What does it mean to lose oneself? Can you get caught up in your own lies? Or find yourself in a drug-addicted spiral? You can find yourself in a completely alien world or give yourself completely up to a job. Can you get caught up in seeking new pleasure? Or is that simply an excuse because you’ve already lost who you were? For the first time, students from The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation have curated a series around this concept, selecting films and following the booking process, and writing text for notes and introductions. Throughout May and June, ten students will participate in both post-screening discussions and and roundtables to talk about their films, their experiences at the school, now in its thirtieth year, and how losing yourself is one of the most enduring themes in film history.
Dates and Titles:
May 9 (2 p.m.): Dryden Roundtable: Lose Yourself #1
May 13: 3 Women (Robert Altman, US 1977, 124 min., 35mm)
May 14: A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, US 1951, 122 min., 35mm)
May 16: Score (Radley Metzger, US 1973, 90 min., DCP)
May 28: Enemy (Denis Villeneuve, Canada/Spain/France 2013, 91 min., DCP)
June 12: Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, UK 1996, 93 min., DCP)
June 13 (2 p.m.): Dryden Roundtable: Lose Yourself #2
June 16: Forever a Woman (Chibusa yo eien nare, Kinuyo Tanaka, Japan 1955, 106 min., DCP, Japanese with English subtitles)
June 17: Legend of the Mountain (Shan zhong zhuan qi, King Hu, Taiwan/Hong Kong 1979, 184 min., DCP)
June 23: Session 9 (Brad Anderson, US 2001, 97 min., DCP)
June 25: The Face Behind the Mask (Robert Florey, US 1941, 68 min. DCP)
July 16: For All Mankind (Al Reinert, US 1989, 80 min., DCP)
Events in this Series
The Face Behind the Mask (DCP)
Lose Yourself Peter Lorre stars in this cult noir as a Hungarian who takes the slow boat to Manhattan in search of a better life, only to almost immediately have his face horribly disfigured in a tenement fire.
Session 9 (35mm)
Lose Yourself Facing his company’s financial ruin, hazmat expert Gordo (Peter Mullan) agrees to take on a rush job stripping asbestos from the decaying walls of a condemned mental health facility.
Legend of the Mountain (DCP)
Lose Yourself Few directors in the history of world cinema have so masterfully bridged the gap between the visceral energy of the action genre and the contemplative depth of classical art as King Hu. A multifaceted director who frequently produced, edited, and designed his own sets and costumes, Hu transformed the wuxia (martial arts) film from a studio-bound commodity into a vehicle for existential inquiry and Buddhist transcendence.
Forever a Woman (DCP)
Lose Yourself Fumiko, a mother of two and wife to an unfaithful husband, attempts to balance domestic responsibility with her work as a poet. Just as her writing career takes off, she divorces her husband and is diagnosed with breast cancer.
Dryden Roundtable: Lose Yourself #2
Dryden Roundtables For the first time ever, students of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation are curating a series at the Dryden! Based on an exercise in class, the students have been tasked with choosing a film based on the theme “Lose Yourself,” observe the steps to obtain a print and clear rights, write the text for the screening, provide an introduction for the film, and participate in a post-screening discussion afterwards.
Trainspotting (DCP)
Lose Yourself Based on Irvine Welsh’s 1993 novel of the same name, Trainspotting follows a group of heroin addict friends in late 1980s Edinburgh. Dissatisfied with the way drug addiction has taken over his life, Mark "Rent Boy" Renton (Ewan McGregor), attempts to “Choose Life” and get clean.