Supported by Wiltshire Council’s Future High Streets Fund
The Best in Classic & Independent Cinema
Programme
Friday 13th September
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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TAXI DRIVER (1976) Cert 18
Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd. Directed by Martin Scorsese. (1hr 54m)
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Martin Scorsese's unflinching plunge into the darkest recesses of the human soul still feels painfully relevant today. Bitter, reactionary and self-involved, anti-hero Travis Bickle represents a million disenfranchised, disillusioned, angry white men. Yet Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader never treat him with anything less than the utmost empathy. This is a man scarred by war, perplexed by the permissive society and desperate to leave his mark on a world that barely acknowledges his existence. Travis may wear his isolation proudly, but that doesn't make it any easier to bear. Almost 50 years on, it's hard to think of another film that creates and sustains such a unique, evocative tone of dread blended with pity, loathing, savage humour and a scuzzy edge of New York cool. Bernard Herrmann's score sounds like the city breathing, ominous and clammy, while De Niro's performance is a masterclass in restraint and honesty. Still one of the pinnacles of cinema. Tom Huddleston, Time Out.
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Why not join us for dinner before the movie? Ushers Bar is open for drinks and dinner from 6pm.
Friday 20th September
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004) Cert 15
Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo. Directed by Michel Gondry. (1hr 48m)
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Has there ever been a better film about the pain and pleasure of love? Jointly conceived by writer Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry, it's a brilliantly imaginative meditation on the messy sharp corners of every romantic relationship, especially after it ends. An offbeat blend of love story and sci-fi fantasy, the film offered career-best dramatic roles for Kate Winslet and a restrained, fragile Jim Carrey as the star-crossed lovers Clementine and Joel. When they meet by chance one wintry day on a railway platform, neither realises that they have already previously been longterm lovers. But after their bitter break-up, Clementine hired experimental medical consultancy Lacuna to erase all memories of Joel from her brain. When he discovers that fact, Joel does the same thing, but during the process comes to discover that he can't bear to forget Clementine, however much he wants to... As he revisits all the memories of her as they are being erased he can't help falling back in love with her again. Joyful and also heart-breaking, it's a fabulous celebration of the essential untidiness of love and the beautiful mess that two people can make together.
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Why not join us for dinner before the movie? Ushers Bar is open for drinks and dinner from 6pm.
Friday 4th October
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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THE TEACHER'S LOUNGE (2023) Cert 12. German-language with English subtitles.
Leonie Benesch, Leonard Stettnisch, Eva Löbau. Directed by Ilker Çatak. (1hr 39m).
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A riveting psychological thriller about the spiralling impact of a series of thefts in a progressive German secondary school. Leonie Benesch is spell-binding as Carla, a young, idealistic teacher caught up in a web of gossip and suspicion after one of her students, the child of Turkish immigrant parents, is accused of stealing from a classmate following what seems to be a racist tipoff. Nothing is proved, but then money starts to go missing from Carla's own purse as well. Worse still, Carla finds evidence that the thief is in fact another member of staff, who also has a child at the school. When the woman is suspended, her resentful son begins a whispering campaign that quickly spreads throughout the campus like wildfire, infecting even Carla's relationships with her other colleagues. It's a nerve-jangling exploration of the mistrust and suspicion that lies just under the surface in every workplace. Proof positive that not everything that happens in the teachers' lounge stays in the teachers' lounge.
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