In 1968, I found myself in the eye of a hurricane of history. Two University of Wisconsin friends and I were on top of the TV camera car when police and demonstrators clashed at the intersection of Michigan Aevnue and Balbo Drive at the most famous of the Democratic National Convention riots. So I have a strong memory of the real-life backdrop of Haskell Wexler’s 1969 dramatic chronicle of the media and that convention, “Medium Cool” ((star) (star) (star) 1/2), –which is showing in a new 35mm print at the Music Box at 11:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. Making the event even more special will be personal appearances by Wexler.
“Medium Cool,” which Wexler wrote, photographed and directed, is set in Chicago just before and during the ’68 convention. Its central character is a tough Chicago TV news photographer (Robert Forster), an unreflective Lothario and ex-boxer who is too detached from the life and violence he records. Gradually, he’s pulled into the maelstrom: black discontent, poverty, the Vietnam War protests and finally, the storms in the streets–recorded on the spot by Wexler and a young “phantom documentary unit” headed by Andy Davis (“The Fugitive,” “Chain Reaction”).
Looking at “Medium Cool” again recently, I was astonished at how well it has held up. Back in 1969, I thought it was a little phony and overstated. Some of it still is: the TV station argument, the disco scene, the sex and especially the ending. But much of “Medium Cool” is remarkable.
Along with “The Wild Bunch,” it’s one of the most photographically alive films of 1969; Wexler’s mix of drama and documentary looks back to Jean Luc Godard and points ahead to Mike Leigh. Today, Wexler’s film evokes its time like few other movies.
The other matinee at the Music Box, 3733 N. Southport Ave., is Manoel de Oliveira’s satanic 1994 romance “The Convent” ((star) (star) (star) 1/2), with Catherine Deneuve and John Malkovich. Call 312-871-6604.
– Coming back for its second 1996 Chicago engagement, after its local theatrical premiere last March at Facets, is one of the great movies of our time: Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “The Decalogue” ((star) (star) (star) (star) ), a 1988 Polish film and modern masterpiece comprised of 10 hour-long interlinked episodes, each set in the same Warsaw apartment complex and each based on one of the 10 Commandments. The Film Center of the School of the Art Institute will screen the complete “Decalogue” three full times, in two-hour segments spread over the next two weeks.
What’s most unusual about “The Decalogue” is its form. It’s an epic–but an intimate one. Kieslowski and scenarist Krzysztof Piesiewicz wrote the script during a tense period of national ferment and creativity, and they make the film a vast fresco of private emotions. Initially shown on Polish TV as a series, the episodes can be appreciated independently. But they gain immensely when you see them together. Themes recur and develop. Major characters in one tale reappear as background figures in another. And the episodes are woven together by a mysterious figure: a young blond man with intense eyes who keeps reappearing at crucial moments.
Within the buildings of the complex live most of the important characters of “The Decalogue”: a largely middle and lower-middle-class mix of doctors and teachers, taxi drivers and postmen, young and old people, lovers and voyeurs. Most know each other only casually. And though the stories move outside to the city and countryside, Kieslowski always returns to those towering walls and monotonous windows.
There, he implies, if you look closely enough, you can see most of life’s dramas unfold.
Already a legendary movie and the cornerstone of the late Kieslowski’s international reputation, “The Decalogue” is a rich chronicle of a flawed society. Backed by composer Zbigniew Preisner’s spare and moving score, cast with a virtual “Who’s Who” of Polish film actors, the film maintains a tone of pure, haunting melancholy and sometimes-unbearable truth. It is the finest work of an exemplary filmmaker, one of the century’s highest film achievements.
– Also at the Film Center: a reprise of Terre Nash’s 1995 documentary “Who’s Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics” (6 p.m., Thursday), and three more new Taiwanese films. On Saturday at 3:30 p.m.: Hsu Hsiao-ming’s moving 1995 portrayal of a political prisoner’s return to a world that ignores her, “Heartbreak Island” ((star) (star) (star) ). On Sunday at 2 p.m.: Yee Chin-yen’s 1996 look at a Taipei family’s romantic entanglements, “Lonely Hearts Club” ((star) (star) 1/2), and then at 4 p.m. another look at a political dissident’s return with Wan Jen’s 1995 “Super Citizen Ko.”
The Film Center is at Columbus Drive and Jackson Boulevard. Call 312-443-3737.
