One of the greatest events in film examination is the Cinema Interruptus series held every year at the University of Colorado and started by Roger Ebert. He would screen a movie, and then over the rest of the week he'd go through the movie again, but this time he or anyone else in the audience could say, "Stop!" and comment on a detail that struck them in the scene: a subtle gesture from an actor, a notable camera movement, a prominent color, they style of the lighting, and the group would discuss how that detail related to the film.
Now "Filmspotting" co-host Josh Larsen is bringing the Interruptus process back to Chicago in order to give a closer look to Robert Altman's toxic satire of the Hollywood studio system, "The Player" from 1992. The film has as much reverence (and reference) to many legendary classic films as it has a jaded attitude about the people who produce them, and so there promises to be a wealth of conversation about the movies brought up in "The Player" and how the film managed to be a comeback to Altman's career.
The Interruptus is a four-day event: They'll first show the whole movie at 6:15 Monday 8/11 (UNinterrupted), then for the next three days at 3:15 we'll go through a third of the movie, not just commenting on what people notice but with Larsen showing related videos about the films "The Player" is drawing from. After each session we'll head to the Emerald on 216 N. Wabash to talk over our experiences with the movie and with the points noted about it. Each day of the Interruptus costs $15 individually or $40 for the whole event. Feel free to check out any particular day of the Interrupted movie or even just to watch the movie in full on Monday, in which case you can treat it as a usual CFDG Meetup about "The Player". In any case hope you get a chance to experience at least some of the most comprehensive sustained way to look deeper into what a film's about!
(For those who want a complete look at what the Interruptus process is about, last year Larsen brought the project to Chicago to focus on P.T. Anderson's "Phantom Thread", and the results were a spectacular re-evaluation of that movie's qualities, of which the whole process was noted at: https://cinemal2001.wordpress.com/chicago-cinema-interruptus-2024/ )
