The Screen: Radical Delusions
Cults, prophets, devotion and hysteria in eight classic films.
This season of The Screen at Contemporary we explore the world of unbound worship, blind faith, dangerous ideas and violent reverence. Join us.
£5 per ticket or any five tickets for £20
Wed 27 Feb, 6.30pm
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Sean Durkin, 2011
This season, The Screen at Contemporary presents Radical Delusions; a series of eight classic films exploring the world of unbound worship, blind faith, dangerous ideas and violent reverence. Join us.
After being in a religious cult for years, a young woman retreats to her estranged sister’s house. A sense of dread permeates as we flit between reality, memory and dreams from the past. She both relishes and resents the banality of the everyday whilst nightmarish spectres loom heavy above- a bold depiction of what comes after.
Wed 13 Mar, 6.30pm
The Stepford Wives
Bryan Forbes, 1975
A woman moves to the suburbs with her family and finds the local housewives are strangely vapid and blindly devoted to serving their husband and home. The film is a heady mixture of B-movie kitsch, foreboding horror and misogynistic utopia. Intended as a nod to the decaying ideals of domesticity critiqued in the 1970s, its themes are just as relevant today.
Wed 20 Mar, 6.30pm
Holy Smoke
Jane Campion, 1999
A young woman joins a spiritual movement in India, only to be coerced back by her family when they hire a “de-programmer”. What follows is a claustrophobic and humid tug of war between the two leads. Machoism, sexual currency, power and individual ego is played out with Champions usual keen eye and brutal lens.
£5 per ticket or any five tickets for £20
Wed 27 Mar, 6.30pm
A Face in the Crowd
Elia Kazan, 1957
An ambitious radio producer discovers folk singer Lonesome Rhodes and sets to make him a star. What begins as an everyman talking to “the people” becomes a circus of fame, celebrity, and ego. Kazan sets this up like a fable of America Dream and haunting premonition of what happens when one voice has the ear of a nation.
Wed 3 Apr, 6.30pm
The Master
Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012
Set in post-war Los Angeles, a drifter veteran meets a charismatic leader and joins his religious group. The film speaks of the optimism of a bold new era, set against the trauma of war. Told in a series of hypnotic tableaux’s, the film is boldly cinematic and subtlety sinister. It’s a tale of the seduction of an idea at its best.
Wed 10 Apr, 6.30pm
Citizen Kane
Orson Welles, 1941
This season, The Screen at Contemporary presents Radical Delusions; a series of eight classic films exploring the world of unbound worship, blind faith, dangerous ideas and violent reverence. Join us.
A newspaper tycoon’s last words “rosebud” is investigated by a reporter as he looks back on his life. Citizen Kane is often cited as the best film ever made, laying down technical groundwork for film as we know it. The interweaving of cinematic skill and grandiose themes of the American Dream, self-mythology and absolute power, makes it a must see.
Wed 17 Apr, 6.30pm
The Wicker Man
Robin Hardy, 1973
A religious policeman arrives on a remote Scottish Island to investigate a missing child and finds that there is something odd about the inhabitants. An unnerving and nightmarish slow burn of a film that mixes the erotic and domestic. This British cult classic is touted as one of the best horror films ever made.
Wed 1 May, 6.30pm
Suspiria
Dario Argento, 1977
A young woman joins a prestigious dance company that has supernatural and sinister intentions. Dario Argento’s iconic film oozes with 1970s grotesque kitsch and nightmarish hallucination. Amongst many cult films of its era, this one is not to be missed on the big screen.