ASTORIA, NY.- To coincide with the release of Ari Aster’s new film Eddington, Museum of the Moving Image will present Eddington City Limits, a five-film series co-programmed with Aster and MoMI Senior Curator of Film Michael Koresky, from August 15–31. This series features movies that both directly inspired or echo the escalating madness of Eddington, depicting powder-keg communities ready to spill over into violence or enclosed worlds so given to conspiracy and obsession that there’s no longer any sense of coherent reality.
Aster will appear with two of the films for a conversation with Koresky: Robert Altman’s Nashville on August 17 and the August 23 screening of Oliver Stone’s JFK. The series opens with Lars von Trier’s Dogville, the still-polarizing drama about small-town American life starring Nicole Kidman, and includes Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (35mm) and Steven Spielberg’s 1941. The full schedule and descriptions are available at movingimage.org and included below.
Koresky announced the series at a special advance screening of Eddington attended by Aster on July 16 at the Museum. In his exhilarating, wildly (and aptly) cynical new vision, set at the inflection point of May 2020, Aster pits the intractable factions of the contemporary sociopolitical divide against one another—personified in a small-town New Mexico sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and mayor (Pedro Pascal)—in an escalating series of faceoffs. Eddington is both caustic prank and serious as a heart attack, boasting the director’s customary visual control and mastery of storytelling, and brilliantly acted by a fearless, fully committed cast. The film opens in theaters today, July 18, an A24 release.
“We’re so pleased to work with Ari on this series,” says Koresky. “These selections elucidate and expand on the themes of his brilliant and rattling 2020-set American western, which, like all his films, puts its viewers in a productively uncomfortable position. Aster knows that great movies don’t have to be easy on us, and the movies in this lineup all provoke their audiences in ways that expertly balance pain and pleasure. As audiences discover Eddington in the coming weeks, we hope they’ll come experience some of these films at the Museum to further discuss the ideas—about the breakdown of community, about conspiracy, about cult mentality—that it puts forth.”
SCHEDULE FOR ‘EDDINGTON CITY LIMITS,’ AUGUST 15–31
All screenings take place at Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35 Ave, Astoria, NY 11106 in the Sumner M. Redstone Theater and/or the Bartos Screening Room. Advance tickets are available at movingimage.org/series/eddington-city-limits.
Dogville
Friday, August 15, 6:00 p.m.
Dir. Lars von Trier. 2003, 171 mins. Denmark. DCP. With Nicole Kidman, Stellan Skarsgård, Paul Bettany, Lauren Bacall, Patricia Clarkson, James Caan, Jeremy Davies, Ben Gazzara, Philip Baker Hall, Chloë Sevigny, Udo Kier. The pinnacle of Lars von Trier’s cinematic moral confrontations remains a work of controversy and contemplation more than twenty years after its release. A cold, unremittingly angry film about the United States, made by an outsider (and released during the height of the U.S.’s second invasion of Iraq), the Danish director’s polarizing drama subverts the cinematic conventions of films about small-town American values and flips the script on dramas about the recovery of human goodness. Yet von Trier’s bitter pill is dramatically engaging from first frame to shocking last, as it follows a mystery woman named Grace (Kidman) who seeks refuge from violence in a quaint Rocky Mountain town, only to find herself in a different kind of nightmare. Von Trier eschewed location shooting—and sets of any kind—to tell this discouraging, marvelously written tale of corruption.
Nashville
With Ari Aster in person
Sunday, August 17, 1:00 p.m.
Dir. Robert Altman. 1975, 159 mins. U.S. DCP. With Lily Tomlin, Ronee Blakely, Gwen Welles, Shelley Duvall, Keith Carradine, Ned Beatty, Barbara Harris, Jeff Goldblum. The peak of Altman’s prolific career was this panoramic view of American life circa 1975, set in the nation’s country-music capital. Cramming his wide screen with the comings and goings of a 24-character ensemble, Altman creates an incredible, cacophonous entertainment, equal parts comedy and tragedy, featuring terrific original songs and an unforgettable ending. Perhaps never has another film captured the simultaneous horror and hilarity of modern American living than this singular masterpiece, which remains as galvanizing and astute—and irresolvable—as ever, a rollicking kaleidoscope that gradually becomes a depiction of encroaching political violence.
JFK
With Ari Aster in person on August 23
Saturday, August 23, 6:15 p.m.
Sunday, August 31, 1:00 p.m.
Dir. Oliver Stone. 1991, 189 mins. U.S. DCP. With Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Joe Pesci, Gary Oldman, Sissy Spacek, Kevin Bacon, John Candy, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Donald Sutherland. At the height of his cinematic powers, Oliver Stone got this miraculously personal studio film green-lit—a feat that now feels all but unthinkable. JFK follows the true story of the indefatigable, increasingly obsessive New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Costner, a steadfast marvel), who tried to convict local high society dandy Clay Shaw (Jones) as a conspirator in the murder of President John F. Kennedy Jr, and in so doing prove the Warren Report was wrong in certifying that Lee Harvey Oswald (Oldman) acted alone. Stone’s free-wheeling, brilliantly constructed head-trip feels awfully prescient in its “there is no bottom” perspective on American history and conspiracy.
The Wild Bunch
Friday, August 29, 6:30 p.m.
Sunday, August 31, 5:00 p.m.
Dir. Sam Peckinpah. 1969, 145 mins. U.S. 35mm. With William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O’Brien, Warren Oates. As the western dried up around him, Sam Peckinpah assembled a group of grizzled veterans for one last trip into the breach. A cadre of aging outlaws, fleeing the authorities, attempts to make a final score for a Mexican general, but when things go awry, the gang finds itself in one of the wildest and bloodiest of screen shoot-outs. Peckinpah’s masterpiece is at once classical and revisionist, an exemplar of the very genre it so brilliantly subverts, building towards a famously violent climax that seemed to all but put a fork in the genre.
1941
Saturday, August 30, 3:00 p.m.
Dir. Steven Spielberg. 1979, 118 mins. U.S. DCP. With John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Candy, Nancy Allen, Tim Matheson, Toshiro Mifune. Critically dismissed at the time of its release, Spielberg’s grand folly is a lavish spectacle that has attracted a major cult following. A slapstick behemoth on a massive, budget-busting scale, 1941 charts the fictional pandemonium that ensues among a group of frenzied Los Angelenos after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Featuring Oscar-nominated cinematography, sound design, and visual effects, Spielberg’s wildest ride is a chance for Spielberg to play with and demolish a really big toy set—but it’s also a delirious portrait of Americans under duress that serves as a comic critique of wartime paranoia.
