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The CineFan Club - Hong Kong
Hong Kong's CineFan Club published its May/Jun/Jul program for the summer which will feature the works of Mike Leigh. Leigh first studied acting before turning to filmmaking classes under the influence of world cinema. He directed theatre works for several years, then made his debut feature film BLEAK MOMENTS in 1971, based on his own play, and transferring his work process from the stage to film.
Compassionate, incisive and strikingly true to life, the cinema of Mike Leigh follows a singular path from conception to screening. His is an immensely watchable filmography showered with acclaim, yet founded on a collective approach that has given riskaverse producers the willies.
Leigh’s projects famously begin without a script. Instead, the director guides actors to work up plotlines and characters through months of improvisation, research and rehearsals. Performers draw on people they’ve known, and even learn the trades their characters live off. The organic process extends to side parts, and by the time cameras run Leigh’s cast members are steeped in their roles and the story falls into shape. The meticulous approach also encompasses great detail in cinematography, art direction and more, often from longtime collaborators.
In addition to the program two films will be shown as restored classics: 1) The 1974 film THE CONVERSATION by director Francis Ford Coppola with Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Frederic Forrest, Harrison Ford as cast, and 2) UNFORGIVEN, the 1992 Western directed by Clint Eastwood.
THE CONVERSATION was filmed between instalments of Coppola’s Godfather crime epic. It originally opened at the height of the Watergate Scandal and just months before the resignation of President Nixon, deftly tapping into America’s escalating atmosphere of paranoia and disillusionment. On the other hand Clint Eastwood finally lays his iconic screen persona of the lone gunslinger to rest in his masterful deconstruction of the classic western UNFORGIVEN with the once-feared outlaw William Munny coaxed into action one last time, when a prostitute is disfigured by a disgruntled patron and a bounty is offered for his murder.
Additionally more classics will be shown from the Golden Age of cinema with audiences favorites such as Gregory Peck and Cary Grant. Alfred Hitchcock and George Stevens directed films with famous actors will complete the summer schedule for those who love the black and white classics.
The program will feature director George Stevens 1942 film THE TALK OF THE TOWN with Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman as main cast. This lively Oscar-nominated chamber piece sees two of their era’s top leading men in a romantic triangle so convincing that director George Stevens had to use test screenings to decide which of them would win Nora’s love.Also will be featured Alfred Hitchcock's THE PARADINE CASE from 1947 with Gregory Peck, Ann Todd, Charles Laughton, Alida Valli. Despite working under the censorship of the Hays Code and constant interference by producer David O. Selznick, Alfred Hitchcock managed to use this legal drama to dabble in salacious themes like murder, adultery and psychosexual obsession, all motifs that he would return to in his later films.
