This year’s Labor Goes to the Movies film series presents a group of films—documentary and fiction—that take the threat of apocalypse as their premise. The threat of global climate change has given apocalyptic scenarios more mainstream girth, but filmmakers have been documenting and imagining man-made end times for years. The featured films depict nuclear confrontation, resource wars, tampering with ecological balance, or nature’s metaphysical revenge. They are meant to stimulate discussion about options for future actions.
CHINATOWN
(1974, US, Roman Polanski)
One of the great US films of the second half of the 20th Century, Roman Polanski directed a Robert Towne film noir script, based on a true story, about ecological, financial and sexual crimes in Los Angeles during the 1930s. Though set in the 1930s, the film was far ahead of its time, tracing the perverse reverberations of the battle over water rights in California, with drowning in the midst of a drought, incest, voyeurism, and adultery, all generated by capitalist greed, and all ultimately obscured by the fog of orientalist projection. Nominated for 11 Oscars, including Director, Screenwriter, Actor (Jack Nicholson), and Actress (Faye Dunaway), with a spooky performance by Polanski.
Door open at 6pm.A discussion will follow the film.Light refreshments provided.
