Watching films these days is not what it used to be. Instead of heading to their favorite theaters, movie-goers are tuning in online. The only real upside that people have been watching films online, ever since WiFi was fast enough to accommodate the download and streaming speeds.
As with all of the rest of the film series (except for the drive-ins), Buffalo Film Seminars will be heading online this fall. Per usual, film students, along with film aficionados from the Greater Buffalo area, will be invited to watch the curated selections online. Seminar hosts Bruce and Diane Jackson will also be launching virtual Zoom! discussions that will pertain to each of the 14 films.
While all of the films but one (Once Upon a Time in the West – available on YouTube for $4.95) will be offered up for free for UB students (and anyone else with a UB email account – via the UB Library’s Kanopy portal), the general public is invited to screen a number of selections on Amazon Prime’s streaming service (membership is $9.95 per month). Not all of the films are included in that package, however, and will are available for a $3.95 or $4.95 fee (30 day rental).
Unusual times call for unusual measures, even for film seminars. “We’re longing to get back to our big-screen base at the Dipson Amherst. In this plague-time, here is our workaround,” said the Jacksons. “It’s cheaper than watching these films in our theater, but it’s a crummy tradeoff; the big-screen experience is worth more than a few bucks saved. We have, alas, no choice right now. Like everyone else, we’ll work with what we’ve got. We’re fortunate to have access to these streaming services we can share (separately), and the Zoom service that will give us some time to talk about what we’ve seen. Eventually, we’ll get back to sitting in the dark together, watching movies the way they ought to be watched.
“We will post a notice about each film a week before each nominal screening date. That notice will include a URL for our Vimeo introduction to the film and a pdf of that week’s Goldenrod Handout. The notice will also include an invitation to a Zoom session at 7:00 PM on the nominal screening date a few days later. That session will substitute for our usual post-film discussion in the theater. Those notices will be sent to all students registered for our Great Directors class, everyone on the Buffalo Film Seminars mailing list, and the UB English Department Discussion List. If you know anyone who might want to be added to the weekly notifications, please send either of us an email: bjackson@buffalo.edu or engdc@buffalo.edu.”
Here is the final schedule for the Fall 2020 Buffalo Film Seminars. The schedule below lists the dates for what would have been our Tuesday night screenings and discussions at the Dipson Amherst.
The films in Series 41:
- Sept 1: Carl Theodor Dryer, The Passion of Joan of Arc/La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928)
- Sept 8: Fritz Lang, M/ M—Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder (1931)
- Sept 15: Akira Kurosawa, Throne of Blood (1957)
- Sept 22: Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal/Det sjunde inseglet (1957)
- Sept 29: Marcel Camus, Black Orpheus/Orfeo Negro (1959)
- Oct 6: Luis Buñuel, The Exterminating Angel/El ángel exterminador (1962)
- Oct 13: Jean-Pierre Melville, Le Samuraï (1967)
- Oct 20: Sergio Leone, Once Upon a Time in the West/C’era una volta il West, (1968)
- Oct 27: Andrei Tarkovsky, Solaris/ Солярис (1972)
- Nov 3: Werner Herzog, Aguirre, the Wrath of God/Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972)
- Nov 10: Richard Rush, The Stunt Man (1980)
- Nov 17: Wim Wenders, Wings of Desire/Der Himmel über Berlin (1987)
- Nov 24: Krzystof Kieślowski, Three Colors; Red/ Trois coleurs: Rouge/ Trzy kolory. Czerwony (1994)
- Dec 1: Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator (1940)
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