ACADEMY AWARDS NIGHT
March 13, 2002


Location: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University

An evening of Academy-Award winning live-action short films from both the past and the current award year.

Film Scholar Scott Curtis from Northwestern University curated the selections and will be present for discussion.

Scott Curtis is Assistant Professor of Radio/Television/Film at Northwestern University. He recieved his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and has published on a wide range of topics, including animation, Hitchcock, and German film reformers. Before coming to Northwestern, he was the Research Archivist for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where he was in charge of the access to and maintenance of the Special Collections at the Margaret Herrick Library. Scott has served as Reeltime's programming committee chair since the program's inception, and is currently a member of the Academy.

     
SHORTS PROGRAM    

How to Sleep

1935, US,
MGM, 11 min.

  Robert Benchley, a well-known humorist, critic, character actor and famed member of New York's literary in-crowd at the Algonquin Hotel, demonstrates with his usual deadpan earnestness and dry, acerbic wit exactly how to get a good night's rest.

I Won't Play

1944, US,
Warner Bros, 18 min.

  One of the more popular shorts from the World War II era, I Won't Play focuses on the dynamics within a platoon of soldiers stationed overseas. Joe Fingers (Dane Clark) likes to boast about his pre-service career as a gifted pianist, but when his companions surprise him with a piano (found in the jungles of southeast Asia no less!), he refuses to play it!

A Shocking Accident

1982, UK,
James Scott, 25 min.

  An English schoolboy learns that his father has been killed in a bizarre accident. His friends tease him mercilessly, and years later his aunt still relishes the tale. Only when he meets a girl who understands can he come to terms with the terrible incident. From the short story of the same name by Graham Greene. This short features actor Rubert Everett (An Ideal Husband).

Omnibus

1992, France,
Sam Karmann, 10 min.

  Jean-Louis has been taking the 9:06 to Chateau regularly for months. This time when he gets on, he learns that they've changed the train schedule and the train won't stop at Chateau. He'll be late, he'll lose his job, his children will starve. How will he get off a moving train and save his career and family?

Copy Shop

2001, Austria,
Virgil Widrich, 12 min
.

  Kager photocopies his hand with Kafkaesque results. The director transferred every single frame of the finished digital video tape to a computer; the frames were printed out on a black and white laser printer and then filmed again with a 35mm animation camera.

Precious Images

1986, US,
Chuck Workman, 3 min.

  A survey of the history of the movies in three minutes flat.

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