BAMcinématek presents Post-Punk Auteur: Olivier Assayas, a complete retrospective of the director’s oeuvre, Oct 9—28

“‘Reality is always magic,’ Renoir once said, and Assayas embodies that dictum more fully than any other modern director.”—Kent Jones, Film Comment

Olivier Assayas in person at BAM
Brooklyn, NY/Sep 10, 2010—From Saturday October 9 to Friday October 29

BAMcinématek fêtes one of the preeminent living directors, Olivier Assayas, with a
complete retrospective of his work to date. This 20 film series, titled Post-Punk Auteur: Olivier Assayas, celebrates the vibrant career of the former film critic turned filmmaker with his early short films, pastoral family pieces, genre-upending techno-dramas, and rarely-screened documentaries. This momentous retrospective caps off a banner year here in New York for the director: his newest film, the five-hour-plus epic Carlos, (2010—screening Oct. 23 & 24) received some of the best notices of his accomplished career when it premiered earlier this year at Cannes before also being selected for the New York Film Festival; and he curated Assayas Picks at this year’s BAMcinemaFEST. As he did for BAMcinemaFEST, Assayas will appear in person at BAM for Q&As. Olivier Assayas, a native Parisian, was born Jan 25, 1955. His father was Jacques Rémy, a screenwriter who, from the 40s through the 70s, penned original works and adaptations for TV and film, including works by René Clair, Roger Vadim, Marcel Camus, and René Clément. As his father’s health failed, Assayas would ghostwrite teleplays for him. And like the nouvelle vague icons three decades before, Assayas cut his teeth writing criticism in the 80s for legendary film journal Cahiers du cinéma, where he wrote not only of French cinema, but also championed Asian filmmakers, most notably Hou Hsiao-hsien, his primary
artistic influence. In his peripatetic career trajectory following his days as a journalist, he has built a diverse portfolio that focuses on reckless youth, family dependence, tragic relationships, and the music that ties them altogether. As his affinity for music is so tied to his filmmaking, in 2004 BAMcinématek gave him the chance to curate a series of films based on their soundtracks called I Can Hear the Guitar, which will make this the auteur’s third rendezvous with BAM.

The plot of his debut Disorder (1986—Oct 11), which won a Critics’ Prize at Venice, is an appropriately rambunctious and simultaneously thoughtful start to his feature filmography; in a misguided Sex Pistols-esque attempt to start a band, three friends try to steal equipment with devastating consequences. “Even within the constraints of this simple narrative framework, [Assayas] seems to be channeling Dostoevsky’s sensitivity to moral quandary into a compressed torch song by Ian Curtis.” (Jeff Reichert, Reverse Shot). The film screens with his
Rectangle (1980), a short promotional music film for French pop act Jacno, which was a precursor to the ensuing music video revolution. BAMcinématek’s series presents his other rarely screened early features including Winter’s Child (1989—Oct 14), an austere formalistic departure of a sophomore effort that looks at the intersecting lives of two young couples; Paris at Dawn (1991—Oct 15), winner of the Prix Jean Vigo, featuring a score by the Velvet Underground’s John Cale and a diagetic usage of the Pixies’ “Debaser”; and A New Life (1992—Oct 22), never released in the States and his first film shot in ’Scope, which was cut from a three-hour script to a two-hour film, resulting in a boldly elliptical
narrative. During these early days as a filmmaker Assayas continued to write criticism. In the mid-80s, he and Charles Tesson spearheaded a now legendary double-issue of Cahiers on Hong Kong cinema. It was while researching this issue that he first met Taiwanese director Hou. More than a decade later he would pay tribute to his idol with HHH: A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-Hsien (1997—Oct 20) which was filmed as an episode of Cinéma de notre temps, a long-running program which once saw Rivette interview Renoir and Rohmer interview Dreyer. Hou guided Assayas around his native Taipei, offering an insightful portrait of the celebrated Taiwanese director. Assayas further pays tribute to the master
by selecting Hou’s lush cinematic narcotic, Flowers of Shanghai (Hou, 1998—Oct 19) to screen as a part of this retrospective.

Cold Water (1994—Oct 21) confirmed that Assayas would be a prolific and important force. His fifth feature announced the presence of actress Virginie Ledoyen—nominated for a César for Most Promising Actress for her performance—and featured a bifurcated structure climaxing with an extensive party scene. “Assayas’ sustained treatment of this event—the raging bonfire, the dope, the music and dancing—truly catches you by the throat… One of the key French films of the 90s” (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader).

