The Marcus Theatre Entertainment Network (screening at both Eastgate and Point theaters) will showcase three Oscar winning films this week: Gigi (1958, Vincente Minnelli), Driving Miss Daisy (1989, Bruce Beresford), and A Beautiful Mind (2001, Ron Howard). The latter two are the kind of Best Pictures that you forget, so let’s talk about Gigi.
I’m posting this too late to actually see the screenings on the 20th, but you weren’t really going to go to a 10:45am or 1:30pm screening today, were you? After some more afternoon screenings on Tue Jan 21, you can catch some evening screenings on Wed Jan 22 and Thu Jan 23. Go to the Theater Entertainment Network website or consult our own Alternative Screening Calendar for details.
Big screen projection of Gigi should be an interesting test for current digital projectors. But regardless of how it compares to a good 35mm print, seeing the film on a big screen with an audience should be a treat. One of my favorite assignments as an undergrad was a Critical Film Analysis paper where we were challenged to describe everything we saw in the “Night They Invented Champagne” sequence: props and costumes in the mise-en-scene, character and camera movement, and editing. One quickly realizes that a deceptively simple sequence actually is very rich in detail and design. Back in those days, it wasn’t easy to find letterbox video copies of the film which was essential to completing the assignment. We spent a lot of time sharing the few copies we had access to in the Communication Arts Media Center. You kids today keep that in mind when you go see Gigi this week on your new-fangled digital projectors, or when you click on the embedded video above.
As part of our campaign to integrate theater-going and home streaming, I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that 29 Vincente Minnelli films (including Gigi) are available for rent on various streaming platforms on the Roku Streaming Device. Interestingly, none of them are available on Netflix. I have posted just a few of my favorites (and one I want to see, Cabin in the Sky) below, but of course all of them are worth investigating if you are not familiar with Minnelli’s work. (You can discover the remaining tiles by searching GoWatchIt).
Posters and Synopses from The Movie Database
Cabin in the Sky (Vincente Minnelli, USA, 1943, 98 min)
A compulsive gambler dies during a shooting, but he’ll receive a second chance to reform himself and to make up with his worried wife.
Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, USA, 1944, 113 min)
In the year before the 1904 St Louis World’s Fair, the four Smith daughters learn lessons of life and love, even as they prepare for a reluctant move to New York.
An American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli, USA, 1951, 113 min)
Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam (Oscar Levant) is a struggling concert pianist who’s a long time associate of a famous French singer, Henri Baurel (Georges Guétary). A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts (Nina Foch) takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in more than his art.
The Band Wagon (Vincente Minnelli, USA, 1953, 112 min)
A pretentiously artistic director is hired for a new Broadway musical and changes it beyond recognition.
Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, USA, 1958, 137 min)
Dave Hirsch, a writer and army veteran, returns to 1948 Parkman, Indiana, his hometown. His prosperous brother introduces him to Gwen French…
Gigi (Vincente Minnelli, USA, 1958, 116 min)
A home, a motorcar, servants, the latest fashions: the most eligible and most finicky bachelor (Louis Jourdan) in Paris offers them all to Gigi (Leslie Caron). But she, who’s gone from girlish gawkishness to cultured glamour before our eyes, yearns for that wonderful something money can’t buy.