Jazz/Noir Film Festival
Friday-Sunday, May 19-21
$45 Festival Pass (good for
all screenings)
$10 Individual Film
What happens when idealistic romanticism (our hopes, our loves)
confronts hard-boiled realism (our fears, our fate)? Find out
at Jazz/Noir, a weekend of great films with brilliant jazz soundtracks
by jazz legends such as Duke Ellington and Miles Davis. Some of
the most classic film noir pictures featured jazz sound tracks
because the mystery and action onscreen were perfectly accompanied
by the excitement and unpredictability of jazz.
This series, presented in collaboration with the
Balboa Theater and
the Film Noir
Foundation, explores those connections on the big screen,
the way these films were meant to be seen. Want to know
more? Check out the "Discover
Jazz on Film: A Survey of Jazz/Noir" being given
by SFJAZZ on three Mondays in April (10th , 17th, 24th) at the
JCC.
Friday, May 19
Sweet Smell of Success
(1959) [IMdb]
1pm & 6pm
Directed by Alexander Mackendrick
Music by Elmer Bernstein
(96 min)
Scathing tale of media megalomania in 1950s Manhattan, as power-mad
columnist forces a slimy PR flak to smear a jazz musician. Vicious
script enhanced by vivid photography and Elmer Bernstein's brassy,
propulsive score.
Anatomy
of a Murder
(1959) [IMdb]
3pm & 9pm
Directed by Otto Preminger
Music by Duke Ellington
(160 min)
Country lawyer comes out of retirement to defend a small town
soldier accused of murdering the man who raped his wife. Nothing's
simple in this film, including the intricate, innovative score
by Duke Ellington.
Saturday, May 20
I
Want to Live
(1958) [IMdb]
1pm & 6:30pm
(6:30 film includes Inside Jazz Talk)
Directed by Robert Wise
Music by Johnny Mandel
(120 min)
Susan Hayward gives an Oscar-winning performance as doomed
Bay Area party-girl Barbara Graham, the last woman executed in
California. Graham's personal fave, Gerry Mulligan, is featured
heavily in the ultra-hep Johnny Mandel score.
Elevator
to the Gallows
(1957) [IMdb]
3:30pm & 9pm
Directed by Louis Malle
Music by Miles Davis
(88 min)
A Frenchwoman and her lover plot the "perfect crime"
- killing her husband but making it look like suicide. Things
go dreadfully wrong, of course. Featuring the coolest score ever
in a film noir, courtesy of Miles Davis.
Sunday, May 21
Odds
Against Tomorrow
(1959) [IMdb]
1pm & 5:30pm
Directed by Robert Wise
Music by John Lewis
(96 min)
The clockwork robbery of a small town bank is threatened
by racial hostility of two accomplices. A nail-biting crime thriller
made even more memorable by the John Lewis' extraordinary score,
performed by his acclaimed Modern Jazz Quartet.
Touch
of Evil (1958)
[IMdb]
3pm & 7:30pm
Directed by Orson Welles
Music by Henry Mancini
(111 min)
Mexican narc blows apart veteran sheriff's vice-like
grip on a seedy bordertown-not before all manner of pestilence
and perversion is captured in Orson Welles' dazzling direction,
embellished by Henry Mancini's Latin-tinged roadhouse jazz score.
Capsule descriptions by Eddie Muller, Founder and President
of the Film Noir Foundation.
The Film Noir
Foundation, collaborating organization on the Jazz/Noir Film
Festival and presenter of San Francisco's annual Noir City Film
Festival, is a non-profit public benefit corporation created as
an educational resource regarding the cultural, historical, and
artistic significance of film noir as an original American cinematic
movement.