Two other documentaries screening in the series are Noise (2006—Oct 13), which was shot at an Assayas-curated rock concert highlighting instrumental experimentation with numerous acts, including Sonic Youth, and Eldorado/Creation (2008—Oct 28), featuring Ballet Preljocaj and a score by
Stockhausen. This is a rare filmic document of the work of Angelin Preljocaj, who in The New York Times Anna Kisselgoff called “a major choreographer. At his best, he uses movement in a new way, avoiding narrative connotation but the physical force of every gesture or movement distills the essence of emotion.” Ballet Preljocaj will be performing in BAM’s 2010 Next Wave Festival with Empty moves
(parts I & II) (Oct 27, 29 & 30). For this piece, choreographed for two women and two men, Preljocaj draws his inspiration from John Cage’s Empty Words—recorded at a 1977 performance that includes not only the words and segmented units of sound derived from Henry David Thoreau writings as read by Cage, but also the booing and jeering of his increasingly hostile audience. (See separate release for more information.)

Irma Vep (1996—Oct 10) was not only Assayas’ breakout international hit, but his first collaboration with the elegant, inimitable Maggie Cheung; they would marry two years later. The film—winner of the KNF award at Rotterdam (for best feature without distribution)—was also Assayas’ first extensive look at the processes of behind-the-scenes networking, in this case filmmaking. New Wave icon Jean-
Pierre Léaud plays a director remaking Louis Feuillade’s Les Vampires (1915) with Cheung in the lead role. Glenn Kenny, who compared the film to Truffaut’s Day for Night and Fassbinder’s Beware of a Holy Whore, wrote, “Assayas’ depiction of the speed and disconnection of the ‘real’ world surrounding the crew of Vep’s film-within-a-film can indeed be frightening, but it’s also sardonic, sometimes
despairing, angry.”

Assayas and Cheung divorced in 2001, but that didn’t keep them from collaborating again on Clean (2004—Oct 16), in which she gives a heart-shattering performance as a recovering addict and won the best actress prize at Cannes in the process. The penetrating character study also stars a grizzled Nick
Nolte in a late-career triumph as the father of her killed-by-overdose lover. Before Clean, Assayas helmed another international cast in the critically-split demonlover (2002—Oct 18) starring Connie Nielsen, Assayas regular Charles Berling, Chloë Sevigny, and Gina Gershon. Manohla Dargis, writing in the Los Angeles Times called the erotic thriller “an exasperating, irresistible, must-see mess of a
movie about life in the modern world and so very good that even when its story finally crashes and burns the filmmaking remains unscathed.” Sonic Youth (along with Jim O’Rourke, who was in the band at the time) composed the film’s score. Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon also made an appearance in another one of the director’s thrillers, Boarding Gate (2007—Oct 27), an even steamier look at the
world of drugs and scandal, starring Michael Madsen and Asia Argento (the subject of a BAMcinématek retro, 2008’s Sexy, Scary and Often Naked).

With Late August, Early September (1998—Oct 26) Assayas turned his attentions to a year in the lives of a group of thirtysomethings. The film features a soundtrack by the famous Malian musician Ali Farka Touré and stars Ledoyen, ubiquitous Gallic thespian Mathieu Amalric, and Assayas’ fiancée Mia
Hansen-Løve, who went on to direct The Father of My Children (2009), which shows Assayas’ influence on a new generation of filmmakers, as it shares formal and thematic sensibilities with Assayas’ work. Late August explores the themes of mortality and change through an elliptical structure similar to his earlier work, A New Life. The film screens with his contribution to the omnibus feature
Paris je t’aime, Quartier des enfants rouges (2006), starring Maggie Gyllenhaal.
His period piece, Les Destinées (2000—Oct 17), based on Jacques Chardonne’s 1936 novel and starring Emmanuelle Béart, Charles Berling, and Isabelle Huppert, spans three decades around the turn of the 20th century. Though seemingly divergent stylistically, it maintains a studied focus on the passage of time, the toll of family, and the burden of legacy. New York Film Festival hit Summer Hours (2008—Oct 9), starring Berling, Juliette Binoche, and Dardennes veteran Jérémie Renier, explores similar themes in a contemporary family. J. Hoberman in The Village Voice called the film, which was commissioned by the Musée d’Orsay, “almost Ozu-like in its evocation of a parent’s death and the dissolving bond between the surviving children.”

