posted by NotAnyRon on April 19, 2007; screened on April 9, 2007
Roman Polanski
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1974
This year for the Interruptus, Roger Ebert could not make it due to health reasons. Jim Emerson filled in for him very admirably. It was my 11th year. I've been coming since I was an undergraduate at CU in 1996 for Pulp Fiction and the first year I missed was 2005 when I was living in Boston.
This year Jim chose to show Chinatown, a film I'd never seen before. Jim called it a perfect film in his introduction, and I have to say I agree with him. The first night, I loved it and recognized that it is a brilliant film. It was only over the course of the week, as we dissected it in fine detail that I grew to realize the depth of its brilliance. It really is a film that is meant to be seen many times over and something rich will come from each viewing.
One of the coolest things that I learned during the week was only tangentially in the film. There is a scene that takes place in the fictional Albacore Club. The real location for this scene is Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island off the coast of L.A. It turns out that Robert Towne wrote the screenplay in Two Harbors on Catalina, and this shot was an homage. I spent a week camping in Two Harbors this New Years and you can see some pictures of the trip on my set in Flickr. It's a beautiful place & I'd wish I'd known that little bit of film history while I was there.
I don't really have any thoughts on the film that I feel like sharing. If you actually read this site, you've probably noticed that I have not been updating lately, so there's nothing new in my mood. But my friend Ted encouraged me to not make a post a project. So, since this isn't a project I won't worry about perfection. I'll leave that to Polanski.