One of the screen’s supreme works and perhaps Ingmar Bergman’s finest film, “Persona” is also his most radical in form and technique. Bergman, the great classicist, here uses a whole ’60s arsenal–electronic music, shock cuts, abstraction, symbolism and a jarringly experimental narrative structure–to explore the relationship between two women with hauntingly similar faces: an actress who never talks (Liv Ullmann) and a nurse (Bibi Andersson) who never seems to shut up.
“Persona” was made at least partly in response to the experimentalists of the ’60s, who had dismissed Bergman as an old fogy, artistically and politically. Shockingly, with this one film, he surpassed them all. With Gunnar Bjornstrand; lecture on Tuesday by John Petrakis. (In Swedish, with English subtitles.)
– `Persona’ (star)(star)(star)(star) (Sweden; Ingmar Bergman, 1966). 6:15 p.m. Fri; 6 p.m. Tues., Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St., 312-846-2600, www.siskelfilmcenter.org.
Other special film screenings; – indicates past Wilmington reviews.
Music Box Theatre
3733 N. Southport Ave.
773-871-6604
www.musicboxtheatre.com
`Desk Set’ (star)(star)(star)1/2 (U.S.; Walter Lang, 1957). Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn sparkle anew in this romantic comedy about the computer age, based on William Marchant’s hit Broadway play. They play, respectively, a computer efficiency expert and the head librarian at a TV network–whose department the expert seems poised to close down. Two representatives of supposedly warring cultures, cyber and print, they clash and, of course, unite. It’s doubtful very many other movie star couples could be so convincing playing at professions like these. With Gig Young, Joan Blondell and Dina Merrill; the script is by Phoebe and Henry Ephron, of Nora-bearing fame. 11:30 a.m. Sat-Sun.
Gene Siskel Film Center
164 N. State St.
312-846-2600
www.siskelfilmcenter.org
`Clean’ (star)(star)(star)(star) (France; Olivier Assayas, 2004). Maggie Cheung won the Cannes Film Festival best actress prize for her close-to-the-bone performance as one seeming casualty of the British-European rock scene: the Asian girlfriend of a one-time rock idol, stranded in the wreckage of their fast-lane sex-and-drugs lifestyle. Now trying to clean up and win custody of her young son, Cheung establishes contact with her son’s straighter-laced, tough grandpa (Nick Nolte), and the film centers on their volatile, touchy but sometimes tender relationship. Superb acting and a shivery mood of anxiety and regret grace this film. Music by Brian Eno. (In English, French and Cantonese with English subtitles.) 7 p.m. Sat.
Facets Cinematheque
1517 W. Fullerton Ave.
773-281-4114
www.facets.org/cinematheque.
`The Devil’s Miner’ (star)(star)(star) (U.S.-Germany; Kief Davidson, Richard Ladkani, 2005). A wrenching, well-shot documentary about social injustice, old legends and the strange dual worship of God and the devil on Cerro Ricco, Bolivia. Once the richest silver mine in the Americas, the mountainous site covers a largely depleted maze of dangerous tunnels, worked for the remaining silver by local villagers–such as the movie’s gutsy 14- and 12-year-old protagonists Basilio and Bernardino. This strong social piece tells us that, among other things, the average life expectancy of miners today is 35-40. But it’s also a macabre look at faith. The miners, devout Catholics, worship the devil when they enter the mines, where they believe Satan rules. Directors Davidson and Ladkani take us far into those mineshafts for some amazing footage, revealing a real-life hell. (In Spanish, with English subtitles.) 5, 7, 9 p.m. Fri.-Sat.; 8:30 p.m. Sun.; 7, 9 p.m. Mon.-Thu.
LaSalle Bank Cinema
4901 W. Irving Park Rd.
312-904-9442
`Fourteen Hours’ (star)(star)(star) (U.S.; Henry Hathaway, 1951). Hathaway’s typically crisp semi-documentary-style thriller about a potential suicide-leaper with a mother complex (Richard Basehart) poised on a building ledge and the fatherly cop trying to talk him down (Paul Douglas). Craftsmanlike stuff; it holds you, but it doesn’t necessarily move you. The unusually good cast includes Barbara Bel Geddes (the wife), Agnes Moorehead (the mother), Howard da Silva, Jeff Corey and, in smaller roles, newcomers Grace Kelly, Jeffrey Hunter, John Randolph and Ossie Davis. 8 p.m. Sat.
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mwilmington@tribune.com