With the upcoming release of Carlos, his film about the Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal and his most ambitious work yet, Assayas cements his status in 2010 as one of the giants of cinema who still continues to surprise. Assayas “has a rapturously mobile eye, because he makes an event out of every shape and spatial configuration that crosses his camera’s field of vision. Yet each move, each
color, each visual rush is firmly connected to his characters in particular and quotidian existence in general.” (Kent Jones, Film Comment). BAMcinématek is honored to present a retrospective of this singular talent. Post-Punk Auteur:

Post-Punk Auteur: Olivier Assayas schedule

Saturday, October 9
6:50, 9:15pm: Summer Hours

Sunday, October 10
2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm: Irma Vep

Monday, October 11
4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm: Disorder preceded by Rectangle

Wednesday, October 13
6:50, 9:15pm: Noise

Thursday, October 14
7pm: Winter’s Child

Friday, October 15
2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm: Paris at Dawn

Saturday, October 16
2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm: Clean

Sunday, October 17
3, 7pm: Les Destinées

Monday, October 18
4:30, 7*pm: demonlover
*Q&A with Olivier Assayas

Tuesday, October 19
6:50, 9:30pm: Flowers of Shanghai

Wednesday, October 20
4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm: HHH: A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Thursday, October 21
4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm: Cold Water

Friday, October 22
2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm: A New Life

Saturday, October 23
6:30pm: Carlos

Sunday, October 24
3pm: Carlos

Tuesday, October 26
4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm: Late August, Early September preceded by Quartier des enfants rouges

Wednesday, October 27
4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm: Boarding Gate

Thursday, October 28
4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm: Eldorardo/Creation

Detailed film descriptions for Post-Punk Auteur: Olivier Assayas
In French with English subtitles (except where noted)

Boarding Gate (2007) 106min.
With Asia Argento, Michael Madsen, Kim Gordon.
Drugs, prostitution, sex, and intense S&M. Argento is right at home in Assayas’ erotic thriller about two former business associates (Argento as former prostitute and Madsen as former pimp) who are reacquainted and resume their kinky relationship. Drug deals gone bad and sexual intrigue lead to a very sticky situation. In English, French, and Cantonese with English subtitles.
Wed, Oct 27 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm

Carlos (2010) 330min.
With Édgar Ramírez, Alexander Scheer, Alejandro Arroyo.
Conceived as a three part miniseries for French television, Assayas’ latest (which screened at Cannes earlier this year) is a gripping, 5 1/2 hour political thriller that chronicles the rise and fall of the notorious Venezuelan revolutionary and terrorist Carlos the Jackal (Ramírez in a star-making performance), who became internationally infamous for his 1975 attack on the OPEC headquarters in
Vienna. Assayas’ propulsive style gives the riveting action set pieces a pulse-quickening immediacy that explode any stale notions about the traditional biopic or historical epic; a crackling live-wire, Carlos is filmmaking of the highest order. “How good is Olivier Assayas’ Carlos? Think of The Bourne Identity with more substance, or Munich with more of a pulse, and you begin to have a sense of what the French filmmaker accomplished with this globetrotting and epic look at one man’s rise to the station of international guerrilla leader and terrorist celebrity.” —Steve Zeitchik, LA Times. In French, German, English, Spanish, and Arabic with English titles.
Sat, Oct 23 at 6:30pm
Sun, Oct 24 at 3pm

Clean (2004) 111min.
With Maggie Cheung, Nick Nolte, Béatrice Dalle.
When her rock-star-has-been boyfriend overdoses on heroin, junkie musician Emily Wang is tossed in prison and publicly condemned for his death. Once released six months later, she struggles to stay clean, rebuild her life, and establish a relationship with her six-year-old son who has been raised by
her in-laws. Maggie Cheung became the the first Asian actress to win Best Actress at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival for her gutsy, naked performance, while Nick Nolte is compassionate and moving as her father-in-law and Assayas surehandly crafts an unsentimental character study about those on the fringes of the rock lifestyle. In French, English, and Cantonese with English titles.
Sat, Oct 16 at 2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm

