Moninger guarantees that the post-film Q&As will energetic and entertaining. “We’ve discovered that numerous the individuals who make bleak movies are very humorous,” he stated. “Even Michael Haneke, who individuals wouldn’t assume is humorous. This 12 months now we have Invoice Hader introducing ‘Ikiru’ and Larry Karaszewski moderating ‘Little Murders’ with Elliott Gould, so there shall be some humor to Bleak Week. We even have bleak rabbits with ‘Watership Down.’”
As various because the programming is, Moninger says there’s one rule about what received’t present at Bleak Week. “We’ve got one rule, and that’s that we don’t present documentaries,” he stated. “It must be one step eliminated. Hopefully there’s a way of resiliency that folks may make artwork about these horrible human experiences or dangerous moments in historical past. Though it’s known as Bleak Week and it’s a really miserable subject, at its core I believe the sequence is known as a celebration of humanity, and that it’s oddly optimistic.”
For extra info on Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair – 12 months 4, go to the American Cinematheque’s web site.