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Sunset Boulevard in 35mm
Roxy Confidential: Classic Noir
Originally conceived as our series for March 2020--and we all know what happened then--Roxy Confidential is a celebration of the masterworks of American film noir, one we're overjoyed to finally present in full to our community. As much a style as a genre, film noir perfectly captures the angst & moral ambiguity of the post-war era. Its directors found the means to explore elements of trauma in a world no longer solidly "black and white," elements that continue to influence today’s culture. The five films in Roxy Confidential are noir to their bones, containing the classic imagery of the genre: the femme fatale, the private eye, and the plan gone horribly wrong. Through the haze of moral ambiguity and sudden violence, unforgettable stories and indelible images emerge.
Hollywood’s ultimate poison-pen letter to itself, Billy Wilder’s acerbic masterpiece casts real-life silent-screen icon Gloria Swanson as a faded movie star who draws a struggling screenwriter (William Holden) into her tragic delusions. The endlessly quotable dialogue, cameos from Tinseltown legends like Cecil B. DeMille and Buster Keaton, and Swanson’s ferocious, larger-than-life performance come together in a brilliantly biting vision of the dark side of the dream factory.
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