Cold Water (L’eau froide) (1994) 92min.
With Virginie Ledoyen, Cyprien Fouquet, László Szabó.
Assayas’ stunning coming of age tale was part of Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge, a series of films commissioned by French television where directors were asked to make films about their own youth at age 16. Troubled teens Gilles and Christine, products of ineffective, disinterested families, are passionately in love. Threatened by parents who’d rather ship them to boarding schools and
institutions than give them support, they plan an escape to an idyllic artist commune as the film builds to a mysterious, haunting finale. The film’s centerpiece is a mesmerizing extended party scene “where a horde of teens group, groove and get off to the sounds of Janis Joplin, Creedence Clearwater
Revival, Leonard Cohen and Alice Cooper.”- Tom Charity, Time Out. In French, Hungarian, English with English titles.
Thu, Oct 21 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm

demonlover (2002) 129min.
With Connie Nielsen, Charles Berling, Chloë Sevigny.
Assayas’ hyper-sleek, haunting corporate thriller plunges headlong into the high-stakes internet porn industry where the lines between fantasy and reality, video games and sex, break down. Spies for two corporations—one French and one Japanese—vie for control of an interactive, S&M porn site that will
give them global dominance. Assayas deconstructs the digital language, twisting images of sexually-charged manga and pixellated erotic fantasies into hallucinatory, neo-noir fever dreams set to a score by Sonic Youth. In English, French, and Japanese with English titles.
Mon, Oct 18 at 4:30, 7*pm
*Q&A with Olivier Assayas

Les Destinées (2000) 180min.
With Emmanuelle Béart, Charles Berling, Isabelle Huppert.
Adapted from Jacques Chardonne’s 1936 novel, Les Destinées spans three decades, beginning at the turn of the 20th century, to tell the story of a Protestant minister, Jean (Berling), who leaves his wife (Huppert) and daughter, his vocation, and his small community in southwest France—for a younger
wife (Béart) and more idyllic, unrestricted life in the Swiss Alps. When he receives word of his uncle’s death, Jean is called back to helm and revive the family’s porcelain business. Though indeed a stylistic departure for Assayas, the film’s narrative motifs—family and legacy, commerce and modernism, and
the passage of time—very much presage the thematic sensibility of later films like Summer Hours. In French with English titles.
Sun, Oct 17 at 3, 7pm

Disorder (Désordre) (1986) 90min.
With Wadeck Stanczak, Ann-Gisel Glass, Lucas Belvaux.
Three young friends steal music equipment for their struggling post-punk band and, in a panic, kill the shop’s owner. Assayas’ debut feature examines with characteristic restraint and acuity the psychological fallout as the band unravels—and each of its members grapple with their own feelings of
guilt, paranoia, and despair. This film won the Critics’ Prize at the Venice Film Festival. Preceded by Rectangle (1980) 8min. With Jacno, Elli Medeiros.
Mon, Oct 11 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm

Eldorado/Creation(2008) 90min.
Assayas documents the creation Eldorado, an ambitious new dance piece by renowned choreographer Angelin Preljocaj set to a five-synthesizer score by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The resulting film is an exhilarating rush of music and movement in which Assayas’ probing camera captures both the human trials of the rehearsal process and the triumphant moments in which a body
becomes one with music. In French with English titles.
Thu, Oct 28 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm

Flowers of Shanghai (Hai Shang Hua) (1998) 130min.
With Tony Leung, Carina Lau, Hsu An-An
Set entirely within a late 19th century Shanghai brothel, Hou’s elegantly formal film eavesdrops on his characters as they laze around, smoking opium, conversing about the world that is irrevocably crumbling outside the sanctuary of the den’s stiflingly bedecked walls. Leung is superb as a john who forsakes his favorite flower girl after catching her with another man. A cinematic narcotic, this sublime work leaves the viewer also feeling drunk with opium—reeling in a euphoric haze. In Cantonese with English subtitles.
Tue, Oct 19 at 6:50, 9:30pm

HHH – A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-Hsien (1997) 91min.
Directed by Olivier Assayas.
Originally aired as part of Cinéma, de notre temps, which once featured Rivette interviewing Renoir, HHH – A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-Hsien gave Assayas the opportunity to turn the lens on his primary artistic influence. While a critic at Cahiers du cinema, Assayas had championed Hou long before it was
en vogue to do so, and followed the master filmmaker around his native Taiwan. Released just after Assayas’ breakout Irma Vep, this intimate documentary profiles a director largely unknown on the global scene in the late 90s and remains to date a most thorough look at one of the most revered living
directors.
In French, English, Mandarin, and Taiwanese with English titles.
Wed, Oct 20 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm

Irma Vep (1996) 99min.
With Maggie Cheung, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Nathalie Richard.
Arguably the film that put Assayas on the international map. This clever meditation on French filmmaking confers a host of winks, nods, and cinephile in-jokes—on everything from Truffaut’s Day For Night and Fassbinder’s Beware of a Holy Whore, to the more populist offerings coming out of Hong Kong and the US at the time. Jean-Pierre Léaud plays a self-important, nouvelle vague-esque
auteur determined to regain his grip on artistic relevance with a remake of Louis Feuillade’s silent film Les Vampires, while Maggie Cheung plays herself—a stunning Hong Kong action star cast in the role of Musidora (memorably clad in a skintight black latex catsuit). In French and English with English
titles.
Sun, Oct 10 at 2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm

