The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens is bringing back its See It Big! 70mm summer screenings, featuring nine classic and contemporary films that will be projected in 70mm in the museum’s majestic Sumner M. Redstone Theater, July 19 through August 27. The series opens on Wednesday, July 19, with a preview screening of Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan’s eagerly awaited epic action thriller featuring an ensemble cast which includes Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Fionn Whitehead, Aneurin Barnard, and Harry Styles, courtesy of Warner Bros.
Dunkirk (in 70mm) Preview Screening
WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 7:30 P.M.
Dir. Christopher Nolan. 2017, 106 mins. 70mm print courtesy Warner Bros. The visionary director Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated new film is an epic action thriller that opens with hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops surrounded by enemy forces. Trapped on the beach with their backs to the sea they face an impossible situation as the enemy closes in. With a remarkable ensemble cast featuring Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Fionn Whitehead, Aneurin Barnard, Harry Styles, James D’Arcy, Jack Lowden, Barry Keoghan, and Tom Glynn-Carney, Dunkirk was photographed on IMAX and 65mm film and will be presented in glorious 70mm.
2001: A Space Odyssey
FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 7:00 P.M.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 5, 2:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 6, 3:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 6, 6:30 P.M.
Dir. Stanley Kubrick. 1968, 149 mins. (plus intermission). 70mm. With Keir Dullea. As brilliantly engineered as the space program itself, Stanley Kubrick’s mysterious and profound epic—“the ultimate trip”—is about nothing less than the beauty and the banality of civilization, blending cool satire, an elaborate vision of the future, and passages of avant-garde cinematic inventiveness.
Lawrence of Arabia
FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 7:00 P.M.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 2:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 13, 6:00 P.M.
Dir. David Lean. 1962, 227 mins. (plus intermission). 70mm. With Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn. The apex of David Lean’s magnificent career was this unparalleled spectacle which won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, and rocketed Peter O’Toole to stardom as real-life adventurer T. E. Lawrence, a former British officer whose expedition to Cairo in 1916 leads him to side with the Arabs against the Turks, eventually organizing his own guerrilla army. With its overwhelming widescreen desert vistas, this is one of cinema’s most transporting experiences.
Patton
SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 7:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 13, 2:00 P.M.
Dir. Franklin J. Schaffner. 1970, 172 mins. 70mm. With George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Steven Young. George C. Scott’s enthralling performance as the brazen titular character is one of the most riveting depictions of a real-life army officer in film history, transforming George Smith Patton, Jr. into a household name and American hero. The film’s opening scene, Patton’s speech in front of an enormous American flag, was an instant classic, with the direction and cinematography emphasizing the intensity of Patton’s patriotism. Bolstered by a tight and pungent script by Francis Ford Coppola, Patton is considered to be one of the best war—and biographical–films of all time.
Interstellar
FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 7:00 P.M.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 3:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 20, 3:00 P.M.
Dir. Christopher Nolan. 2014, 169 mins. 70mm. With Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain. Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is a stunningly realized science-fiction epic set in a near future where environmental problems have rendered the Earth uninhabitable, and scientists are planning to transport the population to a new planet via a wormhole. With philosophical, cinematic, and narrative ambition reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Interstellar is an immersive and exhilarating film experience that captures Nolan’s love for large-format celluloid film.
The Dark Crystal
SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 2:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 27, 2:00 P.M.
Dirs. Jim Henson, Frank Oz. 1982, 93 mins. 70mm. With Kathy Mullen, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire. On a remote planet in the distant past, a Gelfling embarks on a quest to find the missing shard of a magical crystal, to restore order to his world. Using a mix of puppetry, animatronics, modern special effects, and more, The Dark Crystal creates a sense of visual astonishment rarely equaled in fantasy filmmaking.
Pink Floyd: The Wall
SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 7:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 20, 7:00 P.M.
Dir. Alan Parker. 1982, 95 mins. 70mm. With Bob Geldof, Christine Hargreaves, James Laurenson. Caught in physical and social isolation, a hampered and troubled rock star descends into madness. Adapted from the critically acclaimed hit album of the same name, Alan Parker’s Pink Floyd: The Wall has become a cult landmark in its own right. Parker’s indelible surrealistic imagery synthesizes with Pink Floyd’s anthemic and evocative music to create a frenetic, visceral experience.
The Story of the Flaming Years
SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 4:30 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 27, 4:30 P.M.
Dir. Yuliya Solntseva. U.S.S.R., 1961, 91 mins. 70mm print courtesy of Gosfilmofond. With Boris Andreyev, Sergey Petrov, Antonina Bogdanova. In 1941, German troops invade Russia and a young Soviet, Ivan Orlyukov, begins a deathly campaign to expel the Germans. Solntseva’s poetic and sumptuously lyrical war film The Story of the Flaming Years garnered her the Best Director Award at Cannes Film Festival the year of its release, the first win for a female director. No woman would win that award again until Sofia Coppola, with The Beguiled at this year’s Festival.
The Enchanted Desna
SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 7:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 27, 7:00 P.M.
Dir. Yuliya Solntseva. U.S.S.R., 1964, 82 mins. 70mm print courtesy of Gosfilmofond. With Boris Andreyev, Evgeniy Bondarenko. The Enchanted Desna won the Special Jury Prize at the San Sebastián Film Festival. A long-forgotten Soviet classic, Desna tells the tale of a writer who reminisces of his childhood village. Imaginative and stunning, Desna was described by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum as “among themost ravishingly beautiful and poetic spectacles ever made.”
