This summer the VIFF Centre charts the evolution of screen acting in American film from the end of World War Two to the advent of the Reagan era. This span was defined by many things: the Cold War, McCarthyism, bebop, troubled teens, rock n roll, civil unrest… In Hollywood, the studio system lost its grip on the industry. Filmmakers like Elia Kazan, Sidney Lumet and Robert Altman traded studio backlots for city streets, and under the influence of Stanislavski and the Actors Studio Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Paul Newman and Jane Fonda embraced a probing psychological realism which took audiences somewhere deeper and more authentic. The movies were getting real…
This 30+ film series is built around six midweek Film Studies talks by Professor Harry Killas, 6 Takes on American Screen Acting, examining half a dozen test cases in the evolution of screen acting, beginning with Hitchcock’s spy thriller Notorious, with Cary Grant as the epitome of Old Hollywood charm (Jun 11), Brando’s revolutionary turn in A Streetcar Named Desire (Jun 25), Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Jul 9), Jane Fonda in Klute (Jul 23), Robert Altman’s ensemble comedy Nashville (Aug 6), and culminating in Robert De Niro’s Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (Aug 20), a benchmark in the history of Method acting.
Series Pass: $149*
*Series pass not valid for the Film Studies lectures on Jun 11, Jun 25, Jul 9, Jul 23, Aug 6 & Aug 20
*With a series pass, you can buy tickets to the Getting Real VIFF Live event for $20 (reg. $35)
How to Book Tickets With Your Pass
Simply log in to your viff.org account, choose the films you would like to attend and select the option to redeem your series pass. Limit of 1 ticket per showtime.
A small number of seats will be held for passholders who have not booked in advance. Pick up your Getting Real pass at the box office for day-of entry without a ticket.
All Films
Notorious
In the first of our new Film Studies series, Ingrid Bergman is pimped out by US agent Cary Grant to Nazi-sympathizer Claude Rains (ironically the most likeable character in the film). Hitchcock's classic is a prime example of classic Hollywood star power.
All About Eve
Arguably the best backstage melodrama of them all, this story of a young actress on the make seems to have been dipped in acid before the cameras rolled. Bette Davis is the uncomfortably peaking diva Margo Channing and it's her finest role.
Sunset Boulevard
Hollywood on Hollywood: the tale of a screenwriter, Joe Gillis (William Holden), who stumbles into the orbit of a now-forgotten movie star, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), and realizes this silent film diva could be his meal ticket.
A Double Life
In this fascinating lesser known George Cukor picture matinee idol Roland Colman plays a quintessentially English classical theatre actor, Tony John, whose dedication to playing Othello on Broadway leads to jealous fits off-stage.
12 Angry Men
12 strangers (all of them white men) deliberate on the likelihood that a Puerto Rican teenager murdered his father. It's an open-and-shut case for 11 of them. But Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) is not convinced.
The Heiress
Olivia de Havilland won the Oscar for playing Catherine, a shy and insecure young woman who blossoms under the courtship of handsome gentleman caller Morris (Montgomery Clift). Her wealthy father, Ralph Richardson, looks on with severe skepticism.
A Place in the Sun
George (Montgomery Clift) takes a job in his uncle's firm. But before he can break into the family's charmed inner circle and fall in love with socialite Angela (Elizabeth Taylor), he becomes embroiled with a factory girl (Shelley Winters).
A Streetcar Named Desire
"I don't want realism. I want magic!" declares Blanche du Bois, the tragic heroine who meets her nemesis in her sister's husband, Stanley Kowalski, in Tennessee Williams' great play. Brando's performance as Stanley is a turning point in American acting.
On the Waterfront
Marlon Brando's definitive performance as Terry Malloy, a New York dockworker (and once a promising boxer) who loses faith in his union and his smarter but corrupt older brother Charlie (Rod Steiger) after a whistleblower is murdered.
East of Eden
Salinas, 1917. Cal Trask's forlorn attempts to win the affection of his self-righteous father (Raymond Massey) represented James Dean's first leading role in the cinema, and his emotionally raw performance ennobled misunderstood youth everywhere.
Rebel Without a Cause
Kids turned bad in the 1950s -- and their newly comfortable middle-class parents couldn't understand why. Ray points the finger right back at them: "You're tearing me apart!" rails Jim Stark (James Dean), speaking for his generation.
The Fugitive Kind
Sidney Lumet's movie brings together two of the greatest actors of the period, Brando and Anna Magnani, reason enough to check out this underrated poetical drama about a handsome musician who washes up in a small southern town.
The Hustler
Prime Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson, a hungry pool shark who knows he's the sharpest guy in the room. Jackie Gleason and George C Scott have other ideas.
Julian Borkowski: Blues for Brando
The Julian Borkowski Quintet pays tribute to the emergence of bebop, in many ways a parallel artistic innovation to Method acting. A set of bebop classics will be followed by a screening of Marlon Brando in The Wild One.
Wild River
Tennessee Valley Authority man Montgomery Clift finds derision from the locals, love from the war widow Lee Remick, and obduracy from matriarch Jo Van Fleet, who just won’t leave that scheduled-to-be-flooded farm.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
A young couple accept an invitation for a nightcap with history professor George (Richard Burton) and his wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor). At first it's fun and games. But what passes for caustic wit soon degenerates into vicious mind games.
In the Heat of the Night
Sidney Poitier in an indelible role a Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs, pulled in as a murder suspect when changing trains in Mississippi. He allies with bigoted local sheriff (Rod Steiger) to solve the case.
The Miracle Worker
Academy Awards went to Best Actress Anne Bancroft and Best Supporting Actress Patty Duke for their moving portrayals of Annie Sullivan and her remarkable blind and deaf pupil, Helen Keller. "A film that storms where most biopics respectfully tiptoe."
Rachel, Rachel
The story of a shy schoolteacher whose sexual awakening in her mid-30s leads to a deeper re-evaluation of her life, the film is sensitive and sympathetic, as well as a surprising directorial debut from Paul Newman.
The Graduate
In The Graduate Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman, 30 playing 20 with masterly understatement) comes home from college and is surprised to be seduced by the wife of his father's business partner, Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft).
Midnight Cowboy
Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman are street hustlers on different ends of the innocence / experience spectrum who establish something more than a business partnership in the seedy world of late 60s New York City in John Schlesinger's New Hollywood classic.
Cool Hand Luke
Paul Newman is the anti-authoritarian kicking against the system in this slick sixties chaingang movie.
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Horace McCoy's existential Great Depression novel is the basis for a brutally compelling movie, and the first performance where Jane Fonda could show her chops. She's one of many desperate souls competing in a dance marathon that lasts for days and weeks.
The China Syndrome
Jane Fonda is a lightweight local news anchor sent to film a puff piece about clean, limitless energy at a nuclear power plant with cameraman Michael Douglas. As luck would have it, they witness chaos in the control room and an emergency shutdown.
Little Big Man
Dustin Hoffman ages a century in Arthur Penn's epic picaresque anti-western, the tall tale of 121-year-old Jack Crabb, a white man rescued and raised by the Cheyenne, a one-time snake-oil salesman, gunslinger, and mule skinner under General George Custer.
The Missouri Breaks
This exuberant, wild and wooly western from Arthur Penn features a brazenly transgressive performance from Marlon Brando, while Jack Nicholson underplays masterfully as the cattle rustler he's been hired to eliminate.
Raging Bull
In the throes of a near-fatal drug problem Martin Scorsese made what he believed could be his last movie. Its subject: the Bronx Bull, Jake La Motta, a graceless but indomitable boxer who never quits beating himself up. De Niro has never dug deeper.