Late August, Early September (Fin août, début septembre) (1998) 112min.
With Mathieu Amalric, Virginie Ledoyen, François Cluzet.
Late August spans one year in the lives of a group of 30-somethings living in Paris: Adrien (Cluzet), a dying novelist; Gabriel (Amalric), his perpetually unsteady best friend; Jenny (Jeanne Balibar), Gabriel’s former girlfriend; and Anne (Ledoyen), Gabriel’s new, younger girlfriend. Framing this loose
narrative around the passage of time and the implications of mortality, Assayas deftly renders the intricacies of these relationships with relaxed handheld camerawork and his trademark subtlety. With a soundtrack by Ali Farka Touré.
In French with English titles.
Preceded by Quartier des Enfants Rouges (2006) 8min.
With Maggie Gyllenhaal.

From Paris je t’aime.
Tue, Oct 26 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm
A New Life (Une nouvelle vie) (1993) 117min.
With Sophie Aubry, Judith Godrèche, Bernard Giraudeau.
Assayas’ fourth feature—the one that set the stage for his international breakthrough Cold Water—is a revelation. Never released in the US, it finds Assayas having fully absorbed the spirit of Bresson and stretching his formalist muscles. Unable to cope with the pressures of her demanding mother and a
humdrum job, a young woman (Aubry), desperately looks to restart her life by forging a connection with the father and half-sister she’s never known. “[Assayas’] most daring feature, and the purest expression of his aesthetic.” —Kent Jones.
Fri, Oct 22 at 2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm

Noise (2005) 115min.
With Sonic Youth, Jeanne Balibar, Metric
Assayas’ addition to the annals of the rock festival doc is this kinetic and affecting piece made for French TV and shot by the director himself along with Michael Almereyda and ubiquitous French DP Eric Gatier, amongst others. Art Rock, a long-running fest of fringe experimental rock on the coast of Brittany, gave Assayas, an avid lover of rock ‘n’ roll, carte blanche to curate the fest’s sound and
vision. He enlisted his friends Sonic Youth along with Canadian new new wavers Metric (the band in Clean), Gallic actress and chanteuse Jeanne Balibar (herself the subject of a film by Pedro Costa), and others to play to shards of experimental video by Jim O’Rourke, Assayas and others, creating a
bombastic visual and aural collage which redefines music documentation.
Wed, Oct 13 at 6:50, 9:15pm

Paris at Dawn (Paris s’éveille) (1991) 95min.
With Judith Godrèche, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Thomas Langmann.
Louise (Godrèche), a young wayward drug addict, lives in Paris with the much older Clément (Léaud), who feebly attempts to give Louise’s life a boost by getting her auditions for jobs in television. Clément’s estranged son, Adrien, comes to visit and soon develops a relationship with Louise.
Thematically similar to his first two films, Assayas instills his third with a greater sense of movement— and a deeper look at the alienation felt by those on the margins of society. With a score by John Cale. In French with English titles.
Fri, Oct 15 at 2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm

Summer Hours (L’Heure d’été) (2008) 103min.
With Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Jérémie Renier.
Assayas returns to the style of ensemble pieces like Late August, Early September for this acutely realized family drama. Three siblings reunite following their mother’s death, leaving behind her country house overflowing with valuable art objects and antiques (on loan for the film from the Musée d’Orsay)
and divergent opinions among her children on the proper fate for their childhood home. With its richly-detailed script and nuanced performances by Binoche, Berling, and Renier, Summer Hours illuminates with remarkable insight the private experience of loss, as well as the practical concerns of settling an estate. In French and English with English titles.
Sat, Oct 9 at 6:50, 9:15pm

Winter’s Child (L’enfant de l’hiver) (1989) 88min.
With Clotilde de Bayser, Michel Feller, Marie Matheron.
The messy, intersecting lives of two young couples are depicted in this chillingly placid, austere film. Stéphane leaves his pregnant girlfriend Natalia for Sabine, who is struggling to free herself of her attachment to Bruno, a seductive yet manipulative up-and-coming stage actor. Carefully and deliberately shot, Assayas uses a formalist approach to explore humanistic themes of identity and
isolation. In French with English titles.
Thu, Oct 14 at 7pm

For ticket and BAMbus information, call BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100, or visit BAM.org.