SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our SMC BIRTHDAY Series, Friday, June 2, 2023
LOCATION: The Secret Movie Club Theater, 1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90021
*Please note entrance/parking is actually in the back of the building. Make a right on Wilson Street, then a right behind the building. We’re the first set of black steps after the big gate.
7:30pm THE RIVER (1951, dir. Jean Renoir, Janus, USA/France/India, 99mns, 35mm)
9:40pm THE RULES OF THE GAME (1939, dir. Jean Renoir, Janus, France, 110mns, 35mm)
Tonight, Secret Movie Club Team Member Patrick McElroy celebrates his birthday with two Jean Renoir classics on 35mm!
First up is Renoir’s late period masterwork, The River, adapted from the semi-autobiographical novel by Rumor Godden, about her life growing up as the daughter of a British mercantilist in India.
In many ways, The River represents the very heights of Renoir’s humanism so developed and honed in his French period in such movies as Toni, A Day in the Country, the Crime of Monsieur Lange, Grand Illusion, and The Rules of the Game.
The movie, rather than being either an apology or an attack on one culture living amongst another, becomes a humanist study of the life as it was experienced by all involved.
Along with the central family, we get another western neighbor (John Ford regular Arthur Shields) whose daughter, the product of a white father and Indian mother, struggles to find her place in a world that will not fully accept her in either society.
We also get the very real story of Captain John, returned from World War II, who has lost a leg, and struggles with feelings of inadequacy and PTSD in the post World War world that has moved on even if the soldiers have not and can not.
Filled with equal parts triumph, beauty, joy, tragedy, growth, The River is one of Renoir’s towering achievements. It also helped begin the cinematic career of Satyajit Ray who worked n the movie as an advisor to Jean Renoir and would soon strike out to direct his debut world cinema masterpiece Pather Panchali.
We follow this up with the movie that almost destroyed Renoir but would, after several decades of risking nearly being lost, come to be recognized as one of the greatest movies ever made: The Rules of the Game.
Renoir, with the innocent heart of the true artist, set out to make a comedy farce of hopping beds in the style of Marivaux and Mozart that also simultaneously explored all the hypocrisy of French society BOTH in the upper and the working class.
Renoir, guileless to the fuse he was setting, was shocked when at the debut of the movie, a Frenchman got up, lit a newspaper on fire, and tried to burn down the cinema.
It was only at that moment that Renoir realized that most of us don’t like to have mirrors held up to our complicated inner natures so capable of great loyalties and great betrayals, great loves and great cruelties.
The Rules of the Game, which follows a group of rich Parisians and their servants to a weekend party at the Marquis and Madame La Chesnaye’s chateau in the country, is indeed hilarious. In fact, the third act is one of the greatest feats of farce in all cinema.
But Renoir (who also stars as both the best and worst friend anyone could have, the jovial but resourceless Octave) couldn’t help but also explore all the silly destruction and broken spirits left in the wake of everyone’s extra-marital affairs, lies, and deceptions.
A movie that is at once both open hearted beyond anything and neck slicing razor sharp in its satiric understanding that “everyone has their reasons”, The Rules of the Game is one of cinema’s all-time bangers. And we show it on 35mm!
Best always,
Craig Hammill
Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
*Please note that though we strive to always show titles on 35mm film if advertised, we may have to screen digitally if the print we receive is in such bad shape or if we don't receive the print in time because of a shipping delay. We will do our best to alert the audience. When this does occur, we will offer each ticket holder who chooses not to attend a complimentary ticket to a future event in exchange. (Disclaimer: Good for 90 days – Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
REFUNDS:
We can offer refunds up to 24 hours before showtime. Please request a refund through Eventbrite and we will process ASAP. After that, no refunds. Sorry.
However if something last minute comes up and you can’t make the screening, for whatever reason, just write to us before showtime: community@secretmovieclub.com and we’ll offer you complimentary tickets to a future screening, good for 90 days. (Disclaimer: Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
HELPFUL SECRET MOVIE CLUB (1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, LA, CA 90021) THEATER PARKING TIPS:
We recommend that you park just outside our theater. Remember our theater is actually in a beautiful street art alleyway in the back of the 1917 Bay Street building. You get to our entrance by taking a right on Wilson, then a right behind the building. We are the first set of black steps on the right after the big gate.
There is also a parking lot at the corner of Mateo and Violet Street, just 2 blocks from our theater, which costs $7 per car.
HOW CAN WE STAY ON TOP OF NEWLY ANNOUNCED 35MM SCREENINGS, EVENTS, ETC?
You can follow us on Instagram/Twitter: @secretmovieclub or Facebook: @secretmovieclub35mm
You can also subscribe to our weekly email newsletter at secretmovieclub.com or by writing to us at community@secretmovieclub.com and using the header “SUBSCRIBE ME TO NEWSLETTER”.
HOW CAN I CONTACT YOU IF I HAVE OTHER QUESTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS:
You can always email us at community@secretmovieclub.com with any other questions, concerns, thoughts, recommendations.