Wednesday,
February 2 at 7:00pm
The
Lady from Shanghai
dir.
Orson Welles, USA, 1948, 35mm, 84 mins, b/w
Introduced
by Professor Timothy Corrigan, Penn Cinema Studies
 Welles
brings his metaphysical and psychological preoccupations, as
well as his heated camera and editing style, to the genre of
film noir in this story of a Spanish Civil War veteran and adventurer
(played by the director himself) who falls for a charismatic
but dangerous woman (Hayworth, Welles’ wife at the time). She
leads him into an abyss of personal intrigue and moral bankruptcy
that famously climaxes in a chase through a Chinese theater
and a gun battle in a funhouse with large, distorting mirrors.
With spectacular location shooting in San
Francisco and Acapulco, the film nevertheless becomes a largely
mental or spiritual space,
a landscape of pure romantic ecstasy and existential uncertainty.
Presented
in collaboration with the Institute
of Contemporary Art's Accumulated Vision: Barry
Le Va exhibition.
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