Cities & Cinema: Los Angeles

September 6–October 3, 2024

From Chinatown to La La Land to restored independent films, this series considers a diverse selection of works that foreground the history, architecture, and neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Special guests include May HaDuong, Director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, and Los Angeles–based Italian journalist Luca Celeda.

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Smog
La La Land
Killer of Sheep
Chinatown

Upcoming
Films
Upcoming
Events
Selected
Objects
Past
Films
Past
Events

Past Films

Chinatown
Roman Polanski
United States, 1974
Friday, September 6 7:00 PM
Roman Polanski remakes Los Angeles history as noir fiction, placing hard-boiled PI Jack Nicholson in the rotten middle of a public waterworks scam orchestrated by gentleman farmer John Huston. “Undoubtedly one of the great films of the seventies” (Time Out). Preceded by three Hearst Metrotone News Reels from the 1930s.
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Model Shop
Jacques Demy
France, United States, 1969
Sunday, September 8 5:00 PM
This sequel to Lola finds Anouk Aimée, now a little older and sadder, in Los Angeles, working in a “model shop,” where lonely men go to snap photos of beautiful women. “One of the great movies about L.A.” (Time Out).
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The Exiles
Kent Mackenzie
United States, 1961
35mm Archival Print
Friday, September 13 7:00 PM
Introduction by May HaDuong
A semidocumentary film about American Indians living in Los Angeles, The Exiles is “a wrenching document of cultural dislocation” (Thom Andersen). Preceded by four Hearst Metrotone Newsreels from the 1930s–1960s.
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Smog
Franco Rossi
United States, 1962
Digital Restoration
May HaDuong and Luca Celada will give a twenty-five-minute lecture prior to the film.
Saturday, September 14 6:30 PM
Lecture by May HaDuong and Luca Celada
Intended to address the identity crisis facing postwar Italians, and Europeans generally, Smog has become a key touchstone for contemporary Angelinos to connect with the past of their ever-evolving city.
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Passing Through
Larry Clark
United States, 1977
16mm Archival Print

Passing Through was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2023.
Sunday, September 15 4:30 PM
Larry Clark and May HaDuong in Conversation
Passing Through theorizes that jazz is one of the purest expressions of African American culture, now hijacked by a white culture that brutally exploits musicians for profit. “An invaluable film-outcry” (Albert Johnson).
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La La Land
Damien Chazelle
United States, 2016
Audio Description
Closed Captioned
Friday, September 20 7:00 PM
“[Damien] Chazelle has crafted that rare thing, a genuinely romantic comedy, and as well, a rhapsody in blue, red, yellow and green” (Sight & Sound).
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Killer of Sheep
Charles Burnett
United States, 1977
BAMPFA Collection
Sunday, September 22 5:15 PM
A poetic evocation of working-class Watts, “a great—the greatest—cinematic tone poem of American urban life” (New York Magazine), Killer of Sheep’s “single most-recalled moment” is “the slow-dance scene between the . . . alienated Stan and his wife” (Adrian Martin).
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Water and Power
Pat O’Neill
United States, 1989
Wednesday, September 25 7:00 PM
A moving meditation on industrialization, Water and Power is an ingenious merging of optical printing and time-lapse cinematography. Screening with By the Sea (1963) and Horizontal Boundaries (2008).
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Lions Love ( . . . and Lies)
Agnès Varda
United States, France, 1969
Friday, September 27 7:00 PM
Agnès Varda’s experimental feature, shot in Hollywood in 1968 and starring Andy Warhol superstar Viva, is a deliberately decadent riff on fantasy, immaturity, and violence. “More than a time capsule of events and moods—it’s a living aesthetic model for revolutionary times” (Richard Brody). Preceded by four short Hearst Metrotone News Reels from the 1960s.
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Hito Hata: Raise the Banner
Robert A. Nakamura, Duane Kubo
United States, 1980
Digital Restoration
Sunday, September 29 4:00 PM
An epic Japanese American drama, Hito Hata: Raise the Banner draws on the talents and support of Asian American filmmakers, writers, and theater professionals, as well as literally hundreds of people from the Asian Pacific American community.
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Free Screening: Real Women Have Curves
Patricia Cardoso
United States, 2002
Free Admission
Thursday, October 3 7:00 PM
Filmed on location in the predominantly Latino community of East Los Angeles, this nuanced portrayal of an intergenerational family centers around Ana, a high school senior who navigates what is expected of her with pride as a talented and compassionate woman.
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Cities & Cinema: Los Angeles

September 6–October 3, 2024

The world’s great cities are often the source of inspiration for filmmakers—a tradition that began in the silent era as city symphonies and continues through to the contemporary period. This series considers a selection of films that foreground the history, architecture, and neighborhoods of Los Angeles, as seen through the eyes of international directors and lifelong Angelino filmmakers. Roman Polanski’s Chinatown is a story of water rights and power in the 1930s; Jacques Demy’s melancholic Model Shop transports us along the sunset strip and edges of the sprawling metropolis. Agnès Varda’s Lions Love ( . . . and Lies) is a refreshing critique of the movie business, politics, and American culture. Damien Chazelle’s La La Land showcases the city’s landmarks in full color and hearkens back to Demy’s musicals.

The recent restoration of the long-unseen Smog, directed by Italian filmmaker...

The recent restoration of the long-unseen Smog, directed by Italian filmmaker Franco Rossi, was the impetus for this thematic series. We welcome May HaDuong, Director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, and Los Angeles–based journalist Luca Celada to speak about Smog’s depiction of mid-century architecture in Los Angeles. HaDuong also shares two other UCLA restorations: Kent Mackenzie’s The Exiles, a brilliant depiction of the plight of Native American Angelinos circa 1961; and Larry Clark’s exceptional Passing Through, which captures LA’s jazz scene.

Charles Burnett’s poetic Killer of Sheep, set in Watts, is considered one of the great works of American independent cinema. Robert A. Nakamura and Duane Kubo’s tale of Little Tokyo, Hito Hata: Raise the Banner, is a landmark of Asian American cinema. Patricia Cardosa is the first Latina director to be named to the National Film Registry for her heartwarming drama set in East Los Angeles, Real Women Have Curves. Artist-filmmaker Pat O’Neill’s Water and Power and Horizontal Boundaries use collage and composite image making to explore themes of industrialization and loss of the natural world.

—Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator

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We thank May HaDuong, Todd Wiener, and Steven K. Hill, UCLA Film & Television Archive, for their assistance with many of the films shown in this series, including the Hearst Metrotone Newsreels.